What would you invest in?

[Bugaboo-migration]

Yo.....I'd try to find a G.I. Joe #21 in CGC 9.8........that's the way to go.

[ninanina]

A great game plan. And I've read somewhere on these posts that successful collectors/investors have done that in the past with success. The question here is WHAT would you invest in? Based on Hammer's idea, hi-grade CGC's are not the thing to invest in now.

 

So where do we go?

 

Late 70's / Early 80's? Very Fine Silver Age? Is there room for Golden Age to grow? Bronze Age keys?

 

Vf's are cheap now. Sort of in limbo would be a good way to describe it. That leads me to the next thing to consider:

 

Lotsa low-grade Silver Age going over seas right now. Are these collectores going to want to up-grade in the future?

 

Tough to predict, No?

[aardvark88]

International collectors always upgrade in the long run. Would depend on how the local currency (Euro, Cdn $) does against the US greenback after the war is over. Greenback is strengthening now as the liberation of Iraq is expected to be short.

[BachelorOfComix]

 

Cheers,

 

Bachelor of Comics

[delekkerste]

Greenback is strengthening now as the liberation of Iraq is expected to be short.

 

Victory in Iraq will do nothing to stem the long-term secular decline of the US dollar...how long can the US keep running current account deficits that total nearly $1.5 billion a day when its economy and financial markets remain fundamentally unattractive? It is amazing how irrational markets are...the stock market topped 18 months before 9/11/01 and the US dollar topped long before Saddam reappeared on the radar screen. We are getting rallies from oversold positions and both the mood of consumers/investors and economic fundamentals may temporarily improve (it is not inconceivable that the CGC comic market may experience a rally along with everything else)...longer-term, however, the overcapacity and ruinous levels of financial leverage in the system that have been killing us for 3 years are all still in place. I recognize this. Warren Buffett recognizes this. The only people who don't seem to be the ones who have consistently lost their clients money for 3 years running.

 

There's a time and place for everything, and I continue to believe that buying comics for "investment" purposes, for most people, remains a sucker's bet in this environment. If you have superior market access, knowledge and/or a killer distribution network, that is another story. However, who on this Board doesn't think they have superior insights into the market? Like in Garrison Keilor's fictional town Lake Wobegon, where all the kids were statistically impossibly "above average", we know this cannot be...somebody's going to be left holding the bag!

 

Gene

[vic6string]

1) for $25 buy the latest issue of Wizard and Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns on trade paper back.

 

Read the Wizard, remember everything they say about potential investments, and then burn the issue. For the rest of your life do the exact opposite of what you read.

 

Then read the trade paper back. Read it a few times (not hard to do). When you fall in love with the book (and you will) take the $100 and pick up a few more TPBs like Watchmen and read those too. When you fall in love with comics in general (and you will) then take the $500 and buy stuff that looks interesting to you. Try out a bunch of stuff (newer and lower grade older stuff). When you fall in love with a few of the characters ( and you will) then buy reader copies of all the important stuff (or TPBs or reprints) Now take the rest of the money and buy the best copies you can afford of those issues you love. That is a much better investment than just books in slabs to resell. The love of the hobby is a safer return on investment than anything else.

[dam60]

Vic, what a great post! Worthy of 5 stars in my book!

 

DAM

[FlyingDonut]

Cookies

 

[clobberintime]

Well despite continuing economic woes which have been unexpectedly "cured" by this war, I think there are some verty good ways to make money on comics - and I am not from anywhere near Lake Wobegon. Do what Greggy has done. Find the best ungraded copies you can of silver and bronze books and then get them cgcd. Greggy paid $5 for a Spidey 101 that got a 9.8 that he sold for something like a million dollars! Anybody - and i mean even anybody that works far away from reality like on Wall Street - can't argue with those kind of numbers. My advice is to buy low and sell for a lot more. I bought a cgc 9.2 FF 25 from Greggy a few years ago for around $600 - I think he paid about $50 for that one. I have never complained about all that money Greggy made off of me. I think greggy may writew a book or pamphlet or create a website on how to do this - it should be much better than Reynold Jays!

[blowout]

The love of the hobby is a safer return on investment than anything else.

 

Well said vic. A fine post.

[joe_collector]

>>Do what Greggy has done. Find the best ungraded copies you can of silver and bronze books and then get them cgcd.

 

I agree 100%, but it's also high dependant on timing. The smart investors hit the market when things are depressed, nab some nice stuff at extremely low prices, then hold it and flip when things get rosier.

 

You simply can't do that now, but you could in the mid-90's when the comic book market was toast and you couldn't give away some copies. Trying to do so in a climate on historically high price levels is only gonna lose you a shirt or two, and remind you of who is the investor (Greggy) and who is not (buyer).

[greggy]

Greggy paid $5 for a Spidey 101 that got a 9.8 that he sold for something like a million dollars!

 

OK, let's not exaggerate here. I bought that book initially in the early 1990s for $30 but sold it in the late 90s for guide ($125). I repurchased the book at guide ($175) thinking that it had a good chance at a 9.6. The seller has quit comics and doesn't care anymore. He knew that in the local market, he wouldn't be able to get much more without working at it.

 

I bought a cgc 9.2 FF 25 from Greggy a few years ago for around $600 - I think he paid about $50 for that one.

 

I paid $325 for that book so it wasn't that great of a profit. However, I have done much better with other books. I admit that it is really easy to make $$ when you can buy high grade books in the cheap early to mid 1990s and sell it in the CGC inflated market of last Spring/Summer. I tried to buy some raw Marvels on eBay to grade and flip but have given up on it because it is too hard. Now, I will only buy raw books in person unless the book is for my own collection.

 

 

[ninanina]

Where do you find all these raw books in person?

 

Are flipping comics a hobby of yours, or are you a dealer doing this full time. I realize doing this is very time consuming and you do need the connections. I neither have the time or the connections, so whatever you get out of it I know is well deserved.

 

Also curious if you have enough confidence in the hobby to continue doing this for quite some time?

[greggy]

I have to dispell a notion that I am buying raw books to flip. All the books that I have bought in the past were for my personal collection! I have so many multiples of certain 1970s DCs that it's not even funny. I just keep buying what I like. In the early to mid 1990s, I was more into collecting Marvels and was able to buy some really nice books at the low guide prices back then. I rarely sold any books until CGC came along so I gave it a shot. I decided to sell practically all my best Silver Age Marvels and am currently working on selling my doubles of my Bronze Marvels.

 

I did try for a brief time to buy books solely to get graded but have given up on that notion. It's not worth my aggravation to do it. I just buy books for my collection at this time. If I make a profit when I decide to sell some, it's all gravy!

[aardvark88]

Greggy is a neophyte just dabbling in selling the last 2 yrs. He hoarded comics 10 yrs ago from all the local collections & his timing on flipping books was better than mine due to the recent emergence of cgc & eBay crazy bidders. Congrats.

[murph0]

Hell anyone could be doing that that bought books from the 90's. Books were selling very cheap then, I bought a full VF+ run of ASM 61-95 for 10 dollars an issue. Not to mention the mounds of NM ASM's pre-100 you could've picked up for around 40-60 dollars each.

 

Brian

[aardvark88]

Because 80% of Canada's exports goes to the USA, if the USA economy implodes over the next yr, so will the Canadian one.

Markets are very irrational. The Canadian loonie went up against the US greenback for about 6 weeks but has never historically been able to maintain momemtum against the greenback. Rest of the world STILL has more confidence in the US economy compared to the currently stronger Cdn economy as evidenced by the strong decline in the Cdn loonie immediately after 9-11 attack on US soil

[ninanina]

Those prices are amazing. I was out of the picture (like a lot of other ex-collectors) and had no idea what was going on. Kinda sorry I missed it.

 

How long is this going to last greggy. You ever going to run out of books to sell?

[Bronty]

Hell anyone could be doing that that bought books from the 90's.

 

Not necessarily true. Super high grade has never been that easy to find and Greggy was super picky back when it wasn't cool to be. Sure, guide prices were comparatively low, but when you bought a dealer's "NM" back then, you were buying a VF- piece of [!@#%^&^]!! It only worked out really well for people that were grade conscious ahead of everyone else - so it worked out great for Greg. Congrats, Greg!

 

Eww, I said something nice about Greg!

 

 

[aardvark88]

Bronty,

Stop grovelling at greggy's feet just b/c he cherrypicked the comic triad in Vancouver 10 yrs ago b/c u were too busy playing with your Atari/Coleco back then.