BraveDave

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.

I’ll take it!

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.

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.

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…

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.

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).

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.

Not really.

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.

If you (by some miracle) have a More Fun Comics 31 - price it nice and high so I don’t miss it ;-)

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.

Some of these are very impressive.

Watching this.

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.

For those hoarding IH181 as speculative “investments” they are now down about 30%+ from peak. If most of the hoarding is from a truly long-term view (and they hold for decades more as a group) then the market price may continue to outperform. If they (as a generalized group) interpret an MCU appearance as a catalyst to realize higher values, then I expect the price to plummet further. I think parallels can be drawn from crypto and other speculative “investments” - where the speculative portion of the market was paramount over the past few years. If you ignore the top two assets (down about 70% from peak) most assets are down more like 90-99%. The macro environment was merely a catalyst for a speculative unwind, not the basis for those price movements (eg interest rates increasing 300+ basis points don’t logically drive a 90% price decline). I seriously doubt those owning multiple IH181 copies are looking to hold as long-term (decade+) investments from these prices forward. When an MCU appearance fails to drive prices higher but does signal a removal of catalyst, prices will likely drop. I don’t expect the book to NOT be worth relatively good $, just more in line with equally important books relative to supply. Likely about 25-50% of today’s price.

Multi copy holders (if rampant) can distort the real supply / demand balance. I suspect for IH181 the speculative aspect of supply and demand is meaningful. I actually have long-term positive views of this market but a negative view on some slices (including Ih181) for this very reason. I agree with posters that are skeptical of a book like this retaining its value. Interesting that Ih181 and GSX are down about 35 and 50% from peak respectively (in most higher grades). This is worse than the less speculative segments like SA DC and far worse than GA books generally. I think we will see even more divergence over the next 12 months.

Directed at my post? If so, odd. I called this stuff junk. I never touch this garbage or any of the modern variant nonsense. Just pointing out the red herring re: grades being divvied out. That isn’t the “problem” here. Neither is any conflict of interest. The “problem” is people buy this spoon. If not directed at my post, carry on.

I hope this is obvious to everyone but they are constructing a grade curve. 1,000 books manufactured, all sent to grading, pre screen 9.8+, you can expect 300+ of 1,000 to hit that. Then of that subset it will include all the potential 9.9+ candidates. Allows defending a disproportionate set of 9.9 books. Anyone valuing these books should not value a 9.9 (or 9.8) here as exceptional. So there should be no increased value in this junk because the distribution of grades will be unnaturally high. A 9.8 is exceptional for GA books. For a modern, not so much. For this… it is just the “norm”… so who cares But focusing on how many 9.8, 9.9 etc makes no sense. It is expected and can be completely legitimate based on this approach.

I’m considering downsizing in part to support adding another AC 23 (we’ll see how that goes lol). But -wow- your downsized collection is a pretty great ending point!

Collector markets aren’t driven by fans in the long-run but by pure collectors. To collect something doesn’t require a specific reason, just interest and means. In car collector circles you have plenty of people who can barely drive, certainly not in a “sporting” way, and often barely know the history or tech of what they have. They DO know that other rich people collect cars and like how they look in their garage. They also learn about scarcity and, in turn, status. Same with Watches. Rolexes are imminently collectible. Mechanical watches have been “outdated” for decades. Huge swaths of the Rolex collector market are of a generation that did not grow up wearing dress watches or watches at all. Nothing to do with collectability. Fine art is the same. People start collecting it partly because they can and because it conveys status, bot because they were art majors or didn’t having TVs as children… Stamps suffer from a few issues including breadth, difficulty in cataloguing, and some crowding out. Coins too. But the highest end are holding up just fine. In fact, considering visibility, maturity of comic collecting vs these other categories, rarity (in the case of actual rare comics like AC1) and other considerations, rare comics have a far way to go (up) before looking expensive. As for common comics selling for tens of thousands, those are at greatest risk of market cycles. Just like the truly scarce stamps, coins, cars, watches etc have held up through their own cycles, the rare segment of comic collecting may decline but likely to ride a future wave higher. Also, the decline will be limited - can you imagine many AC1 holders selling their books at half today’s prices when so few are even willing to sell AT today’s prices? Common books with thousands or tens of thousands of copies will be the market that get hit hardest when (not if) a down cycle comes.

Believe what you will but I expect the test to come soon. With central banks’ hands forced to raise rates we will finally see an unwind of more speculative, high supply assets. Collectibles as a whole will likely take a hit BUT the more spec driven categories with tons of supply (ie Marvel books) will get slammed hardest along with modern variants. DC GA and SA books have real scarcity behind them (and of course other early GA titles). There will be a flight to quality/scarcity (quality of issue, not specific grade). Rarity will reign supreme - vs. speculative demand driven purchasing. The mass /pop media side looks likely to shift back to DC as the MCU will self-exhaust from saturation. Remember that 70s-90s pop media was led by DC, not Marvel. Things don’t remain the same forever. A little company called Apple was losing to Microsoft for 20+ years. Things change and relying on past performance for future returns is … silly.

Every collectible has been roaring and soaring. Not unique to comics. The irony is that a lot of inflows into collectibles is from “smart money” looking to diversify their holdings from very expensively priced equities and few bargains in “normal” investment areas. There are clear bubbles within these collectible markets. GA books is not one of them (even if prices would come down with any broader collectibles slowdown). The bubbles are in Marvel spec (anything tangentially MCU) and modern variants. Those issues with huge supply and lots of visible price gains where stimulus checks are indeed flowing into at the lower end. The low supply GA and SA issues will do well longer-term. DC books are likely to significantly outperform Marvel. The market overall is at risk but for that to unwind a bunch of other asset classes will need to fall too (less about comics specifically). Inflation, interest rates, and other macro drivers will tell the story. But long-term real scarcity dozens or hundreds of copies, not thousands) and staying-power wins, along with a general acceptance for treating classic comics more like fine art and fine art prints.

Tec225. Great seller to deal with and shipped fast and secure. Very happy.

Massively undervalued issue. Amazing looking 0.5!