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On 7/30/2024 at 10:02 PM, WolverineX said:

Has FF5 started rising?

I sold a 2.0 for $4,000 in January, it dropped to around $3,700 before the announcement, and now some sales since are:

eBay

1.8 $3,700

2.0 $3,800

2.0 $4,155

Facebook sale I saw yesterday

1.8 $3,700

There's a 2.0 currently for sale on IG (elite_comics11) for $3,900.

So it is trending up in low grade but just right back to where it was in the beginning of the year. 

If we are going back to pre-2020 prices like every other book seems to be then I would expect another 30% downside from here. 

On 7/9/2024 at 1:06 AM, lou_fine said:

Yes, whatever happened to all of the boardies who said that they couldn't wait for prices to fall so that they could start buying books again.  

Or is it a case of prices still simply being too high and waiting for them to fall even further before coming in to hit the buy button?  

I can only guess that the people who make statements like that don't have a lot of money sunk into these books or are wealthy from other means. Does anyone REALLY want prices to fall if their collection that used to be worth $100,000 is now worth $250,000 just so they can buy another funny book they'll never look at for a bit cheaper?  Maybe I'm just not as big of a comic book fan as the next guy but I sure didn't. 

On 7/3/2024 at 11:52 AM, EastEnd1 said:

Agreed... you'd be a pretty miserable stock investor if you fretted over missing the highs...

I look at it a different way - you'd be a bad stock investor if you had stock worth $150K and didn't sell until it dropped to $85K like in that example lol. 

On 7/3/2024 at 1:14 PM, Funnybooks said:

how is anyone supposed to time the top and bottom of the market?

It's not really timing the top, to be fair. The top on this book was closer to $25-$28K in 2021/2022, dropped to $19/$20K in December 2023, and here we are now. 

On 7/2/2024 at 10:16 PM, lou_fine said:

Are you saying that you are completely flabbergasted and shocked that it sold for so much money?  

Especially considering that there's another 126 equivalent 8.5 graded copies of this book out there plus another whopping 500 plus copies in higher grade, and no doubt, with this census count increasing on an almost daily basis.  Plus the fact that this latest auction result of $12,600 is actually more than double what this book in equivalent 8.5 graded condition was going for back in 2019.    

I am sure that all of the longer term comic book collectors here are still into the green and coming up roses with where the prices are still coming up on this book even in today's marketplace with these 5-figure prices.  

To me the price I paid for a book is irrelevant if my proceeds from a book ends up being 2/3 of what it could have been. I think most people are the same way and start price anchoring what could have been. I owned my TMNT1 since around 2016 and I would not have been happy if it sold for 12K when I could've sold it for 18K a few months earlier. 

On 7/2/2024 at 2:37 AM, lou_fine said:

Well, I guess you got your answer in the form of a resounding "NO", with this most recent result in HA's Signature Auction the previous week:  

https://comics.ha.com/itm/modern-age-1980-present-/alternative-underground/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-1-mirage-studios-1984-cgc-nm-mt-98-off-white-to-white-pages/a/7374-91018.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515#

Looks like the downtrend is still continuing as more and more copies get graded in CGC 9.8 and comes to market, with this copy here only managing to hit $87K, with the one positive being that it's still up from the $50K price point where it was back in 2019 or thereabouts.  But definitely down from the quarter of a million mark which CC was able to fetch in a couple of sales back in 2021.  

Even crazier that after fees the seller will only get like 60K. Quite the haircut. 

Some more sales...

Insane. A 30% drop from what I sold my 8.5 for earlier this year.

Well I stand corrected. Another 8.5 just sold on Heritage for 12,600.

This book has really dropped 30% this year alone, blows my mind to be honest. 

On 6/26/2024 at 10:08 AM, DC# said:

https://www.comiclink.com/auctions/item.asp?back=%2FAUCTIONS%2FPREVIEW.ASP%3Fcode%3D2024june%26session%3D0%26pg%3D3%26x%3D40%26y%3D13%23Item_1753373&id=1753373&itemType=0

Less than 2 weeks later...

That ComicLink auction was a disaster for the seller. 

On 6/26/2024 at 10:08 AM, DC# said:

https://www.comiclink.com/auctions/item.asp?back=%2FAUCTIONS%2FPREVIEW.ASP%3Fcode%3D2024june%26session%3D0%26pg%3D3%26x%3D40%26y%3D13%23Item_1753373&id=1753373&itemType=0

Thank you. I was wondering if it had white pages and sure enough it does. Not seeing any reason this book should've went so low. It's easily a $18K book all day. I sold my 8.5 for around that much earlier this year and the book has been on a slight uptick I thought after seeing the 9.0 eBay sale. 

On 6/25/2024 at 11:13 PM, DC# said:

Here are Session 1A and 1B results from the June ComicLink Focused Auction.   As with last auction - also included a % change look between last, 90, and 12.    I will not be doing this recap for the July auction if anyone cares.  

 

TMNT1 8.5 for 12,850 is awful, anyone have a link to this book? I'd like to see it. A 9.0 just sold on eBay for 20K in the past week

On 6/11/2024 at 3:31 PM, the blob said:

Don't you not pay those self employment taxes if you are already making $168K from your real job and have already paid all your SS?

That's correct

On 6/11/2024 at 3:39 PM, the blob said:

I understand 3 minutes with an accountant would get me my answer, so your existing collection just becomes an asset of the business you've created, which you own? How does the accounting work for this "contribution"? Seems like putting $10K into business is a bit easier to objectively quantify for accounting purposes than a room full of funny books.

If you're setting up an LLC and you have existing assets you're contributing to it the accounting is an increase to the asset and an increase to your equity in the business in the amount of your cost basis of the asset. So if you paid $10k over the years for your collection the journal entry in Quickbooks or whatever would be a debit of $10K to inventory and a credit to your equity. It's the same as any other asset. 

On 6/10/2024 at 9:19 AM, Math Teacher said:

As I understand it, some of these expenses are not available to you unless you're a dealer. But then, I'm not a tax accountant.

That's not exactly true but the things you can deduct will depend on if you are recognizing the income as long term capital gains taxed as collectibles on Schedule D or as business income on a Schedule C. 

You would use Schedule C if you are a flipper/dealer/whatever (and you don't need an LLC or be set up as a business to do this). You'd use Schedule D if you've collected for years and now you're selling the collection, i.e. everything you have owned over 1 year. 

Grading and restoration should be deductible in either case because they add to the basis of the book in question.

Shipping is iffy on the Schedule D - I am not 100% sure on that one.

Storage you can deduct if you are using Schedule C - you'd deduct that year's storage cost but nothing from prior years. If you are using Schedule D that's gonna be a no. 

On 6/10/2024 at 1:52 AM, shadroch said:

Suppose the original owner estimates the book is worth $250 and gifts it to his son, who sells it for $200.  

What tax is owed, and by who?

The son's cost basis in the book is the same as the father's assuming the book was given while the father is alive. If the son inherited the book his cost basis is the FMV of the book on the day he died. Son owes tax when he sells it regardless of the situation.

On 6/10/2024 at 6:09 AM, jimbo_7071 said:

Did you just admit to tax evasion?

The best is when people do this in collecting groups on Facebook with their full legal names and locations available for anyone to see. 

Can't forget the MCU fatigue factor either. The interest/outlook on the MCU was much different in 2021 vs now. 

On 6/6/2024 at 3:52 PM, 1Cool said:

My answer would be not a chance.  Comics exploded partly because bros were stuck at home for a long time period and they saw buying and selling comics as a way to make quick cash while they sat at home with big government stimulus checks (and Gamestock / AMC winnings).  You also had a ton of non bro buyers who where also stuck at home and buying pretty much everything they could get their grubby little hands on and comics became a hot thing to speculate on (sports cards also saw a huge jump for the same reason).  Unless that perfect storm comes back (highly doubtful for various reasons) then I don't see a similar spike coming.  Minor blip is possible but nothing like those two years.

Agreed

The S&P 500 is up over 25% over the past year and QQQ over 30%. If there was any coming back thanks to the stock market it would've already happened. 

On 6/3/2024 at 10:49 AM, 1Cool said:

Are you buying back books now that book prices have gone back to where you were comfortable at?  I hope you are especially if you enjoyed them but I hear more and more that people have just moved on and don't intend to buy back most of the collection they sold during the spike in prices.

Pretty much moved on. There are a couple of books I want to buy (watching the restored Detective 29 at Heritage now) but every time the end of an auction nears I bring myself back to reality  Bad part of having expensive taste I guess. 

On 6/3/2024 at 10:11 AM, Hepcat said:

Yeah, well I'm on the side of the buyer/collector upon whom incidentally the whole comic market depends. If investors/speculators/flippers who bought in at nosebleed prices in 2019-23 are now taking a haircut, so what? Who's forcing them to sell the comic they valued so much as to pay those prices? And if they don't really cherish that comic, why did they buy it?

Speaking for myself - the runup in prices is exactly why I stopped buying books for my collection in 2019 and have done nothing but sell since. I could no longer justify owning these books that were worth multiple months of my salary. At that point how can you not place an emphasis on the value over the sentimental/nostalgia factor? I still have some books I will likely never sell but the overall values involved are much more comfortable for me now. 

On 6/3/2024 at 9:23 AM, 1Cool said:

All data is beneficial but the list from the recent ComicLink auction is pretty easy to read with all the red and a scattering of green.  ComicLink isn't the entire market but it's a very good representation of what books are selling currently via auction.  The list from the ComicLink auctions covers quite a large swath of the market from true keys to spec books to old hot books so you can't say it's biased or weighted toward one part of the market.  I looked again and the Avengers and FF4 sections are just a bloodbath  

Agreed, the change % vs 90 day GPA column is insane.

On 6/2/2024 at 6:41 PM, Telegan said:

Unless the index tracks your specific purchase of Hulk 181, I'm not sure that's how an index works.

Just questioning the methodology, i.e. what books were included, how is it being calculated, etc. If you have a bronze age index then Hulk 181 is basically your Apple, Microsoft, and Google all rolled into one, and if that book has basically done nothing over the past 5 years then how are we getting these percentages. 

I would also question if the list of books includes books that were winners in hindsight (MCU spec paid off) and maybe excludes things that people were actually buying in 2018 on MCU spec that maybe didn't pay off. 

On 6/2/2024 at 11:12 AM, Q.N.S. said:

Swagglehaus posts an update every month on the index as it is released. 

 

These charts are great news for people who haven't bought a single comic since 2020 I guess, or bought the right books. I bought a Hulk 181 9.2 more than 5 years ago and it is barely selling for what I paid for it, so I really question what books he is using in this "index". 

On 5/17/2024 at 11:22 AM, Q.N.S. said:

Just a reality check. Since 2018, the Dow has risen about 58%, and the S&P 78%. 

As of April's data, the Silver Age Index is still up 252% in the same time frame. The Bronze Age is up 110%, and the Copper Age is up 69%. 

The big difference is that stocks, metals, etc, these are at their 5-year highs, but comic books are way off their highs. 

Comics are around their supports, and still compare favorably, while the others are far extended.

 

Gonna need you to show your math on this one