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Sell or wait in today's down market?
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103 posts in this topic

I bought an Xmen 12 6.5 and kicking myself seeing a 7.5 being sold for what I paid

I'll eventually recoup the loss, but who knows how long I'll wait

In the meantime, I don't have the cash to pick up the 7.5 which would be a nice upgrade 

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On 10/31/2022 at 4:05 PM, RCheli said:

This is a down market if you're comparing it to late-2020/2021. But it is way up compared with any other time. 90-day average on the #27 is $4100. If you take the covid-craziness out of the picture, that average is still higher than any other sale in GPA before covid. In fact, the last pre-covid sale for that book in January 2020 was for $2000. The latest sale was $3600!

So this is not a down market at all -- it is a very strong market that just isn't insane. (And insanity was never good for the hobby or sustainable.)

Good point on the perspective of the market. Since your post the 90 day GPA has remained at $4100, with one additional sale being recorded. I think the issue is buyers aren't willing to pay GPA though. 

With my great timing I've been screwed on GPA values both ways in the last couple years. In early 2021 I decided to buy a low grade JIM 83 because I had been wanting to for a while.  I didn't immediately pull the trigger and by the time I was ready in early March prices were starting to go up. At the time the GPA was about $5k for a 2.0, which I was willing to pay but I couldn't find any sellers here or elsewhere who would go under 9k. Almost twice the GPA value. Yikes. Eventually in May I settled for a 1.8 I found on IG for $6300.  Now 2+ years later I'm on the other end of it trying to sell a book at GPA and facing the opposite problem.  Damn I'm good lol. 

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On 10/30/2022 at 11:59 AM, Jaylam said:

If I purchased a book in 1980 for $0.50 and sold it today for $2,000 but 6 months ago copies in the same grade were selling for $3,000, did I just lose $1,000?

You can’t miss what you never had

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2 SIMPLE RULES:preach:

Don't overpay. Don't be the one setting the new market price. You better love it and want to keep it.

Don't ever sell in a down market. And what I mean by that is don't sell your Green Lantern 76 that you paid $1000 for. And list it in an auction with no reserve. You are going to get a fraction of its value unless Taylor Swift has just been announced as the new singing Green Lantern.2c

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I’m actually happy as a buyer only really as I’m trying to snag some deals. I lost two eBay bids as I was sniped on a hulk 181 twice … guess I need to learn to snipe better. 

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On 10/30/2022 at 6:57 PM, thunsicker said:

That depends.  If someone asked you your net worth including collectibles would you value the comic at 50¢ or $2000?

Haven't you been paying attention to the news..........................it really depends upon who's asking and what it's going to be used for.  :devil:

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On 12/5/2022 at 9:28 AM, mytastebud said:

2 SIMPLE RULES:preach:

Don't overpay. Don't be the one setting the new market price. You better love it and want to keep it.

Don't ever sell in a down market.

A third rule is don't ever believe it when people say they can't wait for prices to go down so that they can start buying.  :gossip:

They are most likely the ones also rushing for the exit doors which are already plugged solid with everybody else trying to out thinking they are in a burning building that's about to come crashing down on their heads.  :tonofbricks:   doh!

Edited by lou_fine
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On 10/30/2022 at 8:59 AM, Jaylam said:

If I purchased a book in 1980 for $0.50 and sold it today for $2,000 but 6 months ago copies in the same grade were selling for $3,000, did I just lose $1,000?

Just imagine that if you had brought the Salvador Mundi painting for a mere $10K back in 2005 and then sold it for $450.3M 12 short years later in 2017, you wouldn't need to worry about insignificant loose change amounts like only a few thousand dollars.  :bigsmile:

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On 10/28/2022 at 2:33 PM, Nick Furious said:

I would expect the FMV floor for blue-chip books like that to be about 25% over FMV at the end of 2019 (10% from inflation and 15% from sustainable increased collector demand).  I don't know where they are now, but I anticipate prices over the next 6 months to approach that bottom without going below.  I suspect they will stay there for a while.     

This is exactly where I am at. The value of most SA/BA keys are likely 20-25% above whatever they were trading at late 2019, and for the exact reasons you mentioned. So, most SA/BA stuff still have a bit further to fall, but not a ton. I have been buying the dip for 8 months, and it has cost me a pretty penny, but the bleeding will stop eventually, I do also agree, and this might be the painful part, that we will probably see stagnant/low growth for many years. Call it "the craze" hangover effect. But, solid minor keys, and especially the mega keys (ToS 39, FF 1, Hulk 181, ASM 129, etc.) will continue to be relatively bulletproof over the long haul.

I also strongly agree with many others who see Gold as the way to go. I have abandoned my "buy the dip" strategy completely, and am focusing almost exclusively on GA. There is true rarity there, and the covers and art are amazing - things like Chills 19, Venus 19, Suspense 3, Crime Suspense 22, Black Cat 50, and a host of others are true classics and I think a bunch of collectors will move there in the coming years. I see weakness and stagnation for a while in SA/BA, but relative strength in GA. It's all just my opinion though Educated guessing.

I am not even going to get into my thoughts on modern/spec stuff. Too much of a can of worms. Heh.

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On 10/28/2022 at 1:33 PM, Nick Furious said:

I would expect the FMV floor for blue-chip books like that to be about 25% over FMV at the end of 2019 (10% from inflation and 15% from sustainable increased collector demand).  I don't know where they are now, but I anticipate prices over the next 6 months to approach that bottom without going below.  I suspect they will stay there for a while.     

I think that that is a reasonable base case.  I do wonder if there is actually a sustainable increase in collector demand though.  I sometimes wonder if looking back 10-20 years from now, Avengers Endgame will mark the peak in comic book interest, and that we might see a sustained downtrend in collecting interest going forward.

Viewed as a group, all of the movies leading into Endgame, culminating in Endgame itself is something unprecedented in movies, and we probably will never see anything like it again.  I can’t help but wonder if people will lose interest in a stagnant market.

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On 12/6/2022 at 12:18 AM, lou_fine said:

Just imagine that if you had brought the Salvador Mundi painting for a mere $10K back in 2005 and then sold it for $450.3M 12 short years later in 2017, you wouldn't need to worry about insignificant loose change amounts like only a few thousand dollars.  :bigsmile:

It's all relative, right? :Rocket:

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Every 6 month's (June/December, I have records going back to 2015)) I check the FMV for my top 100 books using eBay sold auction prices for books in the same grade, when folks mentioned a downturn in values I am seeing that, some of the books have dropped in value by about 25% over the last 6 month's, while others that are non keys are remaining the same or close to the same.

Examples: (June/December)  ASM 2 PR. 0.5 $1000.00/$690.00, ASM 14 VG/FN 5.0 $1900.00/$1400.00, Avengers 4 GD/VG 3.0 $1200.00/$900.00, F.F. 2, 3, 4 in FR 1.0 all dropped about $200.00 each, that is as far as I have gotten to this point, my opinion is prices are just getting back to normal, even with the values decreasing the value of these books is still above and beyond the values in 2019/2020, the current values seem to be coming back to 2021 values.

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No one statement for buying or selling Comics (or trading cards) covers everything. Generalizations are fine as long as all are aware exceptions, outliers, and logic defying items will always exist. The following statements apply in general only:

- If selling Comics is your business then you need to continue to sell!  Any with a modicum of business acumen understands the paramount importance of cash flow. Those with true business ability don't require a "hot" market to do well.

- If you are a flipper know your Comic Book salad days (daze) of 2020-early 2022 of raking in easy fast cash across the board are not coming back for at least a decade or more.  Have fun ruining other things.

- If you are collector who purchases Comics when they at or near their hot highs let your personal fiscal needs dictate your actions, and know you will be burned over and over again.

- If you are collector who is intelligent enough to never to buy a Comic when its hot then you really don't need any advice, you will be just fine.

 

Please note first line of my signature!

Edited by MAR1979
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 If you are a flipper know your Comic Book salad days (daze) of 2020-early 2022 of raking in easy fast cash across the board are not coming back for at least a decade or more.

----

ok, yeah, we may not see 2020-21 again, but stuff was getting pretty interesting before covid too, I can see whatever fun was going in in 2018-2019 coming back. It was a long bull market and got even crazier in 2020-21. Frankly, aside from any bubble, I have to wonder if the tax reporting threshold dropping so far just had people leave. Aside from health, family issues, and my work exploding, I just didn't want to deal with that hassle on my taxes, so I stopped selling (and stopped buying). It has probably been discussed here (I've been out of the loop for a while). Uncle Joe could score some popularity points bringing it up to $6000 or $9000.

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A lot of very intelligent thinking, here. I would say that regardless of initial investment (10 cents, or ten thousand dollars), your 9.0 Fantastic Four number one should be considered at current market value. I’m like a lot of you, I’ve never sold anything. Maybe some day, but now doesn’t feel like the right time, and I still love my comics. However, the bubble of everything is concerning. 

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On 12/10/2022 at 9:08 PM, ageofsilver said:

A lot of very intelligent thinking, here. I would say that regardless of initial investment (10 cents, or ten thousand dollars), your 9.0 Fantastic Four number one should be considered at current market value. I’m like a lot of you, I’ve never sold anything. Maybe some day, but now doesn’t feel like the right time, and I still love my comics. However, the bubble of everything is concerning. 

I'll note that in my experience bubbles come, bubbles go. Will the comic bubble, I'll write Bronze Age, burst at some point? In my view it has, at least to some extent, and inflated again. Will it continue doing that ad infinitum? Unfortunately, I have no idea.

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