Fun With Spreadsheets
Back when I was collecting coins, I was interested in appreciation. Yet I kept making the same mistake over and over. A mistake that collecting Bronze Comics corrects.
Without fail, when presented with a cool looking coin from the early 1800's, vs. a cool looking coin from the modern era for the same price, I would always buy the old coin. But that was a mistake....and here's why:
Imagine a coin made in the year 1800 worth $100. Now compare that to another coin made in the year 2000, also worth $100. Which is a better buy based on appreciation? It's important to realize that the coin made in 1800 took 217 years to appreciate to a value of $100. Yet the coin made in 2000 did it in a scant 17 years! In summary, the newer coin is increasing in value at a much faster rate!
For fun, I played around with a spreadsheet and made some assumptions. If a bronze age comic book is worth about $250 today, then it is roughly appreciating at a rate of 13% a year. That's actually a pretty healthy internal rate of return! Why $250? Well, that's the general price point I've been dabbling in lately. I've fleshed out my collection of CGC 9.4 early X-Men at that price point.
OK, so here's something interesting. A silver age comic book is around 10 years older than a bronze age book. So assuming it's also growing at a rate of 13% a year, it would need grow to about $1,000 since it's publication date 10 years prior to the bronze era. .
What would that $1,000 buy today? To give you an idea, that's the approximate value of a Spider-Man #50 (1st Kingpin) in CGC 8.0. Not too shabby! How many of us would like to jump in a time machine, go back 10 years, and purchase some VF copies of Spidey #50 in VF for around $250? I know I would! I'd stockpile them!
So there you go. Buying higher grade (justified expensive) key bronze is not just fun, but I think it's smart too.
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