Comic Speculation

I never heard the word "speculation" uttered inside a comic book store even once throughout my entire youth of collecting. Now that the pandemic has sparked my re-emergence into comic collecting, it's virtually impossible to have a conversation about a new book, series, or movie coming out without someone bringing up comic "speculation". So, what's that all about and how do we get to speculatin'?

The Golden Ticket

Everyone is looking for the Golden Ticket. It's like hitting a very specific lottery. For Charlie, it was getting into that chocolate factory. For comic book collectors, it's finding that you had the forethought to buy a book low that got some heat on it and started selling high. Ultimate Fallout #4 (UF4) anyone?

"Madam..."

To put it simply, speculating just refers to buying up books you think may increase in price before they actually do. I'd say it's like playing the stock market. I've never done that and anyone who has would probably find my comparison a bit off the mark. Either way, it's a buy low, sell high scenario we're talking about here.

Whether you've been going strong for years or just back in the game like me, you've probably heard the stories of books like UF4 filling dollar bins for years before becoming the hottest new thing going on eBay. It's a good representation of why speculating is tough. We don't have crystal balls. We don't have any way of knowing whether a movie or TV show is going to be a hit or a miss. None of us do, but by pooling our collective knowledge, we can get a ballpark idea and that's where speculation has started for me.

All of you out there on Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube, have not only inspired me to try my hand at speculating. You've also helped me have some success in doing so. I'd even say I have a system at this point. If anyone has ever read a book or a website about beating the house at blackjack, you know systems are foolproof. Especially if you find them on a blog.

The system

I lied. There is no system...and if there was, there's absolutely no way to ensure it's foolproof. I'll give you a good example in Part II of this post. Here though, we'll talk about my "system," which is actually just research and more research. Don't get me wrong. It's fun research...also easy, but it requires more than just guessing what you think might be a big hit and then buying up a bunch of books. Let's start with some recent stuff.

Speculating on them new books

I'm not sure if it's easier to speculate on new books or not. I feel like it is though. Since the pandemic started, I've consumed everything I can get my hands on related to comic books and speculation. Podcasts, Youtube channels, blogs, Facebook groups, Instagram accounts...you name it. What I've found is that there are a lot more people talking about what's new than what's sitting in the back issue bins. So, it's a little easier to learn about possible heat on upcoming books than it is to decipher which older issues may take off at a certain point. Again, this is just what I've found in the last seven months of stay-at-home research. Invest at your own risk...like I have been.

Let's take Dark Nights Death Metal: Legends of the Dark Knights #1, the first appearance of Robin King. Getting back into collecting, I was curious about the Batman Who Laughs (BWL) that kept coming up in my online reading. I had no clue what it was. So, I wanted to start at the beginning and get caught up. BWL's first appearance was a little too pricey for spec reading. In researching it though, I found out that there was going to be a new villain called The Robin King. Sounded cool, the series wasn't out yet so I could get in on the ground floor and it was as easy as adding it to my pull list at two of my local shops.

In the next couple of weeks, all the podcasts I listen to were talking about it being super anticipated. Some Youtubers were hyping it up and I was already seeing pre-order listings for it on eBay. It seemed like maybe this would be something big, so I took a chance and added an extra copy to my pull lists. The day it came out I was traveling for work. When I do that, I always stop by local shops in whatever city I'm in. I saw Death Metal #1 on the shelves and bought a couple of copies. Now I had six and the shop owner asked me if I wanted to grab a couple more because "this thing is heating up," as he put it. So I did.

Now I'm figuratively swimming in copies of a book that I only think may be worth more than the cover price. Anxious to make good on my first real attempt at speculation before my wife asked me why I had so many copies of the same book sitting in my office, I listed four of my copies on eBay. Within 24 hrs, I'd turned roughly $25 into $100. It felt good. I bought a milkshake to celebrate. I tried to pick up an extra copy at my local shop the next day...he was charging $25 a copy.

It takes time. Literally.

Speculating on comic values is not going to make you rich overnight. Certainly not on new books. It's kind of a wait and see. That said, that's not exactly what I mean when I say it takes time. You may not have been blown away by my four-book sale that netted me the paltry amount of roughly $100, but I was. Less about the money and more about the proof it showed in the pudding that a speculating newb could figure it out and get a win. The money was nice too though. I put it toward a new suit...plus that milkshake.

Comic SpeculationThe "time" I'm referring to is the time I put in to figure out a soon to be released book might be hot. Like I said, I read a lot of these GoCollect blogs. I listen to podcasts and I keep an eye on what folks on social media are talking about. I listened to what other people were saying and where there was overlap, I decided to make a move. If I made more of an effort to do this, maybe I could afford more suits.

In part two of this blog, we'll talk about spec-ing on stuff that's been out for a while. For some reason, it seems like that would be easier. I've got a great example of why I think it isn't.

 

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