1985-1989 Coin Market = 2000-2004 Comic Market?

[14 of spades]

Hey!

 

I just found the PERFECT investment vehicle! COINS!!!

 

[Norrin_Radd]

 

 

 

 

 

 

The point is "Keys and Rarities" (i.e. stuff that is always in demand by collectors). The same applies to any collectible including comics.

[14 of spades]

 

 

 

 

 

 

The point is "Keys and Rarities" (i.e. stuff that is always in demand by collectors). The same applies to any collectible including comics.

 

what about the "Keys and Rarities" that J.P. bought?

[14 of spades]

Highly unlikely. Besides, not every coin crashed in price (only the drek).

 

 

 

Anyhoos - the site the graph is taken from is a coin grading service. You think it would be in their interests to boost coin collector/investor confidence by giving you such numbers. There IS a difference between refereed analysis and non-refereed analysis...

 

PCGS3000 - Guaranteeing Your Investments Until the Year 3000....

 

[Norrin_Radd]

 

 

 

 

 

 

The point is "Keys and Rarities" (i.e. stuff that is always in demand by collectors). The same applies to any collectible including comics.

 

what about the "Keys and Rarities" that J.P. bought?

 

Anybody can lose money on any collectible by vastly overpaying to acquire it. Buying smart (lower than FMV) is the best insurance against future depreciation.

 

What else ya got?

[That Ron Dude]

This is a fascinating thread filled with interesting information.

 

A crash, like doomsday, will come but who knows when or what it will look like. It was easy to see the Black and White bust coming. We could smell it. Before the bust, artists and writers were lurking at the San Diego Convention, trying to find lifeboats as they saw their gigs about to founder. Guys like me refused to work for guys like Steve Milo while his editor Mary Beth Whatsername lied to me about the future of their company. Brian Azzarillo wouldn't come to the phone or answer my mail asking for payment, well before Andrew Rev's Comico went belly up. On and on.

 

If I were to give warning today it would be to the kids paying for slabbed modern comics in high grade. These items will be worth nothing tomorrow. Sure if one of the writers turns into Steven King or Isaac Asimov in ten years, the kid has an investment but that probably won't happen.

 

And while I don't travel in these circles and I take my own statement as pure speculation, how many people are really paying $100,000 for old comics? Ten? Thirty? What if they all eat supper together in Chicago and all start to panic about the state of the market. There goes...

 

I myself have a near complete collection of Marvel Silver Age. After I die, which is about the same time all the rest of you are going to die, my children aren't going to care about the stuff. Furthermore, most of my children's friends HAVE NEVER HELD A COMIC BOOK IN THEIR HANDS. My heirs are going to dump my collection on the future equivelent of Ebay or the local comic store. The world will be awash with Tales of Suspense 68's and Fantastic Four 36's. I expect that Spiderman, Batman, Superman and maybe Archie will cross the generations but who will care about Ditko Doctor Strange in 20 or 30 years? Who cares about them now?

 

In short, I don't know if doomsday, or lets call it Ragnarok, will come by fire or flood or Stay-Puffed Marshmellow man, but it will come. I have diversified my assets. I have left instructions with my estate. Above all, I buy comics that I love. If I love them they are worth the price I paid, even if the market value decreases.

 

Finally, I remind you of Max Planck, one of the fathers of modern physics, who said that he wanted to be an economist but it was too complicated.

[14 of spades]

 

Anybody can lose money on any collectible by vastly overpaying to acquire it. Buying smart (lower than FMV) is the best insurance against future depreciation.

 

 

fine.

 

it's an obvious statement that buying ANYTHING (e.g. sliced bread) purchased at below FAIR Market Value is going to be well insured against future depreciation.

 

prey tell, what company is in the market actively selling their goods at BELOW FAIR Market Value (i.e. UNFAIR market value?).

 

i think your point was actually about the price of items AT FMV (if not, then what was your point in showing the graph?)

 

doesn't the graph show over the last 30 years, that "Keys and Rarities" coin holdings appreciated?

 

what about the original coin graph delekerste showed? if one bought at FMV at the very peak time, do you think they would have made any money?

 

investments, collectibles, whatever you call them, after peaking in value, will depreciate in value.

 

show me a graph that doesn't show this to be true.

 

 

[tth2]

Guys like me refused to work for guys like Steve Milo

Wow, there`s a name I haven`t heard in about 20 years...

[Norrin_Radd]

it's an obvious statement that buying ANYTHING (e.g. sliced bread) purchased at below FAIR Market Value is going to be well insured against future depreciation.

 

prey tell, what company is in the market actively selling their goods at BELOW FAIR Market Value (i.e. UNFAIR market value?).

 

Collectibles are not regular goods. Prices vary. Even with the same book in the same grade, the price difference between sellers (amateur vs dealer website) can vary by a factor of 2 or more. They are NOT commodities like bread. You CAN find good deals on comics if you look around (i.e. paying $200 for a comic that regularly sells for $400 on ComicLink or dealer website). Bargains abound on eBay.

 

This is what I mean by buying below FMV.

 

 

 

i think your point was actually about the price of items AT FMV (if not, then what was your point in showing the graph?)

 

doesn't the graph show over the last 30 years, that "Keys and Rarities" coin holdings appreciated?

 

The graph is an index of prices most likely based on FMV prices. But unlike stocks that make up a stock index, it IS possible to buy collectibles at a discount to FMV if you shop around.

 

 

what about the original coin graph delekerste showed? if one bought at FMV at the very peak time, do you think they would have made any money?

 

investments, collectibles, whatever you call them, after peaking in value, will depreciate in value.

 

 

All I can say about that comment is........ DUH!

 

By definition, a peak is followed by a decline. Otherwise, IT WOULDN'T BE A PEAK!

 

You don't know when a peak is happening until well after it's happened.

 

People who try to call market tops end up being more wrong than right because usually prices continue to increase while they continue to forecast a decline that doesn't materialize.

 

Again I say, you can't know when a peak is happening until it's already happened. Peaks are a chart pattern that is only formed IF there is a significant decline after an increase. Up until that happens, you can only say that "prices are high". But there's no telling if prices might go higher.

 

Such has happened in the comics market for the last 3 years.

 

How many people have said prices are peaking and are bound to go down and missed out on significant opportunity in the last 3 years?

 

 

End of

[14 of spades]

Mr. Norinn Radd,

 

Collectibles are not regular goods. Prices vary. Even with the same book in the same grade, the price difference between sellers (amateur vs dealer website) can vary by a factor of 2 or more. They are NOT commodities like bread. You CAN find good deals on comics if you look around (i.e. paying $200 for a comic that regularly sells for $400 on ComicLink or dealer website). Bargains abound on eBay.

 

This is what I mean by buying below FMV.

 

a supermarket chain buying loafs of bread in bulk at $0.29 versus buying them at FMV at $0.30 will have found a bargain. Prices vary. in the case of the supermarket chain, such differences can have staggering effects on the bottom line. just because a $500 comic can have a sexy $100 discount, doesn't mean the $0.01 saved on thousands of canned goods, boxes of cereal, and TV dinners is no less relevant. Prices vary. we agree on this point.

 

The graph is an index of prices most likely based on FMV prices. But unlike stocks that make up a stock index, it IS possible to buy collectibles at a discount to FMV if you shop around.

 

fine. same with commodities. we agree about the importance of shopping around.

 

By definition, a peak is followed by a decline. Otherwise, IT WOULDN'T BE A PEAK!

 

and we agree on the definition of a peak. good.

 

Again I say, you can't know when a peak is happening until it's already happened. Peaks are a chart pattern that is only formed IF there is a significant decline after an increase. Up until that happens, you can only say that "prices are high". But there's no telling if prices might go higher.

 

Such has happened in the comics market for the last 3 years.

 

How many people have said prices are peaking and are bound to go down and missed out on significant opportunity in the last 3 years?

 

fine. the last 3 years have showed continued appreciation for comic books. i do not disagree with that.

 

I just felt the graph u posted suggested certain implications regarding the state of collectibles in general, and comics in specific.

 

i'll just post it again and allow people to make their own judgments on its implications and merits.

 

 

 

[Norrin_Radd]

I'm glad we agree.

 

I posted that chart to show that not all coins crashed in price after 1989. This "key dates and rarities" index only declined about 30% from peak to trough. If you bought in 1987 you didn't see any decline.

 

Will prices decline from here or go up more? Who can say?

 

Collect what you love. And don't overpay. If you do that, you won't care as much about price fluctuations.

[the blob]

I do believe, however, that people have been salting away coins in far larger quantity and for many more years than comics. afterall, in 1933 coins were collected near and far and how many years have they been pumping out mint sets?

 

seriously, once they made the conversion away from silver in the 60s, tons more people sat on those coins. every 60/70 something guy seems to have a shoe box of silver coinage.

 

granted, perhaps a lot got melted down when the bass brothers pumped up the price of silver, but i suspect that was mainly low grade coins.

[joe_collector]

Hey!

 

I just found the PERFECT investment vehicle! COINS!!!

 

Yeah, that chart is a real hoot, especially given how the index shifts constantly and only includes the hottest coins on the market. If it's hot, suddenly, it's included, and if it's not, then it mysteriously disappears - or kinda how NASDAQ did theirs.

 

I would LOVE to see a real coin index, which would paint a far different picture.

[Aman619]

you talking about Dow Jones Industrials?

[joe_collector]

you talking about Dow Jones Industrials?

 

No, I'm talking about the NASDAQ stock market index, like the S&P 500, or the Dow Jones, but far more volatile and subject to artificial inflation.

 

For example, during the boom-bust period, several soon-to-be-delisted companies were on the main index, but as soon as the stocks started tanking, the companies were removed from the various internal/external NASDAQ indexes and replaced with better performing companies, thereby creating the illusion that the market was still healthy.

 

Up here in Canada, the infamous Bre-X was part of the TSE 300.. right until it melted down.. and suddenly it was removed and replaced with another "hot stock". Strange.

 

That's what happens with those stupid "coin indexes". The lower-performing, crashed, and tanked coins are continually replaced with the "hottest performers" and that keeps the index at artificially high levels. Even a layman should see that the numbers are way off.

 

For proof, just ask the publisher for the data set for the entire chart shown.

[jkrk]

Up here in Canada, the infamous Bre-X was part of the TSE 300.. right until it melted down..

 

Are you trying to relate Bre-X eo CGC??? Substitue Gold for comics and Bre-x for cGC and the Vancouver stock Exchange for the comic industry.

 

 

If you've been reading the papers in the last few weeks, you'll have picked up the story centering on a fabulous gold mine in Kalimantan, Indonesia. The company concerned was called Bre-Ex, and the gold deposit was valued at $20-billion. Investors were ecstatic; then there was a mysterious fire, destroying documents. And then the geologist mysteriously fell out of a helicopter. And then last week it was revealed that the whole thing may have been a fraud. There's very little gold in the Kalimantan strike. It appears the mine had been salted. The alleged scam threatened to bring down the Vancouver Stock Exchange, and there still may be a domino effect across the whole of Canada.

[Norrin_Radd]

Are you trying to relate Bre-X eo CGC??? Substitue Gold for comics and Bre-X for CGC and the Vancouver stock Exchange for the comic industry.

 

The VSE is a notorious haven for stock scams.

[tth2]

granted, perhaps a lot got melted down when the bass brothers pumped up the price of silver

It was the Hunt brothers that tried to corner the silver market

[Norrin_Radd]

granted, perhaps a lot got melted down when the bass brothers pumped up the price of silver

It was the Hunt brothers that tried to corner the silver market

 

So much for your attention to details.

 

 

Your point is still valid though. There are ALOT of common coins around as people have been collecting coins forever. However, key dates and rarites continue to appreciate.

[jkrk]

It was the Hunt brothers that tried to corner the silver market

 

March 27, 1980. I remeber it well I was trading equity options and vividly recall the late day market's reversal. The excitement of choking on quite a few calls only to see them very profitable in the final hour was a rush.

 

Anyway, H.L. Hunt lived a relatively conservative lifestyle. Every afternoon he and a friend would go to the racetrack and H.L. always brought a packed lunch. They never bet with the track facilities but instead wagered with each other. One day a reporter had a chance to ask H.L. a question. Sir, you live a relatively modest lifestyle while your sons are spending money without care. Would you care to comment?" H.L. looked at the reporter and said, "Son, if I had a rich father I wuld probably have been the same way."

 

Whenever I think of the hunt's that story comes to mind.