I wonder how much our CGC collections will be valued, 20 years from now and beyond

The market has seen a reached a significant milestone recently, with the record setting private purchase of a CGC graded 8.0 Action Comics #1 issue for a cool $1 million

To better appreciate the mainstream significance of this event: I am currently living in Bangkok Thailand, and the news of Metropolis Comics' sale of this issue in the US hit the front pages of the Bangkok Post!

Upon reading that article, and while in the midst of preparing 2 30-issue Silver age book set submissions for grading by CGC, I couldn't help but wonder how much, truly, would our CGC collections be worth a few years down the road. And if time and effort and more obviously the cost is worth it.

Little doubt in my mind that key Golden/ Silver Age issues will continue to maintain their premium values. I wonder if the same can be said, for non-key (and even some key!) and lesser known Golden/ Silver/ Bronze/ Copper/ Modern age books. I for one feel that prices for these are now hitting unsustainably high levels; $25 or so probably covers costs to purchase and slab a 9.8 modern age book, but I see these items selling for less than $20 in Ebay all the time. Unless CGC drops prices/ improves turnaround times and/or companies like PGX can get themselves better organized/ create registries and foster healthier competition in the slabbing industry I'm concerned that costs remain prohibitively high, returns on slabbing investment for non key books remain poor, and the YZ generation of collectors become alienated from the slabbed book collecting hobby. And can prices of $60 and above for new books like Locke & Key be truly sustained? Of course, one could question the value of slabbing non-key modern age books like these; on the other hand, what better way to maintain book condition than to slab via CGC, or even PGX?

It has always been my aspiration, to one day hand over my ever growing collection of slabbed and unslabbed books, TPB's and hardcovers to my son, and give him the freedom to either keep/ enjoy/ build on this, or sell the same so that other people may find enjoyment in reading and collecting the books which had managed to so enrich my life all these years. I guess I'd always hoped for a nice premium when a time comes when I, or someone else from my family, decides to sell bulk/ all of my collection. On the other hand, my fanboy side always tells me to not think too much about this, and just enjoy the ride.

As the Thais always say, "Mai Pen Lai", which loosely translated means "Don't worry too much, what will be will be"

Happy collecting!