^ This.
Buy low, sell high
Miles and Gwen are not dropping in value. They might stagnate, but 1/3 loss? Not happening.
If they do I’m buying all of them.
Other moderns may get slammed.
I just don’t see keys in bronze and copper getting hit too bad. Especially the ones that are based 80s nostalgia. Sorry, you lost your chance for deals a few years ago if you’re banking on the recession helping you out. ASM 300 will not slide either.
Silver and gold age will stay where they are or have steady but slow appreciation.
One thing is assured, no two recessions are alike.
But looking forward at what “franchises” are “recession proof” and I see three areas I have no concerns investing in:
- Miles
- Spider-Gwen
- Star Wars
Honorable mention goes to 80s pop culture as that generation should be pretty stable to handle the recession.
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Hmm…if we are really hypothesizing a recession, sales of new stock will decline, that is for sure. Anything, roughly, prior to the recession would in theory drop in value, as people will sell off items to make up for deficits in their own lives. There would certainly be disagreements on how much they will drop, but 1/3 and 1/2 are pretty severe, and I don’t think they would drop that far. As you said, no two recessions are alike, but they are certainly used historically to predict the future.
I have started to taper off on new book purchases; too much trash right now, feeding into the machine, and have started to spend more money on “keys”, and not that KCC stuff, but ones where storyline and art produce a great book.
What I need to work on is moving books that are not good reads and poor art out of my collection before there will be people to buy them!
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I would also add that looking at books/titles that tanked and did not have their value rebound would be a good measuring stick to newer titles and if one believes they can weather losing readers/purchasers. That, I would “guess”, may be a 1/3 to 1/2 drop in demand.
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I am on the fence about Spider-Gwen. I like the other two.
(looks around) “Why do I own all this f&^*ing Star Wars!!! GYAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!”
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Yeah I might need to divest some Star Wars….
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Miles and Venom fall into supply and demand during a recession. There’s always a large amount available for sell at any give time. Currently the demand has exceeded the supply that’s why 9.8 Miles goes $3500, 9.8 Venom $6000 10 years ago a 9.8 Miles would run you $150 a 9.8 Venom $300. Now that the price is so high demand starts to taper off not everyone will be willing to drop 6k on a Venom anymore. As a recession progresses people start selling their things to save the house or makes ends meat. More books come to market on a book that already is plentiful people start dropping buy it now prices, auctions start going for less and not nearly as many buyers because of the recession. People will think they can sell their Venom to pay the bills for a couple months just to be disappointed with the ending price and have to sell their Miles as well just to get the amount they thought that asm#300 would bring in.
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I have a strategy that has worked well for me since I’ve started speculating/ flipping
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I never pay more than cover price (ie 3.99 or 4.99 etc) for a book. This helps me insulate myself from big losses when a book tanks in value. Sure I have been stuck with multiples of books that hasn’t gone anywhere yet (Thor 5 3rd print Black Winter) but I paid cover or less then cover for those. Not a big loss and my sales of other books that I bought that has appreciated in value, more than makes up for it.
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I never get caught up with FOMO. If there’s a book that I missed I’ll just let it go. There’s always the next new hot book.
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A lot depends on what kind of recession we’re looking at. It may be a technical recession that doesn’t last long, and there’s a bounce-back post-war, post-pandemic… or not. Haven’t really thought about it in detail, was mostly focussed on inflation recently. If it’s a long recession, a lot of discretionary spending will get cut back, particularly at the lower-value items.
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You could of got a Star Wars #1 35cent variant for $800 last recession, a 1.0 AF #15 for $1000, TMNT #1 first print $1200. Just to put things into perspective that Star Wars book and TMNT were always 10k in the price guides in the 90s.
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Correct, but that was already a number of years ago. If 10 people have a 9.8 Miles, they all are not going to be saturating the market with all 10 copies. For the sake of argument, let’s say 5 do. If it is running for $3500, how long do you, someone who isn’t impacted financially, wait before you pull the trigger on buying it yourself? I would nearly guarantee that if a 9.8 Miles was on a BIN for $2200 right now, it would be gone…right now. Overall, it might not be worth $3500, but they won’t have to go down too far before someone like me would pull the trigger on it. It may take more time, but the “past” recession in comics taught a lot of people lessons, those people are the ones who are going to be looking for those deals.
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Two words - Original art. They are recession-proof.
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For long term success, key is to earn enough income to continue investing regardless of economy. Money, knowledge, persistance, time and opportunity are all important.in many life pursuits.
Or a clone.
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While high!
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Then get low, like Lil’ Jon says!
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The market is so different than it was even ten years ago and almost unrecognizable compared to 20 years ago. Quite a few new collectors and especially investors are not from the US, driving up demand. On top of that comic books are looking more and more like a viable profit-making commodity to a lot of non-collecting investors as well keeping demand high for a lot of keys and even semi-keys.
There is so much high-end content constantly streaming globally these days the excitement never seems to end. I would think for a recession to hit comic books hard it would have to be one for the ages. I’m not saying comic books are now recession proof. They aren’t. I just think it will have to be one doozy of a recession that lasts longer than expected for the market to take a significant, long-lasting hit. There might be a downswing for a bit, I’m just not expecting it to be devastating.
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Not sure that’s the best approach…
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