robin2099

Just curious. What comics do you own that you bought under the assumption that they would one day be worth a lot of money and now aren't? I have:

Superman 75

Batman 500

Batman 497

X-Men 1

The complete Asrael limited series. I actually think I paid $100 for those so I really lost money.

kgrogers1979

Pretty much the same thing for me. The late 80s/early 90s is when I was into comic collecting the heaviest. I was 12 years old in 1991, so I was young and naive and believed all the things about how these comics would pay for my college education.

Then years later, I took classes in Economics and learned about supply and demand and felt like such a fool for ever believing these comics would be worth anything. The comic companies were just preying on young people like myself.

fujishig

All of them? Well maybe not a lot of money, but for the price you basically have to pay someone to haul them away. But especially early Valiant. I had two copies of each early Harbinger issue because I tore the coupon out to get the zero issue or whatever. I should have cashed out early.

Lord Zarak

Let's see... I got suckered into buying all of the X-Men #1 variants, I still have my extra copies of the X-Cutioner's Song crossover comics still sealed in their polybags, Spawn #1, Youngblood #1, and many of the Marvel gimmick covers for series that I didn't care about. Though I was suckered in quite a bit, for the most part I read and enjoyed my comics.

PhantomStranger

I figured out pretty early on that regular issues would never be worth much, there were simply too many of them in perfect condition floating around. I did think rarer variant covers and certain key issues would hold some value since there were so few of them. What I didn't anticipate was the comic book industry collapsing in sales from the boom years.

I always bought issues to read and "collected" them mostly to read again at some future date. The only time I succumbed to the collecting frenzy was buying doubles of a few insanely over-hyped issues like the Death of Superman and Spider-Man #1 with McFarlane.

PhantomStranger

That is a good call, they must have printed millions of those X-Cutioner's Song suckers. It wasn't that great of a comic if I recall but sold well based on a lot of hucksterism.

starman9000

I don't think I thought it was going to be worth a ton, but I was stupid enough to buy a 2nd copy of Death of Superman so I could leave it bagged.

rocket1312

X-Cutioner's Song was my first "x-event" and I remember buying a copy of X-Force #16 and being conflicted because the store only had one copy and I didn't want to open the bag. My friend's dad (who drove us to the store) basically mocked me and told me I was stupid to leave it sealed and not read it. I ripped it open in the car and never again bought a comic because I thought it would be valuable.

The reverse of this question is picking up a copy of New Mutants #98 (1st Deadpool) for a couple of bucks off of e-bay about 10 years back because I was filling in some gaps in my New Mutants collection and then selling it last year for $100+ on ebay after I realized what a hot item it had become. The buyer even e-mailed after the fact to thank me for selling it at such a reasonable cost. In retrospect I probably could have gotten even more if I had waited until the movie came out, but at the time it didn't seem like it would ever happen.

Neitzl

I never really collected for resale in mind. I also bought the Valiant Harbinger comics, two of each, to get the coupon from one and keep the other in mint. It worked for me because I actually did sell my comics at the right time. I had also acquired a lot of the Gold Logo Harbinger comics, and selling those along with the dupes I had of the other Valiant comics gave me a nice trip to Cancun. I did get the X-Men #1, all of them, but I actually wanted them. Never thought on selling those since I knew just how many were printed. Luckily, I was buying back in '84 and was able to get really good prices for great books later on. Pretty much bought X-Men 120-143 for a song or two. Two Hulk #181 for 30 bucks (one was $10, and once the lady realized she sold the first one at the wrong price, she priced it for the correct prices of $20). Got TONS from Mile High Comics of books I thought would be good one day, and it's paid off. First Ant-Man, First Spider-Woman, lots of Flash, Green Lantern/Green Arrow, The Demon. Etc.
My thing is, I really hate selling the books.

Undeadcow

Obi-Wanma

My Aunt bought copies for me and each of my siblings. My dad wouldn't let us open them, so they could pay for our college education or whatever. I bought another copy with my own money because I wanted to read it.

To this day, I have the copy that I opened with the rest of my comic collection (which hadn't even really started at that point), and I have no idea where the other 4 copies are.

In retrospect, everyone should have realized that anything that you could so easily acquire that many copies of and that everyone was saving in the bag would never be worth anything

kodave

At the time, did no one speak out about the supply/demand quandary that was essentially making these late 80s/90s comics worthless? Surely someone must have realized it at the time. Was the entire industry just complicit in taking advantage of this phenomenon? Or did everyone believe the comic book industry was going to continue to grow exponentially so that having 4 million copies of Some Comic #1 was no big deal because 20 years from now, there would be 40 million people trying to read comics and get their hands on Some Comic #1?

madcougar

I doubt the comic book companies were hoping 12-year-olds would break open their piggy banks to buy a whole TWO copies of Superman 75. I suspect they were hoping grown ups would go and buy 20 copies of Superman 75.

madcougar

Rai #0 in 1992. At that point it seemed that all Valiant books were increasing in price exponentially. I'd heard that this issue was going to tie the entire Valiant universe together. I remember a guy I knew who wasn't prone to speculate bought 100 copies convinced they'd be $50 within a few months.

rocket1312

I think what happened was that comic shop owners would order huge numbers of these "hot" books and keep them hidden in the back room and sell them one at a time for ridiculously inflated prices. All most of us knew was that if you wanted a copy of Superman #75, you had to pony up the dough. There just wasn't any other option unless you happened to pre-order the thing. Maybe there were people out there that were cognizant of the economics, but were too busy making tons of money to care. Next thing you know, comics aren't cool anymore and the same comic shops who were raking it in for a couple of years are now going out of business because they spent all of their money on 1000 unsold copies of Adventures of Superman #500.

The Valeyard

I have 3 copies - Unopened, Opened and a 1st Print Newstand edition. I was the guy who bought a lot of Death of Superman shit. Had a T-Shirt with the bloody S-logo, bought all the trading cards, the Wizard special. I have no idea why I did it but I did. And I honestly thought the bagged version would go for some decent cash one day. It's currently going for $24 at MyComicShop.com.


I bought that about a year and a half ago in a .50¢ bin. I remember when that issue was stored behind glass at some stores.


Back in the early 90s, I was in a comic store (Creature Features) in Burbank and Screech came in and bought all their copies of Spawn #1. The next day I read that Saved By The Bell: The College Years had been cancelled. Maybe he was stockpiling those #1s for a rainy day?

robin2099

I forgot this story. I went to a comic shop to meet MR. T when his MR.T and the T-Force comic was coming out. He was an incredibly cool guy and it's still my favorite celebrity encounter since I was a little kid. Anyway when we were standing in line and some guy came back to his soon with about ten copies of the comic. When his son asked him why he bought so many he said" Because it says right on the cover, collectors edition!"

movieguru

Just sold my copy of New Mutants #98 last year on ebay. I put it on with a Buy It Now for $500 and it sold in less than an hour. It was ungraded but super high grade. I listed it as a 9.6 but said it could grade a 9.8. The guy that bought it from me had it graded and it did grade out at a 9.8. Graded 9.8's now sell for about $1,000. Just saw one signed by Stan Lee and Rob Liefeld that sold for $2,700!!

movieguru

I remember reading in some of those monthly Overstreet price updates, they would be some comic shop owners giving their analysis on the current market, and there were a few retailers that warned that the industry can't keep up at this pace indefinetly and eventually these books would be worthless and the market would collapse.

rocket1312

Wow. I don't really mess around with grades on ebay because they're so subjective and I don't want to get people upset thinking I ripped them off, but in retrospect, mine was in really nice condition and having it graded (at least informally) probably would have been a sound investment.

fujishig

Look at the dot com explosion, or the recent subprime mortgage crisis, both of which were on a much bigger financial scale, and yet everyone buried their heads in the sand. Mostly the people giving the expert advice were the ones making the most money while the train kept rolling.

I have some bad news for toy collectors too... You ain't making your money back if you hold onto stuff and you buy a ton.

Supermallet

I have a signed copy of Spawn #1 that I think cost $50. That's the only one I ever bought that I thought would increase in value. Everything else was for reading.

Greg MacGuffin

At the height of the comic boom, Neil Gaiman gave an address which came to be known as the "Tulip Speech, delivered at Diamond's 1993 Retailers Seminar. In it, Gaiman drew a parallel between modern comics speculation and the "tulip mania" which destroyed the Dutch economy in the 17th century. This speech became famous for its chilling predictions for the comics industry, which unfortunately came true."

from http://www.comicsutra.com/cs/comics/...df_benefit.htm

I have a copy of it floating around somewhere. I read it years after the collapse of the industry, but it was still a good read.

Undeadcow

I can't find a source now but I recall hearing someone speculate that Wizard Magazine inflated it's comic book value estimates artificially suggesting demand/value for titles beyond fact... that theory makes sense given how arbitrary comic book "value" seems. Granted Wizard wasn't/isn't the only price guide around.

Nick Danger

I was working in a magazine store in 1989 - 1991. A co-worker and I watched it happen, and we thought it was funny. All those suckers who bought one of each cover of a comic and thought that they were going to get rich.

The only time I spent too much on comics was buying The Dark Knight Returns issue 1 for $15 at the peak of the market. It was a fourth printing, and promptly went down to about $3. It was a cheap lesson.