If You Could Restart Your Comic Book Collection, What Would You Buy?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 มิ.ย. 2024
- In this video I talk about "restarting your comic book collection. An interesting idea put forward by Phil from vintage comics. If you were going to restart your comic collection today what would you do differently? What would you buy? What would you tell your collecting self? I go through what some comic book collectors say and share what I think, but would love to hear what you guys think as well
Vintage Comics and Toys - / vintagecomicsandtoys
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Amazing video!👍👏 I just began my comic book collection and found Toon Haven. They have an incredible range of digital comics for every genre, including the hard to find ones. Lifetime updates too!😁
I would def do more quality over quantity
I’d buy another Hulk 181 and NOT cut out the value stamp, as I did - ugh.
ouch
I would probably get one nice book a year. This way I can scratch the itch while also not overloading my house. I’ve already stopped buying weekly books and trying to complete older runs because I don’t want tons of long and short boxes just taking up space with books that will never be displayed.
I wouldn't re-start, no regrets over what I brought...been in the comic collecting game for over 40yrs
I was one of the comments on Phil's video. I was surprised to see my post here. Lol. To provide some context, I don't just have Batman books and pretty covers. I still own some decently big books. I sold a lot of comics and toys to buy them. My biggest books are FF5 CGC 2.5, IH180 and 181 in CGC 7.5. Ultimate Fallout 4 and Edge of Spider-Verse 2 both in CGC 9.8. That handful of books is worth almost $9000 less than what I bought them for and that doesn't take into account selling fees or tax implications. It depresses me and takes away the enjoyment of owning them. They seemed like decent prices at the time but now look terrible. I also lost thousands on those short boxes of books that I sold. I'm net positive on the rest of my slabs. I still occasionally buy a book for $100-$200 but the vast majority are cheep books now. I did consider exiting the hobby completely but decided to stay.
Only stuff i want to read, nothing to invest in.
Hey! My comment was featured first 😊 let me expand on that. Where I was coming from is “what I would do knowing what I know now” perspective. Chasing a major grail with delayed gratification is not for everyone. But if I had to reboot my collection what I know now I’d totally just go after the big keys first. Quality over quantity. 👍🏼 but for newbies starting yes, delayed gratification is very tough to do. So collect what you feel you’ll enjoy the most!
If I could start over I would not sell any of my comics from my childhood in the 1980’s just to get some quick cash. I regret selling them. Some that I sold are now major keys. Instead I would just save my money and “slow collect".
I’ve owned a CGC 3.5 ASM1, but never a AF15. AF15 is my grail. I’d trade my collection for a AF15.
If I had to do over again, I would have not bought anything in 2021 and 2022... But at least I got some of my dream books. ASM1, FF1, FF5, Hulk 6
Great video as always, keep up the great work
Also, I'd buy only pallets of darkhawk #1
Only 9.9 copies
I've got pallets of them to sell - I can hook you up. Minimum order quantity is 150,000 per order, though.
I'd probably pepper in some orignial art among my book buying. affordable pages or convention commissions from some of the late greats like Neal Adams and George Perez. I just picked up a lovely George Perez Joker head sketch and It might be the beginning of a trend.
Damn Right it's all about the Journey
I honestly have done this over the last year…to asm and Batman oddly enough. But I collect all 1st appearances only, not runs. Really enjoying the hobby and keeping debt down
Cool series! Keep them coming
Thank you for sharing, keep doing what you do!!!
Great stuff. Thanks for sharing
That’s fantastic, thanks for sharing
Wow, fantastic video. Thanks a lot!
Super helpful, totally worth watching
New collector here.All great advice and interesting insight. Thank you!
I would invest more in trades for reading (or digital) or utilize library sources more to save money (and space) and then focus on buying books i like and less about keys. I realize that i am not a seller, i play for keeps.
Depends if this is a business or personal hobby to you.
ASM 129. Had a chance and didn’t jump
good news, you will get the chance again
I would definitely have started right out of the gate buying higher dollar books. I remember seeing AF 15s sell for $4000 and thinking, "Who would EVER spend that kind of money on a comic book!" Haha! But that was a LONG time ago...Still! Sure wish I pulled the trigger on a dozen of those!
I would only make minor tweaks. Go for highest grades I can afford instead of leveling up and being stuck not getting what the first books are worth. Also go for white pagers only from the get go. If you're gonna blow the money might as well wait for that extra little perk. I got onboard both of those trains within the first few months so very few regrets that way. Also learn which defects you hate and avoid them. (I personally would rather have a lower grade without a miswrap or misaligned cover than a higher grade with one)
If I started over, it would begin with Daredevil 227 and the Born Again story arc. That way, it would feel like it did when I first started years ago. Those were my first comics, ever.
I would collect obscure Ditko and Kirby comics; and minor and major Marvel & DC keys; and books I used to have as a kid in the 60s, though they're not 12 cents anymore!
great content. ty
You have to enjoy it. I think if you have good taste and buy what you like, there will always be someone else like you who will enjoy that book. My collection changes over time. I buy a relatively small amount of new books that I like to read. I doubt they will ever be worth anything but I do actually enjoy comics as something to read and not just collect.
However I also enjoy collecting. I would never buy the ratios again, I'd stop that and put the money in older books. Currently I have a thing for UK reprints of 1950s Horror and early Marvel (I'm in the UK), and I also like pre-1965 Marvel. I was always looking for the oldest book in the store that I could afford, so I guess I've not changed that much.
Runs is where it’s at. Who honestly cares about your collection of keys? But if those keys are part of full runs then sheeeeeeeeeeesh!
Comic BOOKS are meant to be read after all 😅
Some of us collect villains and secondary characters. Personally, I don't want full runs of detective comics, batman, worlds finest, legends of dc etc just for Joker's laughing fish arc. I don't have the room nor the money for all that lol.
I disagree. Collecting runs is a waste of money. Solid blue chip keys is best
Agreed. Run collector's are true comic fans and definitely readers. Key only collector's only care about money.
@comicbookninja5268 you can read as much as you want digitally for 7$ a month these days. Collect however you want, but it's much more cost and space efficient to read the entire run digitally and just buy the keys/issues you loved. I'll happily trade you boxes/ full runs for a couple nm silver age bats 🔑 if you want to prove your point.
I sold most of my books including Hulk 181, GSX 1, etc. and focused on meaningful/nostalgic (but otherwise mostly worthless) and cover art that I find amazing in grade. From hundreds of books worth tens of thousands to 30 or so books.
I would have finished buying my 70s and 80s DC books from Action and Detective to Spectre and Watchmen. I have too many incomplete chunks. Haha
I guess I would get what I have now. Complete runs of Marvel Silver Age.
Have to start with ASM, next X-men, followed by Fantastic Four.
Next up would be Incredible Hulk, 😲 Tales to astonish, Sub-Mariner, Captain America, Iron Man, Daredevil, Tales Of Suspense, Thor, Avengers...well you get the idea 😊 I Love Marvel Silver Age, also would have get certain DC comics, Some Golden Age and Marvel Bronze Age.
The fun part is hunting for what you ❤️ love. The not so great feeling is when you have so much 😞 and what you don't have you cannot afford...for now.
Great video brother, really enjoyed it. 😉 😊😅😂
I've sold off large chunks of books over the years for down payment for car and house and other expenses. Then rebought many of them. In my mid 60s now and converting my favorite raw books to graded. Not going to grade everything , just my favorites and the bigger keys.
Also condensing collection to a fraction of what it was but with intention of buying nicer copies of the books I really want.
Given a mulligan, I would totally rethink how I approached the hobby, but I would not deviate from "buy what you love". Over the last 4-5 years I've picked up a lot of low and mid-level keys that I felt would add equity to my collection (think 1st app of Rhodey, or Silver Sable, and the like). I would probably skip those purchases now and invest in keys featuring my very favourite characters, covers and creators in the highest grade I could afford. We've seen how volatile comic values are, so given that fact, I think I'd rather have fewer comics that I love than a glut of cool books that I like having, but could have ultimately used the money in better ways elsewhere.
When I started up again my idea was to get full runs. I started with Green Lantern vol. 3 but after further research I realized that run is too long 😄. I decided to get vol 4 run. It was fun searching for all of them. After that I decided to get keys of other comics to grade and flip some. A few I decided to keep, such as Spider Gwen 24 and The Boys (2022) 1 Sajad auto. Now I'm just concentrating on other big GL and related keys. I believe those will hold their value and of course, will stay in my collection until a day comes to sell it or pass down to my niece or future kid(s). So basically if I had to restart I would have got vol 4 first and then continued getting other keys.
I did just this recently. Sold with poor timing my collection from the mid-90s, little over 6 long boxes. Got about $1500 for it in 2018. Then in 2021 and 2022 I bought the full GSX1 to UXM 143 CC/JB, all issues 9.0 and above. Next move is to get Hulk 180-182 at a 9.0 minimum.
If I had to repeat today, I would do keys only from that run and Hulk 181. Go for 9.2 to 9.4 in each.
That's a good question
I would probably focus on late 70s to early 2000s indie and fantasy books mostly. Usagi. Cerebus. TMNT. Battle Chasers. Warlands. Maybe also some golden age Tom and Jerry. I like my Marvel and DC collection and all but... I think I often let it distract me due to its availability and popularity so I ended up with more of it than what I actually enjoyed most.
Still buy the same but know about gPa and stay strictly to gpa.
If I did it again, I’d buy all the EC reprints first, and then buy all the Silver Age Marvel reprints. I did it the other way around.
Original comic art.... just original art.
I collect covers as well
I recently sold off 14 boxes and bought 3 runs of Invincible. Decided I was done with over printed, common Marvel and DC books and only collecting low print run series.
I sit looking at a dozen short boxes full of comics I bought in the 1980’s-1990’s and wish I had concentrated on ASM, X-men and Usagi Yojimbo. I have almost all the Usagis but dearly wish I had got that Albedo 2 from my LCS when I could.
For reading material, I'd buy more TPB's instead of single floppies, and for the collection side I would focus more on established keys (blue chips) instead of first appearances of smaller characters. Also, if I could go back in time, I'd never install the whatnot app on my phone. The money saved would be good for a high grade ASM 50
I would've started with a AF15 and built slowly from there. I bought a lot of books that I just liked the cover on and bought a lot of copies of ASM 300 and 316. Since I started in 2021, I obviously overpaid for quite a few books as well. I had no idea the comic market could crash like it has. Now I know. At least I got my AF15 last fall instead of 2021-22.
All 1st app of Tosin😂😂😂 as many copies as I can grab
Great question! I’m in the process of restarting half my collection. Got rid of 90% of my post 2000 books, and now only buying what artists make me happy. Most of it’s barely worth anything, but I love it and it feels genuine not chasing the same “key” nonsense everyone else is.
Mickey, it’s not sad being behind sports cards, Star Wars, Pokémon,etc. The higher brow the culture , the less people are involved in it. Comics are far more sophisticated than Pokémon and sports cards!
Replace everything with Turok 1's
Sure, we all need toilet paper if the pandemic happens again.
We should have a Turok #1 book burning to increase rarity. Keep 1, burn my other 3 copies.
You mean darkhawk 1
I think an occasional winnowing of your collection is a good thing. I recently decided to remove all non-key Bronze Age below Fine, as well as non-key Copper below VF/NM from my collection and sell them. All Silver and Golden Age stay. It's been kinda fun updating my collection.
Back in the late 80s to early 90s, I collected alot of Marvel. I sold a majority of my collection, some 300 comics at the time, and only kept a few specific titles. 10 years later, I started collecting more and more titles, mainly from Image based publishers. Today, I don’t collect any books, however I did sell a majority of my collection again and saved only the titles I had full interest in. I will likely never buy another title again and I’m super happy with the few titles totaling 400 or so issues. I’m having some of my “key” issues graded and the rest will remain raw. Far more happy and content now than I was when I had thousands.
I wouldn't do much different. It's always been a long game for over 30 years of collecting. I suppose I might have gone a little harder on getting all the Art Adams stuff, but that would be a full time endeavor all on its' own. It's never been about value for me. I really enjoy cleaning and pressing, and that I can turn books into other books I want is just a bonus cause I really love them all.
i would focus on variants (newsstand, mark jewelers, dcu logo, etc) and hard to find comics for cheap.
I’d lose 90% of what I put into building my collection if I tried to sell it and start over again. I might be able to get a hulk 181 6.0 or maybe a 1st app of Swamp thing and call it a day.
I am a person who can’t resist a good cover. I mainly collect covers and characters. I pay little attention to the keys. I just wish I would have been more aware of my LCS’ when I am actively buying. It’s embarrassingly recent lesson that I have learned.
Anything that’s has to do with dc animated universe … Batman / Superman / JL / JLU …. I would definitely focus on wat I like an want and upgrading on those copies as I go… only because I collect DCAU action figures
DC animated universe is hard to collect because of really low print runs especially the later issues. They are especially hard to find in the wild. All great reads though.
@@comicbookninja5268 100% agree it’s the challenge of the hunt that’s makes it fun tho
@@s3rgio711 I'm fortunate to complete my runs a couple years ago but its practically impossible to complete without ebay.
Phil’s the Best!!
Only 90's foil covers.
Right?!
Hahaha!
Avengelyne #1 🤥
@@F3dthinnthat recently went up in price due to an error in the book
@@terenceflagg6270 Yep.... I bet it wouldn't have been noticed or even on the radar without Deadlines report about the adaption?!..... I can't see it going anywhere tbh, waste of money
Almost (still tempted) to restart back to square 1. Someone offered to buy my collection. Thing is there is one book I want to keep but its that one book all the buyers want or they don't want to buy the collection at all. Been loosing interest in my copper-modern collection and drawn more and more into the Golden Age Stuff.
What's the book that u want to keep?
@@comicbookninja5268 Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #17 (CGC 9.8)
If I was a new collector, before I bought anything, I would LEARN how to find the cheapest back-issue bins in town and I would try not to buy new books in favor of back issues only.
I'd buy nothing but Golden Age books (ok, maybe some Silver Age, too). I switched to them maybe 3 or 4 years ago and have been happy doing so. I don't really care about AF15 or ASM1, etc. Now I just need to get rid of the moderns I bought between 2017 and 2020'ish when I started getting back into comics. And, yes, I'm a cover collector. Reading a comic book really does nothing for me anymore. If you enjoy reading them, I won't hate. 😁
Oh yeah, one other thing I'd probably do is bump up my budget on Golden Age comics and focus on stuff that's higher-grade. I was buying a lot of 3.0-4.5 stuff for some EC stuff (for example), but nowadays I'm looking for 7.0's if possible and nothing under 5.0 if possible. Well, assuming they're within price range, of course. lol.
More saving towards original art.
Never sold all my books but sold most when I went to college in 1976, and then sold a ton of Golden Age and original art in the 2010’s when I had twins in college.
Frankly, I would probably not even bother with issues - would move to trades / omnibuses for the stories. Moderns are too expensive to collect at scale. I guess I would pivot to bigger keys if issues were still on my radar. Mind you, I still work on runs today, but only because I've spent 40+ years getting great books cheaply - I would not go back & try to get all the Avengers, FF, or X-Men books now.
I use to have 25 long boxes of comics. Now I only have one short box.
Don't rush sound like a good strategy. Not sure about ever buying an AF15, even though I love Spider-man. Unless there is like a huge market crash, the original book is unattainable for someone like me. Only advise I have, is don't spend money you don't have and enjoy collecting what you like.
I'd of gotten hulk 1-6 DD 1 back in 80s but I was a reader and loved hulk first
I definitely wouldn't waste my time with a huge pull list.
The only way I would start over would be to go back in time. I would concentrate on more Silver age marvels and horror/crime of the forties and fifties.
Raw 20th century keys. Everything from the Swagglehaus silver, bronze, and copper indexes.
Would probably figure out how many comic books I want to buy - maybe only about 600 books. Then I would make a list of those 600 comics based on several criteria. 1) Ability to resell comic 2) Coolness factor 3) comic book history relevance 4) awesome cover art. Then I would take my time collecting those books at below market prices. Over the years, I have accumulated too much "crap" and believe that a more focused approach would have led to a better collection.
I canceled my pull box and went to reading digital on dc universe infinate. Just collect graded copies of keys I love. I get to read as many books as I want and spend less money overall. It takes up alot less space and will be easier for the family to flip at some point.
Focusing on getting keys from the runs I enjoy reading. Selling off my filler
If it boiled down to buying what other people like, I wouldn't be buying comics. Wouldn't be interested.
Great question! Do I get to be 12 again in 1976 too?
at least we are in front of beany babies and vhs ...lol
Slightly 😢
Early silver and golden age books
ASM 1 , x-men 1.
Then a run of Claremont x-men
I would just by a nice CGC DD #1 and be done with it
If comics were just meant to be read then why is there art in them.
And if publishers started printing one-sheet comics, you’d be able to read them slabbed.
Better question is if you could go back when you started what would you have done differently
It depends if you still retain your knowledge. LCS would be like " why you buying 100 NM 98 and 100 Batman the Animated series issue 12?" 😂
Mine would still be the same except I pick up more John Byrne and George Perez runs and not buy any Image comics
I am only collecting 9.8 graded keys these days...
I would avoid buying "limited PR" variants or covers for "art" only. Also, would avoid "optioned" comics. I would collect my childhood X-men keys and save up and buy huge keys like AR15 slowly one at a time.
To me it seems like these are investors/speculators first and collectors second. I love my collection and wouldn't sell it for any price.
I would have bought the amazing fantasy for 4K and the hulk 180 for $25
I collected comics in phases. Phase 1 was teen to 20 when I collected marvel Bronze Age books. Next phase started in 1991 when as my family was growing I rediscovered comics and went nuts catching up on my marvel titles I missed in the 80s and of course newer books. Phase 3 is the woke phase when books deteriorated in the teens through the current day and I’ve become a silver and pre code horror addict. My regret is picking up a lot of marvel and independent titles in the 1991-2009 timeframe which swelled my collection size but are now not that appealing to me as I chase more grails so I’ll probably unload those. I am hopeful there are people out there who would love to purchase complete Valiant, Harris, Defiant and DC Vertigo runs in NM condition all bagged in Gerber Myltites. We will see as I start to explore the art of selling books. What I do know is I’m not going to press the easy button and sell them to a LCS.
Only $1 comic bin digs, occasional cover price buys and graded comics that are cheap.
Don't collect floppys.
Just go for trades.
I'm in a situation now where no body wants to buy them off me only for 10 pence
So I'm going to give a lot away to a friend
Was going to just bin them but I can't do that...that would hurt
I would hav jus stick to ASM and Thats it ! I am 7 books away from the whole run but I would hV been done a lot sooner then later !! Keepbit simple
Yea also be patient
I wont buy too much tbh. Especially impulse buys. or FOMO. I'll put a cap on it. I wont go impulse buying of random issues. I'll only have 15 Golden age books, 15 Silver age books, 15 Bronze age books, 15 copper age books and 15 modern age books. For reading storylines I'll just buy hardcover collected editions. By putting a cap on my comic book collecting I wont have clutter in my house, I'll save up a lot of money and I can allocate my spending on other things, like other collectibles like toys, statues and memorabillia, and spend it on my health and bulking up my body and taking vacations by travelling around the world.
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Nothing comics going to zero.
You think so? Because younger generations aren't interested?
Agreed, but at zero already.
Tha Avengers and try to complete my captain America run
Never would have slabbed a book or bought a slab
Sure if buying to resell then yes, buy what other people like, but otherwise if its not a business, it’s such a waste of your time.