Is the gold the only way to gold? 2 2

[Coverdeath]

Well I wanted to share my reflexion as someone far of the business and even further of the Uncle Sam Country, when I started to collect I was only looking for modern/copper stuff... now over the years in slowly going to the silver books and I realize something... any books post 1960 seems to still totally unworthy if not in great condition, I mean any books which isn't a great keys worth less than 10$ if the condition is bad... and next seems to be very volatile, price are constantly making up and down, again and again... 

I have the feeling that the golden age books are the real comics who could be legit in terms of investment, for the popular characters, even the most random issues in bad condition never spawn on the market for less than 100$... other point, when we re going trough golden age you do not find anymore bundle of books, all of them are always sold individually because too valuable. 

What is your opinion? Do you have hope in later stuff or have you the same opinion than me? 

Thanks for your opinion. 

[Coverdeath]

I know that i probably wrote a lot of sh*t but its just my view and Its ok if your not agree with me, I made it to understand how  the things are.

[bc]

Actually, that is the same progression that I took although I never considered comic books an investment.

Started buying books off the spinner racks in the 1970's (which would have been considered modern back then). When I got more income, I moved to silver age and then eventually to golden age.

-bc

[KCOComics]

Off the top of my head, without much refined thought.... 

Anything 1978 or newer, with a few expectations are only worth a lot in high grade.  

BA keys can have value in any grade, but the rest generally won't. Some genres like BA horror and BA romance might command a premium in high grade.  

SA keys are obviously valuable in any grade. Popular SA marvel (FF, ASM...) is usually worth something in any grade. 

Atomic age can be a mixed bag. They usually are worth something, but not as much as you might think. 

GA isn't always a slam dunk. Heros, war, Horror and romance usually do well. Westerns and funny animals not so much. 

 

 

[MR SigS]

On 6/7/2024 at 6:47 PM, KCOComics said:

Westerns and funny animals not so much. 

[unclezebo]

what about funny animal romance?

[Point Five]

On 6/7/2024 at 4:34 PM, BA773 said:

Well I wanted to share my reflexion as someone far of the business and even further of the Uncle Sam Country, when I started to collect I was only looking for modern/copper stuff... now over the years in slowly going to the silver books and I realize something... any books post 1960 seems to still totally unworthy if not in great condition, I mean any books which isn't a great keys worth less than 10$ if the condition is bad... and next seems to be very volatile, price are constantly making up and down, again and again... 

I have the feeling that the golden age books are the real comics who could be legit in terms of investment, for the popular characters, even the most random issues in bad condition never spawn on the market for less than 100$... other point, when we re going trough golden age you do not find anymore bundle of books, all of them are always sold individually because too valuable. 

What is your opinion? Do you have hope in later stuff or have you the same opinion than me? 

Thanks for your opinion. 

Yes, golden age books are rarer, and sure, the ones everyone wants (superhero, precode horror, 'good girl art'/romance and so forth) have increased exponentially in value.

I just think they are fascinating and cool. Flipping through them is like time travel, a portal into another world. And the range of art styles is amazing.

Honestly, this is a hobby, try to have fun with it and don't get too hung up on values. Collect what you love. 

 

[Jayman]

[thehumantorch]

On 6/7/2024 at 2:34 PM, BA773 said:

Well I wanted to share my reflexion as someone far of the business and even further of the Uncle Sam Country, when I started to collect I was only looking for modern/copper stuff... now over the years in slowly going to the silver books and I realize something... any books post 1960 seems to still totally unworthy if not in great condition, I mean any books which isn't a great keys worth less than 10$ if the condition is bad... and next seems to be very volatile, price are constantly making up and down, again and again... 

I have the feeling that the golden age books are the real comics who could be legit in terms of investment, for the popular characters, even the most random issues in bad condition never spawn on the market for less than 100$... other point, when we re going trough golden age you do not find anymore bundle of books, all of them are always sold individually because too valuable. 

What is your opinion? Do you have hope in later stuff or have you the same opinion than me? 

Thanks for your opinion. 

There's value and demand for all eras.  There's even some rarity in the CA to MA era.  All eras have wonderful books, wonderful art and stories, and reasons to collect that era.  I'd never tell anyone what to collect and I'd never look down on someone for what they collect or what era it's from.

I started with SA and I've seen and owned pretty well every single Marvel SA book.  If money was no object I could go to any large show and build a Spider-man run from 1 to 100.  Or for that matter pretty well any SA or BA run.  Same goes if I went the auction route.  Print runs were high for SA to the end of the CA era and the survival rate is relatively high and generally there's lots of copies of all that great stuff.  And generally there are dozens or more high grade copies of most of these books so they're not even really rare in high grade.  Just expensive.

If you go back to the GA there are books that rarely come up for sale.  You'd have difficulty finding many of these books anywhere and putting together a 10 or 20 issue run might take you many many years waiting for a copy to come to market.  And we're not talking a high grade copy, just finding any copy is tough.  That difficulty in finding a book also makes it more rewarding when you finally find and acquire it.

And never forget that value is always a factor of demand and supply.  Rare GA books that have high demand are gonna get noticed.  They are gonna get a lot of bids and sell quickly.  If a couple collectors drop out of the bidding because the economy is bad it's less likely to matter because any buyers still interested will pay the price because they waited 10 years to finally find a copy and they don't want to wait another 10 years.  And I think that's why you see a lot of GA books still going up in value or retaining value as most books from SA to present are dropping in value.

And don't get me wrong.  I have books from all eras and quite a few SA books and I'm still buying them and believe now is a great time to be buying SA keys but I just believe that rare high demand GA books are the smartest books to pick up long term.

[Cman429]

Applying logic to the comic book “business” seldom will work out for you or anyone. Scarcity should dictate value. Period. Just like with precious metals or coins or stamps. But for what ever reason(s), it doesn’t translate to comic books. 90s comics had print runs of literally half million plus yet you’ll still see people plunk down $1k for ASM300 or NM98. Stan Lee did dozens of cons per year for almost 30 years and didn’t stop until his despicable handlers couldn’t push him out in front of people anymore. Yet people will act like a signed Stan Lee book is a rare and precious artifact. 

So, yes, logic would be if you viewed comics as a commodity the ones from 50-75 years ago that managed to survive are the “valuable” items but it just never seems to follow in the real world.

[revat]

It’s fine to like what you like, and to dislike what you dislike. 
 

If investing is important, then invest in what you know.  If what you know happens to be what you like, even better.

if you have a lot of interest in golden age, there’s a whole sub forum full of discussion about it, endless knowledge from some of the world’s great collectors 

[jimbo_7071]

On 6/7/2024 at 4:34 PM, BA773 said:

Well I wanted to share my reflexion as someone far of the business and even further of the Uncle Sam Country, when I started to collect I was only looking for modern/copper stuff... now over the years in slowly going to the silver books and I realize something... any books post 1960 seems to still totally unworthy if not in great condition, I mean any books which isn't a great keys worth less than 10$ if the condition is bad... and next seems to be very volatile, price are constantly making up and down, again and again... 

I have the feeling that the golden age books are the real comics who could be legit in terms of investment, for the popular characters, even the most random issues in bad condition never spawn on the market for less than 100$... other point, when we re going trough golden age you do not find anymore bundle of books, all of them are always sold individually because too valuable. 

What is your opinion? Do you have hope in later stuff or have you the same opinion than me? 

Thanks for your opinion. 

Buy what you enjoy. You can make money by flipping hot books, but no comic book is a long-term investment. There's a real risk of price stagnation or even steep declines across the board once the Gen-Xers start to age out of the hobby. (The Boomers are already starting to leave, and they're the ones holding most of the nicest books. You're going to see a flood of grade-A material on the block over the next 10 years.) There will be some Millenials and Zoomers in the hobby just like there are some Gen-Xers who collect 78 RPM records and Hummels, but the number of serious collectors will shrink. The passion in the hobby comes, by and large, from the guys who grew up buying comics off the rack every month. That doesn't describe many Millenials or Zoomers.

[AJD]

As Jimbo says, there are no sure bets, but gold has certainly held up better price wise than the other ages in the great post-covid price correction. So far it seems to have been a better bet to hold or even increase value.

[sagii]

On 6/8/2024 at 1:07 AM, thehumantorch said:

There's value and demand for all eras.  There's even some rarity in the CA to MA era.  All eras have wonderful books, wonderful art and stories, and reasons to collect that era.  I'd never tell anyone what to collect and I'd never look down on someone for what they collect or what era it's from.

I started with SA and I've seen and owned pretty well every single Marvel SA book.  If money was no object I could go to any large show and build a Spider-man run from 1 to 100.  Or for that matter pretty well any SA or BA run.  Same goes if I went the auction route.  Print runs were high for SA to the end of the CA era and the survival rate is relatively high and generally there's lots of copies of all that great stuff.  And generally there are dozens or more high grade copies of most of these books so they're not even really rare in high grade.  Just expensive.

If you go back to the GA there are books that rarely come up for sale.  You'd have difficulty finding many of these books anywhere and putting together a 10 or 20 issue run might take you many many years waiting for a copy to come to market.  And we're not talking a high grade copy, just finding any copy is tough.  That difficulty in finding a book also makes it more rewarding when you finally find and acquire it.

And never forget that value is always a factor of demand and supply.  Rare GA books that have high demand are gonna get noticed.  They are gonna get a lot of bids and sell quickly.  If a couple collectors drop out of the bidding because the economy is bad it's less likely to matter because any buyers still interested will pay the price because they waited 10 years to finally find a copy and they don't want to wait another 10 years.  And I think that's why you see a lot of GA books still going up in value or retaining value as most books from SA to present are dropping in value.

And don't get me wrong.  I have books from all eras and quite a few SA books and I'm still buying them and believe now is a great time to be buying SA keys but I just believe that rare high demand GA books are the smartest books to pick up long term.

Does anyone know if Charlton print runs were on a par with Marvel and DC during the Bronze (and even Copper age, though that's when they folded)?

Though I am primarily a golden age collector (for many of the various reasons cited in this Thread already), I have recently started collecting high grade Bronze Horror (mostly Charlton). So you never know where your interests will detour you to. 

Fun hunting in all eras.

Edited June 8 by sagii

[shadroch]

On 6/7/2024 at 10:21 PM, Cman429 said:

Applying logic to the comic book “business” seldom will work out for you or anyone. Scarcity should dictate value. Period. Just like with precious metals or coins or stamps. But for what ever reason(s), it doesn’t translate to comic books. 90s comics had print runs of literally half million plus yet you’ll still see people plunk down $1k for ASM300 or NM98. Stan Lee did dozens of cons per year for almost 30 years and didn’t stop until his despicable handlers couldn’t push him out in front of people anymore. Yet people will act like a signed Stan Lee book is a rare and precious artifact. 

So, yes, logic would be if you viewed comics as a commodity the ones from 50-75 years ago that managed to survive are the “valuable” items but it just never seems to follow in the real world.

Scarcity is essential, but demand is the key.   If no one wants something, it doesn't matter how rare or common it might be. Stan Lee autographs are valued because people want them.   

[Hepcat]

On 6/8/2024 at 9:22 AM, sagii said:

Does anyone know if Charlton print runs were on a par with Marvel and DC during the Bronze (and even Copper age, though that's when they folded)?

If sales data are any reflection of print runs, no where near as many Charlton comics were printed.

[Robot Man]

On 6/8/2024 at 8:55 AM, shadroch said:

Scarcity is essential, but demand is the key.   If no one wants something, it doesn't matter how rare or common it might be. Stan Lee autographs are valued because people want them.   

Exactly. Demand is everything. Why else would people pay the prices they do for ASM 300?

Scarcity matters little if no one wants it.

I discovered GA as a young kid. Was very hard to find even then. So many books and genres to find. Always a challenge. Nothing like that buzz when I found “10 centers”. I was hooked early. And fortunately, I resisted the urge and kept most of it. I bought them and kept them just because I liked them. Has worked out VERY well for me. 

[fast eddie]

Yup,,,,,, Gold is the way to go,,,,, a friend and I were just talking about this. Silver keys are popular and relavent to my age group,,,, but dayum,,,,,, there is so much great art in Golden Age books,,,,, covers and interiors! I don't see THAT combination ever getting passe or overlooked,,, even by younger collectors,,,, indeed,,, their eyes shall be opened by the greatness that is "The Golden Age",,,,,,,,,,, um,,,,,,,can I get an amen,,,,,or hellyeah?

[Chip Cataldo]

On 6/8/2024 at 1:06 PM, fast eddie said:

there is so much great art in Golden Age books,,,,, covers and interiors! I don't see THAT combination ever getting passe or overlooked,,, even by younger collectors,,,, indeed,,, their eyes shall be opened by the greatness that is "The Golden Age",,,,,,,,,,, um,,,,,,,can I get an amen,,,,,or hellyeah?

You're also describing Silver, Bronze and Copper Age books. Lol.

[valiantman]

Ask yourself if you'd rather have every CGC graded copy of Action Comics #1 or every CGC graded copy of Amazing Fantasy #15.

Obviously, Action #1 is worth more individually, but there are ten times as many Amazing Fantasy #15... so which would you rather have ALL of them?

Try the same question for Hulk #1 or Hulk #181.  Would you rather have ALL of the CGC Hulk #1s or ALL of the CGC Hulk #181s?

Everybody's gonna have their opinions, but it's also possible to answer with just data.  http://CGCemc.com

Edited June 8 by valiantman