The last decade has been a Marvel decade to be sure. Since 2008 Marvel has dominated the box office. Additionally, an entire Marvel ecosystem has been built up. For Marvel Comics fans this is nothing new; but to the rest of the casual viewing public, this must seem like overkill. That is simply because the public doesn't understand the layer upon layer of intricate storylines created. There were thousands of characters created at Marvel Comics over the last 60 years. This leaves plenty of material for the following decade and beyond. Now at the end of this super-decade, we want to look back and review my top pick for 2019. How has Fantastic Four #49 faired over the last year? Lately, the FF has been hot and anything Silver Surfer practically scorching. Did this Kirby-Lee creation fulfill our speculative expectations for 2019?

 

 

 

 

Fantastic Four #49

Back in late 2018, I made a prediction that this would be a solid investment for 2019 and beyond. My claim was, "The best part of this book is that it is still at a reasonable price and allows many people to profit from the inevitable uptick of movie hype that has already hit in 2018 and will continue to build speed in 2019." My supposition? That "for $300 bucks, you can own a piece of the first cover appearance of Silver Surfer and furthermore a piece of Kirby art history..." My essential argument was really how badly FF had been handled at Fox and therefore Disney couldn't do much worse. Instead, they could definitely improve the onscreen version of the FF and thereby raise the price for this valuable key book.

 

 

Prediction 2019

  • Projected sales of grade 3.0 have been positive +228% long-term, no mention of short-term prediction
  • The suggested target purchase price was in the $300 range with grade 3.0
  • Suggested catalyst merely a moderate amount of speculation on Disney's direction with the FF franchise.

Actual

  • The lowest price for 2019 was around $250 on 2-11-2019 for grade 3.0
  • The highest sale price was in Sept 2019 was $449 for grade 3.0
  • The difference is $199 or a return of positive +79%
  • The 2019 average trend was negative -9.4% FMV in grade 3.0

 

The comic book Fantastic Four #49 is the first cover appearance and overall second appearance of Silver Surfer and Galactus. The comic book was created by Stan Lee (script) and Jack Kirby (pencils). This book is a three-part comic book story of the FF encountering Galactus and the Silver Surfer. In review our returns have been problematic; if you bought and sold you probably did fairly well, top return about +79%. If you bought and held you probably lost about negative -10%. I don't know of too many people jumping in and out of Fantastic Four #49. After all, it is a solid key and over the long haul has made quite a bit of money. But the example here is that a buy and hold approach does not always work short-term. It is kind of the lazy man's approach to speculation. Sure if you paid nothing or little for this book, now you are on "Easy street" and you can simply sit tight.

 

 

Short-Term (90-days)

  • Grade 4.5 $450 last sale 12-18-19  returned positive +19.2%
  • Grade 4.0 $390 last sale 11-14-19 returned negative -6%
  • Grade 3.5 $350 last sale 12-25-19 returned positive +22.4%
  • Grade 3.0 $229 last sale 12-7-19 returned negative -20.9%

Conclusion:

The short-term returns over 90-days are very encouraging and show the money flow into and out of this comic book. The year-long averages are less than encouraging for 2019 with a buy and hold. However, a buy and sell approach based on the low price early in February 2019 would have returned positive +79%. How much should a purchase increase in value to be worthy of a sale? In my humble opinion, if you are speculating than you are in it for the quick kill. Fantastic Four #49 goes up to +50%-70% why not sell it? You could have purchased it for $250 sold for $449 and purchased again for $229 at the beginning of December.

People often get confused about their investment style or approach. Are you a day to day speculator or simply a long-term investor with some expectation to sell prior to a potential movie release? I bounce between these two approaches, depending on the type of books. The older stuff I just sit on because it often is hard to find without paying a premium; whereas the newer books (Modern Age) are so plentiful you can easily replace them. Currently,  Fantastic Four #49 continues to dominate the other Silver Age keys on GoCollect.com rankings. My prediction for the next decade is that Marvel will continue to dominate the superhero space; in that case books like FF #49 will be an indispensable part of any collection.