spreads

Careful. The knives are out. Although I would love to know, I'm not asking what he paid, just curious if they negotiated a price, or if the guy already had a price, and FD said ok to it. I gave a number. He gave a number - he had an Overstreet in his lap - and we split the difference. Very fair. Not that you need any justification for your price, but I think paying a large lump sum would be added leverage. Sellers know there are not a lot of people that have serious money to drum up on short (or no) notice to buy a comic collection. And you're buying it all at once! At the end of the day, the sellers are usually pretty damn happy there's a buyer lined-up to give them cash. There's a helluva lot of other things to do with your money than buy comics.

Is the estate sale where you got your books? Every one I've seen with comics has them brutally over-valued, and usually drek. The only time there was anything good was when I went to one that had ASM 298-300 and the auctioneer didn't like how the other drek comics were not selling, so he pulled those books from the auction. I'm like wtf? Needless to say I won't be going back to that house....

Wow amazing books Donut!

Number 1 yellow is far, far more common than the other two. You won't have a problem finding another one.

Nope, not out of town. I'm not sure what you're referring to....here's a couple pics...I haven't gone through the disney boxes yet, not sure if I'll bother http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn65/ggsae/photo11_zpsf256f621.jpg http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn65/ggsae/photo21_zps142c03a6.jpg Apologies for the last photo, I've been drinking...

I just bought a collection of 1100 books from an online ad for about 450, the guy was really nice so I gave him a little bit more than what he was asking. It was the most bizarre collection of books I had ever seen, mostly bronze, but silver, copper and even a spattering of golden age. I will post some pics later, nothing huge in there, but some decent books for sure.

You're mistaken. This might surprise you, but not everyone posts solely out of self-interest. So, a straight up answer, do you have any of the books for sale you are suggesting people should be buying up? Nope. 1. I already said that I'm not "sitting" on these books. 2. Why would I sell them if they haven't even BEGUN to achieve what I think is their potential? Selling my ASM "Vol 2" #1-29? Why? They sell for nothing. Deadpool #13-60? Why? They sell for nothing. Barely cover price. But, I'll be more than happy to buy any that anyone is selling. Deadpool (1997) issues #13-60 sell for nothing? They may be cover price in California, but I can't find any issue selling for less than $7 around here. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dead-Pool-34-by-Marvel-Comics-/151424784748?pt=US_Comic_Books&hash=item23419ed96c http://www.ebay.com/itm/MARVEL-COMICS-DEADPOOL-issue-56-/261562427900?pt=US_Comic_Books&hash=item3ce655e9fc http://www.ebay.com/itm/Deadpool-19-Modern-Age-Marvel-Comic-Book-1998-VF-/181517596377?pt=US_Comic_Books&hash=item2a434ab6d9 http://www.ebay.com/itm/Deadpool-21-Modern-Age-Marvel-Comic-Book-1998-NM-/171448452317?pt=US_Comic_Books&hash=item27eb1fc4dd http://www.ebay.com/itm/Deadpool-47-Cruel-Summer-Part-2-of-3-Ananastasia-Appearance-/371135598370?hash=item566967cf22 Just random copies that sold for around cover price or less. Yes, shipping is involved for the buyer, but the seller isn't making that, and books can be, and are, combined. That means someone wanting to sell them on eBay, and expecting any sort of money for their time, would have to buy them for 50 cents each, or less. Meanwhile, back in 1991, a dealer could pay $5-$10-$15 for a New Mutants #88, and sell it for $25-$30...in 1991 dollars. In late 1992/early 1993, a dealer could pay $50-$75 for a Harbinger #1 and sell it for $125-$150, or $50 for a Rai #4 and sell it for $75-$80. And, putting things in perspective, $7 is pretty much "nothing", in this era of $4-$6 cover prices. The difference between $2-$3 and $7 isn't much, in the grand scheme, unless you're selling many multiple copies. So basically you can't find any Deadpool (1997) issues selling for less than $7 in Canada. You wrote a lot of words to essentially say, "I agree with Plantman's post, but $7 isn't much compared to current cover prices." I have no idea. I don't live in Canada, and haven't been in Canada since 1992. I've never looked for any comic in Canada, much less Deadpool. I "wrote a lot of words" so that my point would be clearly understood, with supporting data to back it up. That is the point of discussion, is it not? There's a tone of orneriness around here lately. I wonder why. I am not trying to fight with you. I was trying to describe the price situation in my area and implicitly asking you if you thought Deadpool (1997) issues selling for $7 minimum were undervalued. There's a local dealer at one of the shows I'm friends with that I purchased a number of these deadpool books for $3 (the key issues like GI cover, ect). I passed on the rest, and last time I checked (3 months later) the books were still available.

You don't know if it's disposable income or not. We're living in an age of the greatest period of financial leverage we've ever seen. All levels of debt, whether it be at the consumer, corporate or public level are at all-time highs. If we ever undergo a serious de-leveraging, it would be very ugly. There won't be anyone around to buy comics, not when tangible and non-tangible asset classes collapse in value.

I alluded to this above, but I think you're bang on...the absolute top characters like Spiderman and Batman for sure would be the place to speculate if you wanted to go after modern low-print run books. Last weekend at a buddy's bachelor, a friend of mine with four boys under the age of 7 was telling me how obsessed his twins are with Batman. Apparently they dress up like Batman/Robin every damn day, and he's not into comics so this fixation didn't come from their parents.

Casual buyers like my work colleagues who know very little about comics buy them for 'investment' purposes. This leads into my next point....there's a growing dichotomy between the value of key issues and non key issues (mostly first appearances) in a series. Look at the teen titans for example, there was a dealer here (Donut?) that sold 75 copies of NTT #2 at a show, but how many of these books in the other part of the series can be found in 50 cent bins? Yes the print runs are low, but I think this 'speculative-train-of-thought' will continue into the modern age...

Sorry for the upside down pics....got everything you see below for $20. I know most people couldn't care less about newwstand books, but if I can find the 95 cent variants for cheap I always grab em!

I see lots of those french canadian marvel books around here....I think I had hulk #3 (or whatever the equivalent of it was)...

Wow, Chip strikes again! We should rename this thread - Chip's garage/craigslist find, haha. Good score.

Not taking away from your analysis, but in the early 90s how many people that needed copies to read had to pay the premiums because TPBs and digital substitutes weren't around? Also, there's another point regarding the low print runs on comics....there's an ever-increasing supply of comics being put out, month-after-month.

Snagging collections "for cheap" depends entirely on where you are. Maybe in Canada, but here in SoCal, it's simply not possible. So true, up here I can throw a dead cat and hit high grade collections all day long. I was in California this summer and traveled up and down the coast and there was nothing but garbage to pick at. Mind you, my trip wasn't about finding comics, it was to relax so maybe there is stuff out there but the shops carried rags for back issues and everything was priced the highest I've ever seen. Interesting. We are fortunate here then with Copper and older collections. They pop up on a regular basis. For example, last night I picked up 700 or so book that included a NMish run of Sandman #1-75, a nice run of Swamp Thing #37 - 171, and New Teen Titans/Tales of #1-59 plus a bunch of other nice books (e.g. Transformers #1, 3, 4; Power Man & Iron Fist #56 up, Avengers #190 - 230, some Tecs, GLs, Spideys, etc.) You will never find that sort of material her in SoCal. And if you do, you're paying for it. The few times I've gone to look at collections have been massive wastes of time. People with no clue how much their stuff is worth, and think it's worth a fortune. I have tried to explain, but to no avail. These people get offended, and think you're trying to cheat them, when you won't pay $1/book for their 90's post-Unity Valiants, so the only thing to do is get back into the car and drive away. Too much competition, here. What about the battle of attrition? I've made deals with people that had started out sky-high on their collections, but re-posted online their collections with lowered prices over a period of several weeks. Eventually the light-bulb goes off that no one else is there to buy the stuff they really want out of the house.

Alberta is lower in age than the national average due to the employment market here. Basically, we are attracting a lot of younger working age people from other regions to the province. WRT the supply vs. demand, while there are plenty of collections to be found there are more people looking for books here. The past three years we have had kids as young as 13 buy $100+ high demand/key SA and BA books. There has been a noticeable shift in the average age of people at shows buying books as well - it is probably 10 years younger than what it was in 2007/08. That's true, but let's not kid ourselves. Canadians have very high levels of personal debt, and the statistics that measure personal debt excluding mortgages are my favorite. How many people have consolidated their staggering debt levels into the increased equity of home prices, because in Canada, there has not been a decline in home prices!

Snagging collections "for cheap" depends entirely on where you are. Maybe in Canada, but here in SoCal, it's simply not possible. So true, up here I can throw a dead cat and hit high grade collections all day long. I was in California this summer and traveled up and down the coast and there was nothing but garbage to pick at. Mind you, my trip wasn't about finding comics, it was to relax so maybe there is stuff out there but the shops carried rags for back issues and everything was priced the highest I've ever seen. so then why do these books sell for such a fat premium in canada (according to the convention reports here) if they can be found in bulk in every other igloo in the tundra? of course, the frozen lonely nature of igloo life would work well with voracious comic collecting, so, per capita, there may be more collectors up there. probably why there are a fair number up here in the northeast because we have a solid 4-5 months to hide in our homes too. i just don't see how a kid from florida or CA would ever get attracted to it with the lure of the outdoors and sun unless you are allergic to the sun. there are only so many days a year you have to hide in your hurricane (or earthquake) shelter reading comics. Higher disposable income + younger population = a great market for comics up here. We are also seeing a good upswing in young female collectors here as well which opens up another part of the market. I get the income part...frigging $3.60 gasoline...grumble grumble, but if the supply is so plentiful ought there be an impact on prices attained? As for younger population, canada is a little older per capita than the u.s. about 40 vs. 38 or so. what i suspect is that the younger working age people in canada might be getting a better deal in terms of wages and benefiting from the economy than the typical 30 year old here who is paying off student loans and paying for the enjoyable retirements of baby boomers and 15% tax rates of hedge fund managers. (no offense to boomer members on the board.) it was so awesome buying my house in 2006 for 12X what the boomers I bought it from paid for it in 1977 and they got to clear $500K in cap gains tax free in the process as well! Eh, that's partially true. Canada doesn't have quite the same disparity between high-low incomes, but the generational gap in wealth is still there. Anyways, I'm not a dealer, so I don't know how much easier it is to acquire collections, but I've found some good deals just from scouring the internet. And a lot of the deals have been had by scouring deals on collections that were, at first, outrageously overpriced. There's still and always will be a ton of out there...

I've heard of a similar story here of two dealers that are thinking of opening up a shop...the thing is, there's already a ton of LCS in the area. Granted they specialize in different areas, however, I still don't know how they all stay in business.

I think the demand for this book has peaked. I just sold my variant + 1 set on ebay for $185; considering I got them for $4, I'm happy with it. It may go higher, but again, considering these derive from books unlike most comics, I think the upside is limited.

In a year how many of these books will anyone care about?

You have it backwards, Demand is a derivative of Supply. Seriously? can you tell me please how many copies of nm98 are there. And who has them? Now do the same to any current hot title that goes tothemarketdownthestreetforsomeCRAZY from 4$ to 30$ overnight because of movie option hype. Its not like theres shortage in supply overnight, its just a trending stock. 95% of the books... Can you please answer my original question.. Giving examples from one specific title or another is not an indication to how a market behaves. The answer of course is, I dont know. And when someone doesnt know, he/she cant makes assumption of whats hot based on one selling outlet.. CASE IN POINT Bunker comicspro variant.. ONE OF MANY... Was sellign on eBay for 40-50$ under the premise of being limited to 2500 copies. One day someone decided to sell his whole stock on eBay and copies took a dip. Now they are all over eBay for $5-10 a pop Going by your own interpretation - Still a rare book mind you. Just not enough demand You actually proved my point. It was the supply dumped on the market that caused the price crash, demand was static. There was no shift in demand, a shift in demand would be indicated by the same number of items being sold, but with gradual increases or decreases in price.

You have it backwards, Demand is a derivative of Supply. Seriously? can you tell me please how many copies of nm98 are there. And who has them? Now do the same to any current hot title that goes tothemarketdownthestreetforsomeCRAZY from 4$ to 30$ overnight because of movie option hype. Its not like theres shortage in supply overnight, its just a trending stock. 95% of the books you see in the modern's are heating up thread is because of temporary short supply. Take a book like 'Number Crunchers', the book had very low supply, very low demand. When the book was 'hot' it was because a few buyers had hit the BINS only on the select few books that were listed, in other words there was so few copies around anything that resembled a sale - whether it was a higher than recent selling price, or no sale at all - created artificial demand. This motivates people to take advantage of the price and the sale brings out many more copies (3-4 times what's listed, which is still a very small amount relative to most books), and the book goes unsold back where it was. Look at how many books on the 'recalled comics' website have artificial demand because it's rare? Go one step even further, the comics that have yet to make it to that website because they are so rare (only 1-2 copies in existence), there is no demand for them at all. How can you want something you don't know exists?

You have it backwards, Demand is a derivative of Supply.

Annual #3. Deadpool's second appearance doesn't move the needle despite NM #98 being so hot (we point copies of X-Force #2 out to kids who drool over NM #98 when we do shows, and we can't even sell them at $5). I can't think of any Copper second appearances that have broken out; maybe there are some but I can't think of any. Why would second Nightwing be a big deal over any other second appearance? X-Force #2 had a print run at, or over, a million copies. So, there's a bit of a supply factor involved. But yes, the "second appearance" has taken a nosedive in popularity, across the board. Where second, third, fourth appearances used to command respectable money (like, say, Legion of Supes, or Batman, as a classic example, or J'onn J'onzz, or much of Showcase and B&B)...now, if it's not a first appearance, everyone turns their nose up at it. Which either may herald a buying opportunity, or the end of the value of later appearances. Supply is absolutely a factor, no doubt. But the people we show X-Force #2s to at shows aren't disinterested because they already own it, they just don't seem to care about his second appearance. And these are kids who are looking at our NM #98s like they are AF #15s, and they aren't motivated to pick up a NM second appearance of the same character for $5. That tells me that if its not the first appearance they couldn't care less. I think this is the case for a lot of people buying into these books. I work in an investment firm and there's a couple of people there that 'invest' in comics, and anytime they make a purchase it's always based on 'first appearances'. One guy in particular would not put much research even into the prices of his buys, usually going straight after the first nice looking copy he can see. It's an 'investment' to him....

That's insane. Interesting that it appears the NM copy is cropped smaller than the VG. I don't think it's a case of it being wrapped differently because it looks like the same amount of art is showing on the left. The VG copy only has one day left whereas the NM copy has almost 4 days left. That probably has something to do with the lack of bids so far on the NM copy. I'm not saying this is necessarily the case, but when really hot books suddenly cool off, this is what typically happens. I think you would be better off lowering the BIN with a BO; I've never been a fan of the starting bin/BIN...