COI

I understand the logic of high supply = unappealing to collect. It's why I avoided buying it for so long. But I'm starting to think that with enough demand, a high supply isn't necessarily a bad thing. The book is easy to buy and easy to sell, and that liquidity makes it not a very risky proposition, especially for collectors who are new to buying slabs. With so many copies trading hands all the time in every grade above VF, most people will not be overpaying by definition. And multiple copies in every grade are available for those who like to hoard.

What does the price have to do with whether it's a key or not? Maybe you prefer the Vision or the SA, and you can argue about the value proposition, but it's undoubtedly a key book. And if it's selling for the same price as an Avengers 57, that's not some sort of error, that's what people are willing to pay. As an aside, I've never understood the term "overvalued"; things go up and down. Is AF 15 "overvalued" because it's going down right now? Typically, "overvalued" is a euphemism for 'I don't like the book, therefore it should be cheaper'. As far as ASM 300 being a key, Venom is extremely popular with us kids who grew up reading comics in the late '80s to early '90s; a demo that is now hitting their 40s. It's arguably the best Marvel first appearance in 40 years. I would say something similar for Ultimate Fallout 4, despite the fact that I haven't bought a new comic in 20 years and I'm not the target audience for it.

Belief in the books long term makes collectors, belief that buyers and sellers will behave in some specific way during some specified period of time makes speculators. You don't have to believe in or care at all about the intrinsic value of something if the play is to pump and dump based on the anticipation of behavior.

How does this contradict anything I said? You picked one line from my post and took it out of context. I acknowledged that prices soar after movie announcements. My claim is that this is speculators speculating on other speculators, which is why prices on books have been plummeting after a movie comes out, regardless of whether or not the movie is good. Prices don't seem to be rising based on the movies creating fans; if that were true, prices would continue to rise afterwards. That may have happened after Iron Man in '08 and Avengers in '12, but it's 2022 and speculators are running wild trying to make quick cash.

Keeping up with inflation is a steady move upwards. Notice I didn't say anything about returns. I'm glad you see all this non-speculative demand for vintage books from movie goers. Your hobby must be special.

The major books in our hobby, SA Marvels in particular, have been moving upwards steadily for decades. I have no reason to believe they wouldn't have continued that trend if Iron Man '08 didn't happen. It may be the case that that the MCU accelerated the market, but I'm not sure if that's because the movie sent an influx of new customers into the market, or if it just stimulated the existing market. Probably both. I also think the effect movies had on the market a decade ago isn't the same as the effect it's having now. As I prefaced, conjecture on my part. What isn't conjecture is that the earth is indeed flat, and you're a fool if you think otherwise.

A character being prominent in media, and media in turn boosting a character's prominence in pop culture or the collective consciousness or whatever the argument is, doesn't tell me anything about what prices should be paid for their first appearances. I have no data on any of this, so it's all conjecture, but I don't really believe that these movies directly result in a meaningful increase in demand for books within the high end segment of this hobby. It may create fans of the character, and maybe some small percentage of those fans decide to collect, and maybe some small percentage of those collectors eventually end up in the high end side of things, but none of this has anything to do with the run-up in prices on key books whenever a trailer or any piece of news about a future project is released to the public. These movies are a multi-billion dollar business with millions and millions of fans; where are these buyers? Where is the evidence that the people going to shows looking for keys, even the younger ones, wouldn't have become collectors even if the movies didn't exist? You know, nerds, dorks, people predisposed to collecting this type of material, like most of us were 20-40 years ago? If these blockbuster billion dollar franchises are creating fans in droves, why are comic books still lagging way behind sports cards in terms of the number of collectors and census numbers? Why are we disparaging books like Hulk 181 or ASM 300 for having 5 figure census counts, when those counts are absolutely TINY compared to what we see in the sports card world? The reason books soar in the run-up and fall flat after the movie comes out is precisely because it's not about the movie, it's about speculators speculating on other speculators; it's about people trying to make a fast buck by anticipating other people's FOMO and generating hype for the stuff they're holding; it's about slamming CGC by pressing and submitting books fast enough to capitalize on some creative at Disney alluding to the possible appearance of some d-list dollar-bin character in an unnamed project without a release date.. If you really want to buy a bunch of collectibles that are relevant to young people today, you're probably far better off buying Funko Pops. Kids are actually collecting those now, sort of like how kids were actually collecting comics in the 1960s, and those kids will eventually grow up. It's highly unlikely that they will ditch what they know and what is actually accessible to them as a collector, to inherit the massive, high quality, multi-million dollar collections of newsprint the boomers will be leaving as they shuffle off to the next realm.

You're supposed to buy on the dip. Isn't that what all the cool kids say now? I guess that's hard to do if you maxed out your credit while in the throes of FOMO 2021. I don't know why you would put your Hulk 181 9.8 in an auction with two other Hulk 181s in 9.8 unless the creditors were calling.

You might be thinking of the Savannah books.

Since we're airing a bunch of drama and grievances, I have a real problem with people using nationality and race interchangeably. They have different meanings. Stop being so racist to the English language.

Agreed, which is why only buying books to flip based on trying to time the market according to movie spec or some other theory isn't sustainable. It seems like this speculation game based on movie/tv announcements has been a major part of this run-up on prices, and you have to wonder how many times people can be burned before they just take their ball and go home. The weird thing about movie spec is, it's not even about the movie, it's about anticipating other people's anticipation in the run-up. In most cases, even when the move is good, people stop caring once it's out.

My takeaway from watching the market over the last two years is, no matter what the market does, people will be upset. People got upset with the run-up in 2021, and people are upset now with the retraction. Chasing numbers and trying to time financial markets is actually a miserable thing to be engaged in. In the case of comics specifically, it's because there's only one top sale and every other book and transaction is either too early or too late. Collect first and invest second; try to think beyond the next 18 months; make the prices of books a consideration but not the reason you buy. Here's a hot take: if you always have to sell books to buy more books, you probably can't afford to collect the books you're buying. I made this mistake myself 20 year ago. It seems like this segment of the hobby is made up of 12 collectors and thousands of others constantly selling books to buy other books for dopamine, or FOMO, or whatever. Real sustainable. Can't wait to see what happens in the next 10-15 years, as the boomers liquidate their fantastic collections.

I don't even think it's lying. People just don't understand the meaning of the term. They can tell you a basic definition, but they don't understand its full implications. Bias also has an unnecessary negative connotation. We can't function without biases.

Bearish is the way to go, because on a long enough time scale you'll be proven right, even if it means waiting until the heat death of the universe.

I like to decide what the comic market or economy is doing first, then pick through thousands of data points to find the ones that fit the picture I'm trying to paint for myself. I then relish shaking my head at everyone whose opinions or buying behaviors don't fit my view. I particularly focus on taking the bearish view at all times, because any time I'm proven wrong, I can just keep kicking the can down the road, ensuring my predictive powers and sanity remain intact.

I would like to issue a formal apology to myself, etc, etc.

It's not a millennial thing, it's a human thing. We all do it, but we only ever notice the "other side" of whatever thing we're arguing do it. I don't agree with him, but let's be fair here. We're all biased one way or another, because that's how our brains work. How the bias manifests depends on a number of things, like temperament, maturity, self-awareness, etc. Confirmation bias is built into the system, and it takes a tremendous amount of effort to work against it.

blech

I never noticed what happened to your join date. I'm using my glittery class of '02 card to demand this get fixed.

The first 10 years were nothing like the last 10.

Mine is an exception to this. Not that it matters. I do think there should be some fanfare for those of us who hit the 20 year mark and are still around; like putting our name in gold or glitter or something. Not sure if we're masochists, total losers, or a testament to man's ability to endure and adapt, but we're definitely "special" and should be labeled as such, so that everyone knows it. Gold and glitter. That's all I ask.

If you don't know who the OGs are, no one cares what you think anyway.

Whenever I hear someone say "it's ya boi" I have a seizure, so I'm immune to influencers.

My favorite thing is scanning the first post of every sales thread to see if I have permission to proceed. This thread really makes me appreciate all the guys around here who have offered to receive/ship stuff on my behalf. I don't take them up on it, because I think the person taking my money should do the work, but it truly is appreciated.

Basically, this. My takeaway from 20 years of market discussions on these boards is 1) trying to time the market to make the perfect purchase or sale is silly and 2) FMV rarely feels like a good deal. Keys in particular always seems just a bit too expensive. If you're spending thousands of dollars on major keys, your individual goals and financial circumstances should weigh far more heavily than movie hype or what other people are doing. For vintage material, there's almost no value left to be extracted from the "undiscovered" or "undervalued" in a market where people are risking herniated discs by digging through boxes, in the off chance they find a first Squirrel Girl buried among random issues of Marvel Team-Up. The best time to buy a major key is when you can afford to keep it.