Darkowl

There's been multiple real estate crashes in US history... http://www.businessinsider.com/the-economic-crash-repeated-every-generation-1800-2012-1?op=1 It's not like it was always a rock solid investment up until the last crash. If you were to compare real estate crashes to key issue crashes you would see that the differences are nearly polar opposite. It's only dangerous If you use the past as an absolute, and aren't prepared for the worse, which is something a lot of real estate investors weren't prepared for. A lot of those people weren't even prepared to buy real estate in the first place, let alone prepared for the worse. Using the past to predict future outcomes can be a great tool when utilized correctly, though it can be dangerous when the full spectrum isn't taken into account. I think people took the real estate market value for granted, and If they had taken a closer look at how real estate has played out in previous times, they may have been a bit more hesitant to invest their money into it. I think ignoring past behavior can be an even more dangerous move than trying to incorporate it to your advantage. Comics can be relatively inexpensive (especially compared to real estate). If someone was to invest $800 in Hulk 181, and the book crashed, then so what? You may have lost $800, but you certainly won't need to file bankruptcy (unlike the real estate crash). On the flip side, If someone was to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars into the same book, then yeah, it's risky, because If that book crashes, you now have to face a major loss. The solution here is to not put all your eggs in one basket. Regardless, there's always two sides to a coin. I'm not saying it's impossible for there to be an AF 15 crash, or a Hulk 181 crash, but I am saying that investing in comics doesn't have to be as risky or dangerous as some people here are making it out to be.

I think you may be onto something.

+1,000,000 Collecting comic books is just a hobby - it's no more than that IMO. Unless of course you're buying your "key" books for a penny on a dollar. Invest on Gold for sure! Talk to a financial advisor and see what he/she has to say. Gold dropped from $1900 an oz. to $1200 an oz. . I bought mine in 2008 - still in the "W" column. I'm not touching that until I retire. The OP should definitely consider buying now, while gold is lower historically. Let me ask you this. How many years do you think it will take for gold to reach back up to $1900 an oz. again? This chart alone is enough to scare me away from buying gold again. Talk about a bubble!

+1,000,000 Collecting comic books is just a hobby - it's no more than that IMO. Unless of course you're buying your "key" books for a penny on a dollar. Invest on Gold for sure! Talk to a financial advisor and see what he/she has to say. Gold dropped from $1900 an oz. to $1200 an oz.

I love this statement, and I think it's a point that the naysayers are completely missing. Key issues are investments, because people put a lot of money into these books, and in the long run, there can be return. Many comics have proven this to be true for decades. Sure, there might be better/safer investments than key issue comics, but that doesn't rule out the fact that books like AF 15 are much more of an investment than a hobby. You just need to be wise with which comics you choose to invest in.

I think this is a great point! Its amazing how many women collect comics and go to cons nowadays.

9.8 of any comic is a bad choice for "sizing the market' on a value. I tend to look at 9.2 as a baseline then I look at 5.0 and then 2.0 to get a real grasp of the market. + infinity. Its one of the worse examples ever for demonstrating the overall value growth of Hulk 181.

That sucks! You should have collected digital comics!

I think people tend to not give the digital generation enough credit. Those kids may be reading digital comics now, but as they get older, they will come to a realization that digital comics are incredibly limited, and offer no tangible value. When they become adults, land careers, and make good money, they will want to invest that money into something. If they're still gung-ho about comics (which I'm sure a lot of them will be), then they will invest their money in comics...paper comics.

Definitely buy the Hulk 181 over thr GSXM 1. There has been much more value growth when comparing the two. As much as I LOVE Nightrawler, I'd argue that Wolverine is right behind Spidey in terms of popularity. As far as investments go, Is there any real proof that key comic books are a bad long term investment? Have most major key comics of today taken a huge hit in the past like real estate? (If they did, please fill me in, because I'm not aware of such a crash). 30 years ago I'm sure many people were advising against investing in major keys because they were "bad long term investments", but for the people who thought otherwise are now kicking back comfortably with their AF 15's and high grade Hulk 181's. Unless there is an apocalyptic war that breaks out, I believe major key issues will continue to rise in value for the next 30+ years. I'm not a comic book guru by any means, but this is just the advice I can offer of having been a collector/speculator for the past 20 years. Good luck!

I promise to work on it tonight boss!

Me too! Especially since Nightcrawler wasn't in it.

+ infinity!

Confessions of a nerd... I actually had a dream last night that I saw the new X-Men film. The premise was that Apocalypse had pretty much taken over the world, and had enslaved every known mutant on a large and inescapable island, which was marshaled by...humans. Mutants were forced to live in underground sewer like tunnels, were constantly experimented on, and had very few privileges. They had taken advantage of the fact that Beast seems to evolve much more rapidly than most other mutants. They strapped him in some weird machine which made him evolve to the point where he could no longer evolve. The end result was an evil robot that was practically indestructible, and didn't even resemble what Beast used to look like. This robot/Beast was then used as the Apocalypse's ultimate horseman, and saw to it that every mutant worshiped Apocalypse. Most of this dream followed Cyclops around the island, trying to escape, in which I think he did. Then I woke up.

+ infinity!

Wish and ye shall receive…. Nightcrawler is back!!! Source: http://www.superherohype.com/news/330495-kodi-smit-mcphee-is-nightcrawler-in-x-men-apocalypse Awesome, awesome news!!! This just made my day!

Too cool. I love Michael Keaton...best Batman ever.

You should check it out. Despite the politics, I actually enjoyed Jim Carrey quite a bit, and some of the action scenes are pretty enjoyable.

Dang. Probably.

I thought this interview was hilarious.