2024 Reflections - 2025 Collecting Goals

[D-Rog]

It’s January 1, 2025! Happy New Year!!

And that means it’s time to reflect upon last years collecting goals, what went well and perhaps what did not, and most importantly set new ones for 2025.

Here was what I found for myself from last year.

2024 Goals / Recap

@D-Rog

My goal this year is to stick to a budget of books/collectibles to $100/month. Any in excess comes out of profits from comic sales.

On the flip side I’m going to support my LCS with pre-ordering books more (versus online purchase of new books). Especially since it seems this year might be tighter than last year and I do want them to stick around.

My other goal is to acquire a few silver/bronze keys on my “grail” list. So if I go over that $100 that will eat into the money set aside for acquiring those books.

Overall I did very well. I stuck to my $100/mo budget, with any excess coming from eBay’s sales.

I pre-ordered books from the LCS when remembered. If didn’t it was usually because I forgot to get them in before their cut-off.

As for acquiring books , there were 3 I wanted to add to my collection in 2024.

The first of which was high grade copy of the UK Transformers Winter Special from 1987, which collects the movie comics issues 1-3. It’s not an expensive book, but it’s pretty scarce in high grade. Many were read and not well cared for.

The second book was Amazing Spider-Man #14, first green goblin complete in lower grade.

The third book was Marvel Spotlight 5 in mid grade.

I had acquired all three by late October.

Goals for 2025

More or less a continuation of 2024 in terms of budgeting and supporting the LCS.

As for comics I’d like to acquire in 2025 for the PC, there are 6, a few more than last year as they are not as expensive.

• Marvel Premiere 15 (1st Iron Fist, NM- or better)
• Batman 189 (1st Silver Age Scarecrow, mid grade)
• TMNT #4 (NM- or better…just a classic cover)
• ASM 51 (1st Kingpin Cover, Midgrade or better - white pages)
• ASM 44 (classic lizard cover, Midgrade)
• Star Trek Gold Key 1 (lower grade)

I will say I’m off to a good start. Was able to get an early jump on 2025 as I grabbed a copy of TMNT #4 about a week ago. So that’s crossed off the list on day 1!

So what about everyone else? Got any books you’re targeting in 2025?

[Anthony]

I am going to continue my pre-200 run of Batman concentrating on as many pre-100 issues as I can. The market on early Batman is pretty soft and there are a lot of good books cheap out there. Same with early Shazam. Going to also continue to focus on pre-code horror books. I seemed to have drifted into buying and selling movie/tv/pop culture comics and plan on continuing that strategy for a bit. Seems many of my sales come from the rare GI Joe, Transformers, X-Files, variants from IDW that I pick up cheap and sell.

[BatmanFan]

Downsizing to a few I love, maybe that will allow me to pick up some more art I’ve been eyeballing. I’ll continue to support my LCS weekly.

[billyraybob]

buy less marvel

[SpicyWasabi]

This was what I posted last year in the year end thread. I pretty much stuck to that, in fact I went into overdrive selling so much. Really enjoyed it, got rid of a lot of stuff. Also turned out that 2024 was a banner year in that there were so many hot books that scorched the market.

I was watching a few year end show like Swagglehaus and some of the guests who were big dealers and were in the hobby for a while said 2024 was a horrible year for comics and that they hoped 2025 turns out better for them. This was not the case for me, 2024 was fantastic! Of course it’s all in context. If you have invested heavily on Silver/Bronze age and went all in on CGCs, yeah the year might not have been so good for you. I did none of that and focused on buying things cheap and selling them high. 2025 will be the same for me.

Some things I’m looking forward to in 2025:

I’m going to support Kickstarter more. With the success of the GI Joe Kickstarter I’m certain that a Transformer compendium is around the corner. Looks like they’re a major hit and the quality is amazing. Cannot wait for Transformers. I was always more of a Transformers/He-Man kid growing up than GI Joe so I’m looking forward to those.

I missed the Bone 40th anniversary oversized HC Kickstarter that just ended but luckily it’s only the 1st volume of a 4 volume set to complete the run. So it’s likely that the next kickstarter is around the corner and I’ll be able to pick up the first volume then. Lots of goodies for that Bone campaign. Same with the Poison Elves kickstarter that someone posted a while back. Will keep my eyes peeled for that.

Some of my all time favorite series are getting the Absolute and Omnibus treatment. First the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Absolute Edition is getting reprinted. I have this in so many different formats and have waited to get the Absolute Edition again. When I got back into comics the ABS Edition was already out of print and commanded a kidney. So I’m overjoyed that DC is reprinting it, this series is a masterpiece.

Mike Grell’s Warlord is finally getting an omnibus and I just CAN’T WAIT! I loved this series so much. I have always had a fondness of 50s Sci Fi and Jules Verne’s Lost World stories, love love these!

These kickstarters and deluxe editions will be funded by books that I sell. I’m keeping an eye on PSA to see if they’re a suitable alternative to CGC. If so I will be sending books to them. I would love nothing more than to never have to deal with CGC but I don’t think that’s likely as the vast majority of the comic book collecting community is so OCD that it’s incredible so we’ll see in the new year. If they want to pay more for that scam then that’s what I’ll supply them with.

My 2025 approach to comics is everything in is everything out (excluding stuff that I really want like the kickstarters and omnibus editions of my favorite series etc).

[Gbess]

My goal for 2025 is to draw more. Since I didn’t sell a single comic in 2024 like I wanted, this year is to focus on drawing. And who knows, maybe by the end of the year I can offer some prints to the CHU family.

Here is to a better 2025

[davidbitterbaum]

I previously accomplished my goal of cutting my pull list as I was getting too much with not enough time to read things. Now I have a smaller pull of things I enjoy without worrying about, “Keeping up,” with all the continuity in Marvel or DC. I continue to enjoy some snazzy indie books with zero spec value but I buy and have fun reading.

This year I’ll keep trying to stay on top of trends and such (which CHU always helps with) so that I can have my comic hobby funded by what I sell. Basically, any money I get in goes right back out towards comics so I don’t make much of any, “Profit,” as my spreadsheets show if the IRS has questions when I tell them about my lack of any actual money made.

I’ll keep doing my The Newest Rant blog as it keeps growing in popularity over time. I still enjoy writing my thoughts for the internet to enjoy all this time later. It is now 14 years old. Being in the media allows me to get into comic conventions as press, which is a nice bonus too!

[Anthony]

Yeah. I like the press passes. lol.

I agree 2024 was a great selling year if you played it right. There are retailers and sellers who are unwilling or afraid to pivot and it could have been a bad year if you just did the same thing over and over.

Since my last year sentiment was poster I can say I sold, sold, sold, like I had said. I added in doing flea markets as a way to expand my sales and that certainly helped out. My “sourcing for cheap” strategy has helped too.

These I paid around $2 or less for each (ranging between .50 and $2), cheap sourcing of pop culture related comics.

[Joe]

My goal remains the same. To find a NM copy of Ultimate Fallout 4 in a garage sale for 50 cents. 2025 is the year.

[Rasparthe]

2024 was a pretty good year for me, bought a 750 book collection because it had about 50 X-men books I wanted in it. Managed to read most of the books in the collection and sold them off, about 75% of them are gone. I plan to find another collection and do the same thing this coming year. For collection goals, I finished 1- 4 of Wolverine Vol 1, and 1-100 in Direct Edition of Wolverine Vol 2. I’ve got probably 30% of 1-189 of Wolverine Vol. 2 in Newsstand. I’m hoping to get the entire Newsstand run of 1- 189 done in 2025. As for grails they all revolve around Wolverine, managed to find Incredible Hulk #182 for fairly cheap in high grade but always looking for a great deal on Incredible Hulk #180, #181 and #340, as well as X-men #94. Hopefully they all find their way into my collection in 2025.

[agentpoyo]

I’m going to be focusing on dumping most if not all my books this year. Only keep probably my Moon Knights and some others to really minimize the amount of space they’re taking up. I got way too many moderns sitting around. I’ll probably be scaling back even more on any purchases as I’m switching focus to saving/investing to fast track retirement goals.

[MrComo]

#1. No more sending to CGC. Along with this, continue to advocate for folks to also stop grading with CGC. May try PSA with a submission just to see how it goes. Who’s with me?

#2. Get rid of my one long box of cheap junk books. If I can eliminate that box, I’ll be a happy camper.

#3. Sell 25% more than I did this year.

#4. Find a way to display my actual collection of about 6 to 8 books in my new office.

#5 Add Batman #121 to the collection.

[agentpoyo]

@MrComo

Along with this, continue to advocate for folks to also stop grading with CGC. May try PSA with a submission just to see how it goes. Who’s with me?

I’m with ya but I go one step further and tell folks, unless you are doing it to preserve a book (older bronze, silver or golden) or to authenticate it as authentic, then just keep’em floppy and free!

[robotur]

I have a similar goal and that is to sell off most of my collection. using ebay for the past 3 yrs but havent made a dent yet.

[Bill]

Alot of us on here that are “selling most of our collection”.

[Joe]

Many goals here: SELL MY BOOKS!

Reality here: I BOUGHT MORE BOOKS!

My goals:

1. Buy and sell some books.
2. Be ok with taking losses on books that bring you no joy. Move on and don’t look back.
3. Read a ton.

[SpicyWasabi]

@Bill

Alot of us on here that are “selling most of our collection”.

It would be different if 98% of books haven’t been dropping by 70% of their value or more in the last few years.

[Bill]

Follow da money

In reality id be selling off anyway (maybe im an outlier). I partially retired last year and realize its time to dispose and get something for this paper and plastic

[Anthony]

I have a 10 year exit strategy. Gonna sell a lot when I turn 60 to turn into cash for my kids who will be either graduating from college or have graduated.

[D-Rog]

@SpicyWasabi

It would be different if 98% of books haven’t been dropping by 70% of their value or more in the last few years.

The way I look at it is of the book(s) you’re trying to buy also have dropped by 50-70%, then it pretty much a wash. Get what you can for them.

I don’t even worry about if the book I buy with the funds will drop in price…because the books I sold to buy it most likely have dropped in price since as well.