What is the best comic investment decision you ever made?

[MCMiles]

The best decision I ever made was just recently. I decided to start submitting more books to CGC. I've learned that, while not perfect, I am pretty much an under grader, especially in higher grades and Golden Age. I have many many books that could have been purchased from me dirt cheap compared to what I'm getting for them after slabbing.

 

As far as individual books, I picked up over forty Marvel 35 cent price variants at the local LCS for an average of less than $4 each, Including an Iron Fist #14. Most were around Fine condition. The IF #14 sold for $800 on these boards, and I got anaverage of about $40 each for the others.

 

 

[VuDuPriest]

Silver surfer #1 (vol.1) back in about 1978, I was 12 at the time.

 

Book was $15 at the LCS and after I paid, the guy behind the counter gave me a different copy than the one that was on display.

I told him that I wanted the display copy and he said

"Oh! that one is in mint condition. I have to charge you more"

"how much more?"

"a dollar"

So i took the "mint" copy (really about an 8-8..5) for $16 instead of the G/VG he was giving me for $15.

 

[kimik]

Even if you just collect for fun, making what turned out to be a great investment in the long run can be an unintended result of comic collecting. So what is the best decision you made, either on a single issue, a run, an era, or a collecting philosophy.

 

(note - saying you bought a comic for 12 cents off the news stand and kept it all these years does not count)

 

Examples might be:

 

I bought my high grade ASM run before prices got too high

 

I bought 10 copies of Green Lantern #76 in the 1980s

 

I bought all the Neal Adams covers over 20 years ago

 

Feel free to show some nice examples of what turned out to be great investments.

 

 

Not quite that smart, but here are some of my best ones:

 

I bought 12 raw copies of Avengers #93 between 8.0 - 9.0 (no 9.2s/9.4s though) between 1998 - 2001 for $20 or less apiece and actually held onto most of them until recently.

 

I bought 6 raw 8.0 - 8.5 copies of Green Lantern #76 for less than $150 apiece between 2003 - 2005 that I sold for a nice profit.

 

I bought 10 or so raw 8.0 - 9.0 copies of Batman #227 over the past 5 years for dirt cheap and have slabbed and flipped most of them for a nice profit.

 

I bought 6 raw 9.0 or better copies of GL #87 before they took off in price, with the best one being a $20 copy on eBay that graded out as a 9.6.

 

Some other fun ones:

 

I went halves with Mel/silvermine on a Silver Surfer run from an LCS that netted us the second 9.8 graded copy of #4. That book alone cost $360 but turned into a $3900 USD sale on eBay when the greenback was worth $1.40+ CDN!

 

Another cool one was the classic and scarce LB Cole sci-fi cover issue of Contact Comics. It had a large chunk of the top left corner torn off and retaped on the back cover, but it still fetched well over NM guide in 2000 or so on eBay.

 

The one I regret the most was buying a raw NM copy of FF #55 in 2000 or so for $80 locally that I sold for just under $500 on eBay a few weeks later.

 

 

[joeypost]

 

As far as individual books, I picked up over forty Marvel 35 cent price variants at the local LCS for an average of less than $4 each, Including an Iron Fist #14. Most were around Fine condition. The IF #14 sold for $800 on these boards, and I got anaverage of about $40 each for the others.

 

 

in my own back yard no less

[kimik]

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, I cleaned most of the Valiants from all of LCSs during a couple of years (1999 - 2001) when they were 25 cent books at best across the board. It was nice to see them take off again a few years back!

[NewWorldOrder]

I bought 50 copies of Adventures of Superman 500, and years later I flipped them for about 500 percent profit, so It was a great inveessss........OMG wait, no it was a bad investment. and I never made any money!

 

 

(J/K)

[Comicdey]

As a collector, this was a dream deal, I've had other great opportunities and made some great purchases in the past, but here's the most recent.

 

I bought a comic collection through a local auction house over a year ago....spent months watching as they'd list some, then more....

 

Here's what I got..

 

AF 15

ASM 1-400 give or take with annuals

Avengers 5, and a handful more.

FF 1-500 give or take with annuals

Xmen 1-150 or so with Annuals like GS 1

Hulk 1-6, 102-300 or so with Annuals

Sgt. Fury 1-5

JIM 83, 88, 90-112 or so

Silver Surfer 1-18 (3 CGC 9.0, 4 was sold HG raw, 6 CGC 9.2, 17 CGC 9.6 etc.)

Daredevil 1-200 or so with Annuals

Tons of the 1970's and 1980's Marvel Series with many in high grade like Iron Fist, Marvel Team Up, Marvel Spotlight, etc.

A few hundred 1960's, 1970's and 1980's DC's

 

Sold portions of the collection to pay myself back and acquired many GA books that I wanted for my collection including most of what I purchase on the boards. I'm guessing 100 or so GA books including the likes of TEC 30, All American 17, 21, Action 61, Adventure 30, 31, All Star 7, lot of GGA GA etc.

 

I upgraded many books in my collection and will be keeping as a minimum what I consider to be the best books like the FF 1-25 , ASM 1-30, AF 15, Strange Tales Annual 2 and some of the early Xmen. I still have around 2,500 comics to sell from the collection with many being high grade 9.4-9.8 range later copper.

 

This story has one sad portion.....there was a lot in the auction that I pre-bid online, then went there live. The lot sold for my pre-bid amount, but there was some mix-up and another person on line got it due to order of preference, so I sat there live in the auction house and had to live with the fact that I didn't get the long box with TOS 39 up, TTA 27 up and a few other misc books for the crazy sum of $500 ( I would have bid much higher had I realized I didn't have it). It was a choice of boxes lot, and fortunately the online bidder only wanted that box....so I took the other box with Xmen 1 up and SS 1-18 for $500......bitter sweet memory. I let other books go buy like Avengers and misc issues as the bids went too high for the grade, but knowing what I know now of the market, I probably should have purchased even more books, but I did get the best portions out of the 6,000+ collection and ended up with 3,000 or so books.

 

 

[Ron_Nasty]

Bought NM moderns at cover price all thru the 1960's.

[Jonah Hex]

I traded a stack of 80's Archies to my barber for a stack of Golden age, early 50's stuff just after I started to collect. He had this traditional barber shop, pin stripe pole and all, and had a stack of comics and mags for his customers to read.Who knows how long they had been there.

In the stack,off hand were -Weird tales of the future #3, Fighting American #3, Journey into Mystery #16, Famous Funnies #213,Adventure into Mystery #1, Whip Wilson # 3, strange tales #20, 44, Cheyenne #1, and loads more Atlas horror from the early 50's.

About 30 comics in all. Best trade ever at least!

[Comicdey]

The next "big break deal" is from back in 1987 or so when I found a group of around 250 comics in an antique store in Boulder Colorado. The dealer had them for quite a while, had them priced high, and didn't have them graded. I was in college and offered to grade them all for her and price them out at the current overstreet guide. After I went through the entire collection, I offered to buy around 50 books. She was so appreciative, that she sold them to me at 1/3 guide......I didn't have a lot of money, or I would have bought them all at the time, but I did pick up the following books......based upon the current guide at the time......

 

No Marvels....but

 

Brave and the Bold 34 in VF

Showcase 34 in VF

JLA #2 in VF

Lois Lane 15 (now in a 7.0 slab and in Silvers collection) , 22, 23 in F/VF or so

Jimmy Olsen 20 and others in VG to F/VF

Superman 97 and a few others

Superman show at Metropolis in NM (she had a 2nd copy that I didn't get in NM too :

Other esoteric stuff that I can't recall now.

 

A lot of fun to grade, but getting them at 1/3 guide pre-ebay was amazing to me.

 

[Comicdey]

I picked up a Trunk of comics at a garage sale back while in High school that had a full run of Hulk 102 through 200 or so, along with Byrne Xmen including multiple copies of many issues. There were at least 10 NM copies of Xmen 137. I recently took mine out of the collection, slabbed it at 9.8 and sold it. Paid $50 for the trunk and comics.

[Comicdey]

Some of my best purchases/trades I recall

 

HOS 92 at a antique store in VG for .50 around 10 years ago

 

TOS 39 in VF range back in '85 for $300

 

Traded SA duplicate books for Action 28 and 30, and All Star 9 in high grade around 1990.

 

Purchased a collection for $100 including around 1000 comics that had low grade early ASM 50 on, FF 75 on, Xmen 25 on , etc back in 1983 or so.

 

Purchased War Fury #1-4 on ebay this year in VG or better for $60 shipped......that was very very sweet.

 

Picked up a copy of The Barker #2 in VF/NM on ebay last year for around $12 shipped. (The spine and gloss is blinding)

 

Traded $1,500 worth of pure drek for a slabbed FF #1 in CGC 3.5 from my LCS four years ago and subsequently sold it for $2,500.

 

Man....collecting comics can be fun.

 

[homerwannabee]

Back in the 70's I traded a kid five joints for a gorgeous ASM #7.

(I was a kid too, wasn't corrupting a minor!)

Funny thing is a pothead kid would probably still trade a ASM 7 for five joints today.

[Silver Surfer]

What is the best comic investment decision you ever made?

 

I never bought a comic thinking "I'll make money off of this some day."

 

Same with me but I have made a few good flips, not many but a few. Bought a poor copy of Tec #35 for $850, listed it a few weeks later for $1,500 and it was almost immediately BIN'd. Picked up my Canadian Cap #74 after it had already been shipped to San Diego for the con but had it reserved for me before it was released to the hordes. Don't want to say how much I paid for but I'm pretty confident I could get 3x what I paid for it today.

[Comicdey]

Back when I was in 5th grade or so, I was on vacation at Ixtapa Zihuantenaro (sp?) on the west coast of Mexico. I met a really cute Italian girl and spent most of my time with her, but I also met another kid who was a comic collector. He showed me some early Flash books he had and I was so enamored that I bought them all for $10.

 

Flash 108, 109, 110, 113, 117, 123, 127 and a couple others. Still have them all. The 123, 127 and others were all around VG or better and the earlier issues were Fa/Gd or better, complete with no pieces missing.

 

Still love that 123.

[spracknetch23]

I bought an Albedo #2 in the $5 box around 2001 at a con. This wasn't for investment, I just liked usagi yojimbo. But years later I found out it was worth quite a sum and sold it for $600. I don't normally buy comics planning to resell, though.

[ninanina]

Can't remember the exact amount but I'm thinking about $12 grand for (almost) complete runs of Silver Age X-Men, Justice League, Green Lantern, Fantastic Four, Avengers, Journey Into Mystery, Tales of Suspense, Tales to Astonish, along with early issues of Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, Werewolf by Night,

Dracula, Savage Sword of Conan, Eerie, Creepy,Turok, Star Trek and probably a couple other runs I can't remember.

 

The runs for the most part started in and around 1963 so most of the early issues weren't there...although I did manage a #1 Green Lantern in 3 pieces though.

 

Thanks to my wife mentioning I collect comics, I was able to get to this collection before the dealers did.

[Comicdey]

Can't remember the exact amount but I'm thinking about $12 grand for (almost) complete runs of Silver Age X-Men, Justice League, Green Lantern, Fantastic Four, Avengers, Journey Into Mystery, Tales of Suspense, Tales to Astonish, along with early issues of Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, Werewolf by Night,

Dracula, Savage Sword of Conan, Eerie, Creepy,Turok, Star Trek and probably a couple other runs I can't remember.

 

The runs for the most part started in and around 1963 so most of the early issues weren't there...although I did manage a #1 Green Lantern in 3 pieces though.

 

Thanks to my wife mentioning I collect comics, I was able to get to this collection before the dealers did.

 

Does that mean you don't need a spare Avengers #1 :: I still haven't replaced my copy.

[electricprune]

I started getting into the Punisher in '82. I bought a nice ASM 129 for $1.50 at a show in Chicago. I still have it today.

[ninanina]

Can't remember the exact amount but I'm thinking about $12 grand for (almost) complete runs of Silver Age X-Men, Justice League, Green Lantern, Fantastic Four, Avengers, Journey Into Mystery, Tales of Suspense, Tales to Astonish, along with early issues of Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, Werewolf by Night,

Dracula, Savage Sword of Conan, Eerie, Creepy,Turok, Star Trek and probably a couple other runs I can't remember.

 

The runs for the most part started in and around 1963 so most of the early issues weren't there...although I did manage a #1 Green Lantern in 3 pieces though.

 

Thanks to my wife mentioning I collect comics, I was able to get to this collection before the dealers did.

 

Does that mean you don't need a spare Avengers #1 :: I still haven't replaced my copy.

 

I actually got one from a Secret Santa Gift exchange on the forum a couple years ago. Amazingly, I mentioned I needed one and the fellow forumite that pulled my name had a beat-up copy he gave me as a gift.