Tracking returns is not only fun but can be profitable; who doesn't want to see their Venom first appearance increase fifty percent? The key metric that GoCollect uses is "trend returns." This is essentially a percentage of the increase in a particular comic book over a specific time span. The Oxford Dictionary defines percentage as, "any portion or share in relation to a whole." Percentage returns are used to track all kinds of personal investments, like real estate, stocks, bonds, and most especially comic books. Why use the percentage gain or loss? Because that gives you a more accurate appraisal of the asset or comic book's value over time. Additionally, a fixed sales price or two, does not really tell you much; but 10,000 of them give you a history, a projection, and a rough value estimate of the comic book.
Trend Returns Example:
Amazing Spider-man #300 might show only a $15 profit on grade 5.5 for the last sale recorded; however, a more accurate read on that investment would be to review the return trend percentage. Currently, grade 5.5 is trending at positive +24.8%. This gives you an understanding of the trend and a better grasp of where the investment might lead. How do you as a comic book collector create this trend return on GoCollect's Sales History Analyzer?
GoCollect.com Data-Mining:
GoCollect.com is basically a data-mining operation that narrows the focus on only sale prices of slabbed/graded books. It pulls from eBay, Heritage, and several other websites for accurate data. It can be CGC, CBCS, PGX, etc but it must be slabbed. This creates a consistency that allows investors and speculators to negotiate adequate pricing and track returns. Because of this narrow focus, I know exactly where I stand with each and every book purchased as a speculator. Now, this does not include raw comics, but it does allow a rough estimate if you can grade (honestly) and know your CGC and shipping costs.
The Nuts and Bolts of the Sale History Analyzer:
It is pretty straightforward first you click on the comic book you are interested in and the "Sales History Analyzer" page will appear. Then you click on the button that says "Modeler". This will open the "Value Modeler" see below:
2. Value Modeler
Price Guide Analyzer
If you continue to scroll down the page you will find the category of "Time Frame" on the left-hand side, in the middle of the page. You will check off the total past days reviewed, hit save and return to Analyzer page, see below:
3. Adjust & Save
Average values over the past 30 days
Average values over the past 60 days
Average values over the past 90 days
Average values over the past 730 days
4. Analyzer
On the Analyzer page, you scroll down again to the bottom and click on "Max" for max sales at 10,000 and finally hit "Submit." This is truly the "nuts and bolts" of the model, you adjust the time frame to whatever you are tracking. Apparently, the max time frame is 730-days average values. You can change this to as little as 30 days if you desire. Then you simply "Save All Changes" button and scroll to top of the page and click on the analyzer. See my results below for Amazing Spider-man #300::
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Max Sales
5. Submit
Results for Amazing Spider-man #300 with analyzer (730 days, 10,000 max sales):
| Title | Grade | Last Sale | Return | |
| Amazing Spider-man #300 | 9.8 | $2,699 | +73.8% | |
| 9.2 | $497 | +44.4% | ||
| 6.5 | $225 | +42.6% |
Conclusion
The best way to learn the GoCollect system is to jump in and use it a couple of times on your favorite books. Also, I recommend taking your top books and setting them in your "Watch Alerts" list. This will give you the latest sale on your comic and an easy to search reference point for your most important books.
Obviously, I did not get into FMV (Future Market Value) and the analytics sources that GoCollect uses. This is primarily to keep it simple. If you follow the numbered steps #1-5 above you will be pleasantly surprised by the results and able to adapt your valuations much like Venom adapting to his host. Best of all you don't need to bite off anybody's head to achieve results!
