Incredible Hulk #181 - is it *that* red-hot? 17 17

[ADAMANTIUM]

43 minutes ago, DocHoppus182 said:

I don’t have the link and I’m sure many of you saw it.  A CGC 4.0 ended last night on eBay with a final bid of $1980.

While if you look at sold listings and go from lowest to highest, you'll see that a "best offer" option 3.0 went for just over $1500....

It's worth noting that I own a 3.0, I didn't buy this one, but I might sell mine at this price....

[valiantman]

On 7/22/2018 at 7:13 PM, Kevin76 said:

Almost every comic collector wants one, and it's becoming "i'll take any copy" restored, missing stamp, raw, slabbed, qualified...people don't care. it's the "I have to have it" mentality that's driving prices.   

I'm honestly surprised that this didn't happen sooner.  Yes, Hulk #181 is readily available, but so are luxury cars.  No one needs to spend an extra $20,000 to $50,000+ on a vehicle, but people do...by the hundreds of thousands per year, reflecting $10B+ in unnecessary expenses, just for the sake of status/luxury/pleasure.  Not only that, but the value of a luxury car is almost 100% guaranteed to drop immediately and continually for years.  There are a few comic books that are the equivalent of luxury cars in this hobby, with many fewer available (than luxury cars), and without the guaranteed drop in value.  It's a no-brainer that if people will spend $50,000+ for essentially nothing but hubris (however shiny or comfortable it may be), then collectors who are already spending $100s and $1,000s on modern variants could just as easily think that $10,000 isn't ridiculous for a 44-year-old first (full) appearance of possibly the 2nd or 3rd biggest Marvel character.

[DST]

21 minutes ago, valiantman said:

then collectors who are already spending $100s and $1,000s on modern variants could just as easily think that $10,000 isn't ridiculous for a 44-year-old first (full) appearance of possibly the 2nd or 3rd biggest Marvel character.

100% ...couldn't agree more with this

[lou_fine]

Well, I imagine the answer to this thread's title question must be pretty obvious since I have been away from the thread for only 2 months and it now has an additional 18 pages added to the last time I was here.  

 

 

[lou_fine]

On 5/25/2018 at 11:36 PM, kimik said:

On 5/25/2018 at 8:44 PM, Supraman16 said:

One of the best pieces of advice I've gotten in terms of building wealth is having income property...I'm working and saving towards that one day. The biggest downside is of course the hundreds of thousands dollars it takes to actually get a decent income property. In that context, high quality, in demand comics of key characters that will always be remembered and desired for years to come are much "cheaper". 

It depends. I have found that my equities portfolio outperforms the real estate we dabble in from time to time (my wife still swears by real estate even though the financial statements say otherwise  ). One big advantage of equities is that they are much more liquid than real estate - if you need to sell a property it may take months or even years in a down market. With equities, you can liquidate your position in seconds. From my experience, that is a huge differentiating factor between the asset classes. Heck, blue chip key comics are more liquid than real estate.

I guess it really depends on your location.

Unfortunately for me, it's pretty much game, set, and match for me as my better half has clearly won her side of the argument here.  I used to always tell her that my books would eventually go up in value which they certainly did do, but definitely nowhere in comparison to what the real estate market here has done over the same time period.  Especially when you can factor in the highly profitable concept of leverage when buying real estate, as opposed to having to pay the full 100% for a comic book.

Yes, it might take time to sell property in a down market, but you can certainly sell it rather quickly (i.e. after just one showing) in an up market and usually with multiple competing offers all at over the original asking price.  Throw in a bit of leverage and sad to say, but it's easy to get 100% returns in less than a year in a hot real estate market. So, if you are lucky (or unlucky) enough to be living in a hot property locale, although the red hot Hulk 181 might be able to keep pace, the other 99.9% of your comic book collection certainly will not even come close.  

Edited July 27, 2018 by lou_fine

[lou_fine]

On 6/16/2018 at 7:24 AM, grube09 said:

Am I seeing things or did Comic Connect fetch $8100 for a 9.2 in their auction just now ending?  At this point I know I should NOT be surprised by what this book does anymore, but wow.

Wow indeed and it looks like you are not seeing things here:

https://www.comicconnect.com/bookDetail.php?id=761861

And I thought that I was crazy to pay over guide at the time for the wall display copy that I had picked up at a local comic convention.  Definitely the most that I had paid for a BA book at the time and more than what I had to pay for the Spidey 129 or the then red hot Adams Avengers 93 book which I was lucky enough to have brought a few years earlier.  

[kimik]

8 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

I guess it really depends on your location.

Unfortunately for me, it's pretty much game, set, and match for me as my better half has clearly won her side of the argument here.  I used to always tell her that my books would eventually go up in value which they certainly did do, but definitely nowhere in comparison to what the real estate market here has done over the same time period.  Especially when you can factor in the highly profitable concept of leverage when buying real estate, as opposed to having to pay the full 100% for a comic book.

Yes, it might take time to sell property in a down market, but you can certainly sell it rather quickly (i.e. after just one showing) in an up market and usually with multiple competing offers all at over the original asking price.  Throw in a bit of leverage and sad to say, but it's easy to get 100% returns in less than a year in a hot real estate market. So, if you are lucky (or unlucky) enough to be living in a hot property locale, although the red hot Hulk 181 might be able to keep pace, the other 99.9% of your comic book collection certainly will not even come close.  

Where are you located? As research has shown, capital gains alone in equities will top real estate over time, and when you add dividends it is not close. You can use leverage for equities as well with investment loans. I made a nice return with leverage from 2010 - 2015 (I chickened out and exited the loan way too early due to rate hike fears). However, all it takes to buy or sell equities now is a minute or two - that type of liquidity is the key.

Real estate works on an almost generational basis for the big price gains for the most part. From what I can tell having dabbled in it and in discussions with more seasoned investors, it is the 3 - 5 year hot market that you need to sell into and then wait for 10ish years after that to buy in again during the long plateau/pull back. We built our house in 2004 and it has more than doubled in value, but putting that same amount into key comics or the stock market would have netted a much better return. Investing in a portfolio of the bigger SA and BA Marvel keys would have netted a 6 - 10X (or better return) in pretty much any condition, which is much better than gains in real estate. As I tell my wife, If I had held onto my keys from back then instead of selling over time, I would be retiring early. 

[MGsimba77]

2 hours ago, lou_fine said:

Wow indeed and it looks like you are not seeing things here:

https://www.comicconnect.com/bookDetail.php?id=761861

And I thought that I was crazy to pay over guide at the time for the wall display copy that I had picked up at a local comic convention.  Definitely the most that I had paid for a BA book at the time and more than what I had to pay for the Spidey 129 or the then red hot Adams Avengers 93 book which I was lucky enough to have brought a few years earlier.  

I know it takes forever for comic connect sales to get listed on GPA but there been a few 9.2 white sales since the end of this auction for well under 8100. I feel that this lag time here is hurting it's value. Not everyone follows comic connect sales. 

On a sidenote, a 182 (not the one I bought) very recently sold on eBay for over 2k and for whatever reason it has yet to appear on GPA?

 

 

Edited July 28, 2018 by MGsimba77
Accidentally typed c-link instead of comic connect

[lou_fine]

5 hours ago, kimik said:

5 hours ago, lou_fine said:

I guess it really depends on your location.

Unfortunately for me, it's pretty much game, set, and match for me as my better half has clearly won her side of the argument here.  I used to always tell her that my books would eventually go up in value which they certainly did do, but definitely nowhere in comparison to what the real estate market here has done over the same time period.  Especially when you can factor in the highly profitable concept of leverage when buying real estate, as opposed to having to pay the full 100% for a comic book.

Yes, it might take time to sell property in a down market, but you can certainly sell it rather quickly (i.e. after just one showing) in an up market and usually with multiple competing offers all at over the original asking price.  Throw in a bit of leverage and sad to say, but it's easy to get 100% returns in less than a year in a hot real estate market. So, if you are lucky (or unlucky) enough to be living in a hot property locale, although the red hot Hulk 181 might be able to keep pace, the other 99.9% of your comic book collection certainly will not even come close.  

Where are you located? As research has shown, capital gains alone in equities will top real estate over time, and when you add dividends it is not close. You can use leverage for equities as well with investment loans. I made a nice return with leverage from 2010 - 2015 (I chickened out and exited the loan way too early due to rate hike fears). However, all it takes to buy or sell equities now is a minute or two - that type of liquidity is the key.

Real estate works on an almost generational basis for the big price gains for the most part. From what I can tell having dabbled in it and in discussions with more seasoned investors, it is the 3 - 5 year hot market that you need to sell into and then wait for 10ish years after that to buy in again during the long plateau/pull back. We built our house in 2004 and it has more than doubled in value, but putting that same amount into key comics or the stock market would have netted a much better return. Investing in a portfolio of the bigger SA and BA Marvel keys would have netted a 6 - 10X (or better return) in pretty much any condition, which is much better than gains in real estate. As I tell my wife, If I had held onto my keys from back then instead of selling over time, I would be retiring early. 

Hey neighbour, located on the west worst coast or the hippie left coast of your glorious country. 

I imagine I could have used investment loans to bankroll some comic book purchases, but never gave it any thought since I always considered comics to be a luxury and a hobby for me which meant using only excess disposable money to buy them.  Guess we can't all be as smart as Dave who used some of the credit cards bring passed around to help finance his purchases of the Mile High Action's when he first came out from dental school.  I guess banks liked to catch them when they are young and about to have a promising career.

As for equity investments, have you so quickly forgotten all about Bre-X and Nortel?        With respect to real estate, how about a nothing special house on the west side of the city being sold for $3.2M in 2014 and then flipped 3 or 4 times until it gets resold for $7.6M in 2016.  Real tough on the younger generation here when you can't even buy a dilapidated shack ready for tear down for less than 7 figures even on the poor side of town here.  And now you've got the average housing affordability index in the city running at close to 90% of average annual household income when it should be somewhere in the 30's.  No wonder why the speculators are now targeting the more affordable condo market, but also not good news as evident by increases of 30+% a year which is going to make them approach the 7-figure mark very soon.  

With respect to the comic books though, I am just glad I held onto them as opposed to selling them off over the years.  Unfortunately, I've got absolutely no idea where most of these more recent books are (like my Hulk 181), as I simply had the bad habit of filing my books in order of purchase, as opposed to filing them in order of title.  I always say this, but I must go through and look for them one of these days now that they are actually worth something.  

[lou_fine]

On 6/30/2018 at 6:06 PM, Howling Mad said:

There was a major crash in 2008 or 2009 among a number of keys, bronze was hit particularly hard.

I don't recall where I've seen some of the numbers, but the fall was extremely significant. We're talking falls of 50%+ for record 9.8 to recent 9.8 prices.

Well, if you are talking about CGC 9.8 graded copies of what are otherwise common BA books, YES there was a definite crash in prices here.  

Due mostly to the fact that these graded collectibles, but otherwise common in all other grades below 9.8, was really nothing more than a huge speculative bubble of its own.  It didn't take the marketplace very long to figure out that you could artificially manipulate already HG copies of many of these books into this so-called 9.8 investment quality grade without disclosing what had been done to the books.  

[lou_fine]

On 7/12/2018 at 9:52 AM, YouFoundDonon said:

We’re all in this for the investment first, nostalgia/collector second. (Unless money isn’t a concern for you)

As a long time collector in this hobby, I've always though it was buy what you love and if it happens to go up, then it's just an extra bonus.  

Of course, with the way prices are in today's vintage comic book marketplace, I would definitely not be able to afford many of these books that boardies always seem to talk about here.  So, in a way I do sort of see your point of view and buyers nowadays would probably have to keep an eye to both sides of the coin when purchasing a vintage comic book.  

[kimik]

4 hours ago, MGsimba77 said:

I know it takes forever for comic connect sales to get listed on GPA but there been a few 9.2 white sales since the end of this auction for well under 8100. I feel that this lag time here is hurting it's value. Not everyone follows comic connect sales. 

On a sidenote, a 182 (not the one I bought) very recently sold on eBay for over 2k and for whatever reason it has yet to appear on GPA?

 

 

When I search Hulk 182 CGC on eBay the only one that shows up is the CGC 9.8 sale for $1795 on April 29.

[kimik]

I wonder what the price increase will do to the recent True Believers reprint? It sells steadily at local shows for $5 right now - I wonder if I will be able to move them at $10?

Looking at eBay, CGC 9.8 copies of it are fetching $79.99? I need to send some in now, I guess.  

Edited July 28, 2018 by kimik

[DST]

11 hours ago, MGsimba77 said:

I know it takes forever for comic connect sales to get listed on GPA but there been a few 9.2 white sales since the end of this auction for well under 8100. I feel that this lag time here is hurting it's value. Not everyone follows comic connect sales. 

On a sidenote, a 182 (not the one I bought) very recently sold on eBay for over 2k and for whatever reason it has yet to appear on GPA?

 

 

I believe it is because of the way the listing was titled that it will not be recorded to GPA.  It was titled:

"Hulk #182 High Grade 9.8 1974 Wolverine! X-Men! #180 & #181 'Trilogy'! 121 1 cm"

I could be wrong but it's either because "Incredible" was not part of the listing title, or possibly the fact that it lists "#180 & #181 'Trilogy'", confusing the listing as if they are selling you all 3 books.  I believe it to be the latter.  I've seen this in many cases where people try to draw more searches to the listing by including other book titles or numbers and the sale doesn't get picked up by GPA.

[jason4]

On 1/19/2018 at 2:33 PM, Getoutandstayout said:

I was considering trying to get a lower grade copy of Hulk #181 at this summer's big Comic Con, but upon browsing eBay I saw that copies at just 3.5 are going for $900.00?! Are you kidding? I'd have to drop a Grand just to get a 4.0 copy - if that? I know Wolverine was in the movies, helping to drive up prices, but is he really this popular? Or are speculators driving up the price into a nice price bubble that's going to bust soon? It can't keep going up like it is. Reminds me of the dot.com bubble of the late 90s in a way. I'm suspicious of these outrageous prices. I may just find a good Marvel Mystery Comics issue (my Golden Age favorite) that's under $1,000. I *know* those are in demand and will go up every year.

Original post in January 2018 was complaining about paying 1k for a 4.0. Just a few months later he would be lucky to get one for 1900 lol. 

[mattn792]

17 hours ago, lou_fine said:

Wow indeed and it looks like you are not seeing things here:

https://www.comicconnect.com/bookDetail.php?id=761861

And I thought that I was crazy to pay over guide at the time for the wall display copy that I had picked up at a local comic convention.  Definitely the most that I had paid for a BA book at the time and more than what I had to pay for the Spidey 129 or the then red hot Adams Avengers 93 book which I was lucky enough to have brought a few years earlier.  

Holy lord, even in this market $8100 seems absurd.  I bought a 9.4 w/p for less than that just last month, must’ve been some A+ marketing by Metro.

[MGsimba77]

11 hours ago, kimik said:

When I search Hulk 182 CGC on eBay the only one that shows up is the CGC 9.8 sale for $1795 on April 29.

Here's the link. It sold on July 15 for a best offer of 2,095 plus 25 shipping 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Hulk-182-High-Grade-9-8-1974-Wolverine-X-Men-180-181-Trilogy-121-1-cm-/352398587797

Edit: since eBay likes to play it's little games when attempting to link a sold item I've provided a screenshot 

Edited July 28, 2018 by MGsimba77

[lou_fine]

1 hour ago, mattn792 said:

18 hours ago, lou_fine said:

Wow indeed and it looks like you are not seeing things here:

https://www.comicconnect.com/bookDetail.php?id=761861

And I thought that I was crazy to pay over guide at the time for the wall display copy that I had picked up at a local comic convention.  Definitely the most that I had paid for a BA book at the time and more than what I had to pay for the Spidey 129 or the then red hot Adams Avengers 93 book which I was lucky enough to have brought a few years earlier.  

Holy lord, even in this market $8100 seems absurd.  I bought a 9.4 w/p for less than that just last month, must’ve been some A+ marketing by Metro.

Well, with these big auction houses, sometimes all it takes is 2 crazy bidders with what seems like unlimited deep deep pockets.

Still, not as crazy as the Iron Man 30 which went for $15K or the Star Trek 1 which went for something like $40K in one of their CC Event Auctions a few years ago.    

To each their own, I guess.  

Edited July 28, 2018 by lou_fine

[Chillax23]

Hulk 181 CGC 7.0 just went for $2,980 again well below the prior high of $3,600. In fact last three sales since that one were $2,950, $3,095, and now $2,980.  So perhaps the market is settling in on a price point??? 

[SerialGrape]

Reading this thread and looking at the prices of these books is heartbreaking for me haha.

Hulk 181 has always been my absolute grail book and to see it reach heights like this with no sign of slowing is a bit of a killer. Just came about at the wrong time as I've got my wedding and honeymoon to pay for or I'd be jumping on a lower grade copy with no hesitation. When I started collecting I thought it was crazy what this book went for (as well as being worse off financially) and I thought I'd grab it in a few years time.

It's getting further out of reach for average joes and my fear is that by the time I can afford to throw some cash at it, it's going to be far gone

That said, congrats to anyone that jumped in at the right time and has made a nice profit, it's both awesome and gut wrenching to see this book get its dues.

Edited July 28, 2018 by SerialGrape
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