Are prices still climbing or have they eased up a bit??? 43 43

[Tec-Tac-Toe]

On 2/3/2023 at 7:40 AM, MAR1979 said:

A great point.

Most of the masses who entered the Comic hobby during the pandemic bubble have left or are leaving in droves it will be at least a decade perhaps 2 before there are enough Rubes/Rookies/Neophytes/Suckers re-entering the hobby for another boom. 

Stock market is whole different thing and it will recover in weeks or months possibly a year. 

Stock Market to Comic Market is apples to oranges or more like apples to burgers.


 

As concerns comic books and the folks that may spend money on them that they require for other things, I, likely you, and many who post here only purchase comic books with money that they can afford to lose. As I have posted many times, I only use what I refer to as "comic book money" to purchase, well, comic books. If the ones I've purchased were to become worthless I would, thankfully, still be financially secure.

Granted, if I had not purchased the comic books I would have the money I've spent on them. But in my case I can basically say the same thing, for example, about owning a motor vehicle. I can use public transportation and save on the cost of, insurance, gasoline, and maintenance for the vehicle. However, I get enjoyment from purchasing and owning comic books as I do with cars and, with the latter, convenience.

[the blob]

On 2/3/2023 at 7:40 AM, MAR1979 said:

A great point.

Most of the masses who entered the Comic hobby during the pandemic bubble have left or are leaving in droves it will be at least a decade perhaps 2 before there are enough fresh Rubes/Rookies/Neophytes/Suckers to enter the hobby for another across the board boom. 

Stock market is whole different thing and it will recover in weeks or months possibly a year. 

Stock Market to Comic Market is apples to oranges or more like apples to burgers.


 

There was a huge number of folks entering the hobby from 2012 - 2020 following the Walking Dead phenomenon and a tremendous amount of speculation on any and all TV/movie spinoffs and what not, folks here were in constant amazement at what drek book would now be a $10-25 or what former SA or BA $10-50 book was now $100-500. The notion that this all happened during Covid is nonsense. Covid just helped jack the prices up a bit more at the end as a lot of people had an extra $500-1000 a month disposable income. Let's not forget that we also had a pretty long sustained good stock market, low interest rates, and a strong housing market during that period as the recovery from the 2008-2011 recession/housing crash sustained itself for a long time.

 

[lou_fine]

On 2/3/2023 at 4:40 AM, MAR1979 said:

Most of the masses who entered the Comic hobby during the pandemic bubble have left or are leaving in droves it will be at least a decade perhaps 2 before there are enough fresh Rubes/Rookies/Neophytes/Suckers to enter the hobby for another across the board boom. 

Stock market is whole different thing and it will recover in weeks or months possibly a year. 

Like your point about the comic book market being split into various segments, the stock market is also split into many different sectors.  

With this perspective in mind, it should be noted that although it might indeed take a decade for some of the books to reach their previous highs, it should also be noted that some of the headline grabbing high flying stocks that were so loved and driven up to astronomical levels by newbie FOMO driven speculators and have now crated by some 80% to 90% from their highs will possibly never ever regain their pandemic highs of 2020/21.  

Sure, although the major indexes will indeed recover to their previous highs in the months or years to come, I personally believe those key comic books which have dropped by some 30% to 50% will stand a much better chance to making a faster recover than some of the popular pandemic all-story with no profit speculative stocks which have dropped by a much larger percentage amount.      

[Rob]

On 2/2/2023 at 9:42 PM, COI said:

If the powers granted by hindsight could be used to accurately predict the future, we'd all be geniuses. And we'd all be rich. At some point you have to make a move, and there are always reasons to hesitate if that's your temperament. 

What I see when I look at that chart is that something drastically changed in 2021, and based on that change, I have no reason to believe that all of that data from 2002 to 2018 will be very relevant going forward. Whatever the market is now and wherever it's heading, it's a fundamentally different thing than it was in 2004.

I think these are the two thoughts behind the craziness we've seen since 2021.  Has the market changed forever, or is this a speculative bubble that will pass and things get back to normal?  I'm betting on the latter, but respect your opinion as well.  Time will tell.  I'm basing my assumption on what we've seen from other speculative bubbles (housing, silver in 1980, crypto).  My prediction is that in 5 years, all GPA historical charts will see this 2 year blip from '21-'23, then things went back to predictable after that.  We'll see.

[1Cool]

On 2/3/2023 at 11:16 AM, the blob said:

There was a huge number of folks entering the hobby from 2012 - 2020 following the Walking Dead phenomenon and a tremendous amount of speculation on any and all TV/movie spinoffs and what not, folks here were in constant amazement at what drek book would now be a $10-25 or what former SA or BA $10-50 book was now $100-500. The notion that this all happened during Covid is nonsense. Covid just helped jack the prices up a bit more at the end as a lot of people had an extra $500-1000 a month disposable income. Let's not forget that we also had a pretty long sustained good stock market, low interest rates, and a strong housing market during that period as the recovery from the 2008-2011 recession/housing crash sustained itself for a long time.

 

I don't disagree with what you are saying but 2012 - 2020 was like a decent bonfire where stuff was cooking pretty well and occasionally there would be a flare up here or there and people felt all warm and cozy.  2020 through the first part of 2022 was like somebody walked by and tossed a can of gas on the fire and the whole thing exploded.  The fire was there for sure but it was a night and day difference pre COVID.  We seem to be settling back into the 2018 - 2019 selling experience from what I am seeing and experiencing.

Edited February 3, 2023 by 1Cool

[EastEnd1]

On 2/3/2023 at 1:36 PM, lou_fine said:

Like your point about the comic book market being split into various segments, the stock market is also split into many different sectors.  

With this perspective in mind, it should be noted that although it might indeed take a decade for some of the books to reach their previous highs, it should also be noted that some of the headline grabbing high flying stocks that were so loved and driven up to astronomical levels by newbie FOMO driven speculators and have now crated by some 80% to 90% from their highs will possibly never ever regain their pandemic highs of 2020/21.  

Sure, although the major indexes will indeed recover to their previous highs in the months or years to come, I personally believe those key comic books which have dropped by some 30% to 50% will stand a much better chance to making a faster recover than some of the popular pandemic all-story with no profit speculative stocks which have dropped by a much larger percentage amount.      

Agreed, how fast or slow the comic market will recover depends on which segment of the market you're talking about (and segments can be characterized in many different ways... age, publisher, genre, keys, run books, eye-grabbing covers, etc).  We actually did experience a somewhat similar bubble when CGC introduced standardized grading to the market in the early 2000s.  The prices of graded comics exploded to similar jaw-dropping levels, bringing similar cries of disbelief and market collapses.  I'd also point out that this explosion in comic prices happened during the dot-com implosion and corporate scandals of those years which sent the stock market spiraling downward.  There are differences between the two "bubbles"... the CGC bubble being largely related to high grade books (and the entry and disappearance of "coinees"), while the pandemic bubble was across the board (and apparently involved the entry and disappearance of "BITcoinees"!). I think though that there are lessons to be taken from our earlier experience.  With the CGC bubble, a retreat finally did happen after a few years... high grade "run books" retreating to levels that many have still not recovered from, while keys and semi-keys and other highly desired books retreated somewhat, but soon stabilized and recovered, finding new highs well before the pandemic bubble.  I'd expect a similar pattern to hold here.    

[the blob]

On 2/3/2023 at 2:12 PM, 1Cool said:

I don't disagree with what you are saying but 2012 - 2020 was like a decent bonfire where stuff was cooking pretty well and occasionally there would be a flare up here or there and people felt all warm and cozy.  2020 through the first part of 2022 was like somebody walked by and tossed a can of gas on the fire and the whole thing exploded.  The fire was there for sure but it was a night and day difference pre COVID.  We seem to be settling back into the 2018 - 2019 selling experience from what I am seeing and experiencing.

I am fine with 2018-2019, much more sustainable. 

 

 

Edited February 3, 2023 by the blob

[dikran]

I kinda miss the days of ''how much did my net worth go up this sunday?''

[1Cool]

On 2/3/2023 at 4:03 PM, the blob said:

I am fine with 2018-2019, much more sustainable. 

 

 

It is what it is.  It does make things seem a lot slower when you have tasted the sweet life.  I didn't get stuck with too many books I overpaid for (stuff sold as fast I could buy them) so that is good but it will be interesting to see how this year plays out in terms of buying books since I'm not entirely sure prices have completely stabilized.  

[Beige]

On 2/4/2023 at 3:16 AM, the blob said:

There was a huge number of folks entering the hobby from 2012 - 2020 following the Walking Dead phenomenon 

 

Nail on head - TWD #1 going from a $50 book to a $400 book and then a $2500 book in a seemingly short space of time dragged a heap of noobs in.

 

I was one. Bought 4 x TWD #1 ranging from $50 to $400 - all hit 9.8

 

All got sold for the 'next big thing'

 

If you read the Modern Forum on here - you'd have seen a guy pay $5000 for a Revival #1 CGC 9.9

Only for the same seller to pull out a Revival #1 CGC 10.0  only 30 minutes later - the same guy bought it for $10,000.

 

The last sale price of Revival #1 CGC 9.9?

$153

 

There are many similar tales (not to that extent) out in the World - those books won't ever reach the stupendously insane prices they did on the back of 'Movie and TV Spec' - so they sit in peoples homes waiting for some phoenix like revival that will never come, or they take a huge loss and go lose money elsewhere.

That's what we are seeing now, and are likely to for the next 2-3 yrs.

 

[THE_BEYONDER]

On 2/3/2023 at 5:22 PM, Beige said:

If you read the Modern Forum on here - you'd have seen a guy pay $5000 for a Revival #1 CGC 9.9

Only for the same seller to pull out a Revival #1 CGC 10.0  only 30 minutes later - the same guy bought it for $10,000.

 

The last sale price of Revival #1 CGC 9.9?

$153

[Microchip]

On 2/4/2023 at 9:44 AM, THE_BEYONDER said:

On 2/4/2023 at 9:22 AM, Beige said:

If you read the Modern Forum on here - you'd have seen a guy pay $5000 for a Revival #1 CGC 9.9

Only for the same seller to pull out a Revival #1 CGC 10.0  only 30 minutes later - the same guy bought it for $10,000.

 

The last sale price of Revival #1 CGC 9.9?

$153

Thats it in a nutshell.   Thats a very (formally) valuable lesson right there.   I had to google the book, never even heard of it before.

[Ryan.]

I remember that Revival 9.9 and 10.0 insanity. That was bad decision making happening in real time, no hindsight necessary. 

 

 

[THE_BEYONDER]

On 2/3/2023 at 6:29 PM, Ryan. said:

I remember that Revival 9.9 and 10.0 insanity. That was bad decision making happening in real time, no hindsight necessary. 

 

 

Kinda pot committed once you drop $5K on the 9.9 & the seller subsequently drops a 10.0 

[Beige]

On 2/4/2023 at 10:37 AM, THE_BEYONDER said:

Kinda pot committed once you drop $5K on the 9.9 & the seller subsequently drops a 10.0 

It was Brock I think?

[THE_BEYONDER]

On 2/3/2023 at 6:39 PM, Beige said:

It was Brock I think?

Selling I hope 

[Beige]

On 2/4/2023 at 10:40 AM, THE_BEYONDER said:

Selling I hope 

Yup.

Buyer was Hulk something or other.

 

Absolute real time ambush.

 

Then a train wreck.....and a huge $$$ loss down the track when 'Les Revenants' was released on TV - as it was pretty much the same story as Revival.

 

The TV optioned was cancelled, and the book suffered a 6th gun-like demise.

 

[Ryan.]

I was just going to bring up the Sixth Gun spec mania. Good times.

[VintageComics]

On 2/2/2023 at 11:42 PM, COI said:

On 2/2/2023 at 2:35 PM, Rob said:

OK, I get that, but we're not talking about investments with a history of high volatility.  Outside of this bubble we're in, most comics stayed pretty flat for years, with a steady increase YoY.  Take the example below (X-men #1 in 4.0).  The price has been on a steady decline for the last 12 months.  I don't need to time the bottom perfectly, but I do know that all signs point to it being cheaper next month.

Well, I can afford quite a bit.  But I'm not paying $10k for a comic that I can likely get cheaper in a few months.  That's just not smart.  Six months ago someone paid $15k for this comic and last month it sold for $10k.  Had he waited, he could have had $5k to spend on another comic.  My money is on it dropping again in the next few months, and I'll reference this post to come back in March to gloat or eat crow. 

My theory is that some collectors (speculators) think prices are going to skyrocket again, and they don't want to miss out.  As for me, I'm waiting it out.

 

Expand  

If the powers granted by hindsight could be used to accurately predict the future, we'd all be geniuses. And we'd all be rich. At some point you have to make a move, and there are always reasons to hesitate if that's your temperament. 

What I see when I look at that chart is that something drastically changed in 2021, and based on that change, I have no reason to believe that all of that data from 2002 to 2018 will be very relevant going forward. Whatever the market is now and wherever it's heading, it's a fundamentally different thing than it was in 2004.

The stock market has been around for what, 250 years or so?

The most powerful minds on earth have been trying to predict it for 250 years. They still can't. Most still get burned. 

Risk takers gonna take risks. Big risk, big reward. How big are your cajones?

Conservative buyers won't. They'll miss the tops and bottoms and average out.

But ain't one single person in this hobby that can predict the future and this is all just an exercise in wasting time. 

When somethings looks "too cheap" someone will buy it.  These "cheap books" selling at auction are already being offered at higher prices. That's the business model of some dealers.

Bought a book at a new low? Quick flip? Make 10% and move on. 

That new buyer now has the capital to hold for the longer term and will sell once the book hits the mean trend again. 

There are markets within markets and some are willing to work on smaller margins than others.

The theory of "these books will just be cheaper next week" is just as untrue as "these books will be worth X next week"

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

On 2/3/2023 at 4:44 PM, THE_BEYONDER said:

I just watched that episode!!