Hamlet

take

I think there are a huge number of collectors that rarely sell books.

I just bought another copy of Rom 26 out of a dollar box because Galactus is cool. I don’t think I’ve ever even actually read the book, but I see a nice copy of it in the dollar box and it comes home with me.

I haven’t been finding nearly as much quality drek in the cheap boxes as I was a few years ago. The price point of everything has been higher in the last couple of years.

I ended up with a bunch of copies of Thor 338, because MCS was selling it for like $3.65 for a 7.5 ( which from MCS are generally pretty nice copies). It was probably a $10-15 dollar book on Ebay at the time, so every time I had an order I would add all of the Thor 338s they had. They have it priced correctly now. Of course, a $15 book is actually work to sell. It doesn't make sense to consign to MCS, and I'm too lazy to sell it on Ebay. So I've just got my stack of Thor 338s now.

5 years ago it was a $100 book. Is there any reason that book should be more than say $150 now? The prices for stuff like this was an incredible bubble over the last couple of years. Are there really a lot more people wanting a CGC 9.8 copy of this for their actual collection than there were 5 years ago?

I think that that is a reasonable base case. I do wonder if there is actually a sustainable increase in collector demand though. I sometimes wonder if looking back 10-20 years from now, Avengers Endgame will mark the peak in comic book interest, and that we might see a sustained downtrend in collecting interest going forward. Viewed as a group, all of the movies leading into Endgame, culminating in Endgame itself is something unprecedented in movies, and we probably will never see anything like it again. I can’t help but wonder if people will lose interest in a stagnant market.

Nothing in the comic world is undervalued anymore, IMO. I will say that Epic 1 is a pretty cool magazine for the price.

I’m going to start sneaking my drek into other collector’s homes and hiding them while I am there.

It all boils down to price, personal preference, and how important the speculative side of collecting is to you. Are you buying a book that you are intending to resell? Then unless you are getting a very good upfront price, you may have difficulty selling the book later, as the buying pool for restored books is smaller, and people tend to see the upside of them as more limited. On the other hand, if you are buying a rarer book for your collection that wouldn’t make sense for you financially at unrestored prices, then I think restored books can make a lot of sense, depending on what you prefer as a collector. If you personally don’t mind color touch ( any other particular kind of restoration), and you aren’t planning on selling a book, it makes a lot of sense to consider the savings from a restored book. Just make sure that you are comfortable with the book and the price.

I wonder sometimes how many people will get severely financially damaged if prices have a large drop and don’t recover for a long time ( if ever). How prepared are larger dealers with deep inventories for an event like that? Have major dealers reduced their exposure to a downturn by thinning down their inventory? I wonder how many people overextended themselves at last years prices and what they will do in an extended downturn? I have so many books that I bought for X that now sell for 10+ times X that I wonder what happens to the people who bought at 10X if the price drops back down to 2X? For me, it is just money I didn’t gain by selling. I would never have considered buying at the higher prices because my comfort with my finances wouldn’t permit it. I just wonder if the people buying at 10X just make enough money that they are comfortable with it, or if a lot of them might be in some financial trouble if things go badly?

I pretty much stopped looking at stuff a couple of years ago because the prices got so silly. I haven’t bought much outside of dollar books for a long time. I’ve started following some of the MCS auctions recently. Still a little high for my tastes, but at least a few things are starting to peak my interest.

Are you telling me it’s time for me to start buying cheap drek again? 😀

Yup. I’m a comic book guy, and I’m tired of comic book movies. I don’t think this is sustainable. Part of the problem is that nothing is ever going to match the buildup and payoff of all of the movies all leading into Endgame. When looked at as a whole, those movies starting with Iron Man and ending with Endgame are one of the greatest achievements in cinematic history. Nothing is ever going to match that again in the superhero genre. I still watch some of the newer stuff, but none of it is must see, and for the most part it is all stuff I’ve seen before. How many of these movies can be entertaining once you’ve seen 20+ movies just like it?

I’m betting that beats the results of most Ebay sellers.

They occasionally get deadbeat buyers. I had one book that never got paid for and MCS eventually released it back to me so I could re-list or re-auction it.

They aren’t exactly easy even in lower grade. Collecting Marvels is mostly about being willing to spend the money. Collecting Raboys is mainly about being able to find the books at all.

When values increase as much as they have, the line between hobby money and investment money gets blurred. I put hobby money into my comics, but now the value of my collection is enough that if I was treating it rationally I would be selling it. Inertia is powerful, though, so I don’t end up selling much.

This is happening because the price increases from the last few years are not sustainable. Is there a reason that these books should cost 10 times what they did 10 years ago? Stuff that goes up extremely fast for no real sustainable reason tends to have ugly downturns as well.

I was surprised by how much I liked David Thewlis as John Dee, since I don't remember liking those sections of the comics very much. He did a really nice job of engaging my interest. I'm fine with all of the casting, but he is the only actor in the show that I thought was actually better than the original source material.

That pretty much sums it up. Thanks!

It looks like MyComicShop has added an Ebay tab to each comic’s listings that shows the copies of that book that are currently listed out on Ebay. I haven’t been looking at much recently so I have no idea how long it has been there. I just noticed it. That’s an interesting feature to have included- I would think most sellers would be reluctant to link to a venue that is probably one of their biggest competitors. I wonder if they’ve got any agreement with Ebay about the sales that get generated by the traffic they send to them?

I recommend you buy 12000 more comics.

Honestly, this seems like the main reason to set up at a show these days. For the more expensive books, why bother selling at a show at all? Just ship them off to MCS and sell them without the hassle of getting off of the couch. I rarely buy expensive books at a show these days. The prices aren’t generally great on wall books, since they are hard for the sellers to replace. I buy the under $10 books that don’t make sense to buy with shipping factored in. To me, shows are about leaving with stacks of inexpensive books. The keys can all be easily bought and sold online, so why bother setting up at a show to sell them?