GA COMIC BOOK Collecting in the Financial crisis of 2020 3 3

[Dark Knight]

I think the surge in silver age books will spill over to certain popular titles and major keys in golden age books. We'll see. 

[comicjack]

22 minutes ago, szav said:

What a year for comics it’s been since this thread started...did anyone really predict insane price explosion across all ages, classics, keys, and drek alike?  If you did now is the time to pat yourself on the back.

What happens next for GA?... complete market implosion, or do prices go even higher after people decide 15k might be too much for an X-men #1 cgc 2.5 and they move on over to relatively more ‘affordable’ GA?

 

The end is near sell everything while you still can 

Edited March 26, 2021 by comicjack

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

37 minutes ago, comicjack said:

The end is near sell everything while you still can 

To me

[Robot Man]

48 minutes ago, szav said:

What a year for comics it’s been since this thread started...did anyone really predict insane price explosion across all ages, classics, keys, and drek alike?  If you did now is the time to pat yourself on the back.

What happens next for GA?... complete market implosion, or do prices go even higher after people decide 15k might be too much for an X-men #1 cgc 2.5 and they move on over to relatively more ‘affordable’ GA?

 

I have been collecting comics for 50 years. Anytime I think prices can't get any higher, they do. I never saw this coming. I figured as in years past during tough times, a couple collections might come to market and be quickly absorbed into the pot of eager collectors. I knew the market would not drop out nor do I think it will in my lifetime. The good stuff is always in demand and prices might correct a little but stay solid. In any grade. As prices rise in the high grades, the pool of deep pockets gets a little thinner. For every deep pocketed buyer, there are 100's of little fish who just want to own a copy of what ever book they want. Don't let anyone tell you that low grade GA especially keys or classic covers (hell even moderately classic covers) are not worth buying.

I have not bought a book of any significance in probably 6 months. Sure, I buy a few "readers" when I can run into them. But as far as the cooler GA books, not a one. I have always felt that spending many thousands of dollars for a comic book to be a bit frivilous and a bit irresponsible. There are so many books I can enjoy without morgaging the farm. Then, I am a lot older than most of you. I have gotton to the point where experiences are far more important than the junk I've collected for all this time.

Maybe better to cash in a little more right now instead of buying...

[comicjack]

40 minutes ago, GreatCaesarsGhost said:

To me

You forgot William 

[lou_fine]

4 hours ago, Dark Knight said:

I think the surge in silver age books will spill over to certain popular titles and major keys in golden age books. We'll see. 

So, you think we are going to see a repeat of what took place way back in '94 and '95 when GA books took a huge leap upwards to do a bit of catching up with the meteoric rise that took place in the SA books in the early 90's?    

[Dark Knight]

1 hour ago, lou_fine said:

So, you think we are going to see a repeat of what took place way back in '94 and '95 when GA books took a huge leap upwards to do a bit of catching up with the meteoric rise that took place in the SA books in the early 90's?    

Here's hoping  . It might be time.. Although back in the early - mid 90's I wasn't really focusing on collecting comics, so I didn't know the market well.  Back then I was more into Marvel trading cards, sports cards, and a sprinkle of cheap books here and there like Image Comics.

[KCOComics]

10 hours ago, Robot Man said:

I have been collecting comics for 50 years. Anytime I think prices can't get any higher, they do. I never saw this coming. I figured as in years past during tough times, a couple collections might come to market and be quickly absorbed into the pot of eager collectors. I knew the market would not drop out nor do I think it will in my lifetime. The good stuff is always in demand and prices might correct a little but stay solid. In any grade. As prices rise in the high grades, the pool of deep pockets gets a little thinner. For every deep pocketed buyer, there are 100's of little fish who just want to own a copy of what ever book they want. Don't let anyone tell you that low grade GA especially keys or classic covers (hell even moderately classic covers) are not worth buying.

I have not bought a book of any significance in probably 6 months. Sure, I buy a few "readers" when I can run into them. But as far as the cooler GA books, not a one. I have always felt that spending many thousands of dollars for a comic book to be a bit frivilous and a bit irresponsible. There are so many books I can enjoy without morgaging the farm. Then, I am a lot older than most of you. I have gotton to the point where experiences are far more important than the junk I've collected for all this time.

Maybe better to cash in a little more right now instead of buying...

When this thread started I didn't have your foresight. 

I'm sure if anyone spent the time to scroll through all these pages they would find me screaming "the sky is falling".  So I can't say that I saw this coming. 

With that said, I appreciate your larger point about experiences.  I wouldn't blame some long time collectors if they chose to cash out and put the money towards more meaningful experiences. But you don't see allot of that talk here 😲

I can tell you my number one priority this year is to go somewhere with my family. We probably won't be getting on a plane for while, but after spending a year in the house with two young kids and my wife, we are ready to get out in a safe and responsible way. 

That's not too say I won't be buying comic books, but i am probably going to be pretty content with the big books I already own and I'll be putting my attention towards more affordable areas in the market. 

[piper]

44 minutes ago, KCOComics said:

When this thread started I didn't have your foresight. 

I'm sure if anyone spent the time to scroll through all these pages they would find me screaming "the sky is falling".  So I can't say that I saw this coming. 

With that said, I appreciate your larger point about experiences.  I wouldn't blame some long time collectors if they chose to cash out and put the money towards more meaningful experiences. But you don't see allot of that talk here 😲

I can tell you my number one priority this year is to go somewhere with my family. We probably won't be getting on a plane for while, but after spending a year in the house with two young kids and my wife, we are ready to get out in a safe and responsible way. 

That's not too say I won't be buying comic books, but i am probably going to be pretty content with the big books I already own and I'll be putting my attention towards more affordable areas in the market. 

I can’t wait to travel again. 

[Mmehdy]

19 hours ago, szav said:

What a year for comics it’s been since this thread started...did anyone really predict insane price explosion across all ages, classics, keys, and drek alike?  If you did now is the time to pat yourself on the back.

What happens next for GA?... complete market implosion, or do prices go even higher after people decide 15k might be too much for an X-men #1 cgc 2.5 and they move on over to relatively more ‘affordable’ GA?

 

Quite a year and we have light at the end of the tunnel but we are still not out of it. Long term somebody, probably me and you are going to have to pay for these 2/3 trillion  dollar giveaways. What I did not anticipate was a group of wild speculators coming from outside of our community to flood our marketplace. It just did not happen in comic books, look at Bitcoin, Pokenman sealed box sets, Gamestop stock etc.....

Here are my thoughts on this sudden increase in our marketplace. To begin with I think we have seen this effect on  some KEY GA books, such the High Grade Batman #1...for the 80 years that copy was in the 900k-1 million  price level and now more than double. What has not taken place is hyper  inflation some mid-level GA which is good. Price stability and reasonable growth helps all of us..long term GA/SA collectors when these speculators run the hills on the first sign of price declines.

I will say this to all board members. I WAS DEAD WRONG for now. When this whole thing plays out over then next few years, hopefully  I am still wrong for all of us and our GA/SA collections value.

I think the real issue here to discuss, is the price growth for real...is it sustainable and will it hold under price decrease pressure or collapse. I am interested in all of your opinions  on this issue. It is a realty we have to deal with down the road.

I say we all about one third of the way thru this thing, after the first year...I still maintain any significant purchase should be of cgc graded books, with good paper and stable quality a must.

 Please let me know where you think our future direction is going...prices upwards, downwards, or flat?

 

Mitch

Edited March 27, 2021 by Mmehdy

[fifties]

30 minutes ago, Mmehdy said:

What I did not anticipate was a group of wild speculators coming from outside of our community to flood our marketplace. It just did not happen in comic books, look at Bitcoin, Pokenman sealed box sets, Gamestop stock etc.....

Well consider that the population was cooped up for a year, couldn't travel, go to the flicks, amusement parks, or even dine-in restaurants.  Given that, they had plenty of disposable income (those that still had jobs or income streams) without their normal spending outlets to blow it on.

  So apparently a segment of them decided to "invest", but outside the norm of the stock market, Real Estate, etc., and into the areas you have described.  No way anyone could have seen that coming.

[thehumantorch]

7 hours ago, piper said:

I can’t wait to travel again. 

Hell, even if it is across town.

[szav]

1 hour ago, Mmehdy said:

What has not taken place is hyper  inflation some mid-level GA which is good.

Have to disagree with this a little bit, but it may depend on how you define 'mid level GA'.  Mid to Lower level GA has seen a pretty big jump, at least that has been what I've seen in the kinds of books I deal in.  I decided back in September that my collection was getting a bit unwieldy in terms of physical size, and I decided to sell about 3/4ths of the volume of my collection, which was about half the value, and then go for quality over quantity.  I kept only the books that I truly love love love and let go of the rest through HA.

Some of the best performing books in terms of exceeding my expectations were the high grade Harvey's,  mid grade Baker non-romance. and mid to high grade fiction house jungle etc.  Many many books that I expected to go for 75-100 went for 200-500, some books I expected to go for 200-300 went for 1,000-2000.

The good news is I did phenomenally well in selling, the bad news is prices got really out of hand before I could do the adding back quality to my collection with the proceeds.  I did manage to add 3 nice books and a Baker OA page before everything got so out of hand that it just looked like it wasn't worth it at the price any more. 

I'm hoping for a crash and to buy back in low, but I wouldn't bet on it happening.

[Robot Man]

9 hours ago, KCOComics said:

When this thread started I didn't have your foresight. 

I'm sure if anyone spent the time to scroll through all these pages they would find me screaming "the sky is falling".  So I can't say that I saw this coming. 

With that said, I appreciate your larger point about experiences.  I wouldn't blame some long time collectors if they chose to cash out and put the money towards more meaningful experiences. But you don't see allot of that talk here 😲

I can tell you my number one priority this year is to go somewhere with my family. We probably won't be getting on a plane for while, but after spending a year in the house with two young kids and my wife, we are ready to get out in a safe and responsible way. 

That's not too say I won't be buying comic books, but i am probably going to be pretty content with the big books I already own and I'll be putting my attention towards more affordable areas in the market. 

Before the shutdown. I had a trip to Egypt all booked for April. Well, we all know how that worked out. Luckily, I had trip insurance so I wasn’t out of luck money wise. I still plan to do this this year. 

I had no idea a year ago, I wouldn’t get to see my kids and grandkids for a year. I miss them more than you can imagine, We are going to take them all to Hawaii in probably Oct. 

Due to shut down, I had a lot more time on my hands, so I bought a 1949 Indian Scout and completely restored it. Looking for another project. I also spent a lot of time playing guitar and bought another vintage electric to play. 

So, I might not be buying as many nice books but sure selling off a lot. And, I’m way OK with it. 

[adamstrange]

10 hours ago, KCOComics said:

With that said, I appreciate your larger point about experiences.  I wouldn't blame some long time collectors if they chose to cash out and put the money towards more meaningful experiences. But you don't see allot of that talk here

We report these posts to the mods, who remove them. 

 

 

[KCOComics]

3 hours ago, Robot Man said:

Before the shutdown. I had a trip to Egypt all booked for April. Well, we all know how that worked out. Luckily, I had trip insurance so I wasn’t out of luck money wise. I still plan to do this this year. 

I had no idea a year ago, I wouldn’t get to see my kids and grandkids for a year. I miss them more than you can imagine, We are going to take them all to Hawaii in probably Oct. 

Due to shut down, I had a lot more time on my hands, so I bought a 1949 Indian Scout and completely restored it. Looking for another project. I also spent a lot of time playing guitar and bought another vintage electric to play. 

So, I might not be buying as many nice books but sure selling off a lot. And, I’m way OK with it. 

You gotta post some pictures of that Scout! 

We had a similar situation with my parents.  We did some things outdoors with them when was the weather was warm, but this proved to be a long long winter. It was hard on my kids to not see family and harder on our parents to not see their kids or grand kids. 

I guess it gave us all perspective on the things that are really important.  And taking your family to Hawaii is a good plan! 

We are planning to do Easter this year after not having any holidays with family for a year. 

[KCOComics]

6 hours ago, Mmehdy said:

 

 Please let me know where you think our future direction is going...prices upwards, downwards, or flat?

 

Mitch

 

There seems to be 2 schools of thought floating around on what comes next... 

1) We are in a Bubble. Eventually that bubble will pop and we'll see anything from a long stretch of minimum growth, to a minor correction to an outright crash. 

2) comics were under valued. They are more scarce than comparable sports cards and the cultural impact of Spiderman is greater than Mike Trout. Comics are simply getting to their proper valuation. 

 

Here is my opinion. There is built up demand for life! Travel, concerts, football games, cruises.... So as the vaccine roles out, allot of money that was put into collectibles and investing will be diverted elsewhere. 

That will lead to a period of stabilization, but not a correction. Prices will remain high, maybe some will pull back a bit, but we'll see a more normal market where some books get hot and others remain relatively stable.  

Every single time I've bet against comics I have been wrong. So I'm just not prepared to say there will be great buying opportunities for some of these books that have gone crazy.  I think the high prices won't go away and a correction would be minor. 

 

And for what it's worth Mitch, I was right with you 1 year ago! I saw dark days ahead for comics. I certainly never thought X-Men 1 in a 1.8 would be a 5 figure book. 

[Robot Man]

2 hours ago, KCOComics said:

 

There seems to be 2 schools of thought floating around on what comes next... 

1) We are in a Bubble. Eventually that bubble will pop and we'll see anything from a long stretch of minimum growth, to a minor correction to an outright crash. 

2) comics were under valued. They are more scarce than comparable sports cards and the cultural impact of Spiderman is greater than Mike Trout. Comics are simply getting to their proper valuation. 

 

Here is my opinion. There is built up demand for life! Travel, concerts, football games, cruises.... So as the vaccine roles out, allot of money that was put into collectibles and investing will be diverted elsewhere. 

That will lead to a period of stabilization, but not a correction. Prices will remain high, maybe some will pull back a bit, but we'll see a more normal market where some books get hot and others remain relatively stable.  

Every single time I've bet against comics I have been wrong. So I'm just not prepared to say there will be great buying opportunities for some of these books that have gone crazy.  I think the high prices won't go away and a correction would be minor. 

 

And for what it's worth Mitch, I was right with you 1 year ago! I saw dark days ahead for comics. I certainly never thought X-Men 1 in a 1.8 would be a 5 figure book. 

I pretty much agree with everything you said especially the “every single time I’ve bet against comics I’ve been wrong”. I see prices stabilizing a bit but not crashing or going down on the good stuff. And yeah, right now the demand for life is way more important than comic books. 

[lou_fine]

16 hours ago, piper said:

I can’t wait to travel again. 

You can certainly say that again!!!  

Definitely starting to get the itch again since it's now been pretty much 18 long months since I've been on a plane or cruise ship.  If this had been a few years prior, I certainly wouldn't have had any problems applyng for my travel visa to China.  I remember when I applied the other year and they asked you to list all of the countries you had been to in the previous 5 years (as opposed to the past when it was only 1 year), and the system wouldn't take anymore after I must have hit their 25-country limit and I was only in Year 3 by then.   I remembered the China Visa officer definitely had some questions when my passport had nowhere near that number of stamps on it, but then he went ahead and approved my visa application anyways.   

Too bad it looks like it won't be until next year in 2022 until it's safe for international travel again.  Just can't wait to grab my pocket pokefi, charge it up, and hit the road again, as this little baby will ensure that you don't get lost in any part of the world that you are travelling in, pretty much no matter where you are.  

[lou_fine]

9 hours ago, thehumantorch said:

17 hours ago, piper said:

I can’t wait to travel again. 

Hell, even if it is across town.

You mean it's that bad in Alberta that you can't even hop into your car and just go for a drive in order to get out of the house?  

I guess we've actually had it pretty lucky here in B.C. whereby they've been able to avoid a ture and complete lockdown during this entire pandemic time period, although I guess I shouldn't speak too soon since our province just set a new daily record of 908 cases yesterday.  No doubt, due in part to the spread of the new variants that seems to be establishing a beachfront everywhere.