Darkowl

Not at all. I fully welcomed and embraced the effect movies had on the comic book market. But that was at least easily identifiable. The waters are far too murky now.

I’ll always prefer to see slow, gradual inflation as opposed to these feeding frenzies we’re witnessing lately. You bring up Hulk 1, and while I never had a problem with individual books exploding in value here and there, I do sense that something is very different about the current market as a whole, for better or for worse. And I’d honestly prefer this market to be saturated with people who actually care about these books, as opposed to sheer speculators, as It only adds to instability, unpredictability, and false demand. What kind of activity occurs right before every crash? Activity we’re seeing right now: record high prices occurring in record speeds, as well as the mindset that prices are too high to fail, and people would never allow such a thing to occur, not in their lifetime. It’s the same story every time. And while it may seem like I’m saying we should be anticipating a crash, I’m really not (I honestly have no clue where we’re going from here). But it is what’s preventing me from putting too much faith in the current market.

Seems to be the case.

Isn’t everything?

I think it’s weird that people like yourself aren’t even phased by something as abnormal as the recent growth we’ve experienced. I also think it’s weird to behave as if everyone should have somehow been expecting such growth to occur in such a short amount of time. That’s really weird, especially since the market pretty much lacks any kind of significant history that resembles what we’re witnessing today. At least not to this extent. Not to my knowledge, anyways. And as I’ve already explained to others on here, it’s not fear that drives my thought process regarding the current market. It’s caution.

That's fine if that's your personal approach, but I'm not sure how useful it is to use the nature of shares to counteract concern about the recent comic book market spike, especially when you consider the differences between the two.

That's the thing, IF the current trend continues to increase. It very well could. It very well couldn't. But the problem is that we really don't know how much of this growth has occurred due to covid and lockdowns. If it's a significant percentage, then I can only imagine what kind of correction we're going to see once the world returns to normality, and people start putting their money back into the things they once did. Their withdrawal from the current market could have some sort of an impact. And will that act as some sort of domino effect, causing others who never really cared about the hobby to begin with to panic and fold? How long are the speculators going to play this game? It'll be interesting to see how things play out in the next year or two.

These aren't shares. They're comic books, and their financial genealogy is also very different than the stock market, yet people continue to treat this as if they're one in the same. Truly bizarre. But my main point is that multiple comic books have doubled, tripled in value within a few short months. Anyone collecting long enough knows that this is NOT normal behavior, at least not to this degree, and I think it deserves to be questioned.

That was a rhetorical question.

Weren't you going to "yield the floor"?

This is what I'm talking about...

It may have started last year, but It appears certain books have doubled (possibly even tripled), within the last few months. I sold a copy of H181 7.5 for about $3,500 back in November, which was about GPA, and now it sells for nearly 8K. That's quite the leap in such a short amount of time. Certainly not normal. And what I was trying to say about H181, is that I used to believe that some books were basically bullet proof, and I'm just not so sure anymore due to this recent incline.

It wasn't too long ago that I thought pretty much the same thing. I thought, no, I BELIEVED books like H181 could never take a significant hit. I flipped that book (among many others) for years, even when people told me not to. Then I saw what happened to the market within only a few short months, and my conviction soon became concern. So, riddle me this: what exactly happened within the last 4 months to cause such a spike? Covid has been going on for a year. Worldwide demand for superhero comics has been going on for a lot longer. The younger generation has also been collecting for at least the last 5 years. Rich, bored investors have always existed. So why now? Why within such a short amount of time? What's the biggest contributing factor to such unprecedented inflation at this grand of scale? And, do you really think this kind of hyper growth is healthy/sustainable? Genuine question, btw.

Haha! The best? Man, I don't know. In some ways, yes. Absolutely, but this is without a doubt the HARDEST gig I've ever had, and people will never understand that until they've done it themselves. My friends think it's a giant party and I get to play Xbox all day. Dude, I wish! But it's laundry, dishes, grocery shopping, taking the kids to school, picking them up from school, scheduling Dr. appointments, clothing them, feeding them, etc., etc., all while the kids are demanding things from you: "Daddy, I want a snack! Daddy, she pulled my hair! Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!". I kid you not, I've started to hear "Daddy" being called in my head. Kinda like how you get an annoying song stuck in your head, ya know? I thought I was going to be able to make my own schedule. Wrong! The kids make your schedule. You become their servant and personal chauffeur (school, dance, etc.). Now that I think about it, it wasn't too bad when It was just the one. But throw another kid into the equation and all hell breaks loose! I've had a lot of difficult jobs, but this one really tests my mental and emotional stamina like no other. I'm always drained now. Always. As much as I love my kids, I can't wait to get back to my normal job, lol!

Well, I personally didn't file bankruptcy, but I knew countless people who did, because they either lost their jobs or their business went belly-up. They no longer had sufficient income to support their investments. I also knew other people who relied on flipping houses for their income prior to the crash, but that's kinda hard to do when the profits you were banking on aren't worth nearly as much as they once were. I was attending college during the crash, and I can't tell you the amount of people in their 50's and 60's who went back to school to pursue something in healthcare. That's all people wanted at that point: stability, and enough money to get them through. They were done "investing".

It is tedious! And I've come to that point in my life where making money doesn't mean nearly as much as it used to. I've spent the last two decades flipping comics, and music gear, and now I'm burned out. The journey was a lot of fun, but being a stay-at-home dad of two girls for the last 4 years has completely destroyed my energy, lol!

"A remarkable value"

The peer pressure is definitely real. My girlfriend (at the time) invited me to go to some investing meeting that some of her friends were putting on, and after the presentation was over, they asked me if I wanted in. I told them that I couldn't afford to invest at the time, and their response was, "You can't afford not to invest in this!". Peer pressure at its finest!

I agree. It might be best for you to yield the floor, especially since you seem to be completely incapable of distinguishing the comic book market from stocks and real estate, and also since you clearly can't handle people disagreeing with your POV (darn those flat-earthers!!!).

The problem is that you're using a formula that's been used for stocks and real estate, and attempting to apply it to the current comic book market, which has gone completely off the radar. It's as unpredictable as it gets. Not to mention that comic books and stocks share a very, very different history and pattern. So, it's not the facts that some people (including myself) are taking issue with, it's how you're using those facts in attempt to shape and mold your "one size fits all" assessment, which I really don't agree with. But hey, feel free to lump me in the same category as anti-vaxxers, flat-earthers, and all the rest. Surely, that's the place for anyone who disagrees with you.

Right before the crash I was living in St. George, UT. A small town that was experiencing tremendous growth. There was a massive influx of people moving there from all over, but mainly from Califoirnia. To accommodate this new growth, construction companies worked around the clock to build, build, build. Just constant building. Not to mention all of the other construction workers who decided to venture out and start their own business. And with that came electricians, plumbers, etc. Lots of work for everyone to go around. Houses were being built and sold within record time to accommodate this new feeding frenzy. Housing was where the money was, and NO ONE knew that this was the calm before the storm. But by the time reality hit everyone in the face, it was far too late. Businesses went under. Jobs were lost. People could no longer afford their mortgage, so they had to move in with family and friends in order to stay afloat. It was hard times for many. I'd like to think that if mostly everyone in that town saw the crash coming, they wouldn't have purchased real estate when they did. I mean, who in the right mind would? But people didn't see the crash coming. They boarded the Titanic with optimism, and the dream that they too would be able see some profitable returns on their new investment. The Titanic sank, and so did the 2008 housing market.

Correct. Most things in real estate have bounced back (for now). And If you were fortunate enough to have been able to ride out the 2008 wave, then you’d definitely be seeing your returns now. This is where the “play the long, boring game” notion comes from. But my point is that not everyone is fortunate to ride it out. I personally would have had to file bankruptcy had I invested right before the crash, and it just wouldn’t have been worth it. Not to mention the amount of time I would have had to wait in order to break even on my investment. I just feel like that’s time and money that could be utilized in much better ways, and why I don’t always agree that investing at the worst times is better than not investing at all. It’s an impractical blanket statement for many, imo.

Like I said, the math isn’t necessarily wrong, but the math does only work when applied to certain investments, and situations. It’s a general formula that ignores several variables. It fails to take into consideration the number of people who can’t afford to wait for their investments to make a come back.The 2008 housing crash is a prime example of that. If people had held onto their money, instead of dumping it into a market that was about to take a nose dive, so many of them wouldn’t have had to claim bankruptcy, go on unemployment, or go into even further debt just so they could attend college for the second time in their life. Not to mention the severe stress and depression people underwent due to their financial struggles. Was it worth the risk? I’m sure many of them will tell you that it wasn’t, because the reality is that not everyone has the time or the means to ride out those kinds of waves. Some waves are just too big to ride out. And what about businesses who have gone under due to illegal corporate activities? I actually used to work for an investment company who robbed millions from their customers (unbeknownst to me at the time). Do you really think those poor people got their money back after the Feds shut them down? Or what about certain comic books that have tanked, never to have seen a return even remotely close to their peak? I love using Peter Panzerfaust as an example, because it shows that exactly what happens when something is driven up by sheer speculation. That book shot up in value FAST! It used to sell for over 1K, because people had their fingers crossed that it was going to be the next WD1. But guess what? It’s a $100 book now. Are you really going to suggest that people should have just held onto their copies because playing the long, boring game is the key? That kind of math just doesn’t hold up in every situation, and using it as a “one size fits all” approach will clearly result in some ramifications.

I think the biggest problem with your logic is that you aren’t taking into consideration the amount of time that it might take for something to recover...if you’re lucky enough for it to recover. But what if you invested in a company that ended up going out of business, or a product that completely failed? If there’s no comeback, there’s no returns. Your money is gone. POOF! You’ll be waiting forever to see those kinds of returns. But what about investments that have returned from the grave? Everyone knows that real estate goes up and down, and there’s a proven track record for it. Ironically, no one saw the 2008 crash coming, but by your logic, people would be just fine today if they had held onto their property, because we’re now at a high (was it worth the wait?) Unfortunately, the reality of it is that people couldn’t afford to hang onto their property. A lot of people had to file bankruptcy. A lot of people had to go on unemployment. And a lot of people had to sell their belongings to put food on the table. Thousands of people who had construction businesses went belly up, and a lot of those people who were in their 50’s/60’s went back to school to pursue something in the healthcare field in hopes of getting a much safer career. Try telling them that they were better off to invest right before the crash than to never have invested at all. Or what about gold? I invested in gold back in 2011. I believe it was $1500 an ounce back then. It did go up, and then it came back down. And look where it has been sitting all this time. It hasn’t moved much, and It’s at $1700 an ounce now. All I can say is that even though I sold it and lost a couple of hundred dollars, I’m glad that I did sell it, because I was able to use the money for something more meaningful, instead of waiting around until i hopefully broke even. The harsh reality of it is that those “mathematical facts” aren’t as cut and dry as you’re trying to make it. There’s a lot of variables you’ve left out. That’s the reality. It’s not that your math is necessarily wrong. It’s that it only applies to certain situations/investments. However, not all investments are created equal, and even the ones that look as solid as a rock have proven to fall so hard that it takes years for them to recover...if they recover. You have to be willing to risk that it may never recover, or be willing to wait long enough for it to recover. And no, I’m not bitter. I’ve made thousands and thousands of dollars investing in comics. Don’t believe me? Take a look at my kudos thread on here and you’ll see the amount of transactions I’ve done...and that’s just on these boards! (Not to mention that I was one of the lucky ones who originally bought the WD1 for $3 when it first hit the stands, and ended up selling it for 3K shortly after it came back from CGC at 9.8) I know you’d like to think that it’s bitterness simply because I disagree with you. But it’s not bitterness. It’s cautiousness. It’s reluctance. It’s knowing that it may be a bad idea to buy not only during a seller’s market, but buying during a time when prices are so remarkably unpredictable that it’s difficult to determine the real worth of something. Prices are rapidly trending up with no real meaning. It looks incredibly unhealthy from where I’m standing. Bitterness? No. Not at all. Reluctance is more like it. Like I said, my crystal ball is missing. For all I know H181 will go up, and up, and up for all eternity. But I think I’d rather listen to my instincts on this one.

If there’s any book I’d buy right now, it would be that one, because it took forever for it’s value to finally catch up. It was under-appreciated for soooo long! ...but it might be overpriced now, lol!