The art market is quite a bit different than comics with little to no overlap in trends. Any trends are coincidental to general growth of collectibles values based on general economic health.
The reason the art market is a sui generis category of investment is because it is a favorite investment vehicle to park large sums of money from non-natural entities (i.e. foundations, trusts, LLCs, and other corporate structures). There are a number of tax-advantage reasons to park those funds in a good as opposed to a currency. A step-up in value is not a disadvantage to those interested parties as it just means they get to place more tax-deferred funds into the asset. Therefore, the value of the work is abstracted and detached from what people actually appreciate of the work itself. It’s an asset that has a healthy resell market and can be somewhat routinely be counted on to be bid up higher than the purchase price.
There is a reason most of the highest end art sales are confidential without the parties involved named.
There is an entire playbook, run by a global industry of consultants to structure art investments as tax-advantageous. It’s an entirely different world. There is some cross-over in blue chip golden age and silver age investments now, but it’s a different level of play.
I mean, until your average comic buyer is investing millions of dollars from a Luxembourg account in the name of a charitable foundation or an llc, not really.
Like I said, maybe for a small category of blue chip keys like Action Comics 1, Detective Comics, AF 15, etc., but not for the market generally.
I think the economy is a legitimate dumpster fire and “they” aren’t doing diddly to fix or navigate the problem.
I think this will go longer than the end of the year, and watching those “key” comics, however you define them, come down in the fall to buy. People will be offloading to spend, as Poyo said, money on stupid shit for Christmas.
For me, looking back at how the comic down-turn impacted collecting, the gold nuggets are the books printed from about May forward, because there aren’t a lot of people buying those, production will decrease, and when there is an upturn, those are the first books that will be sought after.
I think this makes sense looking at winners from the COVID shutdown era. Rise of Kylo Ren and Strange Academy got a nice boost from this dynamic at the LCS.
foc for SA1 was before any lock downs, sa was a perfect storm just like agent of atlas was, just 1-2 store exclusives and people assumed large order numbers so they waved off.
I have put all my sales on hold. I may sell stuff like Darth Vader #3 “IF” Doctor Aphra gets an official announcement…Stuff like that but for the most part I am not going to be doing much selling for a while. I will be on the lookout for killer deals if the economy keeps going the way it is. I already warned my wife I may make some big-ish purchases if the price is right… Never thought I would see the day were six dollar gas prices are becoming the norm and seven dollars plus is right around the corner…sigh.
We literally bought a hybrid last week. It’s not even a climate consideration at the moment. It’s just that we save a ridiculous amount of money with it. Next is a full electric to replace my car. Charge it from my solar panels and tell both the power company and the oil companies to f*ck off.
I have had a hybrid Lexus since 2013. Love it. Electric cars still can’t go really far without needing a recharge, so the ability to use gas at a much lower pace is nice.
