Almost two months ago, I wrote a piece about my thoughts on the Ultimate Fallout #4 boom which generated a lot of reactions on this site, on Facebook, and elsewhere. At that time, the CGC 9.8 book had just crossed the $800 sales threshold and was still rising.

My thesis was I would never buy-in at the $800 price and that there was a full boom in place that was certain to crater in short order.

Immediate Reaction

I had plenty of people tell me at that time that I was crazy, the price would continue to rise, Miles Morales is a character for a new generation of fans, there was plenty of appeal because of the character is a minority, he has another movie coming out, etc. In fact, the new Playstation video game was announced on the day the blog post was published - not exactly helping my case.

In the spirit of full disclosure and transparency, I wanted to revisit the book to see what has happened since that time. If I am wrong, I want to admit I am wrong. If the book has started to head back down, we should look at why and what are the prospects that it will rise again.

Where We Were

In mid-May, Ultimate Fallout #4 was a strong and stable book in terms of sales. There were consistent sales every day on multiple platforms, and it was averaging around $550-$600 for a CGC 9.8 grade. Shortly thereafter, due to a variety of factors, the book began to explode in price. By June 11th, the book had crossed $1,000 in fair market value and finally peaked at $1,420 on June 15th. In fact, GoCollect has three recorded sales at least $1,400 in mid-June before starting to trickle back down.

Anyone who had a copy ready to sell during this time was surely handsomely rewarded. Even if you bought in at $500 and had a rush job grading it at CGC, you likely came close to doubling your money. It was a smart move in the market to sell and those who made the move on the upswing reaped the benefits.

But remember, the premise of the blog post was not whether one should sell or not. Of course, they should. The question was whether or not to buy at $800-$850 at that time.

Where We Are

Once the peak hit, there were still a number of sales over $1,000. In fact, GoCollect has a record of 50 sales between $1,000 and $1,300 in just one month after the sales record, with no sales under a $1,000 floor.

But between July 15th and July 23rd, seven of the 20 recorded sales were for less than $1,000, including a low of $900. Six of the seven sales under $1,000 came after July 19th.

As things stand in the last week of July, there seems to be some settling around a new FMV of $950-$1,000.

Was I Wrong?

Should I (or anyone) have bought in at $800-$850? Truthfully, the answer is yes and no.

If you bought in as the book was rising or as it approached $900 and then had it shipped to you and immediately flipped it, you likely had time to take advantage of the meteoric rise. There was probably as much of a 25% return on that investment if owners acted quickly.

However, if you waited a bit and bought in around $1,000-$1,100, there probably has not been enough movement in your favor to make anything more than a modest profit. And if you're still holding it with a buy-in price of $1,000 or more, it likely will behoove you to hold.

Where We Will Be

Where I was probably most wrong is in predicting what the future baseline would be. As it stands in late July, there seems to be a leveling at the $950-$1,000 prices I mentioned above. At the time of my first post, I predicted a $700-$800 plateaux after the peak settled down. That may still happen, but with more Miles to come in the future, any settling close to $1,000 will benefit those who bought in around there because that will be the starting point for the next bump.

There are plenty of unknown variables here. How many more CGC 9.8s are about to flood the market after a rush to grade? How long between now and more Miles news, leaving a window for a price drop? Does Miles ever make it to the MCU? If he does I will look overwhelmingly stupid at that point.

If you have a 9.8 Ultimate Fallout #4 what are you doing with it? Let me know in the comments.

 

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