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

[alexgross.com]

On 10/16/2022 at 3:34 AM, Norinn Radd said:

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

Comics I'm selling?  Prices (demand) have cooled (some by quite a bit)

Comics I'm trying to buy?  Prices (demand) are as strong as ever.

Same as it ever was...

truer words were never spoken! 

[ADAMANTIUM]

On 10/16/2022 at 2:13 AM, dikran1 said:

On 10/15/2022 at 10:23 PM, ThothAmon said:

Brother, it can’t be all bad?  I’m curious about your board name?

It’s my actual name, which is a common Armenian first name. Had to add the 1 after some Board update in 2017 but I’ve been on here since ‘07. 
As for the bad?… Buying comics today is essentially like buying a new car, you lose 40-50% of the value as soon as the auction ends… 

https://boards.cgccomics.com/forum/80-account-merge-requests/

Not sure if this link would work. @CGC Mike can he merge or get his account back? or is it hard to do?

@dikran1 There were boards glitches that added a #"1" at the end of accounts that didn't update well in the boards site update. There was talk at the time of how to fix it, this is the best that I can remember  

 that no one seemed to notice before now  

[CGC Mike]

On 10/16/2022 at 3:13 AM, dikran said:

On 10/15/2022 at 11:23 PM, ThothAmon said:

 

 

Brother, it can’t be all bad?  I’m curious about your board name?

It’s my actual name, which is a common Armenian first name. Had to add the 1 after some Board update in 2017 but I’ve been on here since ‘07. 

I have merged your accounts but, it may revert back to dikron1.  If this happens, let me know and I will contact CGC and have them make the change internally.

[DC#]

So much of the debate on the past few pages gets down to the belief in the intrinsic value of something.    Whether it be currency, NFTs, a Funko Pop, or a Van Gogh painting - they only have value because people believe they have value.    And the scale of that belief greatly impacts both its volatility and value.    When belief stops - prices drop (currency crisis, tulip bulbs, beanie babies, etc).   So ASM 300 newsstand is worth $15k as long as enough people believe it is.    And the fact that hard core collectors of PCH may not believe it worth that probably doesn’t matter since they were outside the group whose collective belief drove the value of ASM 300 in the first place.   And vice versa about some ASM believers regarding PCH.    So as both collectors and investors I imagine people primarily put money in things they believe in.   And beliefvalue can be based both on tangible things (gold can be used to make semiconductors) or more ephemeral/psychological things (gold makes me feel pretty). 
 

Someone could offer me a SA book worth half as much as a rare Funko Pop and I would probably take the SA book (especially if I couldn’t flip) because I personally don’t share a belief in Funko.    
 

So as Obi-wan said - all depends on our own point of view……and just how many people happen to share that same view 

Edited October 16, 2022 by DC#

[FoggyNelson]

On 10/16/2022 at 1:55 PM, DC# said:

So much of the debate on the past few pages gets down to the belief in the intrinsic value of something.    Whether it be currency, NFTs, a Funko Pop, or a Van Gogh painting - they only have value because people believe they have value.    And the scale of that belief greatly impacts both its volatility and value.    When belief stops - prices drop (currency crisis, tulip bulbs, beanie babies, etc).   So ASM 300 newsstand is worth $15k as long as enough people believe it is.    And the fact that hard core collectors of PCH may not believe it worth that probably doesn’t matter since they were outside the group whose collective belief drove the value of ASM 300 in the first place.   And vice versa about some ASM believers regarding PCH.    So as both collectors and investors I imagine people primarily put money in things they believe in.   And beliefvalue can be based both on tangible things (gold can be used to make semiconductors) or more ephemeral/psychological things (gold makes me feel pretty). 
 

Someone could offer me a SA book worth half as much as a rare Funko Pop and I would probably take the SA book (especially if I couldn’t flip) because I personally don’t share a belief in Funko.    
 

So as Obi-wan said - all depends on our own point of view……and just how many people happen to share that same view 

I don’t believe in funky pops either

[COI]

On 10/16/2022 at 1:55 PM, DC# said:

So much of the debate on the past few pages gets down to the belief in the intrinsic value of something.    Whether it be currency, NFTs, a Funko Pop, or a Van Gogh painting - they only have value because people believe they have value.    And the scale of that belief greatly impacts both its volatility and value.    When belief stops - prices drop (currency crisis, tulip bulbs, beanie babies, etc).   So ASM 300 newsstand is worth $15k as long as enough people believe it is.    And the fact that hard core collectors of PCH may not believe it worth that probably doesn’t matter since they were outside the group whose collective belief drove the value of ASM 300 in the first place.   And vice versa about some ASM believers regarding PCH.    So as both collectors and investors I imagine people primarily put money in things they believe in.   And beliefvalue can be based both on tangible things (gold can be used to make semiconductors) or more ephemeral/psychological things (gold makes me feel pretty). 
 

Someone could offer me a SA book worth half as much as a rare Funko Pop and I would probably take the SA book (especially if I couldn’t flip) because I personally don’t share a belief in Funko.    
 

So as Obi-wan said - all depends on our own point of view……and just how many people happen to share that same view 

Belief in the books long term makes collectors, belief that buyers and sellers will behave in some specific way during some specified period of time makes speculators.

You don't have to believe in or care at all about the intrinsic value of something if the play is to pump and dump based on the anticipation of behavior. 

[CGC Mike]

On 10/16/2022 at 7:58 PM, dikran1 said:

Oh man I have no idea what happened but my account has reset… @CGC Mike

Actually, it hasn't.  Your old account is attached to a different e-mail address.  I'll send you a PM.  

Mike

[Norrin_Radd]

On 10/16/2022 at 6:34 AM, Norinn Radd said:

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

Comics I'm selling?  Prices (demand) have cooled (some by quite a bit)

Comics I'm trying to buy?  Prices (demand) are as strong as ever.

Same as it ever was...

Case in point.  Batman 73.  Last GPA data point CGC 4.0 in August was $1412.

Raw VG on Heritage I was bidding on today ended at $2132. 

https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/batman-73-dc-1952-condition-vg/a/122242-15173.s?ic4=ListView-Thumbnail-071515

[alexgross.com]

On 10/16/2022 at 7:39 PM, Norinn Radd said:

Case in point.  Batman 73.  Last GPA data point CGC 4.0 in August was $1412.

Raw VG on Heritage I was bidding on today ended at $2132. 

https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/batman-73-dc-1952-condition-vg/a/122242-15173.s?ic4=ListView-Thumbnail-071515

Heritage results can always be trusted to be above board. 

[DC#]

On 10/16/2022 at 4:17 PM, COI said:

Belief in the books long term makes collectors, belief that buyers and sellers will behave in some specific way during some specified period of time makes speculators.

You don't have to believe in or care at all about the intrinsic value of something if the play is to pump and dump based on the anticipation of behavior. 

It is a chicken and egg condition - even pump and dumpers need believers of some degree in order to drive the value.    Though I do appreciate the greater fools theory.  
And they all get muddled together in a market - crypto has/had many people who truly believe it is a revolution investing alongside the speculators (some of whom probably couldn’t explain what block chain was if they had to).     And traditionalists sit on the outside looking at all of them like they are out of their minds.   Probably like parents told many of us we were out of our minds as kids for collecting comics…..

[paqart]

On 10/15/2022 at 11:13 PM, Thisisrequired said:

I never said it was movie goers buying on the movie news although I have met plenty of people who never bought a comic who were inspired to by the love of the movies. Seems like a even mixture of collectors and speculators. Haven't put any thought into why the books drop after the movie. I just take the fools money and wish them luck. My guess is that book is old news and they move on to the next thing so they can get it and show it off on social media. Like one kid gets a toy the others have to have one. I would say new buyers are coming from somewhere because you can only buy so many books and see them lose half their value after the movie so many times. Figure its a mix of actual new collectors who just hit the buy it now without doing any research on past history. People who need it to show it off. People who hear you can make money with comics who will buy it now and sell it for a profit once the movie comes out. We may be on the same page. I don't read things carefully unless i have to sign something and been trying to watch baseball and football at same time. 

It seems to me that practically every comic or page of original art I've ever bought has climbed in price considerably since the day I first bought it. That is as true of the worthless when I bought them Fourth World comics as the cheap as the dickens pages of John Byrne Wonder Woman pages I bought by the handful in 2005. I don't know if I've ever had any comic related collectible go down relative to what I paid, though some haven't advanced as far as quickly. My Hulk #181, Werewolf by Night 32, and Star Wars #1 are hard to beat for crazy increases in price but even on the low end, like the Kirby Fourth World comics, or Thun'Da #1, or just about anything else, they've all gone up. For the record, I don't have any of those comics today, after selling them long ago.

I think the key is to know when not to buy. There are plenty of things I shy away from but could afford if I felt like it, because they seem overpriced. I'm sure I'm wrong about that sometimes but staying in my comfort zone reduces the chance of losing value later. I do break the rules sometimes, so we'll see how that works out. Still, I thought I'd screwed up a couple of times about 2 years ago when I started buying again but in every case, the comics have gone up considerably in value since I bought them.

My biggest concern when I started buying newsstands was that other collectors wouldn't figure out how rare they are. I didn't set out to buy a couple thousand post-2000 newsstands but when I saw the cost to rarity ratio, I decided to stop work on my GA and SA collections to concentrate on newsstands. The reason there is that the GA/SA prices seemed relatively static, so it seemed to me that even if prices went up on those items while I was buying newsstands, the newsstands would go up by more. Meaning, if I wanted to buy them at all, I should get them while I could, and if I had to, could sell some for a profit to get the GA and SA comics I really wanted.

The jury is still out on newsstands in the sense that prices haven't yet reached a level that reflects their actual marketplace availability. Prices are higher than directs but they aren't proportionate yet. That is what I am waiting for. We'll see if/when it happens. The thing that goes through my mind whenever I think about this is that I can find a Hulk #181 for sale any day of the week but many newsstands are noseeums for months or years on end. Even better, almost every comic published between 1980-20013 (Marvel) and 2017 (DC) have newsstand editions. That means that almost every key in that time period has a newsstand out there. This is very different from the Marvel 30 and 35 cent price variants, for which there were only a few keys, like SW #1 and the first Sabretooth in Marvel Premiere. 

Another problem with newsstands is that the rarest of them haven't been around long enough to generate followings. Just like WBN #32, some comics take decades to be discovered. There are probably hundreds of them waiting to be found in the material produced over the last 20 years, but it may take another 20 before people start looking for them in earnest. In the meanwhile, I got most of the newsstand comics I wanted, so now I'm going back to BA and SA comics for a little while, with an emphasis on UK and Canadian editions.

[mjoeyoung]

On 10/16/2022 at 11:37 PM, paqart said:

I think the key is to know when not to buy.

On 10/16/2022 at 11:37 PM, paqart said:

I don't know if I've ever had any comic related collectible go down relative to what I paid,

The point of this thread.

My belief is that people who bought at the height of this unique market in 2021 may have to wait a LONG time to reach a break even point on value.  Take ASM#300 in 9.8:

2019 Average = $1945

2020 Average = $3077

2021 Average = $6159

12 M Average = $5306

90 D Average = $4681

That last 3 sales have been $4059, $4225, and $4500.  What is going to happen to keep this book from free falling back down to 2020 or 2019 levels?  Even if the book only drops to the 2020 AVG, how long is it going to take to increase in value by $3K?

On 10/16/2022 at 9:01 PM, DC# said:

It is a chicken and egg condition - even pump and dumpers need believers of some degree in order to drive the value.

And this market is going to weed the majority of them out, and values will fall accordingly.

 

[Steven Valdez]

On 10/16/2022 at 5:43 AM, MAR1979 said:

I would have agreed 1-2 years back but most of the multitude of 2020-2021 bandwagon jumpers are exiting en mass from the hobby.  Those outgoing huge numbers are not being replaced by the trickle in compression that is coming in.  The folks leaving were a huge catalyst in causing high pop bronze-copper-modern books to sublimate. It may be decades before that is seen again just like the gap from the 1993/1994 to 2020/2021

As always my opinion is not directed towards Silver/Atomic/Gold nor outliers nor hot books de jour.

Also, most of the recent Marvel movies and shows have been subpar, unlike the fine efforts of a few years ago. That's what got a lot of people into investing, but the bad recent stuff would be driving them away.

[Poekaymon]

On 10/17/2022 at 3:49 AM, mjoeyoung said:

The point of this thread.

My belief is that people who bought at the height of this unique market in 2021 may have to wait a LONG time to reach a break even point on value.  Take ASM#300 in 9.8:

2019 Average = $1945

2020 Average = $3077

2021 Average = $6159

12 M Average = $5306

90 D Average = $4681

That last 3 sales have been $4059, $4225, and $4500.  What is going to happen to keep this book from free falling back down to 2020 or 2019 levels?  Even if the book only drops to the 2020 AVG, how long is it going to take to increase in value by $3K?

And this market is going to weed the majority of them out, and values will fall accordingly.

 

Will ASM 300 go back above $6000 in the short term?  Probably not--but, sorry to be blunt, who cares?  If you're buying for speculation, then I have no sympathy.  If you're buying for the love of the hobby, then a longer time horizon should be fine. 

Of course, there's still the question of whether the hobby as a whole will survive in the long term--that's less to do with speculators and FOMO books and more to do with general, continued interest.  No one knows the answer to that right now--let's revisit the subject in 20-30 years, like a treasury bond with funny pictures.

 

[troydivision1]

ASM #300 2020/21 average was ALL spec on Venom joining the MCU proper and being in The Sinister Six for SM:NWH.
The rumors and then the end credit scene in Venom 2 helped this.

The same can be said about Ultimate Fallout #4.
That life cycle WAS cranking with a video game in 2020 into SM:NWH rumors in 2021 into nothing...
Check the prices from the beginning of the year to now.
 

[ThothAmon]

Trends are ease up but there’s always a depression somewhere. The elite books (yes AMan 22 I’m talking about you) will scoff at this. I try to make up for any losses with volume. 

[Krismusic]

On 10/15/2022 at 3:32 PM, Thisisrequired said:

I am not buying anything back. I see better investment options. Even if I was a pure collector I would wait and see. I believe things are more likely to get worse than improve. Make profits elsewhere and buy comics then. *This is not financial advice. Only my personal opinion.*

Oh I don’t by for investments I have mutual funds, stocks and rrsp for that, I am a collector though, but haven’t sold a single book; although I have considered selling some books to get some grails that’s are now starting to become out of reach….. 

[Krismusic]

On 10/17/2022 at 9:05 AM, Poekaymon said:

Will ASM 300 go back above $6000 in the short term?  Probably not--but, sorry to be blunt, who cares?  If you're buying for speculation, then I have no sympathy.  If you're buying for the love of the hobby, then a longer time horizon should be fine. 

Of course, there's still the question of whether the hobby as a whole will survive in the long term--that's less to do with speculators and FOMO books and more to do with general, continued interest.  No one knows the answer to that right now--let's revisit the subject in 20-30 years, like a treasury bond with funny pictures.

 

Pretty sure super hero stuff will be around for at least a few decades more..the popular characters still have many people buying products associated with them. Like Spider-Man, Batman, super man, ans characters associated with them… 

My personal experience is that many of my friends and family who aren’t as “nerdy” or comic oriented still know these popular super hero characters and now are starting to get into comics, collectible media etc… never having really been akin to this stuff.. so I mean newer people who didn’t even grow up very much with comics or super hero genre are starting to come into it ans their kids are very much into it.. so I’m seeing interest from people who I didn’t know would be involved in comics and the characters merch… 

but I agree with what u said we never really know… let’s hope it continues and stories keep getting told… 

 

[lou_fine]

On 10/17/2022 at 7:14 AM, Krismusic said:

Oh I don’t by for investments I have mutual funds, stocks and rrsp for that, I am a collector though, but haven’t sold a single book; although I have considered selling some books to get some grails that’s are now starting to become out of reach….. 

Although that's the way it's supposed to work, a lot of long term collectors just wished they could have had the option to place their vintage comic books into tax free financial investment shelters.  Especially since the majority of them have significantly outperformed the equity investment markets where we have seen some of the former once red hot Nasdaq speculative stocks drop by as much as 80% from their recent highs of last year.    

Edited October 17, 2022 by lou_fine

[paqart]

On 10/17/2022 at 6:49 AM, Steven Valdez said:

Also, most of the recent Marvel movies and shows have been subpar, unlike the fine efforts of a few years ago. That's what got a lot of people into investing, but the bad recent stuff would be driving them away.

Yes! I was all set to pull the trigger on some Eternals comics and then I saw the movie. Or rather, as much of the movie as I could stand before walking out. Blorch! What a waste of resources. I feel the same about Love and Thunder and Werewolf by Night. Multiverse of Madness was very good in many ways but had its problems also. Gone are the days of the brash young confident tech entrepreneur Tony Stark. I loved his unapologetic confidence. As soon as that got tamped down in Civil War, the whole MCU started going downhill. The movies were still pretty good but they gradually lost their soul and now its gone.