Total Existing Copies of AF #15 2 2

[ComicConnoisseur]

ALL copies still exist..... but in varying degrees of entropy and degradation. GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

 

Like as in "energy can not be created or destroyed, only transformed" type of discussion?

 

 

Chemistry 101.

[ComicConnoisseur]

I don't think I am alone when I say if AF 15's burst in value then so do all other books in this hobby.

 

I don't see key issues of the major American folk-lure gods going down in value in our lifetime.

 

Ive sold a total of approximately 30 af15s since 2009. Mostly low grades. None of them was sold for a loss. Also they sold quickly, about less than a week after trying to sell them

I've sold over 200 af15s last 10 years or so. Also never lost money on any copy but there have been periods I've bought them at a much quicker pace than I've been able to sell due to those stagnation periods. But over time always been good to me

I remember about 6 or 7 years ago it cost about $1500 to get into the club with a low grade AF#15, while now it`s about $5000 to get into the club with a low grade AF#15.

Pretty good investment, and one of the best in all the collectibles field. (thumbs u

 

[bluechip]

Based unscientifically on the number of copies I have seen and then guesstimating how many there must be that I haven't seen, I would say maybe half-way to a thousand of Action 1, half way to 100K of AF15 and halfway to eleventy billion of Hulk 181.

 

Joking but not entirely. I love AF15 as a work but I would not be surprised to find the existing copies number somewhere in the six figures. Then again the number of people who know and love the story number somewhere in the ten figures.

Edited March 7, 2015 by bluechip

[ttfitz]

 

For the sake of discussion let's say there are 3.44 million people in the US who are millionaires (not hundred millionaires, plain old common millionaires and up), with a population of about 318.9 million people that is about 1.1% of the total population. Are these the people who own the AF 15 hoards?

 

Looks like there are nearly 3 times as many millionaires as that:

 

The number of households with net worth of $1 million or more, excluding their homes, is at a record 9.63 million

 

(And just for fun, there are about 132k households with more than $25 million)

[BarryAllen]

Looks like there are nearly 3 times as many millionaires as that:

 

The number of households with net worth of $1 million or more, excluding their homes, is at a record 9.63 million

 

(And just for fun, there are about 132k households with more than $25 million)

Coolio, thanks for the updated data point!

 

Brings the total percentage of millionaires to ~3%ish. I don't think it changes my point, but I appreciate the more recent data.

[RockMyAmadeus]

Unless they find a warehouse of AF 15's this book is not going down in any of our lifetimes.

 

There is too much demand and even if the census doubled tomorrow the supply worldwide would drink the AF 15 milkshake right up. I agree there are some nice copies either still in collections of hobbyists who haven't/nor wanted to get their copy/copies graded or original owner collections that have them, however there is a line of collectors who will gladly pony up right away. The number of tickets waiting to buy AF15's is a long line which is my point.

 

The fact of the matter is dealers can't even find them anymore when they are even trying to buy them at full retail.

 

Obviously not a rare book, but the Chicago Cubs will win a World Series quicker than an affordable AF 15 will be showing up before you.

 

The longer you wait the more cash you will have to spend. The 3rd most important comic book of all time has no downside.

 

 

Famous last words.

 

 

If Af 15's go down then the hobby is obviously dead as well.

 

Speaking of "long lines", there are, as I type, 25 copies of Fantasy #15, in various flavors, on eBay alone. If there were people in line to buy them, why would so many copies be available for sale?

 

That there are lots of people who would pay "for the right price" or "if they had the money", but that doesn't really count, does it...? I would buy one for the right price. Am I "in line" to buy one? No.

 

There are long lines for Fantastic Comics #3. There are plenty of people in line for a copy of that book....any copy.

 

And there have been times...hard though it may seem...that even the "third most important comic" has gone down in demand, and therefore value.

 

The ones on eBay are only Buy it Nows with well over market value asking prices.

 

Just because there is a line to buy them doesn't mean people who have 1% of a brain are going pay 5.0 money for a 2.5 copy.

 

Dealers can't keep them in stock. They come in and sell very quickly.

 

That illustrates the point. Price IS a factor that is preventing these "long lines" of people from buying one. If the price was ever spiraling upwards, what is "5.0 money" today would be 2.5 money in time, right...?

 

The point, of course, is that there IS price resistance, which means the people lining up to buy them aren't willing to do so "at any price", which would tell you isn't *as* desirable as some may believe.

 

And who are the people buying them? Are they people who want them because they want them? Are they people who want them because they believe they are good investments? Are they people looking to flip them?

 

I would like one for myself, but they are far beyond what I think is reasonable to pay, in any grade. If one comes along that is substantially under current market, obviously I'm going to buy it....but not to keep. And I am part of that "base of demand" which will keep the value of an item above a certain level...but that base is always changing, and never as solid as one might think.

 

Well I assume the people in line waiting for one aren't going to pay 15K for a CGC 2.0.

 

Sure...now.

 

They will if they have no other choice, or they will drop out of line. That's how the market works.

 

A little common sense here dude.

 

Common sense? What does "common sense" have to do with the market?

 

When you were in grade school, people were paying $3,000 for high grade copies.

 

If you had said that high grade copies would sell for $100,000+ in 20 years, they would have laughed, and told you "a little common sense here, dude."

 

You put a CGC 4.0 up on a dealers wall at GPA or slightly above it will be sold by the end of the con weekend.

 

Sure....now. There's nothing that will guarantee that will be true in the future.

 

I hope you do find an affordable one, however if you are hoping you can sneak one out at a lower cost by a decent margin I think that will be pretty hard to accomplish in your lifetime. Unless maybe you find one in a collection and that person doesn't know the value of the book.

 

I am not hoping for anything like that. I don't need one, and have never really desired one. There are a hell of a lot more that I can get for my money that I would enjoy much, much more (a #100-#200 run of Detective Comics, for example.) But that doesn't mean that prices cannot, and will not, come down.

 

The demand far, far outstrips supply, true...but the supply is not insubstantial, by any means.

 

 

I can only go on what evidence has been given to me since I have been in the hobby. So I believe no this book will not be going down in my lifetime. Besides comics having that little scare in the late 90's. These GA/SA/BA ultra key books are safer than gold.

 

We all have been told by many people that digital comics and video games would spell the end of comics books, well that was in 1993 so I am over hearing that non-sense so same goes for this. Could AF 15's go down sure, but since the book has risen essentially in value every year since it came out

 

This is not true.

 

I think its a safe bet that it will continue to rise in value.

 

So if you don't need an AF 15 great. I assumed you did since you were posting in this thread. Enjoy buying what you enjoy then.

 

That's an odd assumption, but I do, thanks!

[RockMyAmadeus]

 

Given that fandom and collecting was coming on strong by the mid-60s (leading to Overstreet in 1970), I'd still say it's not outrageous to think that ten percent of circulated copies survived. But that IS just a gut feeling, and hard to say where I'd draw the line. 15%? Maybe. 20% is where it starts to feel pretty unlikely to me.

 

 

Now you're starting to come around.

 

Since 1965 was the year that folks really started to buy multiple copies for the first time, it's not out of the realm of possible that books only 3 years old...especially Spidey...would have been saved more than usual. Sure, many, many thousands were thrown out...but sales figures for that last issue HAD to be very good for Goodman to allow Spidey to return (they were, after all, about to cancel Hulk), so the odds are better that the book was saved in better numbers than, say, FF #6 or Suspense #32.

 

We know why GA books are so scarce: they were recycled by the millions in WWII. But by the 60's, that was no longer relevant, and Spidey was a great success very near the beginning (even if Goodman thought the character was stupid.)

 

I think 15-30k is somewhere in the ballpark. Maybe towards the lower end, but still not too bad.

 

 

[markseifert]

Since 1965 was the year that folks really started to buy multiple copies for the first time, it's not out of the realm of possible that books only 3 years old...especially Spidey...would have been saved more than usual. Sure, many, many thousands were thrown out...but sales figures for that last issue HAD to be very good for Goodman to allow Spidey to return (they were, after all, about to cancel Hulk), so the odds are better that the book was saved in better numbers than, say, FF #6 or Suspense #32.

 

 

A quick perusal of the numbers reveals a mid-60s peak followed by a steady decline through the mid-70s. AND YET, we know for sure that serious fandom was on a sharp rise throughout that period.

 

Which suggest... I don't know... that a more dedicated core fandom was buying a larger and larger part of the run (a scenario we are more familiar with in later decades). [edit -- it also suggests that Goodman timed the sale of his company perfectly, interestingly enough]

 

That certainly could mean there were a larger percentage of collectors and people who bought dupes than we might think.

 

Not sure how to quantify that yet, but interesting to think about.

[RockMyAmadeus]

What is a million dollars to people who have hundreds of millions? And what's a million dollars to someone who paid 10-12-15-25-50 cents each for them, as some did?

Sure - however people who have hundreds of millions make up an infinitesimally small portion of the population. Are you suggesting that all these known hoarders of AF 15 are hundred millionaires? Seems statistically unlikely.

 

No. I'm suggesting that, to certain people, having a million dollars worth of books means nothing. The conclusion you are drawing cannot be drawn from my statement.

 

FYI - people who aren't hundred millionaires and paid 10-50 cents for a book worth thousands now most definitely care. People in general are motivated by money (especially in the US), of course they care. They only don't care if they don't need the money or are mentally ill.

 

How do you know? How do you prove such a claim?

 

There are people with coin collections with multiple individual coins worth over a million.

Great, what is your point?

 

I'll explain it again: it's all about perspective.

 

[BarryAllen]

No. I'm suggesting that, to certain people, having a million dollars worth of books means nothing. The conclusion you are drawing cannot be drawn from my statement.

Sure and to some people turning purple and having a monkey as their butler is normal. What I am saying is that it isn't a something that is pervasive throughout the population. You are using an extremely small sample size to make a point, it isn't a productive example.

 

 

How do you know? How do you prove such a claim?

This is basic psychology, people's motivations are directly tied to improving and furthering their well-being. In modern society money is a base requirement to secure and further well-being; therefore, money is important. If it wasn't society wouldn't accept spending a large part of their life at work to earn it - many times sacrificing their health and ironically their well-being.

 

Sure I used sarcasm to make a point with my original statement, but that doesn't make it less true. People care about money.

 

 

I'll explain it again: it's all about perspective.

That isn't an explanation, it is a typical non-responsive and condescending answer from you. Please clarify your statements when people ask for it.

 

 

 

_____________________________________________

 

 

 

 

In typical fashion you are switching from discussing a topic to dissecting someone's argument point by point for the sake of argument. You don't focus on the topic, you focus on the individual and their statements. I thought by breaking-up the discussion like you it would make our conversation easier, but there really isn't productive discourse with you. Your dissection and approach appear to be designed to infuriate the poster and does not bring any productive closure to a given topic.

 

In a nut-shell you waste people's time/energy and bring unnecessary/unproductive dialogue to the boards.

 

Why do you do this?

Edited March 8, 2015 by rfoiii

[Spiderturtle]

Back to the topic of af15, please!

[BarryAllen]

Back to the topic of af15, please!

Ok. :shrug:

 

Here is my point of the existance of multiple hoarders:

 

Either these people don't know what they have (unlikely given that they hoarded them - people don't collect specific things that they know nothing about), don't care because they are Scrooge McDuck (moderately likely, but very very very small population) or they truly don't exist in abundance and few select real individuals have been created into an urban legend that drives many of these discussions into even greater levels of speculation (highly likely).

[Spiderturtle]

Back to the topic of af15, please!

Ok. :shrug:

 

truly don't exist in abundance and few select real individuals have been created into an urban legend that drives many of these discussions into even greater levels of speculation (highly likely).

 

I agree with your urban legend thinking

[Hamlet]

I think it is relatively likely that there are multiple people out there with 50+ copies of AF15 hoarded as an investment.

 

It's a pretty common book that has been in huge demand for decades. It wouldn't be surprising to find people who have been buying 2-3 copies a year for 20-30 years.

 

People often have very nutty allocations of investments compared to their incomes. I've seen a lot of people with middle class incomes with millions in company stock in their 401k. Sensible people would diversify, but many don't.

 

I bet there are some long-time comic collector/dealers who are doing the same thing with AF15. On top of that, the can't miss feelings about this book have likely fueled additional hoarding in more recent years.

 

Back to the topic of af15, please!

Ok. :shrug:

 

Here is my point of the existance of multiple hoarders:

 

Either these people don't know what they have (unlikely given that they hoarded them - people don't collect specific things that they know nothing about), don't care because they are Scrooge McDuck (moderately likely, but very very very small population) or they truly don't exist in abundance and few select real individuals have been created into an urban legend that drives many of these discussions into even greater levels of speculation (highly likely).

[BarryAllen]

I think it is relatively likely that there are multiple people out there with 50+ copies of AF15 hoarded as an investment.

 

It's a pretty common book that has been in huge demand for decades. It wouldn't be surprising to find people who have been buying 2-3 copies a year for 20-30 years.

 

People often have very nutty allocations of investments compared to their incomes. I've seen a lot of people with middle class incomes with millions in company stock in their 401k. Sensible people would diversify, but many don't.

 

I bet there are some long-time comic collector/dealers who are doing the same thing with AF15. On top of that, the can't miss feelings about this book have likely fueled additional hoarding in more recent years.

 

You are making leaps in logic to try to draw a conclusion you predetermined.

 

Very few people have the free cash to accomplish what you are claiming. And of those that do, even fewer would spend their time or money on comics.

 

Sure are there a few examples of this, definitely. Are there more than 10 - maybe, more than 20 - it would be statistically unlikely.

 

Outside of dealers, very few people hoard 50+ books of the same issue. This can be said about any comic. Again, there are those that hoard a given issue, but there aren't large numbers of people hoarding the same issue in multiples of 50 and higher. Maybe (and I say that loosely) you could find larger support for this behavior in books post 1980, maybe.

 

People just want this to be true for convenience of argument, but outside of a few single references there is not data to support such a claim.

[Hamlet]

I didn't say there are vast number of people who have done this with AF15. I said "multiple" people. Your estimate of 10-20 sounds plausible to me.

 

Given the hoarding we've seen on the boards of much harder to find GA books and other SA keys (Showcase 22 comes to mind), I don't think its unreasonable to expect that people have done it with AF15.

 

I think you also seem to underestimate the number of people with large amounts of disposable income. Buying 2 AF15's a year would have cost about $5k (say 4.0s) before the last decade's run-up. That's not a ton of money for millions and millions of people.

 

Add to that the larger number of people who have 2-5 copies, and that is an awful lot of supply available if the image of this book as a can't miss investment ever gets tarnished.

 

 

You are making leaps in logic to try to draw a conclusion you predetermined.

 

Very few people have the free cash to accomplish what you are claiming. And of those that do, even fewer would spend their time or money on comics.

 

Sure are there a few examples of this, definitely. Are there more than 10 - maybe, more than 20 - it would be statistically unlikely.

 

Outside of dealers, very few people hoard 50+ books of the same issue. This can be said about any comic. Again, there are those that hoard a given issue, but there aren't large numbers of people hoarding the same issue in multiples of 50 and higher. Maybe (and I say that loosely) you could find larger support for this behavior in books post 1980, maybe.

 

People just want this to be true for convenience of argument, but outside of a few single references there is not data to support such a claim.

[Jaydogrules]

I didn't say there are vast number of people who have done this with AF15. I said "multiple" people. Your estimate of 10-20 sounds plausible to me.

 

Given the hoarding we've seen on the boards of much harder to find GA books and other SA keys (Showcase 22 comes to mind), I don't think its unreasonable to expect that people have done it with AF15.

 

I think you also seem to underestimate the number of people with large amounts of disposable income. Buying 2 AF15's a year would have cost about $5k (say 4.0s) before the last decade's run-up. That's not a ton of money for millions and millions of people.

 

Add to that the larger number of people who have 2-5 copies, and that is an awful lot of supply available if the image of this book as a can't miss investment ever gets tarnished.

 

Many, if not most, of these people who are "hoarding" have slabbed copies, not raw.

 

Of the raw copies that are still left in the wild....how many of them are complete ? How many of them are at least in mid-grade condition ? How many of them have restoration? How many of them will ever be brought to market before they are destroyed ?

 

Who knows ? No one knows. But I personally don't believe there's even a fraction remaining that many on here seem to believe there are.

 

-J.

[BarryAllen]

I didn't say there are vast number of people who have done this with AF15. I said "multiple" people. Your estimate of 10-20 sounds plausible to me.

 

Given the hoarding we've seen on the boards of much harder to find GA books and other SA keys (Showcase 22 comes to mind), I don't think its unreasonable to expect that people have done it with AF15.

 

I think you also seem to underestimate the number of people with large amounts of disposable income. Buying 2 AF15's a year would have cost about $5k (say 4.0s) before the last decade's run-up. That's not a ton of money for millions and millions of people.

 

Add to that the larger number of people who have 2-5 copies, and that is an awful lot of supply available if the image of this book as a can't miss investment ever gets tarnished.

 

Fair enough on your first point.

 

I would maintain that $5K a year is still a lot of discretionary income annually to the majority of Americans. Remember this would be income that they don't need above all expenses within a given year - probably not a ton of people out there willing to spend that speculating on comics.

[bluechip]

I didn't say there are vast number of people who have done this with AF15. I said "multiple" people. Your estimate of 10-20 sounds plausible to me.

 

Given the hoarding we've seen on the boards of much harder to find GA books and other SA keys (Showcase 22 comes to mind), I don't think its unreasonable to expect that people have done it with AF15.

 

I think you also seem to underestimate the number of people with large amounts of disposable income. Buying 2 AF15's a year would have cost about $5k (say 4.0s) before the last decade's run-up. That's not a ton of money for millions and millions of people.

 

Add to that the larger number of people who have 2-5 copies, and that is an awful lot of supply available if the image of this book as a can't miss investment ever gets tarnished.

 

Many, if not most, of these people who are "hoarding" have slabbed copies, not raw.

 

Of the raw copies that are still left in the wild....how many of them are complete ? How many of them are at least in mid-grade condition ? How many of them have restoration? How many of them will ever be brought to market before they are destroyed ?

 

Who knows ? No one knows. But I personally don't believe there's even a fraction remaining that many on here seem to believe there are.

 

-J.

 

With enough effort you can convince some or even most people to behave as if books cease to exist if they are "mid-grade" or "restored" but that will not change the actual number of existing copies.

 

[BarryAllen]

I didn't say there are vast number of people who have done this with AF15. I said "multiple" people. Your estimate of 10-20 sounds plausible to me.

 

Given the hoarding we've seen on the boards of much harder to find GA books and other SA keys (Showcase 22 comes to mind), I don't think its unreasonable to expect that people have done it with AF15.

 

I think you also seem to underestimate the number of people with large amounts of disposable income. Buying 2 AF15's a year would have cost about $5k (say 4.0s) before the last decade's run-up. That's not a ton of money for millions and millions of people.

 

Add to that the larger number of people who have 2-5 copies, and that is an awful lot of supply available if the image of this book as a can't miss investment ever gets tarnished.

 

Many, if not most, of these people who are "hoarding" have slabbed copies, not raw.

 

Of the raw copies that are still left in the wild....how many of them are complete ? How many of them are at least in mid-grade condition ? How many of them have restoration? How many of them will ever be brought to market before they are destroyed ?

 

Who knows ? No one knows. But I personally don't believe there's even a fraction remaining that many on here seem to believe there are.

 

-J.

 

+1 there is a lot of energy on here to believe what we want to be true to make an argument plausible. Not sure why so many people want AF 15s to be poised for a market price reset, but there isn't much evidence in the provided arguments. Mostly heresay and flawed logic.

 

Are there copies out there, yes. To the extent posited by some in this thread, it just doesn't make sense.