Never seen this much VALIANT posted in WIZARD before....

[ZephyrWasHOT!!]

Could it be the Cheap days are running out?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

The Cheap day's can't be running out! I still have Back Issues to buy!

The 'cheap days' ran out in about 2001.

[ZephyrWasHOT!!]

I think it's time for another 'Things To Keep In Mind' post by your ol' pal, ZWH.

Things to keep in mind....

1. Since the beginning of the Marvel Age (1961, for those not in the know), comic book COLLECTING has been cyclical in terms of the market for them. The only comic books that have never, ever OFFICIALLY 'gone down in price' according to any market indicators is Golden Age Superhero. Even the last 'hottest new publisher', Marvel, saw a mini-crash in key Silver in the mid 1980's. You were lucky to get $500 cash for a NM Spidey #1 in 1985.

2. Silver Age Marvel, while not having an official 'market' in the 60's, nevertheless commanded a premium when key issues (read: Fantasy 15, FF #1, TOS #39, etc) were 'found.' This market continued to grow, in part because Marvel did so well for so long, into the 70's and 80's. What was a $10 book in 1970 (Spiderman #1) was a $50 book in 1976, a $100 book in 1979, and a $300 by 1982. However...Marvel's continued key to back issue success has been continuity: the characters have continually been in print for well over 40 years for every single major Marvel character, or variation thereof (notably excluding the Hulk, who disappeared from the stands from early '63 til his reappearance in Avengers #1 in mid '63, but continually since then.)

3. Valiant is now a decade gone. Pre-Unity, 'the good stuff' is now 13 years gone. Age does great things for collectibles; it brings back memories of bygone times, memories that have nearly always been colored to forget the bad and cherish the good. It's no longer NEW and UNTESTED material....like fine wine, it has aged, albeit a bit bumpily, into something that most collectors can point to with pride and nostalgia, and especially a 'hey, remember when....'. This is the polar opposite concept that applied to these books in 1993.

3.5. When key issues are 'new', there's always the chance, however slim, of finding those keys in local comic shops, on newstands, books stores, etc. Even if they are 'market priced', the fact of the matter is, what's new is what people will have, and have for sale. Without needing to say so, this obviously isn't the case for 'old' books. Without a VERY compelling and consistent market, few retailers of any kind are going to keep an active backstock of ANYTHING, much less a company which caused so many people so many problems...self inflicted or not...by the late 90's.

How many shops do YOU know, for example, that even carry the HOT 70's and 80's back issues? I live in the second largest metropolitan area in the United States of America, and there are NONE, high priced or not. Have any of YOU seen a Turtles #1 for SALE, regardless of price, in a store? How about Cerebus #1? Miracleman? Spidey? ANYTHING?

MileHighComics, probably the single most well stocked dealer in the United States, is the best example of this: they almost NEVER have key issues of Valiant books, and have NEVER had a complete pre-unity 'set' for sale since bringing up their website in 1997.

Therefore....in the 'boom' years of 1992-1993, everyone and their mother had copies of these books, even if priced at 'full guide' or more. The books had been fully distributed, and very, very few people had 'hoards' of these books.

However, with the passing of time, and the fading popularity of these books, many of them have disappeared into 'hoards', most dealers having sold them or otherwise gotten rid of them, if only for needing the space for things that WOULD sell on a consistent basis. The best example I've got is me...I've been looking for these books since almost Day 1, and while I did find all the books, and many, many duplicates, I have never found a 'hoard' of these books, and have never (before eBay) been able to acquire these books in higher numbers than, say, 5 copies each.

Hoards, now, are the exception rather than the rule. How many other people besides Greg and Dino that you know that have 20+ copies of Unity Red? How many do you know besides ZWH that have 40+ copies of Harb #1? And so on....

To make matters worse, no dealer in his or her 'right mind' would have been actively seeking to PURCHASE Valiant books from 1996-2000, because there were simply 'no' (which we of course know is NOT true) customers for the books. Where there's demand, supply can generally follow, but no demand means that the supply...wherever it is...is going to be ignored.

So...you have the active seeking of these books by a dedicated, loyal, but VERY small group of fans, the general malaise and/or ignorance of the collecting public towards these books, and a deep distrust of them by dealers (how many of us have been laughed at/scoffed at when we said we were seeking to buy Valiants?) and you find the books utterly absent from the 'common' collector scene for nearly 5 years.

Enter eBay. For the first time, the market becomes truly national, if not global. People can slowly but surely start to acquire these books once more, because, if nothing else, eBay brings the lowest common denominator to play, and things people wouldn't consider spending the money on to sell elsewhere, will do so on eBay. eBay sellers either didn't know, or didn't care, about the potential value of the books, and were happy to get $10 for a Harb #1 (hey, that's 5 times cover price!!)

Still...prices for these books on eBay simply did not justify the time and effort to restock these books, especially considering that the in store traffic for Valiant is still at '1998' levels. As any collectibles dealer will tell you, it takes a great deal of $$$ to fly around before people become willing to search for something they 'think they might have from way back.' Up to and including the present day, we have not yet reached that point with regards to Valiant, with a few minor exceptions.

However...this may be about to change.

ALL of these factors combine to make the market VASTLY, VASTLY different from the one in 1993, and virtually guarantees there won't be a 'second collapse' (unless, of course, there's a general collapse of the back issue market en toto.)

4. What was hot once, as far as comics goes, is usually hot again at some point. This is the overwhelmingly dominating factor in my particular brand of 'investing'. I have boxes and boxes and boxes of 'keys', and if I have more than one 'regular' issue (say, Adventures of Superman #433, just as a total random example) it's because I either A. bought it as part of a collection; B. picked it up cause I thought I didn't have it; or C. I think it's got potential to BECOME a key (think New Mutants Annual #2.) I have 30 copies of bagged Superman #75 that I bought for $1 each, because I believe that the market for this will be consistent for some time to come. I also have dozens and dozens of key 80's books, because I believe very much that THEIR time will come, as well.

5. Applying the 'what was hot once will be again' factor, we discover that throughout comics collecting history, there have been literally hundreds of times that key books became 'hot' after years and years of being 'cold'. X-Men from #94-#143 is probably the single best example of all time. From roughly 1985-1991, X-Men back issues were dead, dead, dead. They were 'overpriced' (#94 was $115 in the guide, for God's sake! [;)] ) and no one cared. The low point was definitely 1988-1989, when everyone was hot for Batman and McFarlane Amazing Spiderman. You could (and I did) get non key Byrne NM X-Men issues for $5 each in the very early 90's, if you looked in the right places (keeping in mind that most of the run was $15 or less in O-street.) X-Men issues began a revival in the early 90's, beginning with the first issue of 'X-Men', and by the mid to late 90's, X-Men was again a very hot back issue commodity. Those who missed out on the first explosion in the early 80's, but wisely purchased during the slump in the late 80's, still ended up doing very, VERY well for themselves.

Valiant...the hottest of the hot in the early 90's, bar none, without compare, nothing even came CLOSE in hot terms during that time period....still has that lingering aura to it. Those who missed out on the first explosion may have ended up doing very well for themselves the second time around....and, unlike X-Men, may have been able to score the books for cover price or LESS during the dead time. While long, long gone are the days of trading a Harb #0 for a VF copy of Spidey #14 (God, I wish I had been thinking better in 1993. Sigh.) the fact remains that the books, by virtue of their previous hotness alone, are a TESTED collectible, which makes folks much, MUCH more willing to shell out the big bucks later on down the line.

As we all well know....it's so much easier to justify paying $125 for something TODAY when we know it sold for $125 over a decade ago over something that sold for $5 a decade ago. Add in inflation, and it's a done deal.

6. Supply and demand is the bottom line in all free markets, always, forever and ever. Keeping THAT in mind, realize that while a lot of GREAT stuff came out in the early 90's (X-Men #1-3, regardless of how you feel, was a VERY fitting end to Claremont's 'real' X-Men run), it was HIGHLY, HIGHLY 'overproduced'...with notable exceptions. The most notable exceptions, of course, are the entire first superhero year of new company Valiant comics, collectively called 'pre-Unity'. Low print run, combined with tremendously popular stories, created...for the first time in 30 years....an entire company LINE that ate up the charts. Marvel, DC, Image, et al, while producing some incredible...and lot of not so incredible....stuff...simply produced far too MUCH of it for it ever to have any sort of supply issues that normally drive up prices. Valiant, on the other hand, did not.

The supply of Valiant back issues is simply not there, and if it IS there, it's being held by collectors like us.

7. There is speculated to be about 500,000 active, purchasing comic collectors in the United States of America. There are currently nearly 300 million people in the United States of America (sorry for the repeat, I just love saying it. ) If only 2% of the ENTIRE population of the United States of America were to actively collect comics, every comic printed forever would have at least one buyer for one copy, with the possible exception of X-Men #1 (and even THAT printrun was split amongst five 'different' covers.) Prices would, naturally, soar through the roof as almost every back issue imaginable was purchased by the new 'collectors'.

Of course, this would include the Valiant market.

8. The one and only thing that would/will hinder a Valiant renaissance is this: the characters are not still being published. This could be nothing....it had little effect on EC (but, again, EC only had a few recurring characters, aka The Crypt Keeper, and never a featured cast)...or it could be the dominating factor in holding the market down.

Finally...I, too, have played the 'percentage of cover price' game over the years, and Greg's absolutely right. Averaged out over enough years, inflation and cover price wars have little effect on the overall percentages of increase that demonstrate how collectible a book is/was/will be.

X-Men #94 was a $60 book by early 1979. That's 240x cover price. I've said it before, but no other comic in history, before or since, has ever come close to doing what X-Men #94 did in as short a time as it did it, not even GS #1. However...several books gave it a run for it's money over the years, including Cerebus #1 ($440 in 1988, roughly 10+ years after release) Turtles #1 ($157 in 1988, 4 years after release), Batman #428 ($75 sales, less than 10 months after it's release, surely the winner in SHORT TERM percentage gains), New Mutants #87 ($65 after a year)...and a little book called Harbinger #1 ($125 after a little over a year.) No Valiant book did as well as Harb #1, percentage wise, even though there are now 20+ books that beat it price wise, it was 'the' Valiant book to own during the craze (premium books such as #0 can never be counted, as they were not released through normal channels of distribution, and 'not everyone' could potentially walk into a store and buy one for 'cover price'.)

Since then, of course, there have been no supersales champs, the hottest books barely reaching $50 (Witchblade #1, JLA #1, Daredevil #1, etc.)...until Ultimate Spiderman #1, which is the only book in 10+ years that recalls the glory days of incredibly hot, soaring in value new books..and it's initial cover price of $2.99 means it has only done a measly 50x cover price at $150...hardly a book to challenge the greatest of the great back in the day, but it's been the only regular book printed since 1993 to achieve this type of back market increase. The LAST 'over $100 book' until US #1 was Lady Death #1....printed almost 7 YEARS prior!

That's saying something.

Besides...what other market in the world has 'original retail price' not only part of the item, but printed right in plain sight for all to see? The only thing coming close would be the IPO in the stock market, but that usually has to be researched.

[400yrs]

Still...prices for these books on eBay simply did not justify the time and effort to restock these books, especially considering that the in store traffic for Valiant is still at '1998' levels. As any collectibles dealer will tell you, it takes a great deal of $$$ to fly around before people become willing to search for something they 'think they might have from way back.' Up to and including the present day, we have not yet reached that point with regards to Valiant, with a few minor exceptions.

However...this may be about to change

Agreed

ALL of these factors combine to make the market VASTLY, VASTLY different from the one in 1993, and virtually guarantees there won't be a 'second collapse' (unless, of course, there's a general collapse of the back issue market en toto.)

I agree that there won't be a "collapse," but do you think it is reasonable to expect a drop in price after dealers dig out their back issues and supply catches up with demand? If you look at the pre-unity rescue operation numbers on the site, we board members have only about 200-300 of each pre-unity. Granted, I know that the list is not all inclusive or up to date and that there are others who collect them outside the boards, but if several hundred or several thousand somehow come to market (and that's a big if), I'd think that prices would be impacted greatly.

...until Ultimate Spiderman #1, which is the only book in 10+ years that recalls the glory days of incredibly hot, soaring in value new books..and it's initial cover price of $2.99 means it has only done a measly 50x cover price at $150...hardly a book to challenge the greatest of the great back in the day, but it's been the only regular book printed since 1993 to achieve this type of back market increase.

Ugh... More support as to why I should plunk down big cash on this book. My pocket book didn't want to hear that. Unfortunately, I was one of the many who avoided this book when it was first released dismissing it as another crappy re-launch by Marvel. Think I'll start lowballing the first four issues I need to see if I can get a deal on ebay. Doubt it though.

[ZephyrWasHOT!!]

Ugh... More support as to why I should plunk down big cash on this book. My pocket book didn't want to hear that. Unfortunately, I was one of the many who avoided this book when it was first released dismissing it as another crappy re-launch by Marvel. Think I'll start lowballing the first four issues I need to see if I can get a deal on ebay. Doubt it though.

Yeah, I know. I'm pretty *SQUEE* about it, too. I didn't get ANY but ONE #3. I picked up a STACK of #3 and up, and said 'ehhh...another crappy relaunch'.

Ah well.

My Harby #1's keep me company.

[The Spider]

Ugh... More support as to why I should plunk down big cash on this book. My pocket book didn't want to hear that. Unfortunately, I was one of the many who avoided this book when it was first released dismissing it as another crappy re-launch by Marvel. Think I'll start lowballing the first four issues I need to see if I can get a deal on ebay. Doubt it though.

Interestingly though, ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #1 is at a hundred dollars or so, and ULTIMATE X-MEN #1 is about $10-15.

What could've caused this? I'm thinking 1) X-Men titles get ordered a lot in general, 2) Before ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #1 came out people didn't like the SPIDER-MAN: CHAPTER ONE revamp, and 3) Maybe retailers ordered more on the basis that Ultimate Spider-Man became a popular book? But that wouldn't make sense since ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #5 is low printed.

[400yrs]

Ugh... More support as to why I should plunk down big cash on this book. My pocket book didn't want to hear that. Unfortunately, I was one of the many who avoided this book when it was first released dismissing it as another crappy re-launch by Marvel. Think I'll start lowballing the first four issues I need to see if I can get a deal on ebay. Doubt it though.

Interestingly though, ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #1 is at a hundred dollars or so, and ULTIMATE X-MEN #1 is about $10-15.

What could've caused this? I'm thinking 1) X-Men titles get ordered a lot in general, 2) Before ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #1 came out people didn't like the SPIDER-MAN: CHAPTER ONE revamp, and 3) Maybe retailers ordered more on the basis that Ultimate Spider-Man became a popular book? But that wouldn't make sense since ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #5 is low printed.

Print runs! I missed 1-4 of USM because I dismissed it as crap, but I picked up on it quick enough to get a few copies of Ultimate X-men #1. I'm sure a lot of others did the same - meaning that print runs of USM were much lower than UX.

[depluto]

I think it's time for another 'Things To Keep In Mind' post by your ol' pal, ZWH.

Things to keep in mind....

1. Since the beginning of the Marvel Age (1961, for those not in the know), comic book COLLECTING has been cyclical in terms of the market for them. The only comic books that have never, ever OFFICIALLY 'gone down in price' according to any market indicators is Golden Age Superhero. Even the last 'hottest new publisher', Marvel, saw a mini-crash in key Silver in the mid 1980's. You were lucky to get $500 cash for a NM Spidey #1 in 1985.

2. Silver Age Marvel, while not having an official 'market' in the 60's, nevertheless commanded a premium when key issues (read: Fantasy 15, FF #1, TOS #39, etc) were 'found.' This market continued to grow, in part because Marvel did so well for so long, into the 70's and 80's. What was a $10 book in 1970 (Spiderman #1) was a $50 book in 1976, a $100 book in 1979, and a $300 by 1982. However...Marvel's continued key to back issue success has been continuity: the characters have continually been in print for well over 40 years for every single major Marvel character, or variation thereof (notably excluding the Hulk, who disappeared from the stands from early '63 til his reappearance in Avengers #1 in mid '63, but continually since then.)

3. Valiant is now a decade gone. Pre-Unity, 'the good stuff' is now 13 years gone. Age does great things for collectibles; it brings back memories of bygone times, memories that have nearly always been colored to forget the bad and cherish the good. It's no longer NEW and UNTESTED material....like fine wine, it has aged, albeit a bit bumpily, into something that most collectors can point to with pride and nostalgia, and especially a 'hey, remember when....'. This is the polar opposite concept that applied to these books in 1993.

3.5. When key issues are 'new', there's always the chance, however slim, of finding those keys in local comic shops, on newstands, books stores, etc. Even if they are 'market priced', the fact of the matter is, what's new is what people will have, and have for sale. Without needing to say so, this obviously isn't the case for 'old' books. Without a VERY compelling and consistent market, few retailers of any kind are going to keep an active backstock of ANYTHING, much less a company which caused so many people so many problems...self inflicted or not...by the late 90's.

How many shops do YOU know, for example, that even carry the HOT 70's and 80's back issues? I live in the second largest metropolitan area in the United States of America, and there are NONE, high priced or not. Have any of YOU seen a Turtles #1 for SALE, regardless of price, in a store? How about Cerebus #1? Miracleman? Spidey? ANYTHING?

MileHighComics, probably the single most well stocked dealer in the United States, is the best example of this: they almost NEVER have key issues of Valiant books, and have NEVER had a complete pre-unity 'set' for sale since bringing up their website in 1997.

Therefore....in the 'boom' years of 1992-1993, everyone and their mother had copies of these books, even if priced at 'full guide' or more. The books had been fully distributed, and very, very few people had 'hoards' of these books.

However, with the passing of time, and the fading popularity of these books, many of them have disappeared into 'hoards', most dealers having sold them or otherwise gotten rid of them, if only for needing the space for things that WOULD sell on a consistent basis. The best example I've got is me...I've been looking for these books since almost Day 1, and while I did find all the books, and many, many duplicates, I have never found a 'hoard' of these books, and have never (before eBay) been able to acquire these books in higher numbers than, say, 5 copies each.

Hoards, now, are the exception rather than the rule. How many other people besides Greg and Dino that you know that have 20+ copies of Unity Red? How many do you know besides ZWH that have 40+ copies of Harb #1? And so on....

To make matters worse, no dealer in his or her 'right mind' would have been actively seeking to PURCHASE Valiant books from 1996-2000, because there were simply 'no' (which we of course know is NOT true) customers for the books. Where there's demand, supply can generally follow, but no demand means that the supply...wherever it is...is going to be ignored.

So...you have the active seeking of these books by a dedicated, loyal, but VERY small group of fans, the general malaise and/or ignorance of the collecting public towards these books, and a deep distrust of them by dealers (how many of us have been laughed at/scoffed at when we said we were seeking to buy Valiants?) and you find the books utterly absent from the 'common' collector scene for nearly 5 years.

Enter eBay. For the first time, the market becomes truly national, if not global. People can slowly but surely start to acquire these books once more, because, if nothing else, eBay brings the lowest common denominator to play, and things people wouldn't consider spending the money on to sell elsewhere, will do so on eBay. eBay sellers either didn't know, or didn't care, about the potential value of the books, and were happy to get $10 for a Harb #1 (hey, that's 5 times cover price!!)

Still...prices for these books on eBay simply did not justify the time and effort to restock these books, especially considering that the in store traffic for Valiant is still at '1998' levels. As any collectibles dealer will tell you, it takes a great deal of $$$ to fly around before people become willing to search for something they 'think they might have from way back.' Up to and including the present day, we have not yet reached that point with regards to Valiant, with a few minor exceptions.

However...this may be about to change.

ALL of these factors combine to make the market VASTLY, VASTLY different from the one in 1993, and virtually guarantees there won't be a 'second collapse' (unless, of course, there's a general collapse of the back issue market en toto.)

4. What was hot once, as far as comics goes, is usually hot again at some point. This is the overwhelmingly dominating factor in my particular brand of 'investing'. I have boxes and boxes and boxes of 'keys', and if I have more than one 'regular' issue (say, Adventures of Superman #433, just as a total random example) it's because I either A. bought it as part of a collection; B. picked it up cause I thought I didn't have it; or C. I think it's got potential to BECOME a key (think New Mutants Annual #2.) I have 30 copies of bagged Superman #75 that I bought for $1 each, because I believe that the market for this will be consistent for some time to come. I also have dozens and dozens of key 80's books, because I believe very much that THEIR time will come, as well.

5. Applying the 'what was hot once will be again' factor, we discover that throughout comics collecting history, there have been literally hundreds of times that key books became 'hot' after years and years of being 'cold'. X-Men from #94-#143 is probably the single best example of all time. From roughly 1985-1991, X-Men back issues were dead, dead, dead. They were 'overpriced' (#94 was $115 in the guide, for God's sake! [;)] ) and no one cared. The low point was definitely 1988-1989, when everyone was hot for Batman and McFarlane Amazing Spiderman. You could (and I did) get non key Byrne NM X-Men issues for $5 each in the very early 90's, if you looked in the right places (keeping in mind that most of the run was $15 or less in O-street.) X-Men issues began a revival in the early 90's, beginning with the first issue of 'X-Men', and by the mid to late 90's, X-Men was again a very hot back issue commodity. Those who missed out on the first explosion in the early 80's, but wisely purchased during the slump in the late 80's, still ended up doing very, VERY well for themselves.

Valiant...the hottest of the hot in the early 90's, bar none, without compare, nothing even came CLOSE in hot terms during that time period....still has that lingering aura to it. Those who missed out on the first explosion may have ended up doing very well for themselves the second time around....and, unlike X-Men, may have been able to score the books for cover price or LESS during the dead time. While long, long gone are the days of trading a Harb #0 for a VF copy of Spidey #14 (God, I wish I had been thinking better in 1993. Sigh.) the fact remains that the books, by virtue of their previous hotness alone, are a TESTED collectible, which makes folks much, MUCH more willing to shell out the big bucks later on down the line.

As we all well know....it's so much easier to justify paying $125 for something TODAY when we know it sold for $125 over a decade ago over something that sold for $5 a decade ago. Add in inflation, and it's a done deal.

6. Supply and demand is the bottom line in all free markets, always, forever and ever. Keeping THAT in mind, realize that while a lot of GREAT stuff came out in the early 90's (X-Men #1-3, regardless of how you feel, was a VERY fitting end to Claremont's 'real' X-Men run), it was HIGHLY, HIGHLY 'overproduced'...with notable exceptions. The most notable exceptions, of course, are the entire first superhero year of new company Valiant comics, collectively called 'pre-Unity'. Low print run, combined with tremendously popular stories, created...for the first time in 30 years....an entire company LINE that ate up the charts. Marvel, DC, Image, et al, while producing some incredible...and lot of not so incredible....stuff...simply produced far too MUCH of it for it ever to have any sort of supply issues that normally drive up prices. Valiant, on the other hand, did not.

The supply of Valiant back issues is simply not there, and if it IS there, it's being held by collectors like us.

7. There is speculated to be about 500,000 active, purchasing comic collectors in the United States of America. There are currently nearly 300 million people in the United States of America (sorry for the repeat, I just love saying it. ) If only 2% of the ENTIRE population of the United States of America were to actively collect comics, every comic printed forever would have at least one buyer for one copy, with the possible exception of X-Men #1 (and even THAT printrun was split amongst five 'different' covers.) Prices would, naturally, soar through the roof as almost every back issue imaginable was purchased by the new 'collectors'.

Of course, this would include the Valiant market.

8. The one and only thing that would/will hinder a Valiant renaissance is this: the characters are not still being published. This could be nothing....it had little effect on EC (but, again, EC only had a few recurring characters, aka The Crypt Keeper, and never a featured cast)...or it could be the dominating factor in holding the market down.

Finally...I, too, have played the 'percentage of cover price' game over the years, and Greg's absolutely right. Averaged out over enough years, inflation and cover price wars have little effect on the overall percentages of increase that demonstrate how collectible a book is/was/will be.

X-Men #94 was a $60 book by early 1979. That's 240x cover price. I've said it before, but no other comic in history, before or since, has ever come close to doing what X-Men #94 did in as short a time as it did it, not even GS #1. However...several books gave it a run for it's money over the years, including Cerebus #1 ($440 in 1988, roughly 10+ years after release) Turtles #1 ($157 in 1988, 4 years after release), Batman #428 ($75 sales, less than 10 months after it's release, surely the winner in SHORT TERM percentage gains), New Mutants #87 ($65 after a year)...and a little book called Harbinger #1 ($125 after a little over a year.) No Valiant book did as well as Harb #1, percentage wise, even though there are now 20+ books that beat it price wise, it was 'the' Valiant book to own during the craze (premium books such as #0 can never be counted, as they were not released through normal channels of distribution, and 'not everyone' could potentially walk into a store and buy one for 'cover price'.)

Since then, of course, there have been no supersales champs, the hottest books barely reaching $50 (Witchblade #1, JLA #1, Daredevil #1, etc.)...until Ultimate Spiderman #1, which is the only book in 10+ years that recalls the glory days of incredibly hot, soaring in value new books..and it's initial cover price of $2.99 means it has only done a measly 50x cover price at $150...hardly a book to challenge the greatest of the great back in the day, but it's been the only regular book printed since 1993 to achieve this type of back market increase. The LAST 'over $100 book' until US #1 was Lady Death #1....printed almost 7 YEARS prior!

That's saying something.

Besides...what other market in the world has 'original retail price' not only part of the item, but printed right in plain sight for all to see? The only thing coming close would be the IPO in the stock market, but that usually has to be researched.

I agree

[depluto]

rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

[Ricomortis]

Still...prices for these books on eBay simply did not justify the time and effort to restock these books, especially considering that the in store traffic for Valiant is still at '1998' levels. As any collectibles dealer will tell you, it takes a great deal of $$$ to fly around before people become willing to search for something they 'think they might have from way back.' Up to and including the present day, we have not yet reached that point with regards to Valiant, with a few minor exceptions.

However...this may be about to change

Agreed

ALL of these factors combine to make the market VASTLY, VASTLY different from the one in 1993, and virtually guarantees there won't be a 'second collapse' (unless, of course, there's a general collapse of the back issue market en toto.)

I agree that there won't be a "collapse," but do you think it is reasonable to expect a drop in price after dealers dig out their back issues and supply catches up with demand? If you look at the pre-unity rescue operation numbers on the site, we board members have only about 200-300 of each pre-unity. Granted, I know that the list is not all inclusive or up to date and that there are others who collect them outside the boards, but if several hundred or several thousand somehow come to market (and that's a big if), I'd think that prices would be impacted greatly.

...until Ultimate Spiderman #1, which is the only book in 10+ years that recalls the glory days of incredibly hot, soaring in value new books..and it's initial cover price of $2.99 means it has only done a measly 50x cover price at $150...hardly a book to challenge the greatest of the great back in the day, but it's been the only regular book printed since 1993 to achieve this type of back market increase.

Ugh... More support as to why I should plunk down big cash on this book. My pocket book didn't want to hear that. Unfortunately, I was one of the many who avoided this book when it was first released dismissing it as another crappy re-launch by Marvel. Think I'll start lowballing the first four issues I need to see if I can get a deal on ebay. Doubt it though.

Let's not forget....that to further deteriorate the pre-unity low print runs, enter .25 bins, multiple sells on E-bay, storage in lcs not up to par, and numerous others.

Not to mention the absolutly WONDERFUL paperstock on Harby 1.

Lots of factors are to play, besides what Zeph has outlined....making them even more steady in a downfall. (high grade that is)

[ZephyrWasHOT!!]

I think it's time for another 'Things To Keep In Mind' post by your ol' pal, ZWH.

Things to keep in mind....

1. Since the beginning of the Marvel Age (1961, for those not in the know), comic book COLLECTING has been cyclical in terms of the market for them. The only comic books that have never, ever OFFICIALLY 'gone down in price' according to any market indicators is Golden Age Superhero. Even the last 'hottest new publisher', Marvel, saw a mini-crash in key Silver in the mid 1980's. You were lucky to get $500 cash for a NM Spidey #1 in 1985.

2. Silver Age Marvel, while not having an official 'market' in the 60's, nevertheless commanded a premium when key issues (read: Fantasy 15, FF #1, TOS #39, etc) were 'found.' This market continued to grow, in part because Marvel did so well for so long, into the 70's and 80's. What was a $10 book in 1970 (Spiderman #1) was a $50 book in 1976, a $100 book in 1979, and a $300 by 1982. However...Marvel's continued key to back issue success has been continuity: the characters have continually been in print for well over 40 years for every single major Marvel character, or variation thereof (notably excluding the Hulk, who disappeared from the stands from early '63 til his reappearance in Avengers #1 in mid '63, but continually since then.)

3. Valiant is now a decade gone. Pre-Unity, 'the good stuff' is now 13 years gone. Age does great things for collectibles; it brings back memories of bygone times, memories that have nearly always been colored to forget the bad and cherish the good. It's no longer NEW and UNTESTED material....like fine wine, it has aged, albeit a bit bumpily, into something that most collectors can point to with pride and nostalgia, and especially a 'hey, remember when....'. This is the polar opposite concept that applied to these books in 1993.

3.5. When key issues are 'new', there's always the chance, however slim, of finding those keys in local comic shops, on newstands, books stores, etc. Even if they are 'market priced', the fact of the matter is, what's new is what people will have, and have for sale. Without needing to say so, this obviously isn't the case for 'old' books. Without a VERY compelling and consistent market, few retailers of any kind are going to keep an active backstock of ANYTHING, much less a company which caused so many people so many problems...self inflicted or not...by the late 90's.

How many shops do YOU know, for example, that even carry the HOT 70's and 80's back issues? I live in the second largest metropolitan area in the United States of America, and there are NONE, high priced or not. Have any of YOU seen a Turtles #1 for SALE, regardless of price, in a store? How about Cerebus #1? Miracleman? Spidey? ANYTHING?

MileHighComics, probably the single most well stocked dealer in the United States, is the best example of this: they almost NEVER have key issues of Valiant books, and have NEVER had a complete pre-unity 'set' for sale since bringing up their website in 1997.

Therefore....in the 'boom' years of 1992-1993, everyone and their mother had copies of these books, even if priced at 'full guide' or more. The books had been fully distributed, and very, very few people had 'hoards' of these books.

However, with the passing of time, and the fading popularity of these books, many of them have disappeared into 'hoards', most dealers having sold them or otherwise gotten rid of them, if only for needing the space for things that WOULD sell on a consistent basis. The best example I've got is me...I've been looking for these books since almost Day 1, and while I did find all the books, and many, many duplicates, I have never found a 'hoard' of these books, and have never (before eBay) been able to acquire these books in higher numbers than, say, 5 copies each.

Hoards, now, are the exception rather than the rule. How many other people besides Greg and Dino that you know that have 20+ copies of Unity Red? How many do you know besides ZWH that have 40+ copies of Harb #1? And so on....

To make matters worse, no dealer in his or her 'right mind' would have been actively seeking to PURCHASE Valiant books from 1996-2000, because there were simply 'no' (which we of course know is NOT true) customers for the books. Where there's demand, supply can generally follow, but no demand means that the supply...wherever it is...is going to be ignored.

So...you have the active seeking of these books by a dedicated, loyal, but VERY small group of fans, the general malaise and/or ignorance of the collecting public towards these books, and a deep distrust of them by dealers (how many of us have been laughed at/scoffed at when we said we were seeking to buy Valiants?) and you find the books utterly absent from the 'common' collector scene for nearly 5 years.

Enter eBay. For the first time, the market becomes truly national, if not global. People can slowly but surely start to acquire these books once more, because, if nothing else, eBay brings the lowest common denominator to play, and things people wouldn't consider spending the money on to sell elsewhere, will do so on eBay. eBay sellers either didn't know, or didn't care, about the potential value of the books, and were happy to get $10 for a Harb #1 (hey, that's 5 times cover price!!)

Still...prices for these books on eBay simply did not justify the time and effort to restock these books, especially considering that the in store traffic for Valiant is still at '1998' levels. As any collectibles dealer will tell you, it takes a great deal of $$$ to fly around before people become willing to search for something they 'think they might have from way back.' Up to and including the present day, we have not yet reached that point with regards to Valiant, with a few minor exceptions.

However...this may be about to change.

ALL of these factors combine to make the market VASTLY, VASTLY different from the one in 1993, and virtually guarantees there won't be a 'second collapse' (unless, of course, there's a general collapse of the back issue market en toto.)

4. What was hot once, as far as comics goes, is usually hot again at some point. This is the overwhelmingly dominating factor in my particular brand of 'investing'. I have boxes and boxes and boxes of 'keys', and if I have more than one 'regular' issue (say, Adventures of Superman #433, just as a total random example) it's because I either A. bought it as part of a collection; B. picked it up cause I thought I didn't have it; or C. I think it's got potential to BECOME a key (think New Mutants Annual #2.) I have 30 copies of bagged Superman #75 that I bought for $1 each, because I believe that the market for this will be consistent for some time to come. I also have dozens and dozens of key 80's books, because I believe very much that THEIR time will come, as well.

5. Applying the 'what was hot once will be again' factor, we discover that throughout comics collecting history, there have been literally hundreds of times that key books became 'hot' after years and years of being 'cold'. X-Men from #94-#143 is probably the single best example of all time. From roughly 1985-1991, X-Men back issues were dead, dead, dead. They were 'overpriced' (#94 was $115 in the guide, for God's sake! [;)] ) and no one cared. The low point was definitely 1988-1989, when everyone was hot for Batman and McFarlane Amazing Spiderman. You could (and I did) get non key Byrne NM X-Men issues for $5 each in the very early 90's, if you looked in the right places (keeping in mind that most of the run was $15 or less in O-street.) X-Men issues began a revival in the early 90's, beginning with the first issue of 'X-Men', and by the mid to late 90's, X-Men was again a very hot back issue commodity. Those who missed out on the first explosion in the early 80's, but wisely purchased during the slump in the late 80's, still ended up doing very, VERY well for themselves.

Valiant...the hottest of the hot in the early 90's, bar none, without compare, nothing even came CLOSE in hot terms during that time period....still has that lingering aura to it. Those who missed out on the first explosion may have ended up doing very well for themselves the second time around....and, unlike X-Men, may have been able to score the books for cover price or LESS during the dead time. While long, long gone are the days of trading a Harb #0 for a VF copy of Spidey #14 (God, I wish I had been thinking better in 1993. Sigh.) the fact remains that the books, by virtue of their previous hotness alone, are a TESTED collectible, which makes folks much, MUCH more willing to shell out the big bucks later on down the line.

As we all well know....it's so much easier to justify paying $125 for something TODAY when we know it sold for $125 over a decade ago over something that sold for $5 a decade ago. Add in inflation, and it's a done deal.

6. Supply and demand is the bottom line in all free markets, always, forever and ever. Keeping THAT in mind, realize that while a lot of GREAT stuff came out in the early 90's (X-Men #1-3, regardless of how you feel, was a VERY fitting end to Claremont's 'real' X-Men run), it was HIGHLY, HIGHLY 'overproduced'...with notable exceptions. The most notable exceptions, of course, are the entire first superhero year of new company Valiant comics, collectively called 'pre-Unity'. Low print run, combined with tremendously popular stories, created...for the first time in 30 years....an entire company LINE that ate up the charts. Marvel, DC, Image, et al, while producing some incredible...and lot of not so incredible....stuff...simply produced far too MUCH of it for it ever to have any sort of supply issues that normally drive up prices. Valiant, on the other hand, did not.

The supply of Valiant back issues is simply not there, and if it IS there, it's being held by collectors like us.

7. There is speculated to be about 500,000 active, purchasing comic collectors in the United States of America. There are currently nearly 300 million people in the United States of America (sorry for the repeat, I just love saying it. ) If only 2% of the ENTIRE population of the United States of America were to actively collect comics, every comic printed forever would have at least one buyer for one copy, with the possible exception of X-Men #1 (and even THAT printrun was split amongst five 'different' covers.) Prices would, naturally, soar through the roof as almost every back issue imaginable was purchased by the new 'collectors'.

Of course, this would include the Valiant market.

8. The one and only thing that would/will hinder a Valiant renaissance is this: the characters are not still being published. This could be nothing....it had little effect on EC (but, again, EC only had a few recurring characters, aka The Crypt Keeper, and never a featured cast)...or it could be the dominating factor in holding the market down.

Finally...I, too, have played the 'percentage of cover price' game over the years, and Greg's absolutely right. Averaged out over enough years, inflation and cover price wars have little effect on the overall percentages of increase that demonstrate how collectible a book is/was/will be.

X-Men #94 was a $60 book by early 1979. That's 240x cover price. I've said it before, but no other comic in history, before or since, has ever come close to doing what X-Men #94 did in as short a time as it did it, not even GS #1. However...several books gave it a run for it's money over the years, including Cerebus #1 ($440 in 1988, roughly 10+ years after release) Turtles #1 ($157 in 1988, 4 years after release), Batman #428 ($75 sales, less than 10 months after it's release, surely the winner in SHORT TERM percentage gains), New Mutants #87 ($65 after a year)...and a little book called Harbinger #1 ($125 after a little over a year.) No Valiant book did as well as Harb #1, percentage wise, even though there are now 20+ books that beat it price wise, it was 'the' Valiant book to own during the craze (premium books such as #0 can never be counted, as they were not released through normal channels of distribution, and 'not everyone' could potentially walk into a store and buy one for 'cover price'.)

Since then, of course, there have been no supersales champs, the hottest books barely reaching $50 (Witchblade #1, JLA #1, Daredevil #1, etc.)...until Ultimate Spiderman #1, which is the only book in 10+ years that recalls the glory days of incredibly hot, soaring in value new books..and it's initial cover price of $2.99 means it has only done a measly 50x cover price at $150...hardly a book to challenge the greatest of the great back in the day, but it's been the only regular book printed since 1993 to achieve this type of back market increase. The LAST 'over $100 book' until US #1 was Lady Death #1....printed almost 7 YEARS prior!

That's saying something.

Besides...what other market in the world has 'original retail price' not only part of the item, but printed right in plain sight for all to see? The only thing coming close would be the IPO in the stock market, but that usually has to be researched.

I agree

Thank you.

[ZephyrWasHOT!!]

Print runs! I missed 1-4 of USM because I dismissed it as crap, but I picked up on it quick enough to get a few copies of Ultimate X-men #1. I'm sure a lot of others did the same - meaning that print runs of USM were much lower than UX.

Dude...you have NO idea how much better that makes me feel that someone else with smarts passed up USM. I'm so glad I wasn't the only one.

Gack.

S'funny...you could buy all the DF USM #1's you could want for $6.95 when #1 was released...$6.95. What are they now, $150?

[dino]

Great post Zwh. Some intersting points many of which I had not thought of. The one overriding thing that I'm thinking after that post is I can't wait to see what Harbinger #1 is selling for this week on ebay. You made quite the case to buy them.

btw I bought USM 1-12 when they first came out and sold them on ebay last year

[ZephyrWasHOT!!]

Great post Zwh. Some intersting points many of which I had not thought of. The one overriding thing that I'm thinking after that post is I can't wait to see what Harbinger #1 is selling for this week on ebay. You made quite the case to buy them.

btw I bought USM 1-12 when they first came out and sold them on ebay last year

<scratches head>...you don't *really* think we have THAT much influence....do you...?

Nahhh...no way.

Anyhoo, if anyone wants to hire me as an analyst, you've seen my work, you know I can come up with the word count...freelance me, baby!

[skiw]

ALL of these factors combine to make the market VASTLY, VASTLY different from the one in 1993, and virtually guarantees there won't be a 'second collapse' (unless, of course, there's a general collapse of the back issue market en toto.)

I agree that there won't be a "collapse," but do you think it is reasonable to expect a drop in price after dealers dig out their back issues and supply catches up with demand? If you look at the pre-unity rescue operation numbers on the site, we board members have only about 200-300 of each pre-unity. Granted, I know that the list is not all inclusive or up to date and that there are others who collect them outside the boards, but if several hundred or several thousand somehow come to market (and that's a big if), I'd think that prices would be impacted greatly.

Looking at the prices I sold most of my multiples at through 2003 - mid 2004 compared to the going rate on eBay, I would say that the market has already started to correct for Valiants. This is due to three factors in my mind: 1) new collectors have already picked up most of what they need; 2) grizzled veterans (myself included) have decided they have enough multiples of the key and scarce issues; AND most importantly 3) more books have already started to surface in response to increased demand.

Personally, I sold off almost most of my variants and key issue multiples when prices were high and will not start picking them up en masse again for a while. Comics, like most pop collectibles, work on 30 year cycles so we still have another 20 to go before Valiants really take off in value IMHO. It worked with bronze age speculating in the mid to late 90s (sigh, the good old days of $5 NM copies of Marvel Spotlight #5), and it will work with Valiants as well. Just think, we will be the old guys at the convention talking about picking up pre-unities for $5 or less apiece back in the good old days!

Cheers,
Skiw

[Unblessed]

How many do you know besides ZWH that have 40+ copies of Harb #1?

I knew there was a reason I have ZERO copies of this book.

~The Unblessed Soul

[mrwoogieman]

Could someone who actually has the new Wizard please look these last issues up for me?

Magnus 64
EW 50

Thanks!

[dino]

Magnus 64 $15
EW 50 $9

[mrwoogieman]

Magnus 64 $15
EW 50 $9

Thought so! The guy who used Wizard to price some books for me was giving me inflated prices! What a *SQUEE*!

[ZephyrWasHOT!!]

It worked with bronze age speculating in the mid to late 90s (sigh, the good old days of $5 NM copies of Marvel Spotlight #5),

You bastich. I NEVER EVER found $5 NM copies of Spotlight #5, and I've been looking since 1990!

Argh!

[skiw]

It worked with bronze age speculating in the mid to late 90s (sigh, the good old days of $5 NM copies of Marvel Spotlight #5),

You bastich. I NEVER EVER found $5 NM copies of Spotlight #5, and I've been looking since 1990!

Argh!

The sad thing is, I missed the seller's X-Men #94 ($40), Hulk #181 ($40) and a bunch of other lesser Marvel keys in the $10 - $20 range.

Cheers,
Skiw

[Rai-fan]

Harumph...

Well, Zeph, nice post. Right on for the most part. However, I have two hesitations re. continuing to stockpile Valiants at their current prices (relative to other investment comics for the money): 1) They're not being published currently. Unless that happens, and happens consistently, they're relegated to EC, or Tower Comics, or 70s Atlas Comics niche status.

2) They got hot too fast. Even if the bulk of "hoards" are now being held by board-members, that they were _the_ books to have within a year of publication means the majority of copies are in high-grade & the attrition rate is much lower.

I think the key to winning the investment game is finding old books that become collectibles long after the fact. At that point, most of the copies have been true quarter-fodder for so long that high-grade copies are rare. Example: Lois Lane 70, Iron Man 55. The reason late-run GI-Joe is now one of the most expensive runs of the 90s? It was crap & nobody bought it while they were concentrating on X-men & the like.

Don't get me wrong--my Valiant set's missing fewer than 20 books & I've got about a long-box of pre-Unities & golds.

I'm just saying--investment money now is better spent on picking up cold mainstream former keys of still-published books like Zeph's "buying list" on the other page.