1983 prices VS 10 years from now?

[rjpb]

Good points but 1983 was 27 years ago, when I look at comic prices from 5 to 8 years ago according to the GPA most comicbook prices have either went down or are stagnant. an ounce of gold bought 5 to 8 years ago would have been more profitable but that`s for another thread somewhere.

 

Yes, gold has definitely held up well............. (thumbs u

 

If you bought gold in Feb. of 1983, you likely would have paid over $500 an ounce, and in that case Golden Age would have been a better investment.

[delekkerste]

But you were saying all of these things with the absolute same certainty when I joined the boards in late 2003. If someone had followed your Dr Doom routine on comics, they would`ve left a LOT of money on the table. In fact, I would be inconsolable today for passing on comics at prices that seemed crazy at the time but seem crazily cheap today.

 

What makes you so sure you`re any less wrong today than you were 7 years ago?

 

When the facts change, like they have the past 7 years, I change my mind accordingly. What do you do, sir?

 

What you conveniently neglect to mention is that (1) the stuff I was following and collecting did indeed tank shortly thereafter (I'll offer my full slabbed collection at cost to anyone who doubts this); (2) I was negative in 2003, yes, but it would be incorrect to say that I was bearish from 2003-2010 straight through, having adjusted my views mid-decade when the facts changed, before turning negative again when the housing bubble burst; (3) a lot of people have also left a LOT of money on the table by NOT selling (and are continuing to do so); (4) some people actually did make money by selling "early" - witness MutantKeys' Copper X-Men 9.8 run; (5) I offered some pretty good alternative suggestions to comics as well which could have made you a :censored:load more money than in comics - my own experience is living proof of that.

 

In any case, you are guilty of not applying what you know to be true about investing to the comic market. 1980 - comics trade at piddly % of incomes, secular trends on their side, widespread skepticism to spending big bucks = BUY. 2010 - people think it's OK to lever up to buy comics, era of cheap credit and asset bubbles comes to an end, even non-key issues that happen to have the CGC 9.8 or 9.9 imprimatur (often manipulated to boot) sell for stupid prices, and people are egged on by thousands on Internet message boards instead of hearing skepticism = SELL.

 

There are so many differences between 2010 and 2003, let alone 1980, it's not funny. And, I think the price action for all but a minuscule % of books these days is finally bearing out what I said would eventually happen when the music stopped. But, then again, you already know all that, having unloaded a lot of your collection in recent years. (thumbs u

[the blob]

Don't worry, banana republic (not the clothing store) inflation will make sure your comic "values" appreciate (not in net terms necessarily!) and, heck, may bring back those RE prices as well! (With that said, the house 3 doors down from me sold earlier this year for what I bought my home for in December 2006...the house is identical to mine in terms of layout/space, closer to a loud street (and a disgusting neighbor) and needed a new roof and extensive repairs to the siding (though some of the interior finishes were better than mine)....so at least in my little corner of Brooklyn, things don't seem to have changed much. Sure, they had to drop it $150K to actually sell it, but their original asking price was delusional late-2007 pricing.

[tth2]

Sure, just about any Hulk for $700 sounds good now, and that's only around $1500 in today's money according to the inflation calculators (seems low), but Hulk #1 was only about a 20 year old book at the time, now it's closer to 50, and a decade earlier would only have run about $50.

 

Any "NM" copy at the time would likely have been today's 8.0 at best. Even so, a great investment, but it didn't seem like a bargain basement price at the time.

 

I would expect HG Gold and Silver keys to keep going up over the next ten years, but I would be amazed to see the quantum jumps in value we've seen in the last decade or two.

Agreed,I think the main reason is all of the major heroes have had thier big movie moments, Spidey got three, X-men got 3,HULK two and Batman had the king movie, the cats out of bag with these characters now, somewhere there are characters that haven`t taken off right now with mainstream and those characters will be the big picks ten years from now, if I told you in 2003 that Walking Dead 1 would constantly sell at $500 everyday on Ebay, you would have laughed.

 

I just keep thinking about Tick # 1 and TMNT # 1.

TMNT #1 has ALWAYS been expensive. If you went back to 1985 and told someone that TMNT #1 would be selling solid 4 figures in NM, that would probably be one of the things they'd find least surprising.

[tth2]

I guess I'd disagree in terms of scale. A Superman 1 that was called NM or even VF was probably a Fine at best. There are only 6 issues of Superman 1 graded in VF or better and that includes restored. 3 restoreds sold on HA.com recently for $16,500, $16,500 and $23,000 in 6.0, 5.0 and 3.5 respectively. This is before the juice which is upwards of 15% but I'll ignore that.

 

So, lets say you bought a nice restored copy for $5000 in 1985 and sold it net for $20,000 today. Your rate of return would be 5.7% over 25 years. 25 years ago the Dow was at 1300, so an 8 times return vs 4 times. U.S. Bonds were paying 6-10% throughout the mid 80's which are zero risk instruments.

Yes, but remember you're comparing apples to oranges. It's a restored #1 that you bought as unrestored, so in the first place you're selling something that is much less than what was advertised when you bought it, and you're still ahead in absolute dollars, even if not real dollars.

 

If you want to do the comparison against other investments or adjusted for inflation, then you'd have to assume that you really did buy a Superman #1 in the unrestored grade it was advertised at to make a valid comparison. Otherwise, to make an apples-to-apples comparison to US bonds, you'd have to find out that the US bonds you thought you bought in 1985 were actually Zimbabwean bonds.

[tth2]

When the facts change, like they have the past 7 years, I change my mind accordingly. What do you do, sir?

I avoid the arrogance of thinking I can time the market in the first place.

 

What you conveniently neglect to mention is that (1) the stuff I was following and collecting did indeed tank shortly thereafter (I'll offer my full slabbed collection at cost to anyone who doubts this);

Not much of which was quality vintage stuff.

 

(2) I was negative in 2003, yes, but it would be incorrect to say that I was bearish from 2003-2010 straight through, having adjusted my views mid-decade when the facts changed, before turning negative again when the housing bubble burst;

As you know, even though I like to give you a hard time I have a lot of respect for your opinions, so if you made a "CGC comics are a screaming buy" post somewhere between 2003 and 2010, I'm pretty sure I would've remembered it!

 

(5) I offered some pretty good alternative suggestions to comics as well which could have made you a :censored:load more money than in comics - my own experience is living proof of that.

I know comics haven't been the BEST investment, but they haven't been the automatic route to the poor house that you've made them out to be either.

 

In any case, you are guilty of not applying what you know to be true about investing to the comic market. 1980 - comics trade at piddly % of incomes, secular trends on their side, widespread skepticism to spending big bucks = BUY. 2010 - people think it's OK to lever up to buy comics, era of cheap credit and asset bubbles comes to an end, even non-key issues that happen to have the CGC 9.8 or 9.9 imprimatur (often manipulated to boot) sell for stupid prices, and people are egged on by thousands on Internet message boards instead of hearing skepticism = SELL.

 

There are so many differences between 2010 and 2003, let alone 1980, it's not funny. And, I think the price action for all but a minuscule % of books these days is finally bearing out what I said would eventually happen when the music stopped. But, then again, you already know all that, having unloaded a lot of your collection in recent years. (thumbs u

Guilty as charged, but I didn't sell because I had run all sorts of graphs of proportion to average income or market sentiment or because I was particularly smart. I simply became more risk averse as I got older and had more family responsibilities to factor in, so as prices got higher I became less comfortable with putting my money at risk. As a result, I couldn't add to my collection and therefore decided to start selling. Seriously, I would never be so arrogant to think I could time the market. If prices had continued to move up after I sold (which has happened on some of the books), I wouldn't have been surprised in the least. That I've been able to buy back some of the books I sold in 2006-2007 at half or even 1/3 of the sale price has just been a fortunate happenstance.

[Gatsby77]

I'm with Delekkerste on this one.

 

Even the key vintage stuff has gone down an alarming rate in the past two years. The February and May Comiclink auctions were great proof of this with the all-time GPA lows of slabbed 9.4 ASM, slabbed Golden Age Flash, and the brutal beating the Mile High Adventures and More Funs took on Heritage relative to their previous prices.

 

I put a credible bid in on the 8.5 Wonder Woman # 2 (second highest) that a boardie offered here first before he sold it on Ebay two weeks ago for 15% less than he paid for it in 2008.

 

Not saying comics can't be good investments--I've invested $10ks on that belief. But inflation-adjusted, it's a shoot. I can count on two hands the number of comics I bought that I know beat the stock market on a 5-10 year time horizon.

 

There are other Moderns with which I got lucky, but they don't make up for the other Moderns that provided losses. Moreover, the IRR may have been good, but not worth my time if I happened to buy for $.50 and sell a year later for $20. Now, if you can buy a book for $50 and resell it for $300 6-7 years later, more power to you. That's beginning to look like real money.

[ft88]

I guess I'd disagree in terms of scale. A Superman 1 that was called NM or even VF was probably a Fine at best. There are only 6 issues of Superman 1 graded in VF or better and that includes restored. 3 restoreds sold on HA.com recently for $16,500, $16,500 and $23,000 in 6.0, 5.0 and 3.5 respectively. This is before the juice which is upwards of 15% but I'll ignore that.

 

So, lets say you bought a nice restored copy for $5000 in 1985 and sold it net for $20,000 today. Your rate of return would be 5.7% over 25 years. 25 years ago the Dow was at 1300, so an 8 times return vs 4 times. U.S. Bonds were paying 6-10% throughout the mid 80's which are zero risk instruments.

Yes, but remember you're comparing apples to oranges. It's a restored #1 that you bought as unrestored, so in the first place you're selling something that is much less than what was advertised when you bought it, and you're still ahead in absolute dollars, even if not real dollars.

 

If you want to do the comparison against other investments or adjusted for inflation, then you'd have to assume that you really did buy a Superman #1 in the unrestored grade it was advertised at to make a valid comparison. Otherwise, to make an apples-to-apples comparison to US bonds, you'd have to find out that the US bonds you thought you bought in 1985 were actually Zimbabwean bonds.

 

Back then restored books were selling for the same or similar price as unrestored. Folks considered the payment for the work as part of the increase in final price. And given that at least 2/3 of superman 1's are restored it's likely that's what you'd have ended up with. But overall comics have outperformed many investments in the past 25 years. I just don't like the simplistic view that the return was 15000% or some such. Many books would have been poor performers and many would have been great.

 

Just as a high profile example, I wonder how well Nick Cage did as a pure investment after all transaction costs? His would be an example of a well diversified comic portfolio and a typical experience of good and bad purchases. My understanding is he was collecting over the past 15 years prior to selling it off and quite a number of his key books were restored. Add in the grading fees and heritage fees and the return he got was probably pretty weak, though still likely profitable. But not the 10X or 50X returns bandied about here.

 

 

[paleontol99-migration]

All I'd say is that the comic market will fall at some point and hit doldrums as it has in the past as have other collectibles. When that will happen and at what level is anyones guess. Will it recover or not is also questionable.

 

Agreed. I find it interesting that many people tote gold as a bid deal. Its not. Those that held gold before its big swing up saw that its price stayed for about 10 years between 250 and 350. If a person held it, they were holding it for quite some time before any movement at all. Im one of them. Even with todays $ 1200 gold prices, I would rather hold a high grade comic any day. As far as the comic market goes, I have not visited these boards in about 6 years. Ive seen these threads over and over again and even myself was a doom and gloomer about that comic realm. I used to own a couple of comic stores from 1989 to 1997. Saw alot happen during that time. We, like all stores of that time used to buy comics boxes totally unseen for .04 cents a piece. We had no idea what was going to be in them after we purchased them. I can tell you that those .04 books far outweigh the $ 1200 in gold prices as most of the books happen to be bronze age books in high grade. What was really funny is back then, in 1993 lets say, no one would even think of putting a bronze age book up on the wall for sale. We threw them in the back room and they were looked down upon as if they were put on our wall, we would not be considered a Real comic book store. We wanted to keep our wall golden age. This was during the glut in the market in 1993 to 1995 when there were tons of Image and Non key Valiants running around. People invested piles of money in 40 to 50 copies of Turok #1 anticipating there 100 x return in 20 years and the baseball card dealers saw us comic guys making money and decided to dive in ordering 100s of copies of each new book that came out after seeing the Death of Superman issue sometimes sell for $ 85 in a few stores. I wasnt until the point that someone holding the book at the top price realized that if they took a Low semi key valiant into a store that they purchased for $ 2.50 and saw in Wizard that it guided at $ 30 that the owner would only give them a whole maybe $ 5.00 on the book. People fled in thousands from the market. And even then there was a period that golden age stagnated for maybe 2 years cause money was flowing into new comics. I was buying golden age at a very low price. But now, this market has slabbed books where anyone without a brain can look at a slab and look up the book and determine if they are being underbought in price if they go to sell it. Like you guys say. Its a whole new world. I would have to say, that if the bottom fell out of the market, I would just continue to buy books at a lower price. I believe the worst time for the comic market was in those 1994 to 1996 years. Maybe Im off a year or two either way, but I think any individual collector or any store that survived that found profits right after. I can tell you, that even during those horrible comic times where 20 of 30 over ordered copies still sat on stores racks that the 9.8 graded books that came from those over order copies far make up for the profit loss back then.

[RockMyAmadeus]

All I'd say is that the comic market will fall at some point and hit doldrums as it has in the past as have other collectibles. When that will happen and at what level is anyones guess. Will it recover or not is also questionable.

 

Agreed. I find it interesting that many people tote gold as a bid deal. Its not. Those that held gold before its big swing up saw that its price stayed for about 10 years between 250 and 350. If a person held it, they were holding it for quite some time before any movement at all. Im one of them. Even with todays $ 1200 gold prices, I would rather hold a high grade comic any day. As far as the comic market goes, I have not visited these boards in about 6 years. Ive seen these threads over and over again and even myself was a doom and gloomer about that comic realm. I used to own a couple of comic stores from 1989 to 1997. Saw alot happen during that time. We, like all stores of that time used to buy comics boxes totally unseen for .04 cents a piece. We had no idea what was going to be in them after we purchased them. I can tell you that those .04 books far outweigh the $ 1200 in gold prices as most of the books happen to be bronze age books in high grade. What was really funny is back then, in 1993 lets say, no one would even think of putting a bronze age book up on the wall for sale. We threw them in the back room and they were looked down upon as if they were put on our wall, we would not be considered a Real comic book store. We wanted to keep our wall golden age. This was during the glut in the market in 1993 to 1995 when there were tons of Image and Non key Valiants running around. People invested piles of money in 40 to 50 copies of Turok #1 anticipating there 100 x return in 20 years and the baseball card dealers saw us comic guys making money and decided to dive in ordering 100s of copies of each new book that came out after seeing the Death of Superman issue sometimes sell for $ 85 in a few stores. I wasnt until the point that someone holding the book at the top price realized that if they took a Low semi key valiant into a store that they purchased for $ 2.50 and saw in Wizard that it guided at $ 30 that the owner would only give them a whole maybe $ 5.00 on the book. People fled in thousands from the market. And even then there was a period that golden age stagnated for maybe 2 years cause money was flowing into new comics. I was buying golden age at a very low price. But now, this market has slabbed books where anyone without a brain can look at a slab and look up the book and determine if they are being underbought in price if they go to sell it. Like you guys say. Its a whole new world. I would have to say, that if the bottom fell out of the market, I would just continue to buy books at a lower price. I believe the worst time for the comic market was in those 1994 to 1996 years. Maybe Im off a year or two either way, but I think any individual collector or any store that survived that found profits right after. I can tell you, that even during those horrible comic times where 20 of 30 over ordered copies still sat on stores racks that the 9.8 graded books that came from those over order copies far make up for the profit loss back then.

 

[seanfingh]

 

Weeping jesus hates wall of text.

[Gatsby77]

One of my favorite comic analyses was by Keith Contario in an Overstreets Update back around 1990, where he figured out you'd _lose_ money in real terms on a solid run of Incredible Hulk 102-300 if you bought them all at cover price and tried to resell that day, even counting Hulk 180-182.

 

Arguably that may not hold true any longer what with CGC and the fact that 181 was a $250 book at that point, but what if all of those books turn out to be 9.0s or 9.2s rather than 9.8s or even 9.6s?

[JasonNewcomb]

Weeping jesus hates wall of text.

 

But Satan loves it.

[ComicConnoisseur]

Good points but 1983 was 27 years ago, when I look at comic prices from 5 to 8 years ago according to the GPA most comicbook prices have either went down or are stagnant. an ounce of gold bought 5 to 8 years ago would have been more profitable but that`s for another thread somewhere.

 

Yes, gold has definitely held up well............. (thumbs u

 

If you bought gold in Feb. of 1983, you likely would have paid over $500 an ounce, and in that case Golden Age would have been a better investment.

My point was lets not go all the way back to 1983, lets look at more current data, there was no CGC or internet/Ebay back then, I use 5 years ago as my barometer and one ounce of gold bought then would have been a better investment then most comics 5 years ago and even now for liquidy, if I buy an ounce of gold today,I can flip it faster than buying $1400 dollar comic. We tend to say oh yeah I could have bought Action 1 for ten cents in 1938, yeah that`s all find in dandy about 1938, 1983 or 1993 but I prefer to look at the GPA and Ebay and go with more current trends then reminisce that Hulk #181 was going for under $50 dollars in 1983.

[paleontol99-migration]

In looking at all the posts its all really a matter or what time period we are looking at simply because things go up and down. One gent mentioned in an above post about gold at $ 500 a ounce in 1983 and making profit. If you bought it in 1979 you when it was over 800 an ounce, then you would have gotten hurt. If you held it for 10 years it would have then gone down to about $ 280 to $ 350 for about 10 years. Its not about its ups and downs. I strictly about knowing when and what to get in on and when to get out.

I purchased 10 copies of 1st appearance of Swamp Thing a number of years ago for maybe 4 to 8 dollars each and sold a number of them in 9.8 for close to $ 300 a pop. If I went to sell them now, how would they sell. I would think most likely much lower than $ 300. But other books have skyrocketed and stayed up in price. I have to feel that, Its really about doing your homework and figuring what to buy low to sell higher no matter what the market.

[seanfingh]

I purchased 10 copies of 1st appearance of Swamp Thing a number of years ago for maybe 4 to 8 dollars each and sold a number of them in 9.8 for close to $ 300 a pop.

 

No, you didn't.

[paleontol99-migration]

Sorry wrong book. It was SWAMP THING #37 1ST JOHN CONSTANTINE gotten a year before movie.

[seanfingh]

 

Now you're cooking! That one I buy.

[Sqeggs]

Good points but 1983 was 27 years ago, when I look at comic prices from 5 to 8 years ago according to the GPA most comicbook prices have either went down or are stagnant. an ounce of gold bought 5 to 8 years ago would have been more profitable but that`s for another thread somewhere.

 

Yes, gold has definitely held up well............. (thumbs u

 

If you bought gold in Feb. of 1983, you likely would have paid over $500 an ounce, and in that case Golden Age would have been a better investment.

My point was lets not go all the way back to 1983, lets look at more current data, there was no CGC or internet/Ebay back then, I use 5 years ago as my barometer and one ounce of gold bought then would have been a better investment then most comics 5 years ago and even now for liquidy, if I buy an ounce of gold today,I can flip it faster than buying $1400 dollar comic. We tend to say oh yeah I could have bought Action 1 for ten cents in 1938, yeah that`s all find in dandy about 1938, 1983 or 1993 but I prefer to look at the GPA and Ebay and go with more current trends then reminisce that Hulk #181 was going for under $50 dollars in 1983.

 

Unless the bottom falls out:

 

Gold in 1980: $612/oz

Gold in 1990: $384/oz

Gold in 2000: $279/oz

[Sqeggs]

In looking at all the posts its all really a matter or what time period we are looking at simply because things go up and down. One gent mentioned in an above post about gold at $ 500 a ounce in 1983 and making profit. If you bought it in 1979 you when it was over 800 an ounce, then you would have gotten hurt. If you held it for 10 years it would have then gone down to about $ 280 to $ 350 for about 10 years. Its not about its ups and downs. I strictly about knowing when and what to get in on and when to get out.

I purchased 10 copies of 1st appearance of Swamp Thing a number of years ago for maybe 4 to 8 dollars each and sold a number of them in 9.8 for close to $ 300 a pop. If I went to sell them now, how would they sell. I would think most likely much lower than $ 300. But other books have skyrocketed and stayed up in price. I have to feel that, Its really about doing your homework and figuring what to buy low to sell higher no matter what the market.

 

Good points. I would say the likelihood is that many SA and GA have already seen their peaks. There are many collections held by people 50+ that will eventually come on the market and be difficult to absorb. How many collectors <30 are building SA or GA collections?

 

My (limited) understanding of the baseball card market -- gained largely from reading Jamieson's recent book, Mint Condition -- is that the prices of key cards have held up, while the prices of everything else have collapsed. He argues a key problem is that kids stopped collecting cards 20 years ago, seriously undermining the market for all but the most desirable cards. Of course, something similar has happened with comics.

 

Savvy people who know the market will probably always be able to make some money by moving into and out of hot moderns, but buying and holding a portfolio of high-priced pre-1980 books doesn't look like a winning a strategy.