Let’s wade back into things with this post, I’ll dive back into the auction piles next week.
Getting away is always nice and coming home is even nicer.
There were zero interactions with comics on my trip, this was, I think, because of where I went. The rural Balkans are just not that into the American comics, I told a few guys what I did and they just looked back at me like they were waiting for the punchline. Alan Ford, Dylan Dog and Lucky Luke they knew and loved but for reading only, no collecting scene at all has developed there for these things.
We’ve already established in earlier posts the stress that has come with the beginning of each month. As a new month’s sales data came in it always seemed to be filled with red arrows indicating negative returns. I left mid-July and came back in mid-August so I was interested in how August was rolling out. For the dozen or so books I looked at things don’t seem so bad, based on this super unscientific and super small sample bucket I’d say we’re seeing some stability. Amazing Spider-Man #129 is a favourite barometer of mine, I picked the CGC 9.4 grade because there was fresh August data. ASM #129 had a June 7th sale of $4500 and its last sale on August 13th was $4700, there were 6 sales in this time period and they ranged from $4500 to $5160 (except for a $5900 sale that looks like an anomaly).
At the beginning of this year, I wrote in a post that we had to be careful with reading GPA data as we’d lost the quick reference of the 2020 column, the oldest quick reference column now is 2021 and you should not stop there. We should all expand the grade data and take the time to look back and see what was happening on 2020 and 2019. For ASM #129 sales for 2018, 2019 and 2020 all had an upper ceiling of $3840 to $4000, our current sale of $4700 looks like it has historic price support. Interestingly Batman #232 has similar pre-Covid price support while books like Amazing Spider-Man #1 and Incredible Hulk #181, even though they’ve come down dramatically, are both currently trading well above their 2019 and 2020 averages, let’s hope these books can keep their gains.
I’ve talked to a few guys that have been doing shows this summer and they’re telling me bin sales at cons are healthy, one guy that did the Montreal Con said sales were strong in the collectors’ bins, not so much off the CGC wall. What are we seeing? Is this an active, vibrant and healthy collecting scene? I’m going to make the assumption that a good portion of those active in the current collecting scene were once also much more active in the higher end investing scene and it shouldn’t take much to entice them back into that scene. Here’s hoping September produces some much-needed green arrows.
For the first time ever I’m not doing Fan Expo! Gah! In other news we’ll be creating another Canadiana Auction in mid-October, I’ll be adding details in the weeks to come.
So I wrote this up last night and thought I had it scheduled for this morning! Must have forgot to press something, apologies.
Welcome back! I don’t think the market has changed a lot. Some really bad results and some good ones. I think the “new” Marvel keys remain the worst stinkers, while the usual Golden Age suspects and silver age DC are good. I have caught a few falling knives and some weird books, but otherwise I have been mostly outbid, which is a good thing.
I hope to head to Baltimore in less than three weeks, so I’ll see if I can get a read from the ground there.
Good to hear you are back on the job.
You should have considered putting a guest columnist to take your place while this was a quiet corner of the Canadian comic blog universe in the last few weeks.
Shiekie(sp?) needs a column.
I spent a few weeks in Nova Scotia, visiting relatives and brought a short box of Canadian Whites to show and sell and never found any or anyone who heard of them.
Hang the comics! I want to know what distilled spirits you imbibed in!
Chris, we’ll need a full report when you come back from Baltimore!
Jim, odd that nobody knew anything about the Whites! Perhaps it was more regional than we thought – central Canada and B.C. ? Either that or your crew are a bunch of numb skulls!
Gerald! It was hard core home made shlivovic, basically plums distilled in the backyard, I sampled at least a dozen different batches, some were quite nice while some might have actually been paint thinner.
Mrdjenovic, Bosnia kinda looks like the Canadian country side in the 1960’s or 1970’s Walt.
Lovely
Man… I anticipated Thats what you would say Walt! I am so envious! Oh am I am in complete agreement on the comics scene reflected in my own sales. Some silver age keys did well, Golden Age got me more sales over $1000 , but a lot of other stuff I am practitioners giving away. Oh snd on that note… I did actually sell the 3 issues of Captain America from the 90’s by Liefeld…but it wasn’t until I dropped the price down to $2.99 with a blurb in the description that if it didn’t sell at that price it was off to the recycling bin. That said I will be donating long runs of comics from the 90’s to anyone who will take them. Library didn’t get back to me by phone or by email, comic stores have been hoping to get rid of the same books for years. Some comics are worthless no matter what any guide says.
Gerald, I think YOU paying them $2.99 to take a Liefeld Cap America was a bargain…I know I wouldn’t have them in my house for less than $50 per issue, the nightmare of looking at those things, some things are above value 🙂
On a serious note, what we cull from our collections is just as important as what remains (unless you’re a hoarder and it’s just a size thing you’re over compensating for). I’m constantly looking at what I can take out to really keep my collection concise.
The 90’s: I tell ya, they are bigger than what us old guys think! My Spawn 2-50 sold like hotcakes, listed some Web of Spider-man and the 90’s stuff went…same with Wolverine, the early 90’s issues sat there, the really garish hologram or ones with trading cards went straight away!