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What’s driving the price of Hulk 1 ?

Started by passion4comics,

110 posts in this topic

passion4comics

passion4comics

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As AF 15 rose above FF 1 then SC 4 as the silver age book to have it first seemed weird then obvious as Spiderman is simply the character to have. With seemingly every other issue from 1-50 a key of some sort or another. When his girlfriend has cameo appearances noted, that's when you know its for real.

 

And now FF1 is the least of the big keys and Hulk 1 and SC 4 are almost equal to AF 15. Seems off to me but the market says otherwise. Demand is always the driver and demand for Af 15 is simply getting soft.

 

An AF15 3.0 sold for almost 10k not too long ago; that's not that soft! There are around 1400 blues of AF15 and that's after the market shook a lot of raws into plastic. I know a lot of you guys are SS fans. I'm just using the blues for an example.

 

SC4 is another book that took off lately with nothing more than a TV series coming out. Other than that, why now on that book too? SC4 is very scarce.

 

FF1 I am bias too because I always wanted one and it took 30 years to finally get one.

 

Hulks because of its cover is hard to get in higher grades. The dark cover makes all defects pop out.

 

We also have other books that are minor keys like Hawkman 4 that just sold for 7k. Is this a 7k book? I have a better looking copy than that 9.6 so who wants it. :) All of the Action 242s just vanished overnight from EBay after they were sitting for months untouched when Braniac was announced as a villain.

 

Other than movie speculation, what drives the sudden interest in a book like Hulk 1? I would hate to think it's nothing more than herd mentality. Did the 300k+ sale just shake everyone and say "hey, the Hulk is really a good book to have if you like him".

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Marvel Zombie

Marvel Zombie

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I think it comes down to the realized scarcity of IH #1

Total CGC graded copies of Hulk 1...1116. Ridiculously scarce when compared to FF1 ... 1509 copies, Tales of Suspense 39 ... 1439 copies, Journey 83 ... 1157 copies, or Tales to Astonish 27 ... 623 copies.

 

It is also interesting to compare the concept of scarce. Over in the golden age forum we marvel at the recent heat and price run up on Captain America #1, relatively speaking one of the most common golden age keys with a grand total of ... 143 CGC graded copies.

 

 

Just wondered if bat1 is more common than cap 1 ?

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Primetime

Primetime

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I think it comes down to the realized scarcity of IH #1

Total CGC graded copies of Hulk 1...1116. Ridiculously scarce when compared to FF1 ... 1509 copies, Tales of Suspense 39 ... 1439 copies, Journey 83 ... 1157 copies, or Tales to Astonish 27 ... 623 copies.

 

It is also interesting to compare the concept of scarce. Over in the golden age forum we marvel at the recent heat and price run up on Captain America #1, relatively speaking one of the most common golden age keys with a grand total of ... 143 CGC graded copies.

 

(thumbs u and Bat 1s are all over the place with 200 copies. Every key book has it's spot in the sunshine and it belongs to ole green (grey) skin right now :)

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Foxtrot70

Foxtrot70

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AF 15 has gone up so much it is insane. Have people really become so blind to this gross speculation except someone who never cared much for web head? As has been pointed out already, I also believe that because books like AF 15 and Hulk 181 can sustain such rapid appreciation sets the pace for other books to rocket up, such as Hulk 1 and ST110.

 

I always remember Hulk being in steady demand and hard to find, so nothing new there. It seems now w so many keys becoming expensive vs a decade ago, folks want to own a piece of that history before they get out of reach. It is not easy to drop 5k on a book. And that is about the avg price of a nice mid grade top 20 tier book. For the Top 10, your talking lower grade at that price point and that window seems to be rapidly closing. The options for many have been reduced so demand will spike on other books. ie.. SC4, AF15, Hulk 1 are now beyond 99.9% of most budgets, naturally people will go after books like ASM 1, JIM83, TOS39, Xmen 1, BB28 etc.

 

Seems like the economy is a bit stronger than it was 2-3 years ago, and the big movies like Avengers, IM, and Superman are starting to have their effect on collector base (not to be confused w chasing movie based keys). I figured it would take a few years for interest to kindle the old collectors to come back and new ones to acclimate to spending $$$. I meet people here and there that are coming back to hobby after 20-30 yrs and also the newbie that has been around a few years and ready to plunk down some $$ for investment grade books.

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G.A.tor

G.A.tor

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The 9.2 sales drove recognition and fueled demand. I've always been able to buy and have a half dozen + copies of hulk 1 in stock at most all times with no difficulty. Nothing "scarce" about it. Bobs sold 10 copies in past 5 months...I've sold 8 copies (and have several more and could buy 10 more today if I wanted to pay for them ) another boardie has or has sold as many , and a non boardie (I believe) has a good 7-10 copy stash.

 

Book got hyped up with a couple of big sales and folks started scrambling and are now paying strong relative to recent upswing in demand and seemingly fewer copies in the market. Simple, really... But don't be fooled, the book is hardly scarce lol

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Artboy99

Artboy99

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I am noticing a massive up swing in the sales of major keys at local comic shows as well. 5 years ago we sold some, now we seem to be selling them all.

 

What I think has happened is more comic buyers are seeing key books as an investment and because of this you are getting far more buyers of this type of book.

 

 

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passion4comics

passion4comics

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The 9.2 sales drove recognition and fueled demand. I've always been able to buy and have a half dozen + copies of hulk 1 in stock at most all times with no difficulty. Nothing "scarce" about it. Bobs sold 10 copies in past 5 months...I've sold 8 copies (and have several more and could buy 10 more today if I wanted to pay for them ) another boardie has or has sold as many , and a non boardie (I believe) has a good 7-10 copy stash.

 

Book got hyped up with a couple of big sales and folks started scrambling and are now paying strong relative to recent upswing in demand and seemingly fewer copies in the market. Simple, really... But don't be fooled, the book is hardly scarce lol

 

I think I have my answer. :)

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G.A.tor

G.A.tor

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I think "speculation" is you define that buyers are speculating they won't be able to find cheaper in the future, then you are correct...

 

I can tell you, that as a reseller, I have not currently bought many copies for resale...I know of others that have not ,either (we are selling previously owned inv)...it is actual "customers" that are buying their copies (maybe speculating it still cheaper now, than will be in 2 years)

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