top 10 best comic investments under $200?

[BachelorOfComix]

Hell, it's also the MS5 of Goose Rider!

Whoa! Didn't realize that. What a goldmine! Another reason to invest heavily in Peter Porker..........

[Bronty]

Yup, this book has a lot of things going for it

 

Seriously, I think one could do worse than spending $2 on this book. If nothing else you'll get a good laugh...

[THE_BEYONDER]

How about this book? It cost me $2.95.......

[sckao]

Or this classic from 1984.... Cost: $1 dollar when comics were 60 cents each.

 

 

[joe_collector]

I've said it before, I'll say it again... the Donut model for selling books is the smartest one I've seen.

 

It's the only one there is. If you run around buying high-grade CGC books for nose-bleed prices for any other reason than pure collecting, prepare to get busted. Donut's model is the only sane way to make money selling books, and yes it does incur labor time, but if you actually like buying and selling funny books, put it off to "hobby time".

 

You also need what I term an "internal valuator" which tells you which comics are good deals at current prices, and which comics are at their best sell-point. And not based on outdated Guide prices, but on actual demand from current auction results.

[valiantman]

...actual demand from current auction results.

That's so crazy... it just might work!

[peterporker-migration]

[dam60]

Good investments are buying books for 50 cents each and selling them for $5 each. It takes much more work, but that's where you're going to make you're higher return on investment. Look for a bronze age collection that you can buy for $200 in bulk and sell for $500.

 

The only thing about a statement like this is when does the "work" aspect become like a second job? Then it becomes a bit less of an investment . . .

 

I think "investment" in the original post can be deciphered as "what books can I buy now put away for x amount of time and then resell at a higher price than what I had originally paid including any and all associated reselling fees (ie packaging, ebay, etc)."

 

DAM

[joe_collector]

I think "investment" in the original post can be deciphered as "what books can I buy now put away for x amount of time and then resell at a higher price than what I had originally paid including any and all associated reselling fees (ie packaging, ebay, etc)."

 

If you're paying market rates, especially on the CGC end, there are virtually none.

[FlyingDonut]

Good investments are buying books for 50 cents each and selling them for $5 each. It takes much more work, but that's where you're going to make you're higher return on investment. Look for a bronze age collection that you can buy for $200 in bulk and sell for $500.

 

The only thing about a statement like this is when does the "work" aspect become like a second job? Then it becomes a bit less of an investment . . .

 

I think "investment" in the original post can be deciphered as "what books can I buy now put away for x amount of time and then resell at a higher price than what I had originally paid including any and all associated reselling fees (ie packaging, ebay, etc)."

 

DAM

 

Well, this is a second job - I put in probably 30 hours a week total doing this. What it allows me to do is (1) spend whatever I want on things I really want (CGC 9.8 FFs, some ECs, some nice artwork) and (2) have blow-off spending money. This is most definitely not a hobby. Joe's statement about having to have an internal valuator is most definitely true - I am constantly spinning books, so I don't sit on things.

 

You also have to understand the concept of a sunk cost - I'd much rather move something for $100 that I paid $200 for, taking the $100 loss, than sitting on it for a year in the hopes of making $250. I will make it up over the course of a year.

[kimik]

None of the books listed are good 'investments". Every single one of those books has already seen significant price appreciation, and the train left the station on them long ago.

 

Agreed! Whatever happened to "buy low, sell high"?? Nowadays, the mantra seems to be "buy at nose-bleed prices, hope to sell at unfathomably insane prices".

 

 

Good investments are buying books for 50 cents each and selling them for $5 each. It takes much more work, but that's where you're going to make you're higher return on investment.

 

To me, this is straddling a fine line between being a labor-intensive investment and being just flat-out labor. I agree that the potential percentage returns are much higher in this area, but, as you said, it takes a substantial amount of incremental effort.

 

To me, it's not worth it for one simple reason: although the potential is there for eye-popping percentage returns, the absolute dollar return per unit of time spent is much lower than what I can get in other investment asset classes. You could, as you said, buy 400 NM books for $200 and try to flip them for $500, but it's much easier for me to make a quick $300 profit in the stock market with two clicks of my mouse. Sure, it takes a lot more capital than $200 to do so, but being somewhat limited in my free time and not being capital constrained, trading/investing in stock is always going to be the better investment option for me (and, I suspect, most members of the Board who are willing to work at it) than spending tons of time than finding and identifying numerous undervalued, low dollar funny books and trying to turn them over as quickly as possible.

 

Gene

 

I disagree with the ease in making $300 investing in the market. If you have limited access to information (e.g. retail investor) it is not that easy except during a bubble/run up. In addition, how much time do you have to invest in conducting DD on a company before throwing your money at it? How long do you need to hold the investment to generate a measly $300 (if we assume it takes one whole month to blow out the books, you will need a 3% gain on a $10K investment during that time)? While it may take more than a couple of clicks (which is not entirely true as it does not include the time + money it takes to do proper DD before making an investment), I have done way better with selling comics on the side over the past four years than in the market.

[Foolkiller]

I don't want to speak for Gene, but that may have something to do with how much you know how about each. I'm sure your knowledge about comics and selling comics is better than your investment knowledge. It's also more fun in my opinion.

 

I think Gene sometimes takes for granted his incredible investment and market knowledge, as well as his intellect, but the fact of the matter is that if you're comparing which is less labor intensive, there's no question that the amount of time and effort that goes into investing and making from investments is less than selling comics. Researching stocks and the stock market aren't the only investments either... knowing the diverse ways in which you can make money and the variety of markets is key to your ability to make money as well.

 

I don't sell comics and don't hold a lot of investments. I just hope to pay off these law school loans, so maybe I shouldn't worry about either. :shocked

[delekkerste]

I have done way better with selling comics on the side over the past four years than in the market.

 

Well, duh. Comics have been in a bubble market since CGC hit the scene while the stock market went pretty much straight down from early 2000 to early 2003. A chimpanzee with a bank account and access to eBay would have made more money in comics than the stock market during that timeframe! As Gordon Gekko once said, "Come on sport, tell me something I don't know".

 

 

I disagree with the ease in making $300 investing in the market.

 

I would guess that's because either (a) you don't have enough capital to play the market effectively, (b) you've only put a small fraction of the time into learning how to trade/invest than you have reading and dealing in comics, © your familiarity with comics has given you a false sense of security about the risks & opportunities in the comic market versus the stock market (don't underestimate the potential for extreme price volatility and illiquidity in the comic market during the inevitable downside of the cycle) and/or (d) you're not me.

 

I'm not saying that trading/investing in stock doesn't take a lot of effort as well...but, as I pointed out, it's the effort per dollar invested ratio that's key here. With stocks, the market is deep enough that I can easily put a lot of money to work in the market in minutes. With comics, especially the lower priced ones that guys like J_C and Donut are recommending, it would take quite a long time to seek out/find/buy the books and then grade/bag & board/network/list on eBay/sell/package/ship them all to realize a profit. That would be far closer to a second job than passive investing.

 

Gene

[joe_collector]

[With comics, especially the lower priced ones that guys like J_C and Donut are recommending, it would take quite a long time to seek out/find/buy the books and then grade/bag & board/network/list on eBay/sell/package/ship them all to realize a profit. That would be far closer to a second job than passive investing.

 

Certainly this model isn't investing, but if you collect comics as a hobby anyway, you can grow your own collection and make some pocket change at the same time. I refer to it as hobby-work.

 

But if you expect your comics to pay your kid's tuition, then you'll be like my grandfather's generation and their stamps, or my dad's and their silver coins.

[THE_BEYONDER]

[With comics, especially the lower priced ones that guys like J_C and Donut are recommending, it would take quite a long time to seek out/find/buy the books and then grade/bag & board/network/list on eBay/sell/package/ship them all to realize a profit. That would be far closer to a second job than passive investing.

 

Certainly this model isn't investing, but if you collect comics as a hobby anyway, you can grow your own collection and make some pocket change at the same time. I refer to it as hobby-work.

 

But if you expect your comics to pay your kid's tuition, then you'll be like my grandfather's generation and their stamps, or my dad's and their silver coins.

 

Get in, get out.......and keep a few books to help you remember the experience.

[supapimp]

sounds like dating minus the books though

[Bugaboo-migration]

Certainly this model isn't investing, but if you collect comics as a hobby anyway, you can grow your own collection and make some pocket change at the same time. I refer to it as hobby-work.

 

But if you expect your comics to pay your kid's tuition, then you'll be like my grandfather's generation and their stamps, or my dad's and their silver coins.

Why is it any of your business what other peoples motivations are? If people want to invest in comics, then it's their choice. Does that mean we have to hear you whine about it in every forum?

 

By the way, when are you going to answer my challenge?

 

"Why don't I start a poll about which one of us contributes more positively to these forums, Joe? And the loser either can't start any more threads in the forum for for 6 months or has to get the hell out for 6 months. I'll let you you pick which one, based on how big you think your shriveled up nutsack is and how far you really want to try to push this point."

 

**** EDIT ****

Just like I suspected.

Joe wanted nothing to do with this and chickened out of it in another thread. It seems he's afraid that the negative contributions in all of his posts would keep people from saying he's a positive contributor.

[Mister_Comics]

I went in my TIME TUNNEL to the future.

BUY UP ALL THE INFERIOR FIVE ISSUES YOU CAN FIND! You should see all the hype thats gonna happen when that movie gets anounced.

 

Seriously though. It seems the slightest word of any comic movie coming out drives price up of any particle title.

[kimik]

Well, duh. Comics have been in a bubble market since CGC hit the scene while the stock market went pretty much straight down from early 2000 to early 2003. A chimpanzee with a bank account and access to eBay would have made more money in comics than the stock market during that timeframe! As Gordon Gekko once said, "Come on sport, tell me something I don't know".

 

He also said "Greed is good" and look what happened to the markets and the institutions promoting the bubble. WRT chimpanzees, they could have made money in stocks from 1998 through 2000 as well. However, weren't they doing just as well as the "pros" prior to that?

 

Besides, during the bubble I was making a killing on comics as well by picking up high grade early bronze age collections (keys included) for $2 - $5 apiece from sellers (even on eBay or Yahoo) and flipping them. Now the place to be is high grade late 70s to early 80s keys that can be had for the same price range as well. Give it a couple of years and the run up will start on these books as well.

 

I would guess that's because either (a) you don't have enough capital to play the market effectively

 

How much do you need to play it effectively? If it is $20K or more, then definitely not (hey, I have only been out of university for 5 years and still have student loans plus adding a wife and a mortgage).

 

(b) you've only put a small fraction of the time into learning how to trade/invest than you have reading and dealing in comics

 

Actually, I was dabbling in the markets long before dealing comics. I just started selling books to pay for tuition.

 

Granted you can play momentum on the short term, but give it another year and we will see how well traders are doing when the market takes another dip (jobless recession is not a good thing no matter what the street says). How easy was it to turn a buck over the past three years, or prior to the bubble? For the long term, you have to do your DD on companies, their industries, and the market/technology trends, which takes a lot of time if you are serious about it. In addition, access to PPs and IPOs is helpful but limited to most small money investors like me (I do have access to them through friends in investment banking but not enough free capital to participate).

 

© your familiarity with comics has given you a false sense of security about the risks & opportunities in the comic market versus the stock market (don't underestimate the potential for extreme price volatility and illiquidity in the comic market during the inevitable downside of the cycle)

 

Nope. I agree with JC that we are due for a downtrend in the comics market soon. However, I would also argue that the stock markets are headed for a fall as well (some of the current valuations are scary - now is a good time to start shorting?). Illiquidity is still a problem in the markets as well right now for a lot of companies even with the recent run up. With illiquid stocks, all you have is dead money. However, if the books that I collect are illiquid I do not care as I bought them to enjoy, not turn a profit.

 

I only invest in comics that I can pick up for a fraction of their value that move well on eBay. Check out my Valiant auctions for example. At the peak (early this year) I had 4 or 5 long boxes of pre-unity, late issue and variant books that cost me $0.50 apiece or less (and I can still find them in bunches for that as well). Some other nice plays this year were the scarcer ASM/Hulk/DD vol 2 issues, as well as the Batman Hush 2nd prints (one dealer laughed at me when I cleaned out the rest of his 612 2nds from the shelf).

 

and/or (d) you're not me.

 

Obviously.

 

I'm not saying that trading/investing in stock doesn't take a lot of effort as well...but, as I pointed out, it's the effort per dollar invested ratio that's key here. With stocks, the market is deep enough that I can easily put a lot of money to work in the market in minutes. With comics, especially the lower priced ones that guys like J_C and Donut are recommending, it would take quite a long time to seek out/find/buy the books and then grade/bag & board/network/list on eBay/sell/package/ship them all to realize a profit. That would be far closer to a second job than passive investing.

 

Effort per dollar invested was the key to my previous post as well. As stated above, how long does it take to do proper DD on a company before making a sizeable investment? If you are a momentum trader it is a no brainer, but even then you need to pay $$$ for the programs to track the trends or do it yourself. However, if you are in it for the long haul then you need to spend a lot more time learning about the company, its industry, its management, future trends, etc. which take a lot of time. If you have sufficient funds, then the stock markets are the best way to go as it would take a ton of time to move the books. However, for most of us that are not in that league we can make more in comics with our limited budgets than playing the markets.

 

[delekkerste]

Rather than answer you point by point, let me just make the following observations:

 

- There is more than one way to skin a cat in the markets. You make it seem like buying a stock requires all the effort & due diligence of doing a full takeover or leveraged buyout of a company when in fact you can easily turnover stock on a short-term basis based on sentiment, technicals, news, etc., much as you would flip a comic book.

 

- You should never make the mistake of getting emotional about stock or any other investments, yet you seem quite willing to blur the line between your "collection" and "inventory" in the comic world. With rationalizations like this, as well as, "it's not work, it's my hobby", it's no wonder why you guys think comics are such a hot place to put your money.

 

- Let's also not forget you can invest in mutual funds or index funds, which cuts your research time to a very negligible amount. You can also short and hedge in the market, which is not possible in comics.

 

 

However, for most of us that are not in that league we can make more in comics with our limited budgets than playing the markets.

 

I think for many people trying to score in the comic market, they'd be better off just getting a second job or getting the proper training to get a better paying primary job instead of trying to make money off of trying to flip $2 books for $5 ad infinitum. Hey, I love this hobby, but that's just not a good use of time for most people.

 

 

Now the place to be is high grade late 70s to early 80s keys that can be had for the same price range as well. Give it a couple of years and the run up will start on these books as well.

 

Comments like this show me that there are way too many people out there who are trying to find out which branch on a tree is the place to be, when you don't realize that the entire forest is on fire.

 

Gene