Comic Book Investing

[MrBedrock]

 

I can buy 10,000 shares of Walmart in the next five minutes.

 

Not attacking you here, RMA,...but so what? I know you have stated this in relation to being able to go out and drop investment money on a specific old comic at the drop of a hat. And in an instantaneous interval that may be pertinent. But we are talking about investing in comics over a time frame that makes that line of reasoning moot. And even then, it is still possible to flip comics on a minute to minute and day to day basis and be profitable. If you wish to spend the time and know the market you can profit off of the minute variances in different sales arenas (auction houses vs. eBay vs. these boards vs. want-list customers vs. web-sales). So the "I could buy 10,000 shares of X tomorrow" line of reasoning is not important to this discussion. You could go out and buy any comic you want tomorrow if you are prepared to pay for it. I guarantee you that there is a price at which the MH Action 1 could be had. Would it be a price that would be a sound investment? Who knows.

 

But the key to any investment is research. Do enough research and you can invest in comics and do incredibly well. Don't do enough research and you will lose money. That is something that is not spoken about enough in this thread. Would I recommend that some random person invest in comics? No. But I would recommend that any random person who is interested in investing should go and do their homework. Learn this market. Learn about the cool stuff we get to mess around with and look at daily. Get a real understanding of what comics are and why people enjoy them (and therefore why people collect them). Then, once someone is armed with that knowledge, I would definitely recommend they go and invest their money in comics. Because once they are armed with that knowledge there is no way they could possibly lose money on their investment.

 

Likewise, Mr. B, I am not attacking you...but it matters for all the reasons stated before: ability to find said material at prices that make the material a good, as opposed to a bad, investment, the lack of reliable third party grading until very recently, storage, insurance, susceptibility to loss through natural means, etc. Buying a book in a slab in 2004 for $100, and selling it in 2014 for $450 is great! But did you buy 100 of those for $100 each, and then sell them all for $450 each? $350 minus expenses is a great return...once.

 

Where are all the comic book millionaires? Where are all the people who made fortunes in the comics market? As said before, there are, what...50 of you? 100? Let's look at hard data, with specific examples, rather than just say "all you have to do is learn your market, and you can do really well!", because that's not always true, and it's what everybody already knows.

 

Because I'll say what I said before: when I got in (essentially 1990), I did all the right things, things that everyone in comics had done before me, and had done really well. I did not see (and neither did much of anyone else) 1995-1996 looming on the horizon. I learned the market, I soaked up information like a sponge...and still "lost." What was true of the market in the 70's and 80's was no longer true, and could not be relied upon any further...and no one really knew that. And what was true in the 90's and early 2000's is no longer true today.

 

There is more knowledge on this board than any other concentration of comic book people in the world...and yet, we're not all millionaires. Some of us have done very well, no doubt. *I* have done very well. I've managed to turn many, many lemons into lemonade...but I shouldn't have had to, according to the way it was done in the 70's and 80's, and I'm not a stupid man. And if I had gotten out at any time between 1993 and 2007....I would have shown nothing but red ink as far as the eye can see.

 

I agree with you that it is nearly impossible to live large simply by buying and selling comics. It is possible to make a decent living, but most don't have any desire to make this a career. But I still think it is very possible to make sound decisions when buying comics and have those decisions pay off. It could be done in the 1990's and it can be done today. The simply fact is that to do it properly one must continually buy against the grain. Continually. As in all of the time. Don't buy the books that everyone else is chasing. Buy the books that have some redeeming quality and are abnormally cheap in relation to other like books. What could that be now? How about Golden Age Fawcetts? How about '50s romance? How about Herbie the Fat Fury? How about Tower Comics? How about Rom? Those are just a small few of the many potential investment type comics that can be had right now, all day long, on dealer sites, eBay, at shows, and can be had for very little money with little or no downside exposure. The point of this thread is whether or not it is possible today to invest in comics and actually turn a profit. It is absolutely possible if done correctly. And it can be done whether one can also but 10,000 shares of Walmart stock or whether bread artificially inflates the CPI or whether Gordon Gecko amazes us with his fantastical tales of making a billion doing something else.

[delekkerste]

...and again, your quotes on the stock market are including history making, not likely to be repeated in our generation returns in basically a one year period. By almost all measures the stock market is over heated, bloated, rife with speculation and over flowing with over valued stocks with P/E ratios so out of whack it's scary. Investing in DOW at 17k? No thanks. I'll wait until the FED stops propping it up with its free money policy, and in the meantime enjoy holding my beloved GA/SA/BA/CA/MA keys in the palm of my hands.

 

-J.

 

You're deluding yourself if you don't think that the Fed's policies haven't propped up every asset in the world, including comics.

 

You keep saying that the stock market is bloated and overheated. P/E ratios so out of whack it's scary? Really? The S&P 500 sells for 17.95x trailing 12-month earnings and 16.6x projected 2014 earnings. The Dow Jones sells for just 15.74x trailing earnings and 15.1x projected 2014 earnings. That doesn't strike me as a screaming bargain, but it doesn't exactly scream tulip bubble either. And, while there are certainly pockets of extreme overvaluation out there, there are also plenty of stocks that still offer healthy free cash flow yields (including many in the double-digits).

 

Frankly, it seems like you've just glommed on to this notion that stocks are uninvestible to justify putting more money into comics because you're more comfortable with them. That's not necessarily all bad, but it also seems like you're very attached to your comics, which doesn't exactly make for the kind of ruthless, against the grain speculating that Richard seems to be advocating.

[HighStakesComics]

Yep, he had me up until Rom.

[Jaydogrules]

...and again, your quotes on the stock market are including history making, not likely to be repeated in our generation returns in basically a one year period. By almost all measures the stock market is over heated, bloated, rife with speculation and over flowing with over valued stocks with P/E ratios so out of whack it's scary. Investing in DOW at 17k? No thanks. I'll wait until the FED stops propping it up with its free money policy, and in the meantime enjoy holding my beloved GA/SA/BA/CA/MA keys in the palm of my hands.

 

-J.

 

You're deluding yourself if you don't think that the Fed's policies haven't propped up every asset in the world, including comics.

 

You keep saying that the stock market is bloated and overheated. P/E ratios so out of whack it's scary? Really? The S&P 500 sells for 17.95x trailing 12-month earnings and 16.6x projected 2014 earnings. The Dow Jones sells for just 15.74x trailing earnings and 15.1x projected 2014 earnings. That doesn't strike me as a screaming bargain, but it doesn't exactly scream tulip bubble either. And, while there are certainly pockets of extreme overvaluation out there, there are also plenty of stocks that still offer healthy free cash flow yields (including many in the double-digits).

 

Frankly, it seems like you've just glommed on to this notion that stocks are uninvestible to justify putting more money into comics because you're more comfortable with them. That's not necessarily all bad, but it also seems like you're very attached to your comics, which doesn't exactly make for the kind of ruthless, against the grain speculating that Richard seems to be advocating.

 

Of course when the stock market inevitably pops there will be a flight from it to other asset classes. Collectibles and antiquities have a history of being an alternative place to park money. And the really super cool thing about those are, even if they also lose value, you still own the physical item. That's another thing I love about investing in things with intrinsic and not just "paper" value.

 

-J.

[MrBedrock]

What about the average collector who bought Our Army at War 83 in any grade five years ago?

.

 

I had a nice copy of this that I bought in 2001 for...I think...$75 or so. Probably a VG+.

 

I *think* I sold it in 2003 for maybe $150.

 

I bought two VF- copies (which I'm sure have since been pressed and reside in 9.0 slabs) of GI Combat #69 and #75 for $40 each....sold them on eBay for $177 each in 2002-ish.

 

What are those worth now? $1300-$1500?

 

And how many such copies were available to me?

 

Just one each. That's all that was available for me to purchase. If I could have purchased more, I would have, but they weren't available.

 

First question...how was anyone to know that OAAW #83 would do what it did? Past history showed no indication of any sort. In fact, for most of its history, it played second fiddle to #81.

 

Second question...how does one buy single copies here and there as an investment strategy?

 

Another anecdote: in 2010, I was at the "Pasadena Rockin' Con", which was a dismal failure, but I spied a gorgeous Combat #110. I bought it for $220. I pressed it, subbed it, and it came back a 9.4. I was thrilled.

 

I put it on eBay. I had no idea how to price it. The only other sales data was a 2003 sale for $265. I was going to price it at $1,000, then, at the last second, put it at $2,000. Within 24 hours, I had an offer of $1750. I was thrilled SPITLESS!

 

That person took that copy, cracked it, pressed it, subbed it to CGC, and got a 9.6 (the 9.6 I was hoping for.)

 

It was then listed at Heritage, where the now-9.6 copy of the book I owned sold for $479.

 

Big loss for that buyer. Big time. If I had had the available funds, I could have bought the book I subbed, in a grade level higher than mine, and cleared $1000+ in pure profit.

 

It was bought by keycomics in Florida, and sold from them for $800. I debated buying it, but couldn't get past the fact that if I'd been paying attention, I could have owned it for $479 + whatever it would have taken to be the highest bidder, so I passed.

 

It's funny you mention all of that...I was buying DC War pretty heavily for a few years there. Especially the ten centers. I just think they are very cool. But I got tired of dealing with the fact that a big chunk of the pricing of that genre was dependent on the whims of one buyer. And that buyer was in for a while, out for a while, in for a while, out for a while...now completely out. So random books, and Sgt. Rock books in particular, could fluctuate drastically from one listing to the next. Now that he is out it is probably a great time to be trying to put those runs together. The low and mid grade books are very affordable now. But most of the high grade stuff was sucked up when it sold for very reasonable prices in 2012.

 

The one exception is OAAW 83. The first appearance of Sgt. Rock kind of blurs the lines of collectability. First appearance, exceptionally hard to find in grade, cool cover. And you are correct in that the opportunities to buy them are few. But copies do come available.

 

I think that is one of the interesting things about investing in old comics. Sure, you can't just go out and buy exactly what you want on any given day of the week. But when something truly rare and unique does come available you really have to make a commitment to pursuing that item. We may make fun of Mitchell Mehdy and his "mannup" stuff, but in a sense he is very correct. A serious decision had to be made in the acquisition of every iconic book in this hobby. Certainly those books are not the only indication of whether or not this is a healthy market to be investing ones money, but if they aren't then neither are the examples of expensive books which have dropped in value.

[RockMyAmadeus]

 

I can buy 10,000 shares of Walmart in the next five minutes.

 

Not attacking you here, RMA,...but so what? I know you have stated this in relation to being able to go out and drop investment money on a specific old comic at the drop of a hat. And in an instantaneous interval that may be pertinent. But we are talking about investing in comics over a time frame that makes that line of reasoning moot. And even then, it is still possible to flip comics on a minute to minute and day to day basis and be profitable. If you wish to spend the time and know the market you can profit off of the minute variances in different sales arenas (auction houses vs. eBay vs. these boards vs. want-list customers vs. web-sales). So the "I could buy 10,000 shares of X tomorrow" line of reasoning is not important to this discussion. You could go out and buy any comic you want tomorrow if you are prepared to pay for it. I guarantee you that there is a price at which the MH Action 1 could be had. Would it be a price that would be a sound investment? Who knows.

 

But the key to any investment is research. Do enough research and you can invest in comics and do incredibly well. Don't do enough research and you will lose money. That is something that is not spoken about enough in this thread. Would I recommend that some random person invest in comics? No. But I would recommend that any random person who is interested in investing should go and do their homework. Learn this market. Learn about the cool stuff we get to mess around with and look at daily. Get a real understanding of what comics are and why people enjoy them (and therefore why people collect them). Then, once someone is armed with that knowledge, I would definitely recommend they go and invest their money in comics. Because once they are armed with that knowledge there is no way they could possibly lose money on their investment.

 

Likewise, Mr. B, I am not attacking you...but it matters for all the reasons stated before: ability to find said material at prices that make the material a good, as opposed to a bad, investment, the lack of reliable third party grading until very recently, storage, insurance, susceptibility to loss through natural means, etc. Buying a book in a slab in 2004 for $100, and selling it in 2014 for $450 is great! But did you buy 100 of those for $100 each, and then sell them all for $450 each? $350 minus expenses is a great return...once.

 

Where are all the comic book millionaires? Where are all the people who made fortunes in the comics market? As said before, there are, what...50 of you? 100? Let's look at hard data, with specific examples, rather than just say "all you have to do is learn your market, and you can do really well!", because that's not always true, and it's what everybody already knows.

 

Because I'll say what I said before: when I got in (essentially 1990), I did all the right things, things that everyone in comics had done before me, and had done really well. I did not see (and neither did much of anyone else) 1995-1996 looming on the horizon. I learned the market, I soaked up information like a sponge...and still "lost." What was true of the market in the 70's and 80's was no longer true, and could not be relied upon any further...and no one really knew that. And what was true in the 90's and early 2000's is no longer true today.

 

There is more knowledge on this board than any other concentration of comic book people in the world...and yet, we're not all millionaires. Some of us have done very well, no doubt. *I* have done very well. I've managed to turn many, many lemons into lemonade...but I shouldn't have had to, according to the way it was done in the 70's and 80's, and I'm not a stupid man. And if I had gotten out at any time between 1993 and 2007....I would have shown nothing but red ink as far as the eye can see.

 

I agree with you that it is nearly impossible to live large simply by buying and selling comics. It is possible to make a decent living, but most don't have any desire to make this a career. But I still think it is very possible to make sound decisions when buying comics and have those decisions pay off. It could be done in the 1990's and it can be done today. The simply fact is that to do it properly one must continually buy against the grain. Continually. As in all of the time. Don't buy the books that everyone else is chasing. Buy the books that have some redeeming quality and are abnormally cheap in relation to other like books. What could that be now? How about Golden Age Fawcetts? How about '50s romance? How about Herbie the Fat Fury? How about Tower Comics? How about Rom? Those are just a small few of the many potential investment type comics that can be had right now, all day long, on dealer sites, eBay, at shows, and can be had for very little money with little or no downside exposure. The point of this thread is whether or not it is possible today to invest in comics and actually turn a profit. It is absolutely possible if done correctly. And it can be done whether one can also but 10,000 shares of Walmart stock or whether bread artificially inflates the CPI or whether Gordon Gecko amazes us with his fantastical tales of making a billion doing something else.

 

"Once hot, now not" has been my mantra for 20+ years.

 

If something was hot once before...(Valiant, Spidey #252, Thor #337, Alan Moore Swamp Thing, Turtles, etc.)...it stands a far greater chance to be hot again over something that was never hot to begin with (like 1975's Atlas Seaboard line.)

 

You could (and I did) buy NM/M copies of Spidey #252 for $3-$5 on eBay in the late 90's and early 2000's.

 

You could (and I did) buy first print Turtles #1 for $66 in 1999 on eBay.

 

But you're describing work...an avocation...a drive to do this, day in and day out...not an investment.

 

That makes all difference.

 

And Rom is awesome...Rom #47 is the one and only comic book I ever remembered having as a kid...and I own 3-4 complete runs...but storing all these books, waiting for the day the ship comes in....'

 

If you don't do comics because you love comics, just for comics' sake, you're going to lose. It's just a matter of odds.

 

You can't go to the casino and call it an investment strategy. You can't buy boxes of Rom, and do the same.

[MrBedrock]

Yep, he had me up until Rom.

Mark my words

[MrBedrock]

But you're describing work...an avocation...a drive to do this, day in and day out...not an investment.

 

That makes all difference.

 

I'm not sure I understand? Isn't any investing of your money "work" if you are doing it yourself? I guess if you are comparing investing in the sense of giving your money to a money manager and paying him fees to manager your portfolio so you don't have to do the actual "work". But gathering information and making purchases is the work part of investing. And certainly there is an economy of scale with other types of investments that is not available with comics. But it still comes down to spending your investment money wisely and waiting for a return on your investment. If you want more scale you just have to figure a way to wisely spend more money.

[delekkerste]

Of course when the stock market inevitably pops there will be a flight from it to other asset classes. Collectibles and antiquities have a history of being an alternative place to park money. And the really super cool thing about those are, even if they also lose value, you still own the physical item. That's another thing I love about investing in things with intrinsic and not just "paper" value.

 

-J.

 

Stock have intrinsic value - they are claims on the assets and earnings of the company. Comics have little or no intrinsic value (they're worth maybe a couple bucks as something to read; the rest is just psychological value that the market of collectors puts on it). What you mean is that they are tangible assets, not that they have intrinsic value. And, so what if they are tangible? Most tangible things in my house are not worth what I paid for them. Why would I put a disproportionate amount of my assets into tangibles?

 

Over the long run, assets that produce value create more wealth for their owners than nonproductive assets. Just Google Warren Buffett's reasoning why he prefers stocks in the long run vs. gold and substitute comics for gold. You may be able to fondle your comics when you feel lonely at night, but it's the underlying cash flows generated by your productive assets that will build you the real wealth over the long term.

 

Also, if the stock market takes a dive, that doesn't mean money will flow into comics. I believe this misconception started because it was reputed that comic circulations fared better in economically depressed times, as people turned to comics as a source of cheap entertainment (whether that was actually statistically valid or not, I don't know). Nowadays, new comics are a terrible value proposition and people aren't going to be spending more on bloated vintage comic books if their 401ks get obliterated. If the stock market takes a big hit, so will just about everything else, as everything has been manipulated higher by easy money policies. Art, antiques and collectibles did not fare well in 2008 and early 2009 while the global financial system was melting down - they only rallied during the reflationary phase by which time stocks and just about everything else were soaring as well.

[HighStakesComics]

Yep, he had me up until Rom.

Mark my words

 

Funny story. My 4 yo son loves Marvel stuff, especially the Lego game on our XBox One. He also likes watching me list comics on the Bay. I have a press at the house and list books with my iPhone. If I have a comic sitting around that he looks interested in and it's only worth $5-$10, Ill let him look through it and add it to his "collection". It's even more amusing when I pick up our iPad and see that he's taken numerous pictures of these books. Front covers, back covers, page quality. Just like his old man. Granted the books he does this to aren't handled with the same care. His copies typically start off at 6's and wind up in 2.0. He has yet to get a good feel for proper care and handling. The last book that fell into his mitts? Rom #1. !!

[MrBedrock]

If you don't do comics because you love comics, just for comics' sake, you're going to lose. It's just a matter of odds.

 

I absolutely 100% agree with this, if for no other reason than the love of the comics creates an additional return on your investment that is immeasurable.

[Aweandlorder]

Over the long run, assets that produce value create more wealth for their owners than nonproductive assets. Just Google Warren Buffett's reasoning why he prefers stocks in the long run vs. gold and substitute comics for gold. You may be able to fondle your comics when you feel lonely at night, but it's the underlying cash flows generated by your productive assets that will build you the real wealth over the long term.

 

I like to fondle my Giant Size Man Thing when I feel lonely at night

[MrBedrock]

Yep, he had me up until Rom.

Mark my words

 

Funny story. My 4 yo son loves Marvel stuff, especially the Lego game on our XBox One. He also likes watching me list comics on the Bay. I have a press at the house and list books with my iPhone. If I have a comic sitting around that he looks interested in and it's only worth $5-$10, Ill let him look through it and add it to his "collection". It's even more amusing when I pick up our iPad and see that he's taken numerous pictures of these books. Front covers, back covers, page quality. Just like his old man. Granted the books he does this to aren't handled with the same care. His copies typically start off at 6's and wind up in 2.0. He has yet to get a good feel for proper care and handling. The last book that fell into his mitts? Rom #1. !!

The kid has great taste!

 

I'm terrible at using the search function here, but there is a thread a year or two back about us setting up at the first Wizard Dallas show and having one complete booth devoted solely to Rom. We had great fun with that.

[RockMyAmadeus]

 

I think that is one of the interesting things about investing in old comics. Sure, you can't just go out and buy exactly what you want on any given day of the week. But when something truly rare and unique does come available you really have to make a commitment to pursuing that item. We may make fun of Mitchell Mehdy and his "mannup" stuff, but in a sense he is very correct. A serious decision had to be made in the acquisition of every iconic book in this hobby. Certainly those books are not the only indication of whether or not this is a healthy market to be investing ones money, but if they aren't then neither are the examples of expensive books which have dropped in value.

 

One of the hardest lessons I ever had to learn...and it was a BLITCH to learn...was that you have to pay when you recognize quality, whether that quality is physical quality, intellectual quality, or just plain old scarcity, you have to step up to the plate and take a swing.

 

When I stopped buying new comics in 1993, I was pissed. I had done everything everyone said I was supposed to do, and I had nothing to show for it except boxes of crepe that no one wanted (like, for example, 15 NM/M copies each of New Mutants #93-100.) I was pissed that I was "hoodwinked" into paying full retail+, in a comic market where everyone was crazy with exuberance. Invariably, I would always find what I had just paid $30 for $15 somewhere else. And I was SUPER pissed when the market crashed in 1995.

 

Books that were worth $150 in 1993 (Harbinger #1) were now worth nothing.

 

But, I didn't throw in the towel...and I started buying those Harbinger #1s, and, after a decade+, it paid off.

 

However, now I was bitter, and learned a valuable "lesson": I wouldn't pay full price for anything ever again, and if something WAS full price, I would pass, knowing full well that it would show up again somewhere else for less.

 

And this served me well...until about 10 years ago or so, when I finally realized that I was missing out on things that were ACTUALLY rare, and GENUINELY quality, because I was bitterly refusing to pay full price.

 

That war collection? It was at my LCS. I chose the best 15 copies or so, and bought them. He had full runs of OOAW, Combat, everything. I SHOULD have bought every damn one of them, but I didn't, because I didn't recognize them ALL for what they were. By the time I did, a dealer...Bruce Scwartz, in fact...had scooped them all up.

 

I was cheap, and I paid for it when the opportunity came up and I missed it.

 

If I'd had the same attitude, I'd never have bought that Combat #110, which was priced OVER OPG. Thankfully, I learned my lesson long ago.

 

All that to say, yes...you have to be willing to step up to the plate when that which is truly rare, and actual quality passes in front of you, but you also had to have spent a lot of time and effort to be able to recognize it when it presents itself, and that's something the average investor just isn't willing to do.

 

[shadroch]

Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.

 

Confucius

 

 

Someday, I just may have to get a job, just to see what everyone always about.

someday. just not today. Nor this week. Nor anytime soon.

[DeadpoolJr.]

Yep, he had me up until Rom.

Mark my words

 

Funny story. My 4 yo son loves Marvel stuff, especially the Lego game on our XBox One. He also likes watching me list comics on the Bay. I have a press at the house and list books with my iPhone. If I have a comic sitting around that he looks interested in and it's only worth $5-$10, Ill let him look through it and add it to his "collection". It's even more amusing when I pick up our iPad and see that he's taken numerous pictures of these books. Front covers, back covers, page quality. Just like his old man. Granted the books he does this to aren't handled with the same care. His copies typically start off at 6's and wind up in 2.0. He has yet to get a good feel for proper care and handling. The last book that fell into his mitts? Rom #1. !!

The kid has great taste!

 

I'm terrible at using the search function here, but there is a thread a year or two back about us setting up at the first Wizard Dallas show and having one complete booth devoted solely to Rom. We had great fun with that.

http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=6985023&fpart=1

[Cat-Man_America]

Of course when the stock market inevitably pops there will be a flight from it to other asset classes. Collectibles and antiquities have a history of being an alternative place to park money. And the really super cool thing about those are, even if they also lose value, you still own the physical item. That's another thing I love about investing in things with intrinsic and not just "paper" value.

 

-J.

 

Stock have intrinsic value - they are claims on the assets and earnings of the company. Comics have little or no intrinsic value (they're worth maybe a couple bucks as something to read; the rest is just psychological value that the market of collectors puts on it). What you mean is that they are tangible assets, not that they have intrinsic value. And, so what if they are tangible? Most tangible things in my house are not worth what I paid for them. Why would I put a disproportionate amount of my assets into tangibles?

 

Over the long run, assets that produce value create more wealth for their owners than nonproductive assets. Just Google Warren Buffett's reasoning why he prefers stocks in the long run vs. gold and substitute comics for gold. You may be able to fondle your comics when you feel lonely at night, but it's the underlying cash flows generated by your productive assets that will build you the real wealth over the long term.

 

Also, if the stock market takes a dive, that doesn't mean money will flow into comics. I believe this misconception started because it was reputed that comic circulations fared better in economically depressed times, as people turned to comics as a source of cheap entertainment (whether that was actually statistically valid or not, I don't know). Nowadays, new comics are a terrible value proposition and people aren't going to be spending more on bloated vintage comic books if their 401ks get obliterated. If the stock market takes a big hit, so will just about everything else, as everything has been manipulated higher by easy money policies. Art, antiques and collectibles did not fare well in 2008 and early 2009 while the global financial system was melting down - they only rallied during the reflationary phase by which time stocks and just about everything else were soaring as well.

 

Without doubt your argument for stock investment has merit, and as part of a diverse portfolio I'd never argue against it on principle alone. However, the intrinsic value of corporate stock certificates only provide one kind of wealth, the kind that does virtually nothing for the heart, mind and spirit of a collector.

 

In essence, stock speculators become silent partners to a system that works tirelessly to defeat the aspirations of those employed by those companies to whom they claim partial ownership of assets. The stock investor essentially profits off the labors of others, one of many invisible faces seeking dividends while executive boards downsize jobs, cut benefits, move businesses overseas and take food from children's mouths.

 

I'm not saying that stock investors should feel responsible ...psychologically or otherwise... for decisions they're not directly involved with, but my point is simply this: comic collecting/investment harms no one while providing profit.

 

From my POV, this really comes down to personal choices in how one spends time and capital more than how much can be made on the backend. While I yield to your expertise in the area of stock investment producing wealth and would never criticize anyone for choosing to diversify in that direction, I cannot in good conscience recommend the intrinsic coldness of stock investment over the tangible enjoyment of comics. My

[RockMyAmadeus]

In essence, stock speculators become silent partners to a system that works tirelessly to defeat the aspirations of those employed by those companies to whom they claim partial ownership of assets. The stock investor essentially profits off the labors of others, one of many invisible faces seeking dividends while executive boards downsize jobs, cut benefits, move businesses overseas and take food from children's mouths.

 

Oh boy.

 

 

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

I'm not saying that stock investors should feel responsible ...psychologically or otherwise... for decisions they're not directly involved with, but my point is simply this: comic collecting/investment harms no one while providing profit.

 

Sure it does...it harms the people from whom you obtained those comics, robbing them of the ability to profit from their comics themselves...

 

 

 

[HighStakesComics]

I'm not saying that stock investors should feel responsible ...psychologically or otherwise... for decisions they're not directly involved with, but my point is simply this: comic collecting/investment harms no one while providing profit.

 

Sure it does...it harms the people from whom you obtained those comics, robbing them of the ability to profit from their comics themselves...

 

 

 

That's a bit of a stretch, RMA. These are people that chose instant gratification versus future ROI. "Robbed" is also pretty strong wording. Unless you hit them over the head with a sack of nickels and left with all their comics they almost certainly received something in return. Maybe that something got them out of a hole, put their kids through school, bought them a winning lottery ticket; etc. And, yes, you could also make that argument for literally anything that has ever increased in value over time.