Are key comics good investments?

[delekkerste]

What if I just want to own key books and have them hold value for around 20 years (+/- 5%)?

 

I agree the growth has to slow (aggressively) given the current market cap on these books and the aging population of the generation that sustains the majority of the purchase behavior. However, I would think that the bottom wouldn't fall out until around 20 years from now when most the baby boomers start to die off, or begin to feel increased financial pressure as they reach end of life funding obstacles (increased health care costs, retirement portfolio reaching the end of it's life-cycle, etc) and they begin selling off all other assets.

 

In this instance, wouldn't it be prudent to buy a copy now (if you have the disposable income) rather than later? Realistically, based on inflation alone, shouldn't the earlier you buy the better?

 

Or is that not correct.

 

There's no implied put option on today's prices. There's no law that comics have to go up with inflation or even have to go up at all. Heck, most comics go down over time - not in Overstreet, of course, but in the real world. Like I said before - if you think I'm wrong, I'll sell you all of my comics bought off the rack in the 2000s at cover price right now, even the good ones (you just have to buy the drek at cover as well).

 

My point being, even allegedly "conservative" assumptions like comics just keeping up with inflation or at least holding their nominal value over 20 years are not guaranteed. Unlike stocks, there's no earnings or dividends to cushion the blow of any fall (should perceptions and supply/demand chance). Is there any guarantee that today's Millennials will be able to clear the market in 20 years at today's prices? Adjusted for inflation, I'll go out on a limb and say "no". Without adjusting for inflation, there's a much better chance, but even then, at these prices, in these quantities...I certainly wouldn't bet my financial future on it. It's not like we haven't seen nominal prices stay flat or even fall across various antique and collectibles hobbies that have gone out of fashion due to changing tastes (and tastes are definitely changing).

 

Also, I doubt it will take 20 years from now for what I'm talking about to become evident. And it's not the Baby Boomers, it's Gen X that we're talking about. I have no doubt that we won't have to wait 20-30 years for mortality to come into play; this group as a cohort is aging and a large number will very likely reduce their buying and then become net sellers as a group to pay their kids' college tuitions and fund their lifestyles in their later years well before they start dying off.

[comicnoir]

Art is another inert product. I mean fine art, like the record breaking Picassos and Van Goghs. It seems these never go down. There is an unending demand for the most important (I won't say best) the art world has to offer. Aren't comics based on that model to some degree? Comic art moreso because of it's uniqueness. It's a commodity based on a beauty in the eye of the beholder which drives a market. Because there is a personal attachment involved, owners may be reluctant to sell. This also makes it different than stocks. A collector will personally identify with what s/he owns. Not so with stocks.

 

I think the dividend is the pleasure one receives in owning something. Warren Buffett may not understand, but tough.

[thunsicker]

I would also recommend people not 'invest' in art. But that's just me.

[delekkerste]

Art is another inert product. I mean fine art, like the record breaking Picassos and Van Goghs. It seems these never go down. There is an unending demand for the most important (I won't say best) the art world has to offer.

 

6 years into another art bull market, of course it looks that way. Sure didn't look that way in 1996 after prices on the marquee pieces went down 60% over the previous six years in a bear market where the better art actually crashed harder than a lot of lesser art because it had been much more inflated in price. I have little doubt that the current bubble will eventually end badly as well.

 

 

Aren't comics based on that model to some degree? Comic art moreso because of it's uniqueness. It's a commodity based on a beauty in the eye of the beholder which drives a market. Because there is a personal attachment involved, owners may be reluctant to sell. This also makes it different than stocks. A collector will personally identify with what s/he owns. Not so with stocks.

 

First, people are flipping comics so much these days that it's not like they're all ending up with emotionally attached collectors. Second, even if we accept your premise at face value, it's not going to matter if people are attached to their comics because this generation of collectors, the last one to grow up en masse with comics as a major part of their lives, is going to die off. That's the crux of the issue. Is there an expanding pool of buyers? Will the next generation desire these comics even more than we do? The answer to both is an unqualified, unequivocal "no". And, as I explained in a previous post, it's very unlikely that we'll even have to wait until mortality creeps in because I believe my fellow GenXers are selfish enough in the aggregate that they will become net sellers of comics well before they die in order to fund better lifestyles in their twilight years.

[comicnoir]

Well, if all your doing is buying and selling Hulk 181's you might as well be dealing in potash.

[Jaydogrules]

Don't know what you are talking about, given that there are people in this very thread who have said that they don't trust the stock market but do trust comics (or similar views)! I know people - friends even - who have 50-95% of their net worth in comics and/or comic art. They might not say out loud that comics are an adequate replacement for a 401k and savings, but they sure as hell are counting on comics to fund a significant portion of their retirement.

 

Going back to the poll on page 1 of this thread, almost a quarter (29 out of 124) of respondents have 50% or more of their net worth tied up in comics. About a third (39 out of 24) have 30% or more, while close to half (55 out of 124) have 20% or more. More than one in ten (15 out of 124) have 80% of their net worth in comics.

 

Now, of course, there's self-selection bias at play, and not everyone is going to be truthful in responding (some will underestimate and some will overestimate, whether out of denial, mischief or what have you). But, I think it's fair to say that, even allowing for some adjustments to the data, there are a lot of people with a significant portion of their net worth tied up in comics, and not all of them are holding with a short-to-medium term horizon. Many in this hobby are very plainly investing in comics for retirement - it may not be the only plan for them, but it's certainly a big part of the plan for many.

 

frightening. did 11 people actually mean 100%?

 

The more relevant figure is that 56% so far have voted 0-10%.

 

So we are we talking about this ad nauseum AGAIN?

 

-J.

[benz]

i think AF15 would be the blue chip here. i bought my copy CGC 5.5 for about $5000 around 2006-2007, i think its now selling for $15000? so 3x return in 8 years. i think if i put my money on AAPL, i would have earned more!

if i put it in other stocks, i dont know.

[Gotham Kid]

please sell me your AF15 CGC 5.5 for 15k

[TomG]

An interesting read on the art market

 

http://nypost.com/2015/06/14/141m-sculpture-may-point-to-top/

[NewWorldOrder]

If the AF 15 goes up in the value which it has every year since I began tracking it since 2003 isn't that a dividend or generating earning asset.

 

Nope. It hasn't generated anything. Just means that the price has gone up.

 

Read this article by Warren Buffett, especially the part where he talks about unproductive assets like gold and comic books. Here's a couple of tidbits:

 

The second major category of investments involves assets that will never produce anything, but that are purchased in the buyer’s hope that someone else — who also knows that the assets will be forever unproductive — will pay more for them in the future. Tulips, of all things, briefly became a favorite of such buyers in the 17th century. [Comic books became a favorite of such buyers in the 21st century - Gene]

 

This type of investment requires an expanding pool of buyers, who, in turn, are enticed because they believe the buying pool will expand still further. Owners are not inspired by what the asset itself can produce — it will remain lifeless forever — but rather by the belief that others will desire it even more avidly in the future.

 

He then proceeds to show how much a pile of productive assets can generate over the next 100 years vs. the unproductive assets generating nothing over that time. You can hold an AF #15 for an eternity and all you will have at the end is an AF #15.

 

 

Apple's stock depends solely on the companies ability to make money on the innovation/profits of their products and services so nothing is guaranteed with them either.

 

This is true. And yet, many Apple bulls just look back what the stock has done since 2003 to justify why it should keep going up forever, much as you are doing with AF #15s.

 

 

I guess my point to you or anyone is what basis or data are you seeing that I am not to show where these books (talking about the top 100 books in the hobby) are not a good investment that will not show you a steady return over the long run?

 

You are looking only in the rear view mirror. You are not looking forward at how the underlying demographics of the hobby will change over the next 20 years. You are not recognizing the impact that the technological revolution has had on the younger generations - it has splintered their interests in an almost infinite number of different directions and fundamentally changed their perception of the world along the way. I might agree with you if the next generation was still spending as much time reading comics as Gen X did, and if their employment and financial prospects were brighter than ours. But, they're not.

 

Just as you could no longer linearly extrapolate past experience forward after the Russian Revolution of 1919, you can't just assume that the experience that we have had is going to continue unabated given the technological revolution of the past 20-25 years either. There is no way the younger generation is going to care more about the 1st appearance of Deadpool than people do today. What you thought was a permanent trend was really just the growth portion of an S-curve.

 

My generation ages with me hence collectors will still be buying and selling comics till the day we all die.

 

Stop being so doom and gloom about the hobby.

 

I disagree with the notice the tech generation doesn't collect things cause I see first hand new much younger buyers buying vintage comics all the time, especially NM 98.

 

By you views in the next 20 years everything is going to collapse and we should all just kill ourselves right now.

 

Not that stupid Tulip story. God that was so such a dumb story when we learned that in school.

 

Gene like I said no one should dump all their income for retirement into comics books solely, but if someone asks me are there some comics worth buying today to hold onto for future investments I for sure have at least 50 I would tell them to buy if they have extra money to spend.

[delekkerste]

My generation ages with me hence collectors will still be buying and selling comics till the day we all die.

 

Stop being so doom and gloom about the hobby.

 

I disagree with the notice the tech generation doesn't collect things cause I see first hand new much younger buyers buying vintage comics all the time, especially NM 98.

 

It's not all or none, and the plural of anecdote is not evidence. There will always be people who like and collect comics. The question is, as Warren Buffett posed, is there an expanding pool of buyers and will people desire them more or less than today (in the aggregate). Seem pretty obvious to me that the answer to both questions is "no" if you're looking out over the next 20 years (if not shorter).

 

And, sorry to burst your bubble, but you're still part of the pre-Internet generation who grew up reading comics, old man.

 

 

By you views in the next 20 years everything is going to collapse and we should all just kill ourselves right now.

 

Not that stupid Tulip story. God that was so such a dumb story when we learned that in school.

 

Read the article. It's not about tulips. It's about how productive assets vs. unproductive assets.

[delekkerste]

An interesting read on the art market

 

http://nypost.com/2015/06/14/141m-sculpture-may-point-to-top/

 

I don't know when the art bubble will burst, but, at least art has an expanding pool of buyers who keep getting richer (for now). I guess it will burst during the next big financial setback for the global moneyed elite, but, overall, more and more people will get into collecting art as they get rich over time. Plus, the pool of available masterpieces shrinks over time as more and more art is bought by or gets sold to true permanent collections (e.g., museums).

 

I think the biggest similarity between the art market and the comic market is that they are both unproductive assets whose prices have been inflated in part due to some of the same macro factors (e.g., near-zero interest rates) and that a similarly exuberant psychology exists among the two collecting bases. But, otherwise, the markets cater towards very different collectors with very different motivations.

[drbanner]

Stop being so doom and gloom about the hobby.

WTTB!

[NewWorldOrder]

My generation ages with me hence collectors will still be buying and selling comics till the day we all die.

 

Stop being so doom and gloom about the hobby.

 

I disagree with the notice the tech generation doesn't collect things cause I see first hand new much younger buyers buying vintage comics all the time, especially NM 98.

 

It's not all or none, and the plural of anecdote is not evidence. There will always be people who like and collect comics. The question is, as Warren Buffett posed, is there an expanding pool of buyers and will people desire them more or less than today (in the aggregate). Seem pretty obvious to me that the answer to both questions is "no" if you're looking out over the next 20 years (if not shorter).

 

And, sorry to burst your bubble, but you're still part of the pre-Internet generation who grew up reading comics, old man.

 

 

 

I am in the generation that is in between you and todays tech gen kids. The difference is my generation still played outside and then played video games at night. The kids today already need to watch their weight in middle school. The real downfall of this country will be obesity with the biggest drug in this country being sugar. Terrorists instead of bombing us should just open up McDonalds. We can fight if we can't move. The real sleeper cells in this country are fast food chains.

 

Captain America should be fighting fast food ceo's and not Hydra.

 

Back to the point at hand......

 

Disney buying Marvel made us all so much money its blatantly obvious. Disney won't let all the little Jimmy's of the world being born or children being made as we speak not know who these characters are. So I can sleep well knowing this about a book like AF 15. The day you sell it will be the highest $ amount you can get and the day you re-buy it will cost you that much more. I won't hear any argument against that going forward.

 

Since 1993 I have being hearing the crash of comics is going to happen.

 

Wake me up from the beach when it happens. (thumbs u

[NewWorldOrder]

If any of us invest in what we are passionate about I truly believe your results or profits will speak for themselves.

[IntoAnother]

If the hobby is so doomed as some people feel is it not completely selfish to be doing anything other than listing all of your books for sale right now? Why spend time posting on the doomed future while sitting on a collection? Surely the money that can be made off the books can be enjoyed much more than the peanuts they will provide down the road. If I felt my books were facing a certain massive price correction I would certainly be selling everything off so my family and I can count on the certain money now to stick in another sure fire investment with little to no risk. Personally I don't feel that way. Will most books at today's prices drop? Yes. Will some pick up even more steam for a while? Yes. Who in the world knows the future we face. If you do and our collections are going to be let's say worth half what they are worth today why are you not selling everything off? Nostalgia? Couldn't be so, can't really bring Buffett into a point of view with an ill advised emotional attachment to an "investment".

[joe_collector]

Captain America should be fighting fast food ceo's and not Hydra.

 

Agreed, and it's quite amusing that Captain America is owned by one of the most ruthless and sociopathic corporations in the world.

[joe_collector]

If the hobby is so doomed as some people feel is it not completely selfish to be doing anything other than listing all of your books for sale right now? Why spend time posting on the doomed future while sitting on a collection?

 

Because you are a COLLECTOR who ENJOYS his comics?

 

I was buying, reading and collecting 70's comics when 99.99999% of them were worth absolutely nothing, and I will continue to appreciate them if they turn out to be worth nothing going forward.

 

I just like collecting comics, it's my H-O-B-B-Y.

 

If all you see when you look at your comics is $$$$ then I highly recommend you sell them off now and invest in something income-producing, like blue chip stocks, and stop fooling yourself. It's quite obvious there are dark days coming for funny books, probably in the next 10-20 years.

[delekkerste]

If the hobby is so doomed as some people feel is it not completely selfish to be doing anything other than listing all of your books for sale right now? Why spend time posting on the doomed future while sitting on a collection?

 

Because you are a COLLECTOR who ENJOYS his comics?

 

I was buying, reading and collecting 70's comics when 99.99999% of them were worth absolutely nothing, and I will continue to appreciate them if they turn out to be worth nothing going forward.

 

I just like collecting comics, it's my H-O-B-B-Y.

 

If all you see when you look at your comics is $$$$ then I highly recommend you sell them off now and invest in something income-producing, like blue chip stocks, and stop fooling yourself. It's quite obvious there are dark days coming for funny books, probably in the next 10-20 years.

 

Exactly. Not everybody views their collection as a 401(k) plan, and I feel sad for those who do. I enjoy my collection for what it is, even if I fully expect it will cost me a lot of money in opportunity cost, if not outright losses, in the fullness of time (it's doing fine now, sure, but I intended to hold and enjoy my collection for decades, by which time I am confident this hobby will have fallen off a generational cliff). I understand the trade-off and am OK with it. Every piece I buy for my collection I assume I will lose money on. I never assume that "at least I will be able to get my money out". I never assume that offers I get on certain pieces have any lifespan beyond the immediate. I don't assume that the next generation of collectors will love what I own as much as I do. How could they? Did they ride their bikes to 7-11 and pick up the latest issue of Uncanny X-Men off the newsstand for 60 cents back when there were a minuscule amount of entertainment options vs. today? The very thought that the next generation will have the knowledge, experience, interest and resources to match my generation is nothing short of preposterous.

 

I've got enough socked away elsewhere that I can afford to take a big financial hit on my hobby and still be fine. Anyone who can't say the same probably has too much invested in their collection.

[greenhoody]

This last weekend me and my brother had to stay in a hotel for a few days and we were surprised that the one thing we could settle on watching on TV was Disney cartoons . It was spiderman and avengers. They wernt great but still our best choice.

 

I collect comics but didn't read my first one till 24yrs old. I did however grow up LOVING the 90's xmen, spiderman, and batman cartoons. Kids today don't read comics but they definitely still love Marvel and Batman from cartoons and movies. Disney will always have Marvel cartoons now. New fans will continue to be made not tons that get into collectinf but the appreciation for them will also be there to a degree. They'll never be worthless like sports cards.