Time to save for a big boy book? 0

[Swamp Demon]

Hey, I’m new to the board. Been collecting off and on for 30 years. I have some nice books, but nothing worth over 2000$. Never thaught I could own a big book say 9.0+ IH 181. 
After reading some threads here some have the opinion of saving for a year or more to get one. I would need to cut back my monthly book budget to almost nothing. But a year from now could have 10-15 grand. So what do you think? Is this a smarter investment  than buying 2-3 100$-300$ books a month?
 

[ExNihilo]

Buy what you like.  Think long and hard about the long term satisfaction you'll get from a bunch of "little" books vs a grail.

[Fourth World Baby!]

I would say not to wait a year since you never know where prices are going to be in a year. If you're going purely for investment potential I would say buy the best Hulk 181 you can afford to sit on for a couple years, because you know eventually Disney will bring Wolverine into the MCU, but It may be a couple years until that happens. Once they do bring him in though I would imagine that will make that book appreciate quite well. If you're looking for something a little more secure though maybe think about New Mutants #98 since Disney just confirmed their Deadpool adaptation will be R rated, which could mean good news for that book. Ultimately though buy what would make you happiest. 

[KCOComics]

It's always a tough choice. 

If there is one big book that is really important to you, I would recommend saving / selling and going after it. 

I don't like to speculate about the market... Wait, I take that back... I love to speculate about the market I'm just often wrong. One year ago today, I figured the pandemic would destroy comic values because people would be worried about their jobs and not spending money on funny books. Live and learn. 

In any event, every time I made the decision not to pull the trigger on a big book, I lived to regret it or paid more down the road. So if your financially able to, I say save, sell and get your grail. 

[Swamp Demon]

Thanks. For now I’m going upgrade my new mutants 98 and grab a ultimate fallout 4 or Batman adventure 12. Still going to save up for something big. 

[shadroch]

Instead of saving for a grail, cull your collection. If you are going to stop buying new issues of a title, why keep the old issues when every book you sell gets you closer to your grail.

[theCapraAegagrus]

10 hours ago, ExNihilo said:

Buy what you like.  Think long and hard about the long term satisfaction you'll get from a bunch of "little" books vs a grail.

This.

For me, I like collecting the best-of-the-best collected editions. I get satisfaction of having 'the best' of its kind, while also bringing in a lot of reading material.

Will that 1 graded book make you happier than the year-long chase? Longest I ever 'saved' up for something (comic-wise) was about 3 months.

[KCOComics]

11 hours ago, shadroch said:

Instead of saving for a grail, cull your collection. If you are going to stop buying new issues of a title, why keep the old issues when every book you sell gets you closer to your grail.

I've been doing this over the last 2 years and it has helped me obtain some grails I'm really happy to own now. 

[originalisbest]

I think you'll be surprised at what you can save up for in the course of a year, and if you reach your goal, looking at the book in the future, it'll hold that much more meaning for you.

[Buzzetta]

Walk around your collection and ask yourself what you would rather have.  That Venom Virgin Cover Variant that is 1:100?  or Hulk 181?

If you are struggling with that decision then you may not want that Hulk 181 as much as you say you do. 

[Hollywood1892]

On 3/2/2021 at 9:01 PM, Swamp Demon said:

Hey, I’m new to the board. Been collecting off and on for 30 years. I have some nice books, but nothing worth over 2000$. Never thaught I could own a big book say 9.0+ IH 181. 
After reading some threads here some have the opinion of saving for a year or more to get one. I would need to cut back my monthly book budget to almost nothing. But a year from now could have 10-15 grand. So what do you think? Is this a smarter investment  than buying 2-3 100$-300$ books a month?
 

I'd say invest in books from the silverware, ie Spidey first appearances (villains) FF 48,49,52 (but especially 5) then in about a year trade those for a grail ie AF 15, X-MEN 1 ect

[Pat Thomas]

If you know the market pretty well, I suggest you hit all the garage and estate sales you can looking for comics to flip quickly. The dollar boxes at your lcs probably have some gems in them that nobody has noticed yet. If you put in the time researching, you can find deals just about anywhere you go. You just have to stay informed about everything happening in our world that causes certain books to rise or fall and do a little speculating on your own about who could blow up next. In the current market, if you have the books people want and act quickly, people seem to be willing to pay whatever they have to. Make a list of bronze-modern era comics that always sell and a cutoff spending price on those books, and stock up on them. Make hunting for flips part of your weekly trip to the lcs, and bargain with them if you buy a lot. Keep your eye out for store closings, too. I was able to buy about 75 longboxes for pennies on the dollar when my old lcs closed down in June 2018. This was the last bit of stock after people had been going through them for 2 weeks, so there were very few keys. I figured I could sell them to mycomicshop.com  using their want list feature and, at minimum, make my money back in store credit. I made my money back on the second batch I sent them, and I've since added about $15,000 to my collection by trading to them. I've still got 4500 comics left and orders to be filled every day, so I've still got a way to go. It was a ton of work to organize and enter all those comics into the database, and it took about 4 months, but it was worth the reward. It was pretty cool when they got FF #4 and I had enough credit to buy it right then. You can get your book if you make a plan and stick to it, and you don't have to sacrifice your weekly enjoyment.

Edited March 5, 2021 by Pat Thomas

[William-James88]

You have to choose what you want more in your collection.

[serling1978]

That's a hard question. I'm a completist so I always wanted both the "little" books for the run and the grails. So I did both . Just having only grails to me wouldn't mean as much without the runs to accompany them. That's something I realized early on, so like others have said you just need to decide what's will make you happiest with your collection. 

Pat makes a good point about flipping. The overwhelming majority of my collection came from flipping. I never spent than $20-$30 bucks here and there out of my paycheck for comics. 

Having said that, I'm way too lazy these days to put in the effort flip. At first it was a lot of fun for 5-6 years but then it got to be too much. If you want to go the flip route, it's a commitment, but it can pay off big.