VintageComics

There's also a point that I feel needs to be made. While there are many books dropping, many books are rising as well. And sometimes the same book can be going up in some grades but down in others. I look at some books that I'm trying to figure out value on and I see the lower grades, say in 9.0 or 9.2, selling for nearly as much as, say, a 9.4 of that issue when there should be a stepped difference for each grade. Stuff like that. Are the 9.0/9.2 grades pushing up or is the 9.4 grade pulling down? Or you take a particular issue. There's the issue number affecting the value. There's the grade affecting value. There's the page quality affecting the value. There's the trend of which direction the issue has been moving in affecting the value. There's the surrounding issues affecting the value. Are there comparable issues in other titles affecting the value of the issue you're researching? Do you take all of those into account? There are MANY market dynamics and many sliding scales going on, or happening across the hobby. That's why I've always cautioned against using one data point to establish value. You need to try to do it in the context of the entire market around that book and books that don't trade often take more effort. This goes back to the discussion me and Buzzetta had when he asked how to value a "one off" book like the Superman #1 Mile High sale and I replied that it's like when you build a skyscraper: There is a lot of data you process to build a budget for a skyscraper and the more time and effort you put into building that budget (or establishing a value), the more accurate it will be. Especially in a dynamic market like the one we're in right now with a lot of fluctuation and everything being a moving target, value is far more complicated than looking up a GPA value for a specific issue in a specific grade at a specific time. The people who know how to budget a sky scraper or pinpoint a value on a comic spend their money differently than people who don't. Of course there's always risk, but one of the best ways to smooth out market volatility is to educate yourself better and make better decisions.

Just to be clear, I wasn't criticizing you. Just meant to add to your thoughts. Sure. Some books are dropping more than others. The books that went up fast and hard are coming down fast and hard. Books that stayed stable are still stable. X-men #1 rose sharper and faster than most books so it seemed due to over correct. But X-men run books for example are more stable because they didn't rise as quickly. They are selling well and prices are reasonable stable from what I've seen. My point was really geared towards the steep rise for X-men keys like #1, #94 and GSX #1 which went up hard and pulled back a bit. Pretty sure those key books will rebound in the same way AF #15 popped around 2017, pulled back a bit and then went off to new heights again. Don't take my word as Gospel though. This isn't investment advice. Just my opinion based on what I've seen over and over. I just don't see X-men #1 or GSX #1 going back down to 2019 levels again personally, although I could be wrong. I don't follow stats much but isn't it Marvel's most popular franchise? In fact, I see them pushing the franchise as it embodies Marvel's new "PC" outlook on everything.

You'd have to actually have friends to impress them.

I edited my above post to include a pic. I think that headache is from reading my posts.

I actually love the cover. I was being sarcastic about the modern comic. I have always loved covers that fade from dark to light and I also love the book because it's harder to find than the surrounding 1968 key issues. It's a thing of beauty. You can show this to non-comic people and it will impress them.

The reason X-men keys have dropped is because everyone was expecting a massive announcement at SD last year. When that didn't happen, the market backed off. Why? Because some people only bought to hold for the short to medium turn. Not everyone can hold indefinitely. But you KNOW it's coming. Disney didn't spend $90BIllion to put them on a shelf. When those announcements come everything Mutant will go nuclear again. And people with deep pockets know this and are buying the dips. So it ever was. So it shall be.

ps. I think Nick Fury #1 is just not as popular as the other titles because the 60's spy doesn't translate well to today's crowd and that's the main reason it sells for less. I think ***insert your Modern Age $5000 comic*** is way cooler.

Yeah, throw the race card bs out. No "race card" was thrown out. Discussing race respectfully is not racist. In fact, from what I understand, modern psychology teaches that DISCUSSING RACE is the best way to STOP RACISM. Avoiding discussions on race perpetuates racism. The reasoning goes that when discussion is avoided, people start to form their own opinions that are based on their own biases and lack of understanding of a subject but when you discuss it you educate them on the topic and remove those biases by helping them understand them and put them into perspective.

You're deliberately twisting my words and refusing to understand the point of my post. Whatever your agenda is, I'm not interested. It's not the first time he's done it. In fact, it's a common tactic they use. Anybody reasonable and objective can see what you meant. Anybody unreasonable and subjective can't.

These are some of my Clnk results. I erased one book which I wanted to keep private. But the rest of results are all in a ballpark where they should be with some going a bit cheap, some in the middle and a few even breaking records.. The FF #74 went nuts and set a record. I couldn't sell it at 2/3 the price in a fixed price format. The FF #58 went about 10% cheap, as did the Nick Fury #1 but they had OWW to pages so I expected that. The ASM #1 GRR went just a hair under the last GPA (it also had OWW pages) Had they been White pagers they would have gone nuts I'm sure. The IF #14 was White pager but a book was ready to discount thinking the market was dropping a few months ago. Had a boardie I was talking to about and he ended up not pulling the trigger. Glad he didn't. It went for a crazy price on Clink. Ditto to the FF #74, couldn't move this book for the life of me and it goes nuts at auction. The DD #7 went really cheap. Someone got a steal on that book as it looked like a NM copy. The X-men 9.8s went a bit cheap compared to GPA but all in the $3000 range where I expect mid 1960's X-men to be. So that's my snap shot in time.

Kinda like.....paying multiples for a 9.8 over a 9.6? Mods notified.

Lesser PQ is a sign of structural degradation Except for the books which vary in page quality upon resubmission. Which in my opinion is a significant enough percentage of books that it don't think it warrants a significant premium. I will say that I think they're more consistent with their page quality designations now than they were in the past, but they're still still not dead accurate. But I'm betting most people who crack their books out may not be able to tell the difference between OWW and White pages the majority of the time And let's face it, an OWW designation is not going to self destruct or even go Cream in any of our lifetimes as long as it's not stored in horrid conditions and frankly, probably not in several lifetimes, actually. It's more hype and a mindworm for the OCD crowd than anything else. The reason White Pages designations have become so increasingly sought after is because of "investment" and nothing more. They were always sought after by a smaller percentage of hobbyists but not at the level that they are now. It's become an obsession. Every market (not just comics) is now obsessed with ROI and minimizing risk and any aspect of the market that optimises these is over leveraged. IMO, this is all a product of social media, over awareness of markets and an obsession with minimizing risk with little wisdom and patience tempering the markets. Everything is on steroids right now.

Paying more for books with perceived greater beauty seems to align with "Buy the book not the slab label". At least to a degree. Inferior copies should only fetch non-premium prices. Of course in a bubble that may not apply but it still ain't wise. Paying more for greater quality is normal. I am talking about the volatile extremes of the market which are irrational and the above example, when people are paying MUCH MORE for white pages or MUCH LESS for an inferior copy was just one facet of the market. A small difference - say 10% in price for a difference in quality I understand. A large percentage difference in price like 50% I don't understand. That volatility was created. It didn't used to exist in the hobby, and I believe it's a product of people chasing things and exaggerating that effect through social media. Production quality are just two factors, though. The volatility can also include people selling off in a hurry, people rushing to buy in a hurry, movie book speculation or whatever other things may affect it. But the bottom line is that it's people over reacting to things and that over reaction really is the most destructive thing to every market and not just comics. The markets are nothing more than a reflection of human nature and personal choices.

Drinking too much the night before will give you a bigger hangover the next day than the person who was more moderate.

These are perfect examples of volatility I was talking about. White paged copies of ASM #129 CGC 9.8 with good centering should not fetch so much more than a poorly centered copy with inferior PQ, but it does. And the Hulk #1s were obviously not equal either. This sort of stuff happens because the markets illogically exaggerate the differences between the two books. Someone starts the trend that "white pages are better" and so the markets lean towards "white pages" and completely turn their backs on inferior copies. Whoever bought those cheaper copies got steals.

When I say "the problem" I meant the volatility created by hyper awareness through the digital world and the chasing, or even leveraging of information to beat or stay ahead of the market. Everyone feels pressured to get on the next trend before it starts or get out of the last trend before it ends and this is exaggerated badly in every market, not just comics. The volatility is the problem that cuts and burns a lot of people but as we've heard over and over, if you're in it for the long term, you're generally winning more than you lose.

If there's one thing you learn as you get older, it's to (n)ever say the word ever. Nobody thought a lot of things would happen and they happened. How many examples do you want? Rocket Racoon? We'll see. The real problem is that people see comics as investments and that has changed everything.

You're just looking at the market from 2020-2022. You need to pull back your telescope to see that bubbles happen regularly in EVERY economic system. They're normal and common. I started collecting in 1975 or so and left in the mid 90s for a bit but have been back in for over 20 years and just in those past 20 years there have been multiple bubbles. Do you want me to name them all? There is a big difference between "starting to return" and "have returned to". Let me know when we get there. Everything is always "starting to" go somewhere. Even Eternals #1 which was always a dishrag, cage liner book in my opinion is never going back to being a dollar book. Thanks for trying to read my mind. Let me know when you succeed. I was NOT a fan of the "bubble" we experienced but I didn't have much control over that. My heart wants nothing, actually. I'm content and I can also make money in any market, just as any smart person can. As for logic, some use it better than others.

When the world economy collapsed in 2008, there was the perception that many people lost their livelihoods all over the news. But not everyone did. Your perception is all curated by the powers that be. When the market was going up the perception was curated that everything was just fine and booming, even though people who saw through the perception knew we were headed for a crash - and there were a few on here who saw it coming (George, I'm looking at you) - we talked about it in 2005-06 on. Then, after the market crashed in 2007-08 the perception was curated that it was all doom and gloom with people jumping out of buildings and markets crashing. Some people made a lot of money during that collapse. That collapse MADE some people into who they are today. The people who were liquid bought stuff and lent money to the people who didn't have money and the rebound made them even wealthier. The general public (and the news, which is really nothing more than mechanism to brainwash the public now - it's not news at all, it's OLDS) will always focus on the bad news, and so when there's a lot of bad news it will just focus on what's dropping. But the people who learned to see through the news ended up benefitting. We've become a chicken little society that only focuses on the negatives and when the negativity starts to rise people scramble and run for the hills. Social media, the "news" and 24 hour coverage of everything has exaggerated this to an nth degree. These sorts of over reactions are exactly what causes the market volatility and overreaction in so many markets. If people were just a little more patient or a little more stable we wouldn't see these fluctuations. So the key is not to get too sucked into the news and learn to think past it. In everything. I'm not saying everything is rosy. There are some unforeseen or unprecedented times coming economically, but the tops and bottoms of any market generally are a reflection of people's panic and mania, and those are things that can be controlled by people. But you need to unplug from the groupthink or you'll never see it.

That’s where I disagree… a 9.6-9.8 SA key has a VERY limited pool of buyers I don’t see how that’ll affect prices on a 5.0 where there are 1000’s of potential buyers. There is a definite disconnect between the tippy top books and the stuff we mortals can afford. I’d be more inclined to believe the opposite, a high on a mid grade can more positively affect higher grades than the reverse. It's actually both. Highest graded sales pull up lower grade values for collectors who don't want to 'miss the boat' and lower grade numbers when strong do tend to push up higher grade values as high end collectors feel more confident paying strong to buy high grade copies. But rarely do I see lower grade values dropping and equalling a drop in high grade values. It's important to note that the volume of books coming to market has increased over last year, creating an increase in supply (and that's saying something considering the previous year of 2021 was a record year for both volume AND prices), so the increase in volume (people looking to cash in) is definitely going to create a price drop. That's normal economics. From my own experience, selling on a fixed price as been more difficult compared to 6 months ago where everything flew out the door, and it's even a bit slower than 2019 where things sold steady at a moderate pace. This is because people are generally over fixated on GPA and nobody wants to 'overpay' but in reality, when I look at books I've auctioned some books have dropped, there's no denying that, but some have levelled off or sold for within their reasonable range and some are still selling at a high water mark. I had a few record numbers at auction that I couldn't move on here or elsewhere at a fixed price for even a fraction of my ask price and they sold at auction well over my ask, which was a nice surprise. I've also spoken to quite a few higher volume dealers over the last couple of months and most seem to think the market is already rebounding in the general sense. It was soft last fall but that softness seems to have firmed up and they are less reluctant to discount again. And as I've stated already in this thread, any big books that seemed to sell really cheap at auction over the last few months are being bought by buyers who recognize there are market fluctuations and they are just going to buy on the dips and hold and resell on the bounce, which according to some is already happening.

They're behind on everything. I've had Walk Throughs, which used to be in and out in 2 days take up to a week just to get entered into the system and up to two weeks before they're shipped out.

That's all for now, folks!

X-men #100 CGC 9.8 White - Old X-men vs New X-men Asking $4200 (shipping included)