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BraveDave

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  1. Most record prices for truly exceptional coins were hit in the past three years. Comics and cards went through crashes already - but always on the speculative / not-scarce segments. Cards crash in the 90s didn’t hit the Wagners and Mantles… and they have still done well since. You will find persistent doomsayers for every type of asset: houses, stocks, bonds, coins, cars, comics, instruments, art… same tired arguments of demographic or technological shifts causing everyone to abandon the item/hobby. I saw the speculative bubble correcting over the past couple years - no surprise it hit a) the most hyped segments hardest and b) hit every collectible, nothing to do with comics specifically. If someone thinks the entire market will collapse, then they can sell all their books and move on. In my opinion books currently available in the dozens or hundreds today, with some persistent cultural/artistic/industry impact… are pretty safe long-term bets.
  2. There are three primary elements to market modeling. Asset allocation, sub-asset selection (“industry allocation”) and specific selection (“stock picking”). I built a market model that has proven effective in finding relative value and risk in comics. It served me exceptionally well. It addressed the “stock picking” and “industry allocation” part. The overarching part, asset allocation, hinges on macro factors (interest rates, demographics). Historically you could do well here (as many areas of investing) by diversifying. Doesn’t always work depending on how drivers are correlated to the different asset classes. Great example is that both bond and equity markets tanked last year - inflation>interest rates had similar (though subtly distinct) impacts on both. To be good at this stuff (vs just lucky) isn’t easy - it is actually rare. For most I suggest sticking to an approach of financial tolerance. Not sinking more than you can stomach losing into any one category (or even into “risk assets” at all). Also, learning the trend may not always be your friend and something hot can reverse more quickly than you may think. Edit: one additional element to consider is time frame. A model can attempt to predict near term movements (eg momentum) or longer-term (intrinsic value). I focus on the latter as picking out time frames is virtually impossible in most markets.
  3. Scariest thing is that the recent buyers of these Promise books at six figure levels decided to unload now. Seems they must have stretched or financed the purchases or why bother liquidating so soon? All that speculative “flip” activity was predictably going to end one way… in tears.
  4. To the above post, let’s check back in 15 years. I think AF15 remains overvalued today but willing to wager it will be worth more in 15 years… You seem to confuse near term oscillations and trends with long-term impact. There is a huge younger demographic that is familiar with (and interested in) comics. The cyclical piece is driving slabs dropping - just like almost every single asset class out there… volumes are down after interest rates increased dramatically. Next shoe to drop is a US recession and then this will restart again in 18 months. As for Marvel TV and film - they have produced garbage to try and build (then milk) an ecosystem over the past 3-4 years. Losing $$$ on that garbage isn’t shocking…
  5. Agree that the drops aren’t equal or universal. Still struggling to land some DC books at “favorable” prices - they simply haven’t dropped much (in some cases not at all). Same with scarcer golden age. Not a surprise given the relative moves up to 2021. Marvel is tricky because while there are steep drops of 50%+ across many mega keys, hard to know if they’ve settled or due for further decline.
  6. I am looking over a longer time frame than three or four years and not selecting specific grades. Also, 2022 was after the decline started. Depends on the month you choose, of course. My reference points are HA results and going back years Adv 247 has ups and downs but the return over a long time frame (decades) is what we’d expect (slight premium to stock market returns). I won’t spam the forum with images anyone can find but just look at HA results for Adv247 and sort highest to lowest auction results. You will see years bouncing around for a similar grade range (ie 2016, 2017, 2019, 2021, 2022 results). In other words, price groupings haven’t spiked. This is completely different from sorting any real bubble books where all high prices are in 2020/2021 and by a very, very significant margin. If you selectively choose what data to represent, especially for scarcer books, you can paint any picture you want… but there is little similarity between IH181 as representative of a bubble and Adv247. Both may trend up or down with the market but the amplitude (the “beta”) is wildly different. My guess is few people were accumulating copies of Adv247 in anticipation of a quick “trend” sale or speculation in any meaningful way. Can the same be said of Ih181? Does the trend down in the market imply the same impact on demand (natural vs speculative)? If you answer yes to both, then our opinions are too far to be bridged. Finally, no comic book was really “leading” this latest bubble market. It was excess money supply and was reflected across collectible categories (and beyond). There was concentration of the most excessive speculative elements and those generally went towards the higher supply books. Lots of transactions, lots of cheerleading (and, with accumulation, likely questionable tactics) and therefore a lot of $$$ flowed into those areas of greatest momentum. Those segments also deflated fastest (and with the most money “lost/locked up in losses” due to that high transacted volume at those prices points).
  7. You said “just about every comic, in every grade”… which is really not the case. Since you narrowed the group, I now tend to agree. I will just choose one to illustrate - Adventure Comics 247. Its price history looks very different from IH181. Both in terms of recent movements (post speculative bubble) and the growth rates over a longer/shorter period. There are countless examples of books similar to Adventure Comics 247. Where the new highs in 2020-2021 were not meaningfully “off-trend”… and any declines after have been similarly more benign. Now compare that price action to a host of thematically similar books: GSX1, IH181, even AF15 (big spikes and now off 50%+ from peak)… and even more extreme the “movie spec” so-called keys that blew up and then cratered 70%+. The latter are akin to “Pets.com” and MCU spec “quasi keys” akin to dogecoin or <pick your meme stock>. Very different - mostly because these higher-supply, highly-traded books were tied to something (movies, an ever-expansing universe of streaming media, etc) to make them “justifiably” attractive during a time when many found a way to rationalize unsustainable price increases.
  8. I may not be the right person to ask about IH181 but I think it is one of the most overvalued books out there. This is even after the recent decline of about 50% from peak.
  9. So much of this was predictable (and predicted) when you can step back and look at the market with a wider lens. Many collectibles / assets skyrocketed. It wasn’t a “comics” thing but a macro, cash flow, activity-substitute thing. That said, within the multiple “bubble” markets there were pockets that attracted hyper-speculative behavior. In comics it was all about Marvel and the MCU. The price unwinds we see today are in those same categories. The same folks that kept saying not to bet against “House of the Mouse” or that Marvel would keep putting out magic and somehow comic prices should follow each flash-in-pan character appearance. Similarly, on the back-end, anyone worried about the demise of the asset class is overreacting. Coins as a collectible class has been “outdated” for decades. Record prices are still reached. Fine art - just try buying originals (truly unique, though often not nearly as culturally impactful as comic issues) or even limited prints (often in five or six figures, again with generally less durable cultural impact). The key is to avoid over-extrapolating any short-term trend. Up or down. Short-term is relative but for most “long-term” investor/collectors is measured in years, not weeks or months.
  10. AF15 in most grades is down about 35-50% over the last twelve months (essentially vs peak). Of course that only resets it to about 2020 levels.