Mercury Man

I went to a rock concert, and a comic con broke out....

I love this term, and with your permission, will be using it to describe my personal comic collecting more often. Perhaps a business card.

If you take $15K in real estate equity, $15K in Gold/Silver, $15K in Mutual Funds, & a CGC comic you paid $15K for, presented them to a loan officer at a bank, told them they can only pick 3 for collateral on a loan, which 3 out of 4 do you think they would accept?

He is dating Ms. Metamucil

They should just do away with the whole MM category. I mean look at the CD breakdown. Seriously going to hem and haw on what is on the CD to qualify? Just bump it all to First Class and we can move on with our lives.

Yeaaaaah buddy!!

Pretty sure my LCS only had about 10 on the shelf. I don't think he was hiding the other 10. I'll ask him next week what the dealer allocation was.

20!!!!

Welcome back! Definitely a 'loaded' question. There has been a lot going on in the last 38 years, some good, some bad, and some definitely average. You will be getting a lot of opinions, and I am interested to see what they bring. For the highlights, I will keep it short: 1) Frank Millers Daredevil run in the early 1980's was good 2) Captain America Volume 5, Ed Brubakers run, with the introduction of the 'Winter Soldier' was excellent 3) Batman 'New 52' run by Snyder/Capullo was also excellent.

Right now in my part of Florida, houses are lasting less than a week and getting asking price. One just listed around the block from me on Saturday....Contract Pending Monday.

Not to mention, say you live there 15-20-30 years, yes you will need to do things like a roof, upgrades, fence etc. Costs associated with living in it. EVEN after all of that, if you just broke even over those years when you sold it, it still beats paying rent which goes into a black hole.

If I go to a bank and ask for a loan, they are going to ask about my assets. I will tell them (and this is all just an example, not what I own) A) $150,000 equity in real estate B) $20,000 in checking and savings C) $5,000 in Mutual funds D) a paid off 2012 SUV E) $8,000 in comic books Which one of the above do you think will not factor into their decision about getting me a loan?

Kind of like variant covers....hmmmmm....

I think a few books like Action #1 or Tec #27 are an animal unto themselves, and only a very small percentage of people can be on the playing field for owning a comic like that. Perhaps the word 'investment' for those may have a place, since these books seem to be a cornerstone for superhero pop culture, and many copies were destroyed in WWII paper drives. But 1950's and beyond....meh....'investment' is an irresponsible word.

Or any percent for that matter. Pretty sure if you try to get a loan and they ask what your assets are, you holding an IH #181 in 9.8 will not get you approved, but if you sold that and had that cash in your Savings Account, that's different.

Yeah, it's ironic that we are in a hobby with the word 'book' in it, but many don't actually read the insides.

The only bubbles bursting are the variant freaks. I actually still READ everything I buy. I try to start topics on what people thought about the recent storyline in 'X' and it's mostly 1 or 2 responses then crickets. I buy the usual cover, read the story once or twice, then file away in my run. The variant freaks will drop out when the bubble does burst, and I will still own what I love, a comic I purchased at cover price, that is still probably worth less than what I paid for it. Nobody buys a book at Barnes & Noble thinking it will go up in value. That is how I treat Modern Newly Released comics.

1969 Silver Surfer 4 2,453 Has it ever been proven this was somehow a lower print or harder to find (or part of a semi-trailer that was stolen and never found again as I heard somewhere)? Seems like plenty survived at that number.

https://tampabaycomiccon.com/

It's like someone said (maybe another Topic), we are basically selling covers now, the stuff in the middle is insignificant for many. Encapsulate it without ever even reading it. Just buy/make a print and stick it in a picture frame. It will be cheaper and easier.

And that is a good thing, and you are definitely in the minority. The day after these things are released and start flooding ebay with big mark ups, that is the real problem, and it is that opportunistic buyer/seller relationship that is not good for the hobby. I was at a Con 2 years ago, and some vendor was trying to show me an Iron Man RiRi variant. I had ZERO interest. When I saw the price I kind of chuckled. He was in dismay, and said "Why aren't you interested in this book?!", I told him about my general disdain for variants, lack of care for the character, and the hype will pass. I checked on ebay for fun a few months after that (kind of a study), and found the same comic in the same CGC grade being offered for 75% less than his asking price. There are boxes of past variants at my LCS in which he is trying to get anywhere from $5 to cover price for those now. This all reeks of the shenanigans that went on in the 1990's.

Trying to talk the variant crowd off the ledge:

That is an actual hard back book. I don't think CGC will be able to encapsulate it You appear to have a partial item of a larger box set. Here are more details from My Comics Shop- https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=22083755

Simple math for him really. For every 100 items that comes across his signature table, he was probably seeing: 98 NM #98. 1 X-Force #1 and 1 Deadpool Funko Pop to sign.

Getting old sucks! Reading ASM #800, did anybody else have a hard time with the Red Goblin- red word bubbles? Many pages of my copy were getting washed out, and could barely make out the dialogue in white text. I've got a new prescription, but dang! Rant over....