Fantastic Four #48 - STILL a major key book?!?!

[ubiquiti]

Daredevil #7 as well......

Can't leave that out.

! I should read all the way through the thread before posting.....DUH.

[delekkerste]

doesn't it? since when is a 9.4 Spidey #1 going to go down? If you think these books have reached thier peak then you are a very close minded person,

 

When I read a post like this, it makes me want to shout at the top of my lungs "GOD HELP US ALL!!!" And I'm an agnostic!!

 

I think prices will come down. Do I know this for sure? Of course not. I can conceive of several scenarios where prices might continue to go up. Do I think that's likely? No. But can I think of exceptions to my point of view? Yes. If there's one thing I learned from my 20 years of reading comics, it's to be able to use my imagination.

 

I take pity on your small mind if you lack the imagination to conceive of not just one, but many not-improbable scenarios where a Spidey #1 9.4 could depreciate in value. You may not agree with these scenarios, but the way you post, it's like you believe the 11th Commandment is that "High Grade Key Comics Will Never Go Down In Value."

 

Gene

[delekkerste]

MB, Blue chip is blue chip!

 

Meth, I'm going to have to strongly side with Buddha here. Your argument is the same as that put forth by Procrustean (so all of you agreeing with Meth are also siding with 'Crusty! Not that I have anything against either of you two...)

 

The "blue chip is blue chip" argument should have been killed once and for all the past couple of years. That's the argument people used to justify buying "blue chip" stocks in 1998-2001 (many of which depreciated by 50 to 100%). As I have told 'Crusty many a time - if you are looking to invest in a comic (or anything, really), it's about price and nothing but the price.

 

If it wasn't about price, then by your argument, you could justify any price for a key comic. How about $10 million for an AF15 9.4? $1 million for an ASM 50 9.6? Surely you see the folly in this. There's a price where a blue chip is a bargain and a price where it is an insult. We can disagree what those levels are, but in the end, it's 100% about the price (unless you're living in Wonderland like Shuley). There goes Swifty!! With the Mad Hatter in pursuit!

 

Gene

[delekkerste]

I dunno man.... Gene can imagine some pretty nasty stuff...

 

Heh heh...very true. But given that many people on the Board go into anaphylactic shock at the merest hint of an non-bullish opinion, I'll save my really juicy predictions for later on down the line (after the market action forces people to reevaluate their perma-bull stances on collectibles prices).

 

Gene

[delekkerste]

I think I've figured this out...Shuley and gman are the same guy.

gman is Dr. Jeckle - pretty nice, polite, Shuley is Mr Hyde abbrasive, violent and irrational.

 

Heh heh...hope they're not the same guy because I keep sending private messages to Gman telling him how incredibly insipid Shuley's posts are! Though I like your description too - "abrasive, violent and irrational"!

 

Gene

[Guest]

Murph, according to Ernst Gerber, who assigned the numbers 1-10 to designate the level of rarity (1 being the most common, 10 being the most rare) in his two volume Comic Encyclpoedia Photo Journals, I believe (don't have it handy) that NONE of the Spidermans #1-100 exceed a '3' rating on this scale, with most bearing the level '2' assigned......extremely common!!

[murph0]

Well you can't expect one of the most widely collected series to really be all that rare now, can you? :\

 

Brian

[Guest]

Anonymous, Not at all. I never put #28 on the list and only gave it an honorable mention. It's one of those predominantly black cover books that collectors loose their mind over when a high grade appears, like JLA 3, Showcase 17, etc. It's a high grade specialists NIGHTMARE to try acquiring in a matching grade to his other 9.4s. All the tics and stresses that DON'T show up on the #29, GLARE out at you on the 28, much like the DD7 with IT'S dark cover color scheme. The Blue chips are just that. CAN'T go wrong books. Proven, by time. The only way you CAN go wrong is by paying too much, but if you pay fair-market value on a Blue Chip, regardless of a slight rollback in a glutted market, time itself will correct the rollback.

Each hobby has it's Mega Blue chips:

For instance, in baseball cards:

 

T206 Wagner, Cobbs with Uzit, Drum, or Cobb back

E90-1 Joe Jackson

T210 Joe Jackson

M101-4/5 Ruths

1933 Ruths

1914/15 CJ Cobbs or Jacksons

1938G Dimaggio

1952T Mantle

to name a few.

 

...or lets look 20 years into the past in OUR OWN comics hobby for an answer as to what issues will be Blue Chips, 20 years from now:

 

Action 1

Detective 27, 33, 38

Superman 1

Marvel Comics 1

Batman 1

Capt.America 1

Flash 1

All American 16

etc.

 

THESE books were the Blue chips 20, 30 years ago and STILL are the gravitational center of the Comics Hobby for Golden age collectors. All that has actually transpired is that the PRICES on TODAY'S Silver age Blue Chips have ESCALATED to the point (and beyond) where the Golden Age Blue Chips were, pricewise, 20 years ago!!!!! 20 years ago, AF15s in VF were in the $1000 to $2000 range, and Action 1's in similar shape (by the grading standards of the day) were being offered for $10,000 to $20,000, which is what an AF15 in VF will run you NOW. That same Action 1 has escalated into the $200,000 region! This is why, in my estimation, the Blue chips are the path of the 'safest investment'. As hype, fads, suddenly hot key appearances, come and go..these are the books that will hold their value. They are the Gold-standard of the hobby.

 

[delekkerste]

The Blue chips are just that. CAN'T go wrong books. Proven, by time. The only way you CAN go wrong is by paying too much

 

Paying too much...that's the real trick, isn't it? So SA keys have appreciated by hundreds, even thousands of percent in the last 20 years, as you pointed out. All that tells me is that I should have been buying in 1982, but it doesn't tell me anything about what I should be doing in 2002.

 

Too many people on this Board are, IMHO, looking in the rearview mirror. We all know the collecting population is aging and the hobby is shrinking in popularity. All the movies are doing is to create movie & video game fans, not more comic fans willing to spend thousands on high grade books. And yet despite worsening fundamentals for the comic hobby as a whole and the bursting of the asset bubble of the late 1990s, people continue to extrapolate the price trend of the last 30 years indefinitely into the future. People like Shuley seem to believe that prices should rise indefinitely simply because they have and they should. Anyone with a modicum of critical reasoning skills should be skeptical of such terribly lazy thinking.

 

time itself will correct the rollback

 

A very dangerous assumption. I have, in the past, listed numerous examples of markets, including collectibles, where prices never came back or took decades to do so. And nobody can guarantee that tomorrow's blue chips will be the same as today's blue chips. Though the books on your list are likely suspects, people's tastes can and do change over time.

 

This is why, in my estimation, the Blue chips are the path of the 'safest investment'.

 

SAFETY IS RELATIVE. In a declining market, a blue chip will just lose less than a speculative book. It will most likely NOT go up nor even hold its value. Just look at the stock market - all the arguments you are making were made about blue chip stocks 2 years ago.

 

It all comes down to the price you pay. THERE ARE NO BAD COMIC BOOKS - ONLY BAD PRICES.

 

Gene

[Guest]

EXACTLY, there IS no bad comic, or for that matter, any other investment vehicle. Only the wrong price paid for it. Agreed. And I MUST give credit where credit is due. Kevin was already in hot pursuit of a NM Spiderman 14 a full year and a half to 2 years BEFORE the movie came out. He was willing to put "all his eggs in one basket", and stand behind his belief that the book was underpriced at a time when high grades, NM- and NMs could be had in the $3,000 to $4,500 range. Whether you believe that it was a fluke and his investment pick was a lucky guess is your choice in the matter. With the fervor and tenacity he displayed in trying to acquire one, since I was one of the sellers he dealt with in trying to accomplish his acquisition and am in a position to know by the nature of email we exchanged, I can assure you that he was certain that his decision was a valid one. With all the other books touted as "sure shots", the #14, out of the entire run, performed up to his expectations. This is to his credit. He picked a winner out of a wide field and I believe smart acumen was responsible, not dumb luck in this case.

[blowout]

that may all be true meth, but to really make the big bucks he probably should have sold the book by now.

hanging on to the book now, the way the market is going may see it sink back down to the levels seen a couple of years ago

[Guest]

that may all be true meth, but to really make the big bucks he probably should have sold the book by now. hanging on to the book now, the way the market is going may see it sink back down to the levels seen a couple of years ago

 

Not only that, but remember all the great stuff he sold to get that book has also appreciated by leaps and bounds.

 

Remember the old Wall Street adage..."Don't confuse brains with a bull market."

 

Gene

[Guest]

I hear ya', but in ANY market, to MAKE money, you can't look back and you can't worry about your money. The biggest difference between a $200K a year stock broker and a $2Mil a year one is mostly BrassB@ll$. Cash is KING, but "scared" money sleeps. You find a niche that works for you, exercise control, and don't deviate by stopping to count your money once the gears are set in motion.

[blowout]

"You find a niche that works for you, exercise control, and don't deviate by stopping to count your money once the gears are set in motion"

 

 

easier said than done, and most comic collectors don't really fit into the brass b@$$s category

now speculators on the other hand................

[comicinvestor-migration]

I can assure you that he was certain that his decision was a valid one. With all the other books touted as "sure shots", the #14, out of the entire run, performed up to his expectations. This is to his credit. He picked a winner out of a wide field and I believe smart acumen was responsible, not dumb luck in this case.

 

C'mon Meth, you can't really believe this? Picking an ASM 14 NM a few years ago as a "sure-fire investment" is like shooting fish in a barrel. The real investors picked up NM copies from Keith C and other dealers back in the early to mid-80's before it really skyrocketed.

 

I can remember searching and searching for a high-grade issue around 1982-85 and not finding one. It couldn't have been over a hundred or so at that time, but interest was growing and VF/NM and higher copies were like hen's teeth.

 

So if this guy can "pick 'em" I guess that makes me a super-genius comic investor?

[Guest]

EXACTLY CI, that's just the point. It WAS a sure-fire, safe investment, and hedge against inflation and other outside factors that may induce crash-like consequences. One of the BlueChips. ANYONE that diversifies with these upper-echelons is reducing their outcome of risk. A smart "wager". With so many "tempting", "can't-miss" penny stock type books that are touted by publications and manipulated by hype, it's easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees. Relying and returning to the "basics", is the safest path of return..and a time-tested one. As long as there's collectors, investors, and dealers transacting comic books for cash, the 21 books I mentioned will always head the list of "most-wanteds". It's basically, the same 21 books of most-wanted caliber that have existed on countless buy and want lists for the past 3 decades!!

[aardvark88]

Not all blue chips stay blue. In the early 70s, Large Feature #5 (ERB Tarzan b/w, 1939) was valued as much as Batman #1. Even though #5 reprints art by Hal Foster, it only guides for $1,350 nm today.

[greggy]

You should have bought this one!

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=732283323

[blowout]

wow

the fat wallets will be out for this one

[greggy]

It's strange that everything else the seller is selling is basically !