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Is Now the Best Time or the Worst Time to Invest in Comics?
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304 posts in this topic

12 minutes ago, Callaway29 said:

And let's not forget, there were TWO people willing to pay (approximately) that much (underbidder). I seriously doubt someone shilling would have driven it up that high either...

good point....now whether if you auction the book off..you can find a replacement for the winner?

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1 hour ago, Mmehdy said:

Great time for somebody in the market here on the boards to get one...do you hear me CAT-Man

I’d love to Mitch. Float me a loan? :roflmao:

Going to Terry’s show tomorrow? Not a bad drive from SD on a Sunday. You would LOVE it. Like old time SDCS in a little smaller and much more intimate atmosphere. You owe it to your self just once. I’ve even got a small set up.

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20 minutes ago, Robot Man said:

I’d love to Mitch. Float me a loan? :roflmao:

Going to Terry’s show tomorrow? Not a bad drive from SD on a Sunday. You would LOVE it. Like old time SDCS in a little smaller and much more intimate atmosphere. You owe it to your self just once. I’ve even got a small set up.

I want to hit the show too - deciding if the drive from Sacramento is worth it!  Great show I second that emotion.

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52 minutes ago, Callaway29 said:

And let's not forget, there were TWO people willing to pay (approximately) that much (underbidder). I seriously doubt someone shilling would have driven it up that high either...

Well, if the underbidder was still interested in the book post the $15K result, it looks like they were the real winner here as equivalent condition copies were subsequently graded and sold in the marketplace for a fraction of this astounding recording setting price.  :taptaptap:  :acclaim:

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On 1/24/2020 at 9:30 AM, GreatCaesarsGhost said:
On 1/24/2020 at 8:56 AM, skybolt said:

I've been collecting Golden Age books for the past 17 years. The market across various genres seldom goes up on a straight trajectory year after year. What typically happens is that as soon as a key book, title and/or character gets hot, prices go up significantly over a short period of time (usually between 6 months to 2 years). What happens then is that current owners  will see the positive trend and decide to sell their books for a nice profit. Once the interest and supply (which is usually fairly small for GA books) dies down a little, prices will usually stagnate for several years before the next jump. The reason for this that a.) collectors move onto to other hot books and b.) the current owners who spent a bundle purchasing a key book are more likely to keep it for several years until they see the next price jump. I remember having a conversation with either Josh (Comiclink) or Vince (Metro) and their advice was to always hold onto a book for at least 5 to 7 years to let it go through this cycle.

This is a well articulated POV, though the cycle may be a bit slower for some genres 

+2

Yes indeed, as history has clearly shown us that these periods of pause or stagnation between meteoric rises can indeed be very long.  Just take a look at the recently hot Fox line of books and the still hot classic cover books as their extended pause or slow growth from the last big meteoric rise back in the mid-90's lasted for just over 20 years until these books became red hot again during the past few years.  There was a big spike up for a couple of years when CGC first came onto the scene as collectors were trying to get a handle on the certification market, but it seemingly could not hold as prices on most of the books came back down when the books re-entered into the marketplace.  :frown:

This is probably one of the reasons why long time collectors like Jon Berk and many of the others decided to take this opportunity to dispose of either all or a portion of their long held (i.e. decades long) collections while the market was at a seeming high.  Especially since you can never tell how long the heat will stay on in the marketplace and for the old timers, they might not want to wait around or even be there for the next meteoric rise if it's going to take another 20 years.  I will admit though, that this current fire in the marketplace still does seem to be burning pretty brightly and longer than usual as it's cycling through to the various sectors within the comic book collecting hobby place.  hm

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15 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

+2

Yes indeed, as history has clearly shown us that these periods of pause or stagnation between meteoric rises can indeed be very long.  Just take a look at the recently hot Fox line of books and the still hot classic cover books as their extended pause or slow growth from the last big meteoric rise back in the mid-90's lasted for just over 20 years until these books became red hot again during the past few years.  There was a big spike up for a couple of years when CGC first came onto the scene as collectors were trying to get a handle on the certification market, but it seemingly could not hold as prices on most of the books came back down when the books re-entered into the marketplace.  :frown:

This is probably one of the reasons why long time collectors like Jon Berk and many of the others decided to take this opportunity to dispose of either all or a portion of their long held (i.e. decades long) collections while the market was at a seeming high.  Especially since you can never tell how long the heat will stay on in the marketplace and for the old timers, they might not want to wait around or even be there for the next meteoric rise if it's going to take another 20 years.  I will admit though, that this current fire in the marketplace still does seem to be burning pretty brightly and longer than usual as it's cycling through to the various sectors within the comic book collecting hobby place.  hm

I'm pretty sure Berk's collection would have done well any time.  

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1 hour ago, buttock said:

I'm pretty sure Berk's collection would have done well any time.  

Isn't it interesting how folks use the sale of Berk's collection to justify so many varying, and often conflicting, points of view? Some of the same folks who were saying he sold too soon, or sold in such a way that he left money on the table, also will say that he was ahead of the impending stagnation of the market. His getting out of the market either signaled the end or marked the beginning by fueling the recent surge.

Edited by MrBedrock
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12 minutes ago, buttock said:

I'm pretty sure Berk's collection would have done well any time.  

Yes, from a relative point of view, I would tend to agree with you although there are different definitions of "done well".  (thumbsu

I am sure that it was a whole lot easier for Jon's books to hit the multiples of guide that most of them did acheive, since it was sold during a rising market when multiples of guide was much more common for HTF GA books.  :applause:

From my personal POV, they probably would have had a much tougher time hitting these same multiples if they had been sold say 10 years ago when GA books were selling for much closer to guide, collectors were still tentative at paying huge prices for any (i.e. non high grades) copy of a book just to be able to acquire a copy, PLOD's were still considered to be PLOD's, etc.  hm (shrug)

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7 minutes ago, MrBedrock said:
24 minutes ago, buttock said:

I'm pretty sure Berk's collection would have done well any time.  

Isn't it interesting how folks use the sale of Berk's collection to justify so many varying, and often conflicting, points of view? Some of the same folks who were saying he sold too soon, or sold in such a way that he left money on the table, also will say that he was ahead if the impending stagnation of the market. His getting out of the market either signalled the end or marked the beginning by fueling the recent surge.

Are you sure you haven't missed a few little nuggets of wisdom in there?  :baiting:  lol

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33 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

Are you sure you haven't missed a few little nuggets of wisdom in there?  :baiting:  lol

If I did I would sure appreciate an update.

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Strange question.  The obvious answer is that the best time to invest in GA comics was 1938.  Back then 10 cents ($1.68 inflation adjusted) would buy you an Action 1 worth potentially $3.3 million (a profit factor of 1,964,285x.  BUT, you would have had to have held it for 75 years or so.  

So what if you'd bought the Action 1 in 1965 for $250 (inflation adjusted $1,881)?  Today, you'd have made a profit factor of 1755x.  In fact, you'd have made more per year by buying an Action 1 in 1938 and selling in 1965 (27 years) for $250 then you would have by holding it from 1965 to 2015 (50 years).

And if you'd bought an Action 1 in 1995 for $137,500 (inflation adjusted $213,844) and held to 2015 (20 years), you'd have made a profit factor of only 15x, way less per year of increase.  

So what do you think the chances are that the record setting Action 1 is going to be worth 5x its record setting price in 2025 (ten years of holding the comic)?  I'm guessing not many would bet the changes are high.  

So, at least for Action 1, the profits to be made are diminishing each year as the book increases in value and the multiples of expected profits shrink. 

 

 

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2 hours ago, MrBedrock said:

Isn't it interesting how folks use the sale of Berk's collection to justify so many varying, and often conflicting, points of view? Some of the same folks who were saying he sold too soon, or sold in such a way that he left money on the table, also will say that he was ahead of the impending stagnation of the market. His getting out of the market either signaled the end or marked the beginning by fueling the recent surge.

There is one truth about the Berk sale. As the old investment saw goes, "nobody ever went broke taking a profit".

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24 minutes ago, AJD said:

There is one truth about the Berk sale. As the old investment saw goes, "nobody ever went broke taking a profit".

So true!

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3 hours ago, sfcityduck said:

So, at least for Action 1, the profits to be made are diminishing each year as the book increases in value and the multiples of expected profits shrink. 

Actually, no real surprise here and I would certainly expect the same mathematical scenario to apply to all vintage collectible comic books.  (thumbsu

From a common sense point of view, it's only normal to expect valuations to increase at a higher percentage rate when the original starting valuations are lower, as opposed to when they are substantially higher.  Especially since higher price points and in particular for the higher dollar-vlaue books, usually means that there will be less buyers for these books as they are simply being priced out of the market.  hm

All we need do is to take a look at some of the rather extreme multiples that entry level copies of HTF key and/or classic cover high dollar value books are going for in today's marketplace.  The old saying of throwing out the guide when it comes to valuations of books in uber HG condition probably should also apply to uber low grade condition HTF expensive keys or classic cover books, with collectors now more than willing to open up their wallets just to obtain an affordable copy of the book.  :takeit:

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1 hour ago, lou_fine said:

Actually, no real surprise here and I would certainly expect the same mathematical scenario to apply to all vintage collectible comic books.  (thumbsu

From a common sense point of view, it's only normal to expect valuations to increase at a higher percentage rate when the original starting valuations are lower, as opposed to when they are substantially higher.  Especially since higher price points and in particular for the higher dollar-vlaue books, usually means that there will be less buyers for these books as they are simply being priced out of the market.  hm

All we need do is to take a look at some of the rather extreme multiples that entry level copies of HTF key and/or classic cover high dollar value books are going for in today's marketplace.  The old saying of throwing out the guide when it comes to valuations of books in uber HG condition probably should also apply to uber low grade condition HTF expensive keys or classic cover books, with collectors now more than willing to open up their wallets just to obtain an affordable copy of the book.  :takeit:

This is 100% dead on, the top has pulled the bottom up as affordability has changed perception about "what we/I can live with" in our collections. Any long time collector can tell you there was a time not so long ago when coverless was nothing more than a filler copy for all but the rarest of keys. A customer of mine bought his Batman #1  complete with back cover on ebay in 2001 on bids for $475 and an AF #15 with the top cut off for even less, I myself bought my Cap #1 for $900 of these boards in the mid 2000s and got the cover a few month later of on ebay for about the same.  

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8 hours ago, MrBedrock said:

Isn't it interesting how folks use the sale of Berk's collection to justify so many varying, and often conflicting, points of view? Some of the same folks who were saying he sold too soon, or sold in such a way that he left money on the table, also will say that he was ahead of the impending stagnation of the market. His getting out of the market either signaled the end or marked the beginning by fueling the recent surge.

It's the Schrodinger's cat of comic sales.  He simultaneously sold out too early and too late. 

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