So disappointing... 0

[joeypost]

1 hour ago, thehumantorch said:

Agreed on all points Joe.  Collecting comics is a great hobby but there is a lot to know and a lot of overpriced books and bad sellers out there.

1,000,000 ways to get taken.

Edited May 30, 2020 by joeypost

[Logan510]

I would never blame a dealer if books I bought from them graded lower at CGC than the dealer grade.

I have two eyes and can look at the books before I submit them. No one is perfect and no one gets their grades right 100% of the time, there are also a lot of times I'll submit books that are "coin flip" type books.

That being said, if I knew that I wasn't very good at grading there is no way I would submit without either 1) learning how to grade or 2) getting the opinion of someone more experienced before submitting...and no, I would not count the dealers grade into that equation as no one is perfect and it doesn't hurt to get another opinion 

[oldrover]

4 hours ago, spreads said:

I bet you encounter lots of 'experts' when it comes to grading.  This particular user, did his name rhyme with boldrover?

LOL... I am no great shakes at grading. I once sent an X-Men 16 to CGC expecting a 6.0 or better.

It got a 3.0. 

I couldn't even look at the notes. 

[Myowncollector]

4 hours ago, shadroch said:

Because those are the only two sellers who might possibly overgrade? 

Yes. Only those two. Every other dealer is dead on. 

[Motor City Rob]

On 5/29/2020 at 10:21 AM, spreads said:

Comics shouldn't be looked at as investments, there's no guarantee the market and individual books can't crumble in value (and has happened hundreds of times in this industry).  If you really want to buy a comic long-term to hold and preserve, nothing beats high quality Mylar and backing boards.  

Investing rarely provides a guarantee, whether it's the stock market, comics, etc. Why can't a person look at comics as an investment as there's clearly a market that has become significantly more valuable over the years? To each their own, I say.

Nothing beats high quality mylar and backing boards...except a CGC slab!!!!

[Xenosmilus]

If you can't grade then only buy CGC graded books. It's what I do since I can't grade.  The only raw books I buy are "readers".

[Myowncollector]

3 hours ago, Motor City Rob said:

Investing rarely provides a guarantee, whether it's the stock market, comics, etc. Why can't a person look at comics as an investment as there's clearly a market that has become significantly more valuable over the years? To each their own, I say.

Nothing beats high quality mylar and backing boards...except a CGC slab!!!!

Nothing is 100% guarantee but if you are good, you are good. I have never had a significant lose of value on a comic. (Insert mr peanut here) Can't say the same about stocks but it's not a common occurrence. I am no great visionary, just use common sense and avoid risk. For instance covid in China sounded off a alarm. I didn't panic and sell off everything. Just was something that needed to be watched. Now when it spread and travel ban started and people were stuck on cruise ships then I panicked. Got out of certain stocks, sold comics that made sense too. Some of them I probably sold too early. Silver surfer, ff x-MEN Doom etc could all increase in value when they appear in mcu. I got them cheap enough I wasn't going to lose $ but the price was good enough so I avoided risk and had $ to invest in something else. I dont buy hot books. Not buying af15 or hulk 181 with the idea it will only increase in value each year. Not buying the latest greatest modern book or Variant. Not buying xmen 1 ff1 5 48 etc with the idea that it will blow up when they are introduced into the mcu. Those aren't guarantees. I have plenty of books that have only increased slightly or are the same exact value when I bought them. So a lot of $ is tied up and not working for sure, but plan is they will take off one day. Numerous times I bought something for a quick flip and I can't sell it or soon as I list it the market gets flooded or the new GPA I set killed the value. So had to lose 100 bucks or break even or make $100. But if anyone has lost $ on a comic book they either paid too much or bought at the wrong time. If you don't sell before the movie comes out then yeah you are going to lose $ on a lot of these books. But for someone coming into the game now, yes comics are an investment. Just every year it gets harder and harder. 2012 to 2018 was amazing, the golden and silver age for comic investing. Edit: Just realized I wrote my first novel but that is ok. The people who complain about the long post I don't want reading these. If they get educated who are we going to sell are nm98s and asm300 361s to? Who is going to buy thanos and Ultron? Who are we going to sell our Xfactor 6 and Xmen 221 to? Then who are we going to buy them back from when they lost half their value and the wanna be speculators bailed on them? We need these new speculators as buyers to sell them again! We old timer's need these comic book investors! 

Edited May 31, 2020 by Myowncollector
Realized I wrote a novel.

[spreads]

9 hours ago, Motor City Rob said:

Investing rarely provides a guarantee, whether it's the stock market, comics, etc. Why can't a person look at comics as an investment as there's clearly a market that has become significantly more valuable over the years? To each their own, I say.

This has been discussed many times on this forum; in short I would say if you look at comics as an investment, they why not beanie babies, royal doutful figurines, pogs, funko pops, etc?   

[spreads]

17 hours ago, thehumantorch said:

I won't go near Gerry's booth.

You might not, but I see hundreds of people that do....when these guys get fleeced they usually leave the industry/hobby....

[spreads]

9 hours ago, Motor City Rob said:

 

Nothing beats high quality mylar and backing boards...except a CGC slab!!!!

Ummm what?  I've never heard of shaken Mylar syndrome....lol

[spreads]

8 hours ago, Myowncollector said:

Nothing is 100% guarantee but if you are good, you are good. I have never had a significant lose of value on a comic. (Insert mr peanut here) Can't say the same about stocks but it's not a common occurrence. I am no great visionary, just use common sense and avoid risk. For instance covid in China sounded off a alarm. I didn't panic and sell off everything. Just was something that needed to be watched. Now when it spread and travel ban started and people were stuck on cruise ships then I panicked. Got out of certain stocks, sold comics that made sense too. Some of them I probably sold too early. Silver surfer, ff x-MEN Doom etc could all increase in value when they appear in mcu. I got them cheap enough I wasn't going to lose $ but the price was good enough so I avoided risk and had $ to invest in something else. I dont buy hot books. Not buying af15 or hulk 181 with the idea it will only increase in value each year. Not buying the latest greatest modern book or Variant. Not buying xmen 1 ff1 5 48 etc with the idea that it will blow up when they are introduced into the mcu. Those aren't guarantees. I have plenty of books that have only increased slightly or are the same exact value when I bought them. So a lot of $ is tied up and not working for sure, but plan is they will take off one day. Numerous times I bought something for a quick flip and I can't sell it or soon as I list it the market gets flooded or the new GPA I set killed the value. So had to lose 100 bucks or break even or make $100. But if anyone has lost $ on a comic book they either paid too much or bought at the wrong time. If you don't sell before the movie comes out then yeah you are going to lose $ on a lot of these books. But for someone coming into the game now, yes comics are an investment. Just every year it gets harder and harder. 2012 to 2018 was amazing, the golden and silver age for comic investing. Edit: Just realized I wrote my first novel but that is ok. The people who complain about the long post I don't want reading these. If they get educated who are we going to sell are nm98s and asm300 361s to? Who is going to buy thanos and Ultron? Who are we going to sell our Xfactor 6 and Xmen 221 to? Then who are we going to buy them back from when they lost half their value and the wanna be speculators bailed on them? We need these new speculators as buyers to sell them again! We old timer's need these comic book investors! 

Comics (over all) have risen significantly over the last decade because they have an inverse relationship with interest rates.  They have not outperformed real estate, definitely not the equity classes (indexes) and arguably not other collectible asset classes (have you looked at what some magic the gathering top tier cards have done over the last 15 years?).   For every example that someone claims about comics being an incredible investment, we can all find an example of something in a different industry that's performed better.   

Two years ago I was looking at a semi up the street from me, it sold for 188k (to a corp), maybe had 60-80k put into it, then sold six months later for 400k no conditions.  Now that same property would go for about 450k.  A different example, also real estate, the local recreational market in my area has been totally flat for at least 10 years.  Prices on cottages have not moved at all due to a number of demographical reasons, but they offer very good investment opportunities for someone willing to do some work.  There was a property for 180k that was generating between 16-20k rental over the 12-14 weeks rental period in the summer - not a passive investment by any means but you can figure out the cap rate on that.

The cost and risk of borrowing has been throw out the window in a zero interest rate environment, so money has nowhere to go but into riskier and riskier asset classes.  When that speculative money leaves these asset classes when interest rates start the reversing direction (it will be awhile before that happens) everything will go the opposite direction.  

Edited May 31, 2020 by spreads

[oldrover]

5 hours ago, spreads said:

This has been discussed many times on this forum; in short I would say if you look at comics as an investment, they why not beanie babies, royal doutful figurines, pogs, funko pops, etc?   

None of the items you mention have been appreciating in value for 50 years or more. Comic books have. 

[spreads]

1 minute ago, oldrover said:

None of the items you mention have been appreciating in value for 50 years or more. Comic books have. 

Every single comic book has increased in value for 50 years?

[spreads]

2 minutes ago, oldrover said:

None of the items you mention have been appreciating in value for 50 years or more. Comic books have. 

Oh no, Magic the Gathering?

No comic from the 50s/60s has increased more rapidly than the top tier MTG cards, go lookup what a Black Lotus sells for.  

[spreads]

23 hours ago, oldrover said:

Look up my threads here over the past two years:

AF15, FF1, 3 FF48's, 49's and 50's... JIM 83-86, TOS39, a LOT of ASM's, 3 X-Men 1's, 4 GSXM1's, Hulk 1, 2 Avengers 1's, 2 Avengers 4's, 2 DD1's, 2 TTA27's, 35's and 44's... plus 10 longboxes full of partial and complete runs, many of which I wound up pressing (thanks, joeypost!), slabbing and selling. The rest I sold raw, either individually or in bulk. I think the only major SA Marvel key I didn't have was ST110.

Sold a few here, but mostly on eBay... handle: oldrov.

Yes, the top tier keys have gone up exponentially like every other asset class during these bull markets.  But if you took your grandmother's inheritance and dumped that in Apple/Amazon, how much richer would you be?   You live in NY, what was real estate like back then??

[Myowncollector]

8 hours ago, spreads said:

have not outperformed real estate, definitely not the equity classes (indexes) and arguably not other collectible asset classes (have you looked at what some magic the gathering top tier cards have done over the last 15 years?).   For every example that someone claims about comics being an incredible investment, we can all find an example of something in a different industry that's performed better.   

I never claimed it was the best investment. Just that it is an investment and the safest one that I know of. The stock market has been amazing for me. Nothing else comes close. No sure things there though. I bought as much silver and gold as I could when it was low. I knew I wouldn't lose $ on it. Knew it would go up but didn't know when or how much. When I seen what tales 39 did with iron man movie and knew avengers were coming it was a no brainer. My comics have never decreased in value. A lot of antiques and collectibles plummeted when internet became relevant. Not comics. It was a good investment for me because it was safe sure thing. Characters either would show up in a movie and I would make bank or worst case scenario I sell for a small profit. Now in 2020 is it still an investment? Sure. Is it still safe? Yes. Is it one of the better investments? No. Most the characters you would expect to show up have. A lot of likely ones have already been speculated on that if they do show up the reward won't be that impressive. Its been rewarding for me. Some books I would have liked to of hold onto as a collector but the $ was just so good it didn't make sense. I love comics but not as much as making $. And can always buy them back down the road. If you can care less about comics then find something else to invest it. They were a good option. They aren't now. Can still make $ with it but your $ will be tied up longer so it doesn't make sense. It is still a hobby that makes $ so if you like comics it's a good hobby. 

[Myowncollector]

9 hours ago, spreads said:

This has been discussed many times on this forum; in short I would say if you look at comics as an investment, they why not beanie babies, royal doutful figurines, pogs, funko pops, etc?   

They can be an investment. I am not knowledgeable about them. In a related story. I love antique furniture. I have a lot of pieces in my house that I bought because they are awesome as the main reason but 2 the value plummeted on them and they were cheap. I have them because I love them, but they are also an investment. The value can only go up. May never go up. 

But you make a terrible weak point with your beanie babies and such. I like your post normally but with a spin like that you should be running for office or hosting a news show.

Comparing flash in the pan here today gone tomorrow things to something that has been around for 80 plus years and has only increased in value ( what are you going to do next, cherry pick some books from the 80s and 90s that were hundred dollar books that are now nothing? Go ahead) isnt much of a comparison. Sure they can decrease in value, but to compare them to pogs is a joke. Weak 

[shadroch]

9 hours ago, spreads said:

This has been discussed many times on this forum; in short I would say if you look at comics as an investment, they why not beanie babies, royal doutful figurines, pogs, funko pops, etc?   

Do any of them have track records going back fifty years or more? Is the typical royal Dalton from 1964 appreciated like your average Marvel  has? 

[kav]

On 5/30/2020 at 8:46 AM, Kevin76 said:

I try not to buy books with stains on them, sometimes they are easily missed. Fingerprints is another grade killer, put a fingerprint on a 9.8 book and it'll come back a 9.2.  Foxing/tanning another grade killer.  Look for nice corners, that upper right hand corner on the Conan book is awful. I would have passed if I had seen that.   

I thought CGC went easy on foxing?  Based on grading contests i thought that was the case.

[Myowncollector]

58 minutes ago, kav said:

I thought CGC went easy on foxing?  Based on grading contests i thought that was the case.

They always did go easy on foxing and tanning. Would have 9.6s with it and they would have been 9.6 without it.  Way to easy imo. I hate both. Someone said they are now taken more seriously. I dunno. I dont slab a book unless it is 9.8 or has printing defects. Haven't noticed it on books I have purchased. They may now recently grade it tougher, I dunno.