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In light of the SA price explosion, is GA the place to put new funds instead?
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221 posts in this topic

1 hour ago, DarthVegas said:

Silver and Bronze key issues haven't seen anything yet. There is room to grow. ....

Silver keys haven’t seen anything yet?! You serious?  
These issues are not scarce, supply hasn’t changed, and there is no way that new demand is coming in to the hobby that quickly. This is a bubble I think. 

Edited by Spyder!
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10 hours ago, G G ® ™ said:

The same thing is happening in trading cards.

I put the whole thing down to people fixating on something to love, to look forward to, i.e.going stir crazy from all the lockdowns.

2c

I quote my above post for what will be an obvious reason at the bottom of this post.

I have been tracking several books on ebay for the last few weeks with a view to purchasing something to go with my recent STT11. I've got about $1300 to spend which is the remainder of monies from recent trading card sales. I fund all my purchases with sales of collectibles.

I don't know about you guys but I like a discount when I buy, unless the book is super HTF, rare etc, so I always negotiate. This one particular book was the property of an ebay seller with over 15,000 items for sale. All are BIN and none have the best offer option, which I found curious.

I contacted the seller a few days ago and made him an offer for this particular book I fancied. He responded quickly and politely declined with no comeback offer or alternative.

Fair enough.

Now his prices are all top end and beyond, in other words over-priced.

So after waiting a few days I contact him again, asking was there any chance of any little movement on the book?

This is his reply I woke up to, word for word....

"We are not discounting our inventory as covid has made it harder to restock and is making sales of items explode and we don’t need to"

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9 minutes ago, G G ® ™ said:

"We are not discounting our inventory as covid has made it harder to restock and is making sales of items explode and we don’t need to"

That's their choice. Some people hate haggling.

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2 minutes ago, D84 said:

That's their choice. Some people hate haggling.

Of course, and I'm not complaining about that, or anything.

I'm merely stating the nature of the beast. That dealers have recognised the situation and are taking full advantage of it, and indeed are exploiting it, which to my mind leads me to believe that prices are being inflated at least in the short term.

Presumably covid will subside eventually and prices will settle, even decrease quite substantially, and some people are going to be left with egg on their faces price wise.

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16 minutes ago, G G ® ™ said:

Of course, and I'm not complaining about that, or anything.

I'm merely stating the nature of the beast. That dealers have recognised the situation and are taking full advantage of it, and indeed are exploiting it, which to my mind leads me to believe that prices are being inflated at least in the short term.

Presumably covid will subside eventually and prices will settle, even decrease quite substantially, and some people are going to be left with egg on their faces price wise.

I heard egg on the face makes you look younger lol

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On 3/24/2021 at 1:25 PM, Mr.Fantastic said:

After coming back into comic collecting last year I have been saving to purchase SA Marvel keys (#1 issues).  But, I never thought prices would currently explode the way they have, and the books I wanted are increasing faster than I can save. Browsing current and upcoming auctions I find myself drooling over GA books and have thoughts of waiting on the SA keys and just buying GA books that I like. Thoughts on giving up on my original plan and pivoting into the Golden Age of comic books at this time??

Although we are certainly seeing prices increase at an alarning pace for certain genres within GA, it is definitely not like what we see taking place in terms of key SA Marvels, HG BA keys, and even HG CA first appearances.  As clearly evident with sales of Transformers 1, NM 98, GS X-Men 1, Silver Surfer 9, etc all in the $40K+ range in the recent CL Featured Auction last month.  :whatthe:  :screwy:

Kind of reminds me of the early to mid 90's when the GA lagged behind the prices increases that took place in books from the more recent ages before they themselves took a catch up rocket like shot to the moon in the '94 to '95 time period when even dealers were offering outrageous multiples to top of guide for GA books.  hm   (thumbsu

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6 hours ago, G G ® ™ said:

Of course, and I'm not complaining about that, or anything.

I'm merely stating the nature of the beast. That dealers have recognised the situation and are taking full advantage of it, and indeed are exploiting it, which to my mind leads me to believe that prices are being inflated at least in the short term.

Presumably covid will subside eventually and prices will settle, even decrease quite substantially, and some people are going to be left with egg on their faces price wise.

I hear what you are saying, but I’ll add that I recently purchased 4 different books off eBay where my offer was accepted within minutes.

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37 minutes ago, Jayman said:

I hear what you are saying, but I’ll add that I recently purchased 4 different books off eBay where my offer was accepted within minutes.

Definitely happens I know, some dealers are more aggressive and uncompromising than others I guess.

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7 hours ago, G G ® ™ said:

I don't know about you guys but I like a discount when I buy, unless the book is super HTF, rare etc, so I always negotiate. This one particular book was the property of an ebay seller with over 15,000 items for sale. All are BIN and none have the best offer option, which I found curious.

I contacted the seller a few days ago and made him an offer for this particular book I fancied. He responded quickly and politely declined with no comeback offer or alternative.

Fair enough.

Now his prices are all top end and beyond, in other words over-priced.

So after waiting a few days I contact him again, asking was there any chance of any little movement on the book?

This is his reply I woke up to, word for word....

"We are not discounting our inventory as covid has made it harder to restock and is making sales of items explode and we don’t need to"

I always offer to pay less than their asking price, and with a few exceptions, my offer is usually accepted. So, if I pay $475 for a book with an asking price of $500, it's like I just got free shipping.

Businesses thrive on turnover. Yes, it may be awesome for a shop or individual to own a $78,000 X-Men #1 CGC 9.0. But if just continues to sit on the shelf, all you have to show for it is "what-if" money. If you own the book and you have no intention of selling it, then its price is not an important manner. However, comic book shops need to make money, which is usually accomplished by buying a book at a lower price and then turning around and selling it at a higher price. If I had a $78,000 book, it would be stored in a safe deposit box. However, if you are a shop, I think you would have to purchase some form of security system to keep people from stealing it. Paying for a security system so you can keep a $78,000 book in your shop will just eat away your profits month after month.

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I like GA over SA due to the rarity factor. Just look at the population of some the SA keys in terms of number of copies. There is a reason it is is called "gold"...it is the rarest and highest comic book collection label. On that note, while the immediate return on you comic book investment, might grow at a smaller rate the safety factor is much higher due to limited supply. Overall my opinion is that GA is the correct venue, especially for a long term comic book collector, who can pick and chose when he will attempt to recover his purchase price plus inflation.

If you are a pure speculator who is seeking only $$ on return on investment, then SA seems to be for investor friendly.

At this point my advice would be for any purchase over $500 make sure its CGC graded, blue label, with good paper quality and staples...you should be pretty safe using those guidelines. 

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35 minutes ago, Math Teacher said:

I always offer to pay less than their asking price, and with a few exceptions, my offer is usually accepted. So, if I pay $475 for a book with an asking price of $500, it's like I just got free shipping.

Businesses thrive on turnover. Yes, it may be awesome for a shop or individual to own a $78,000 X-Men #1 CGC 9.0. But if just continues to sit on the shelf, all you have to show for it is "what-if" money. If you own the book and you have no intention of selling it, then its price is not an important manner. However, comic book shops need to make money, which is usually accomplished by buying a book at a lower price and then turning around and selling it at a higher price. If I had a $78,000 book, it would be stored in a safe deposit box. However, if you are a shop, I think you would have to purchase some form of security system to keep people from stealing it. Paying for a security system so you can keep a $78,000 book in your shop will just eat away your profits month after month.

Lots of good suggestions in thread so far, but this piqued my interest and got me to thinking.  What happens when prices start to come down, and that $78,000 X-men #1 is $75,000 or $70,000 or lower?  Will businesses rush to the exits trying to get the best price before the price drops further?  Could be a good economics lesson coming up for some.

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10 hours ago, G G ® ™ said:

Presumably covid will subside eventually and prices will settle, even decrease quite substantially, and some people are going to be left with egg on their faces price wise.

I'm not so sure.  The pandemic is certain to make permanent changes to the world, much like 9/11 did.  Remote work is just one example.  It's possible that investment in alternative assets is another one.  Wall street has started to take notice of this new arena... I'm seeing a lot more chatter on CNBC and other traditional business media about it.  I think the next year or two could be very interesting for our "little" hobby...  

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