Buyers: What is your plan for the current insanity? 3 3

[Patriot6]

For myself, I intend to liquidate my non core collection. At this point that would be everything except my Archie collection and my ASM. The current market kicks me in the balls in several ways. As a Canadian, the pandemic has really curtailed the amount of people willing to ship up North and since eBay's global shipping programme is the biggest shipping scam every devised, I am even more limited to what I can buy coupled with the fact that many books I want are simply not available, period. I suppose since I have a narrow collecting focus and what I collect isn't very much in demand that I am ok in that sense, but I am having trouble knocking out the books remaining on my upgrade list since I am unable to find them. When I do see them for sale, they are more often than not unavailable to me due to shipping restrictions or they are on an auction site which charges unrealistic shipping prices to Canada. Example: CL $70 US for one slab?! To compound the matter, the CDN$ is weak at the moment so I get kicked in the balls again on conversion. The new eBay managed payments really screwed us Canadians because with Paypal you could do everything in US$.  

I have not collected much of anything other than Archie for the past many years, sure there were a few books here or there, but I have no desire to participate in the current SA/BA/CA extravaganza and, therefore, intend to liquidate with a smile on my face. I can pull my $$ out of the SA/BA/CA portion of the hobby and be happy. The hunt, the memories and the reads were all amazing with no regrets just great memories. 

Archie, however, will be buried with me. I'll gladly buy three plots and three caskets. One for me, one for the wife and one for my Archie collection. 

[Black_Adam]

Buy low, sell high.

[Robot Man]

4 hours ago, Math Teacher said:

Last week, I had considered selling my ASM #1 CGC 3.0 and my IH #181 CGC 8.5 to buy a nicer copy of ASM #1. I also considered selling my FF #1 CGC 2.5 and my IH #181 CGC 8.5 to buy a nicer copy of FF #1.

Last Sales, according to GPA: ASM #1 CGC 3.0 ($8,250 - March 2021), FF #1 CGC 2.5 ($9,701 - January 2021), and IH #181 CGC 8.5 ($12,500 - April 2021). I am sure that the FF #1 price would have increased by April.

So, if I sold my ASM #1 and IH #181, I would receive, at best, $20,750. With this, I could possibly afford an ASM #1 in CGC 5.0 - 5.5.
If I sold my FF #1 and IH #181, I would receive, at best, $22,201. With this, I could possibly afford an FF #1  in CGC 4.0 - 4.5.

Or I could sell all three books and hope for prices to go down. Since I don't have any confidence that prices will go down anytime soon, I don't think I am going to go down that road. Also, I want to make sure that I have an ASM #1 and an FF #1 in my collection.

I honestly don't have any real strong connection to IH #181. Yes, I do like Wolverine, but not as much as I like Spider-Man or the Fantastic Four. But I can't ignore the fact that the price for my grade of IH #181 has tripled in price since I bought it in late 2019. And most of that tripling has occurred in the last three months.

As you can see, I'm on the horns of an enema (I mean, a dilemma).

I carefully hand picked my IH #181 off the newstand. I wish I had bought 2...

[Drummy]

3 hours ago, Math Teacher said:

OK. I am going to try to figure these out. I restricted myself to the SA. If I hadn't, I would add IH #181, GSXM #1, ASM #300, XM #94, XM #101, ASM #361, ToD #10, ASM #129, Conan #1, among others.

01) FF #1
02) IH #1
03) AF #15
04) ASM #1
05) TtA #27
06) XM #1
06) ToS #39
07) JiM #83
08) ST #110
09) Avengers #1
10) DD #1
11) FF #5
12) FF #48
13) ASM #14
14) Sgt. Fury #1
15) TtA #44
16) ASM #3
17) ASM #50
18) JiM #85
19) Avengers #4
20) FF #4
21) FF #52
22) IM #55
23) TtA #13
24) ToS #52
25) ASM Annual #1

I know this is more than 22, but how close was I?

You have 17 of my 22 -- I only collect hero 1st appearances and not villains.  I had to draw the line or spend a million MORE dollars.

The missing five are TOS 57, Marvel Super-Heroes 12, Avengers 57, X-Men 4, and (only important to me as an FF fanatic, perhaps) FF 13.  Not sure the Watcher is a hero, but he made my final cut!

Dan

[pickycollector]

4 minutes ago, Drummy said:

You have 17 of my 22 -- I only collect hero 1st appearances and not villains.  I had to draw the line or spend a million MORE dollars.

The missing five are TOS 57, Marvel Super-Heroes 12, Avengers 57, X-Men 4, and (only important to me as an FF fanatic, perhaps) FF 13.  Not sure the Watcher is a hero, but he made my final cut!

Dan

Which ones of those 22 books are you still missing?

[an99]

23 minutes ago, Patriot6 said:

As a Canadian, the pandemic has really curtailed the amount of people willing to ship up North and since eBay's global shipping programme is the biggest shipping scam every devised.

I agree 100%

[FineCollector]

I'm not sure it's crypto profits as much as market manipulation a la Game Stop stocks.  Imagine, you buy a book off eBay at a stupid price, and everyone just agrees that's the price from now on?  Couple that with new collectors who hear the muppets on Youtube pushing them to buy at any price, and you have a runaway train that's destined to crash.

There's plenty to buy that hasnt spiked.  I'm a run collector, so I just move to other titles and plug away.  I wont own the Marvel mega keys, but finishing runs of non keys has never been easier, when the online flippers desperately liquidate any non key they acquire.

[HuddyBee]

Buy DC not Marvel

[DavidTheDavid]

Remember, we've been talking about ballooning prices and a hot market for a few years, since the Marvel cineverse really, but especially the last couple of years. I've been done with that part of collecting for about a year, and seeing it now, I'm even more content with my decision. I am filling out six short boxes of stuff I love that ranges from $5 to $50, with a few books valued over a $100. And I love it, so much more manageable with no dread about chasing runs that get more and more expensive with every month.

Edited April 5, 2021 by DavidTheDavid

[shadroch]

1 hour ago, Black_Adam said:

Buy low, sell high.

Buy sheep, sell veal.

[shadroch]

1 hour ago, an99 said:

Out of curiosity, which books?

If you don't want to say, that's cool, I understand 😎.

Daredevil 7 and 16

[rexinnih]

Luckily I only have a few issues of Sub-Mariner to collect and finish off that run. Prior to that I accomplished most of my "wants" in the past year or two. 

Picked up FF #4 and #6 two years ago and checked those off the want list. My only outstanding right now is X-Men #4 and then I have a complete run from 1 - 143. I kick myself for not picking that one up earlier but for some reason kept putting it off. Now I can do it but will have to work on better positioning spending that much with my wife 

Other than that, I am now taking the time to get my collection CGC graded as that justifies an increase in value for graded issues. Had been putting that off for awhile but now motivated as things are increasing so rapidly in price and eventually costing more to grade. 

[Savoyard23]

I'm waiting out the insanity, too.  I love comics, but I'm not buying at these prices.

In fact, I haven't written a check or typed in the digits for a comic in about 6 weeks, which for me is a long time.  

Now, I haven't taken a solemn vow not to buy another comic book until you can get a Fine X-Men 1 for less than a Toyota.  I may go back to the local shows when I can, or make some offers online, to fill in a few runs I'm really close on.

But I'm not inclined to buy in at prices that are going to make me feel like a chump when this all comes crashing down.

And if explosive price growth is the new normal, as some believe, then I'll enjoy the 7000 comics I already have and/or I'll go digital.

[WolverineX]

5 minutes ago, Savoyard23 said:

I'm waiting out the insanity, too.  I love comics, but I'm not buying at these prices.

In fact, I haven't written a check or typed in the digits for a comic in about 6 weeks, which for me is a long time.  

Now, I haven't taken a solemn vow not to buy another comic book until you can get a Fine X-Men 1 for less than a Toyota.  I may go back to the local shows when I can, or make some offers online, to fill in a few runs I'm really close on.

But I'm not inclined to buy in at prices that are going to make me feel like a chump when this all comes crashing down.

And if explosive price growth is the new normal, as some believe, then I'll enjoy the 7000 comics I already have and/or I'll go digital.

Agreed. 

[wombat]

I will say one thing that will be very depressing. I went to a smaller local show a few weeks ago. Sticking with the theme of this thread I only bought a few things because the prices are just getting out of reach. I always look forward to Baltimore Comicon every year, but do I really want to spend a day looking at stuff I can't afford?

[stynxno]

I got back into the hobby early last year after being away for a dozen years. It’s been 

[MetalPSI]

I've bought more moderns than ever in the last 25 years

[speedcake]

38 minutes ago, wombat said:

I will say one thing that will be very depressing. I went to a smaller local show a few weeks ago. Sticking with the theme of this thread I only bought a few things because the prices are just getting out of reach. I always look forward to Baltimore Comicon every year, but do I really want to spend a day looking at stuff I can't afford?

I'm guessing there is going to be plenty of bargains on pretty much all non key stuff, and even alot of smaller keys. The crazy train is only pushing a tiny % of all the comics out there. But if you are only after those bigger books then ya I can see it being a bummer.

[an99]

1 hour ago, shadroch said:

Daredevil 7 and 16

Good picks 👍 

[Math Teacher]

2 hours ago, Drummy said:

You have 17 of my 22 -- I only collect hero 1st appearances and not villains.  I had to draw the line or spend a million MORE dollars.

The missing five are TOS 57, Marvel Super-Heroes 12, Avengers 57, X-Men 4, and (only important to me as an FF fanatic, perhaps) FF 13.  Not sure the Watcher is a hero, but he made my final cut!

Dan

I feel ashamed for missing XM #4. I had Avengers #57 and Tos #57, but I removed them to make room for a few villains.