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

[rsouxlja7]

On 5/4/2024 at 6:43 PM, Old Fashion PB and J said:

 As a comic collector and dealer I can say 2 things with absolute confidence.

 The stock market at it's best has never been able to duplicate profits I have been able to find in comics.

 Coming in and trying to invest in comics while not knowing what you're doing is no different than if I came in and dumped all my money into a few stocks because some investing guru told me to. If you don't take the time to really learn comics (takes years), you will not be successful.

I think it's fair to say the people who make money in this hobby are the dealers and collection flippers. I bought and sold collections to fund my own collection for around 7 years and made way more money than I made in the stock market, but that's because I obviously wasn't paying FMV for the stuff I bought. The people who just bought and held in the same timeframe may have done well too depending on what they bought and when they bought it. If they invested heavily from 2019 onward I really doubt they've made much profit. 

The math is simple. If I buy a book on eBay for $1,000 right now I am going to pay closer to $1,100 with shipping and sales tax. I would need to sell that book worth $1K for closer to $1,300 to get my $1,100 back after accounting for eBay fees. So we are talking about a built in 30% gain needed just to turn a profit if, like most people, you are going to be doing both your buying and selling on eBay. The numbers aren't as bad if you are going to sell via FB/IG but there are still PayPal fees involved and now that we are in a buyers market people are not willing to pay the same price that they'd pay on eBay - everyone wants a built in ~10% discount. 

This doesn't even factor in the unfavorable tax rates on collectibles (or running a small business if that's how you operate) vs passive income from the stock market. 

Edited May 6 by rsouxlja7

[october]

On 5/6/2024 at 10:27 AM, rsouxlja7 said:

I think it's fair to say the people who make money in this hobby are the dealers and collection flippers. I bought and sold collections to fund my own collection for around 7 years and made way more money than I made in the stock market, but that's because I obviously wasn't paying FMV for the stuff I bought. The people who just bought and held in the same timeframe may have done well too depending on what they bought and when they bought it. If they invested heavily from 2019 onward I really doubt they've made much profit. 

The math is simple. If I buy a book on eBay for $1,000 right now I am going to pay closer to $1,100 with shipping and sales tax. I would need to sell that book worth $1K for closer to $1,300 to get my $1,100 back after accounting for eBay fees. So we are talking about a built in 30% gain needed just to turn a profit if, like most people, you are going to be doing both your buying and selling on eBay. The numbers aren't as bad if you are going to sell via FB/IG but there are still PayPal fees involved and now that we are in a buyers market people are not willing to pay the same price that they'd pay on eBay - everyone wants a built in ~10% discount. 

This doesn't even factor in the unfavorable tax rates on collectibles (or running a small business if that's how you operate) vs passive income from the stock market. 

100%

The big advantage to collectible investing is that with knowledge and patience, I have a good degree of control over my acquisition costs. If I want a Hulk 181, I can find one substantially below the current range of prices with a moderate amount of time/effort. Not so with Apple stock, I have to pay the market rate at the time. This single difference is, far and away, the driving force behind superior collectible returns. Without it you are almost certainly better off with traditional investing where transaction costs, scalability and liquidity are much, much more favorable. 

[1Cool]

On 5/6/2024 at 12:27 PM, october said:

100%

The big advantage to collectible investing is that with knowledge and patience, I have a good degree of control over my acquisition costs. If I want a Hulk 181, I can find one substantially below the current range of prices with a moderate amount of time/effort. Not so with Apple stock, I have to pay the market rate at the time. This single difference is, far and away, the driving force behind superior collectible returns. Without it you are almost certainly better off with traditional investing where transaction costs, scalability and liquidity are much, much more favorable. 

Selling comics is also 20x more time consuming and difficult compared to just buying a wide variety of stocks or mutual funds (hopefully with some knowledge and luck).  Buying a collection and thinking you will triple your money without a lot of experience, time on your hands and some luck is not going to happen.  2020 through half of 2022 you didn't need much but other than that one outlier it really is not easy to sell comic book collections for big bucks (if you can find them in the first place).

[Topnotchman]

Processing comic collections is a job and you can factor in labor of love to create margins.  Historically I’ve done better by staying away from the top 20 silver bronze modern stuff unless they fell to me.  Thousands of other sellable books out there from Gold to Modern just sitting in dealer and comic store boxes.  Example I’ll go after ASM 301 all day including Sundays before ever thinking about paying up for the 300’s. 

[lou_fine]

On 5/1/2024 at 8:19 PM, batmiesta said:

So many new books CGC 9.8 selling for $10 -$20 you have to ask why are people grading this carp? 

Isn't this the bread and butter for CGC and wouldn't they be out of business long ago if submittors weren't sending this kind of crapola in for grading?  

[lou_fine]

On 5/4/2024 at 10:35 AM, The humble Watcher lurking said:

People got smart as in they can make more money in the stock market or high-yield savings account. 

Or they can also lose as much as 75% to 95% of their stock market investment if they brought into some of the pandemic related stocks or overly hyped flash in the pan stocks in former red hot sectors which are now stone cold dead.  

[batmiesta]

On 5/7/2024 at 7:42 AM, lou_fine said:

Isn't this the bread and butter for CGC and wouldn't they be out of business long ago if submittors weren't sending this kind of crapola in for grading?  

Yeah! Totally agree very beneficial for CGC, but not the subber, so why do it? 

[jimjum12]

On 5/6/2024 at 12:32 PM, 1Cool said:

Selling comics is also 20x more time consuming and difficult compared to just buying a wide variety of stocks or mutual funds (hopefully with some knowledge and luck).  Buying a collection and thinking you will triple your money without a lot of experience, time on your hands and some luck is not going to happen.  2020 through half of 2022 you didn't need much but other than that one outlier it really is not easy to sell comic book collections for big bucks (if you can find them in the first place).

Buying collections is a good way to quickly end up needing to rent storage space. It requires some special expertise. GOD BLESS ...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

[jimjum12]

On 5/6/2024 at 12:27 PM, october said:

100%

The big advantage to collectible investing is that with knowledge and patience, I have a good degree of control over my acquisition costs. If I want a Hulk 181, I can find one substantially below the current range of prices with a moderate amount of time/effort. Not so with Apple stock, I have to pay the market rate at the time. This single difference is, far and away, the driving force behind superior collectible returns. Without it you are almost certainly better off with traditional investing where transaction costs, scalability and liquidity are much, much more favorable. 

Numbers can also be misleading when tabulating collectibles gains. For example, an item purchased in 1990 for 1K and sold for 2K in 2025 would appear to be a gain of 100%, but when factoring in opportunity cost and inflation, the percentage may be quite a bit lower. GOD BLESS ... 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

[KCOComics]

On 5/7/2024 at 7:52 AM, jimjum12 said:

Buying collections is a good way to quickly end up needing to rent storage space. It requires some special expertise. GOD BLESS ...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

Yup!! It's really easy and fun to sell the top books in a collection. It's the other 3k dollar bin books that take time, energy, resources and space. 

It's a labor of love. And truthfully, i love going through collections. Bagging, boarding, cataloging... what I don't love is the boxes of comics no one wants that sit for months and years. 

 

[the blob]

On 5/6/2024 at 11:27 AM, rsouxlja7 said:

I think it's fair to say the people who make money in this hobby are the dealers and collection flippers. I bought and sold collections to fund my own collection for around 7 years and made way more money than I made in the stock market, but that's because I obviously wasn't paying FMV for the stuff I bought. The people who just bought and held in the same timeframe may have done well too depending on what they bought and when they bought it. If they invested heavily from 2019 onward I really doubt they've made much profit. 

The math is simple. If I buy a book on eBay for $1,000 right now I am going to pay closer to $1,100 with shipping and sales tax. I would need to sell that book worth $1K for closer to $1,300 to get my $1,100 back after accounting for eBay fees. So we are talking about a built in 30% gain needed just to turn a profit if, like most people, you are going to be doing both your buying and selling on eBay. The numbers aren't as bad if you are going to sell via FB/IG but there are still PayPal fees involved and now that we are in a buyers market people are not willing to pay the same price that they'd pay on eBay - everyone wants a built in ~10% discount. 

This doesn't even factor in the unfavorable tax rates on collectibles (or running a small business if that's how you operate) vs passive income from the stock market. 

Yup, the ebay sales taxes, depending on your state, are a good motivation to buy and sell in cash at shows. It's 1992 again! The thing is, are most people trying to pay electronically at shows now? I almost never did that unless I flat out ran out of cash. Not that I would ever not report the sales tax or the income or any of those things, of course, I'm talking about other people.

 

[the blob]

On 5/6/2024 at 11:27 AM, rsouxlja7 said:

I think it's fair to say the people who make money in this hobby are the dealers and collection flippers. I bought and sold collections to fund my own collection for around 7 years and made way more money than I made in the stock market, but that's because I obviously wasn't paying FMV for the stuff I bought. The people who just bought and held in the same timeframe may have done well too depending on what they bought and when they bought it. If they invested heavily from 2019 onward I really doubt they've made much profit. 

The math is simple. If I buy a book on eBay for $1,000 right now I am going to pay closer to $1,100 with shipping and sales tax. I would need to sell that book worth $1K for closer to $1,300 to get my $1,100 back after accounting for eBay fees. So we are talking about a built in 30% gain needed just to turn a profit if, like most people, you are going to be doing both your buying and selling on eBay. The numbers aren't as bad if you are going to sell via FB/IG but there are still PayPal fees involved and now that we are in a buyers market people are not willing to pay the same price that they'd pay on eBay - everyone wants a built in ~10% discount. 

This doesn't even factor in the unfavorable tax rates on collectibles (or running a small business if that's how you operate) vs passive income from the stock market. 

I dunno about the running a small business thing though. Seems like if you actually derive a decent amount of income from selling you can come up with a lot of deductions against that income... like deducting your trip to lovely san diego as part of your business, deducting part of the cost of your car, employing your children, and so on.

[the blob]

On 5/7/2024 at 2:59 AM, lou_fine said:

Or they can also lose as much as 75% to 95% of their stock market investment if they brought into some of the pandemic related stocks or overly hyped flash in the pan stocks in former red hot sectors which are now stone cold dead.  

So why do that? Just buy a boring index fund rather than trying to pick stocks. Avoid get rich quick schemes and you should be fine. I bought razorfish at 75 cents a share in 2002 rather than Apple because razorfish (an internet darling at one point that had been maybe $100 a share?, now you've never heard of it) had just turned a profit and I thought razorfish had turned the corner. That's the last time I tried to pick stocks. Razorfish briefly went over $1 and then tanked and was bought internally and I lost most of my money. Thankfully it was only like 2000 shares maybe and I wound up making up for it buying a lot of QQQ near the bottom. My stock picking is like hunting dollar box books except I am much better at hunting dollar box books.

Edited May 7 by the blob

[Telegan]

I bought a CGC 8.5 Strange Tales #158 for around $150 last night.  I was going to wait until it got down to $0, but eh... wth... YOLO!  That's my first SA purchase in a while.

[Stefan_W]

My Savage She-Hulk 1 9.8 news stand is ending on Comic Link tonight. I am holding my breath and hoping this book breaks the streak of getting destroyed with low sales on other books that ended already. 

I sent in enough value to pick up a minor grail, but it is looking like I will have to aim lower. The problem of selling off lower value books to pick up a bigger one is bigger ones (at least the ones that I want) are less likely to tank at auction. 

[The humble Watcher lurking]

On 5/7/2024 at 3:51 PM, the blob said:

Just buy a boring index fund

It really is not that boring, but quite challenging. Let that index fund grow.  ha ha

[jimjum12]

On 5/7/2024 at 9:13 PM, The humble Watcher lurking said:

It really is not that boring, but quite challenging. Let that index fund grow.  ha ha

My Uncle bought Berkshire Hathaway @$2500. It doesn't always have to make sense. GOD BLESS ... 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) 

 

[lou_fine]

On 5/7/2024 at 6:13 PM, The humble Watcher lurking said:

On 5/7/2024 at 12:51 PM, the blob said:

Just buy a boring index fund

It really is not that boring, but quite challenging. Let that index fund grow.  ha ha

Well, it depends if you are the type that goes to the amusement park for the merry-go-round or for the wild ride of the roller coaster.  

[thehumantorch]

On 5/7/2024 at 9:29 PM, lou_fine said:

Well, it depends if you are the type that goes to the amusement park for the merry-go-round or for the wild ride of the roller coaster.  

The Merry-Go-Round is scary as hell

[Stefan_W]

On 5/7/2024 at 7:37 PM, Stefan_W said:

My Savage She-Hulk 1 9.8 news stand is ending on Comic Link tonight. I am holding my breath and hoping this book breaks the streak of getting destroyed with low sales on other books that ended already. 

I sent in enough value to pick up a minor grail, but it is looking like I will have to aim lower. The problem of selling off lower value books to pick up a bigger one is bigger ones (at least the ones that I want) are less likely to tank at auction. 

Update - Yikes!

Better start looking at what lesser grails are coming up.