What's the WORST comic buying decision you ever made???

[anstettoman]

1974 comic con Buffalo NY statler hotel. had in my hands 5 copies of amazing adult fantasy #15 decent condition (was only 12 years after it came out) guy wanted $100-$150 ea for these. (but at 17years old in 74 $150 was like 10k to me now). or a flea market in the early 70's where a seller brought his marvel collection (early ff's i remember seeing #25 and probably 15 additional boxes of books) looking to move them for cover price. I did buy some giant sized books from him for .25 but at 14 years old didn't have the cash to look at the big picture......

 

on the positive side never was a x-men collector but something about the x-men #94 cover and new look made me purchase this one off the rack at .25 (fortunately i was a hulk collector in those days so i bought one off the rack for .25 as well) ahh the good old days....

[NewWorldOrder]

This book will be in someones future worst decisions.......

 

[Shaven Kev-migration]

fugly...

[Wilson3d]

This book will be in someones future worst decisions.......

 

 

[Tiger Topher]

This book will be in someones future worst decisions.......

 

Joker's Daughter #1 was a great purchase for me. I bought a bunch, flipped them immediately, and used the money I made to buy original art and other good stuff.

[Gatsby77]

At ComicFest '93 in Philly I passed on Bone # 1 for $50 because I didn't like or really "get" the book. I instructed my buddy to buy it as an investment instead (having never heard of it, he did not), while I bought a whole run of Ultraverse books, including Prime # 2 for $12.

 

To be fair, my big purchase at that con was a 9.0 All Star Western # 10 that I paid $45 for and later sold for $270, but that the next $50 went to Ultraverse issues rather than the Bone 1 still chafes.

 

Another was meeting James O'Barr at my first convention in 1990 and passing on a pile of autographed copies of The Crow # 1 at cover price.

 

Ha, I passed up a TMNT #1 at that same convention for a little over $100.

Glad I got the Defiant: Genesis CF '93 exclusive signed and personalized by Shooter though!

 

And hey, I got to meet Mr. T at that show, so that was worth it right there.

 

Yup. Never got my Defiant Genesis copies signed but I've still got a handful of them.

 

Forget whether it was '92 or '93, but seeing Mr. T was a trip. Saw him walk in like a normal guy, albeit with a small entourage. Then he arrived at the appointed place and got himself into character.

 

Good times.

[the blob]

"So what was that worst decision? Me spending over $200 for a lot of 20-25 old lower grade Mutt & Jeffs that are still sitting in a file cabinet collecting dust. What could I have spent the money on instead? That short stack of 9 or 10 Silver Surfer #1s most in very nice condition."

 

The series from the 80s or 60s? Shouldn't that be about 150-250 copies of the series from the 80s in 2002 prices?

 

If someone was selling a stack of nice surfer 1s (60s series) in 2002 for $20 a pop then they were obviously brain damaged and it wouldn't have been right for you to take advanatage anyway.

[the blob]

"Yes I love comics. However for whatever reason I ended up drinking the "gotta buy this now" kool aid flavored water and towards the end of the 90's I was just on autopilot and buying just to be buying. No enjoyment at that time."

 

Honestly, I wouldn't be so quick to wholesale out at 12 cents a pop the comics from mid/late 97 or so to 2000/2001. Some of the Marvels from then have a lot of potential (and some have already popped). I don't really know the DC market though, but I suspect some of those titles had pretty short print-runs too...it just seems that the Marvel stuff typically spikes more than DC when a book gets hot for whatever reason with Batman related titles being the occasional exeption.

 

[ttfitz]

I guess the worst was when I decided in Junior High that comics weren't cool, and stopped buying them - and when I started back again in college, having to pay inflated prices to pick up all the books that came out when I stopped buying them (All New X-Men).

 

Second would be in the mid-80s, I was just out of college, in my first job. I was making pretty good money, but having been raised a frugal kinda guy, I put some artificial limits on my comic spending, otherwise I could have gone crazy. I decided at the time that I wouldn't spend more than $3 on a back issue. I went to a used bookstore in my new town that was getting out of the back issue business, and everything was 75% off. Picked up a number of books on my list that were listed at $10 (so only $2.50), but decided to pass on a number of Silver Age books (nothing important, some Superboy's and such) that were $15 - over the limit.

 

Now I find myself spending $20-30+ each for these same books in worse condition.

[the blob]

Like most here it was passing on stuff...I have never really been burned on a book, didn't invest in moderns in the early 90s -- what i bought i bought to read, so i can't cry about that! Jeez, don't need to go back as far as the 80s, I could have picked up a solid 50+ copies of Saga 1 at a local shop 10 days after its release but passed on it and only bought a couple. Honestly, I think they may have had 50-100 more in the back because they had Bendis in for a signing the prior weekend. Over the next few weeks I bought more and, of course, sold them too early!! But by then the huge stack of them had been winnowed down.

 

I did lose a lot of potential money going after 3.0 - 6.0 SA books rather than 8.0 - 9.4. Thing is, my local shop gave me a deep discount on the low/mid-grade stuff (65-50% off depending on his mood), but had enough customers who grabbed up most of his higher grade stuff he didn't need to give more than a 15% discount on it, so I got in the habit of going for SA quantity over quality and it carried over into my buying at shows. Why not get spidey 41-45 in VG+ rather than one issue in VF?

 

Anyway, I haggled a lot, so I didn't ever pay anywhere near guide on this stuff, so I still made money on it over the years, but not as much as I could have as the spreads got wider on these books.

 

Another big mistake was not diligently checking back covers. My coveted X-Men 3 in what I thought was VF+ or so turned out to have a nice big rip in the back with tape on it...I still think I did ok when I sold that because I don't think it was priced as a VF+ to start with, but I might not have been so keen on it...and that wasn't the only one

[the blob]

Catwoman 23 1st print was priced at cover at NYCC...I guess that's a bad decision of the future for some people loading up at $10++.

 

usually when a "hot" new book is being blown out at shows like this it is a bad sign for the future

[JAM_NYC]

Spending around $40 on a Deathmate Prologue gold edition. I remember the LCS owner asking me a couple of times, "are you sure you want this?", probably due to the fact that he must now spend the rest of his days knowing he violated a small child. I got Munsoned bad by most of my Image/Valiant purchases back then. Turned me off to comics for over a decade...

[revat]

Not too many terrible purchases, although I accidentally sat on a modern variant I bought for cover that could have sold for $40. I regret sitting on it...

 

 

 

On an sort of related note, I actually LOVE the 90's comics I bought. I remember loving the Todd Mac Spider-Man reboot and the Silvestri Wolverine and Jim Lee X-men (uncanny and reboot). This is how I got back into comics after a long break. They have no actual value now, but I was able to meet Silvestri and McFarlane at Image Expo and chat with those guys and get them signed (non CGC SS), and rehash some good memories for me and hopefully for them (I like to think so).

 

Related Anecdote: I was in the line for all of the Image Creators (Kirkman, Silvestri, Larsen, Liefeld, McFarlane, Valentino). I've got the Spider-Man #12 for McFarlane. While signing some other junk, Liefeld asks to see it and starts flipping through it. He says that he thinks he and Jim Lee helped ink a few of the pages while Todd was sick. He starts flipping, identifies a page, and yells down to Todd (2 seats over) to ask who inked the page. Todd tells Liefeld that its a completely different issue that Jim Lee and Liefeld inked, and Todd looks a little embarrassed for Liefeld and/or himself. Liefeld is pretty happy with the answer, hands it back. I hand it to Todd, who remarks on how good the condition of the book is and signs it, and tells me quietly that his inking is nothing like Liefeld's. Liefeld overhears, and says "WE WERE TRYING TO COPY YOUR STYLE BRO". It was all good natured and a great memory for me. LOve me my 90's drek

[slym2none]

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And people say ***I*** post a lot...

 

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-slym ( )

[Shark]

"So what was that worst decision? Me spending over $200 for a lot of 20-25 old lower grade Mutt & Jeffs that are still sitting in a file cabinet collecting dust. What could I have spent the money on instead? That short stack of 9 or 10 Silver Surfer #1s most in very nice condition."

 

The series from the 80s or 60s? Shouldn't that be about 150-250 copies of the series from the 80s in 2002 prices?

 

If someone was selling a stack of nice surfer 1s (60s series) in 2002 for $20 a pop then they were obviously brain damaged and it wouldn't have been right for you to take advanatage anyway.

 

It was the 1968 version of Silver Surfer #1. And like I stated in my original post, IT WAS AN AUCTION.

[Mijael.Levy]

I did a lot of mistakes back in the 90 ´s when i started to collect but without a doubt my worst comic decision was holding two copies of The Sixth Gun #1 instead of selling them when they where hot as hell . I still dont understand how they said no to the show , the story is really great!

 

And last week i brought a jimmy olsen without looking carefully at the pictures from a "friend" who told me it was 6.0 , so i received it today and the cover is detached at the to staple.. I paid him $70 ...

[FineCollector]

I passed on low grade Tales of Suspense 39 and 40 for $1500 a couple of years ago at a convention, while the 39 was still booking at $7-8000 in NM. It would've been worth it if they were what he said they were, but he'd overgraded them both by a bunch. I got the feeling he was more incompetent than malicious, but it didn't feel right to me. If you can't grade, you probably don't check the insides, and definitely can't detect (and won't disclose) restoration. I should've taken the time to inspect them, but I didn't want to deal with amateur hour at a busy show. I didn't even bother negotiating, I just walked away, happy not to have handed over my money to this joker.

[trmoore54]

Not buying a restored Tec 27 two years ago at NYCC at a fair price.

 

[sassemble]

 

 

After paying a lot of money (even then) for high grade Avengers #s 3, 4 and 6 in 1993 at my LCS, I passed on the #s 7-10. If I had bought them, I would have probably 9.0+ copies from #3-#10 now.

On a smaller scale, I remember pondering whether to buy the red or white cover Ultimate Spider-Man #1. There were plenty of each at my LCS. I was cheap and bought the red one. Hey, these books will never be worth anything!

[Wilson3d]

This book will be in someones future worst decisions.......

 

Joker's Daughter #1 was a great purchase for me. I bought a bunch, flipped them immediately, and used the money I made to buy original art and other good stuff.

 

Awesome!