The gloves are off now.... discuss anything and everything!
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BC2015 Posts: 5
8/21/2017
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Please bear with me if this topic has been discussed elsewhere on this forum. I started collecting when I was a kid in the 80's, got burned pretty good in the 90's, and just recently rediscovered the hobby (as well as several hidden gems just sitting around in my collection). My question is this: is it worthwhile to start collecting any new titles now or wait until they gain a some traction? In other words--would it make more sense to focus my resources on high grade key issues? Or is there some kind of balance that can be struck between them?
Thank you! (Fantastic site!)
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Oxbladder Posts: 487
8/22/2017
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if you are looking just to invest you have to treat it just like any other investment and research what is blue chip and what isn't. With new books there is virtually no way to tell what will become a blue chip down the road as that can take years. There are many books that come out of the gate hotter than hell but quickly die off. With older books some require serious money to obtain but can make it back "quickly" however, you have to be careful too as this takes some skill to do. IMHO some of the best books to invest in are books that came out in the late 60's, the 70's and even the 80's as they are generally much cheaper to obtain and are going up relatively faster.
Lots of people like to focus on just "key" books for some reason but you can also rapidly increase the value of a collection by purchasing many steady risers for cheap and then selling them off. It may not seem like investing it books for a dollar or two profit is the way to go but when you look at the general market they are not buying keys all the time. Most of the time they are filling out their collection with the missing issues between keys. If you walk into any store and ask where their money is the majority will tell you that they make their money on the less expensive books (usually below $20) and new off the stands.
You can definitely make money but I always say that you should really just focus on buying what you enjoy (reading). I think if your only interest is making money it can be a hard slog because you may become too focused on the bottom line and numbers and not see that dollars and cents cannot predict a blue chip book and getting in on the ground floor of what will end out being a key is a part of investing. I can't tell you how many of my books that are now worth tens or hundreds of dollars I just bought because I was interested in the character or series and just bought the book without any clue it would catch fire down the road. I have made more money buying what I like than trying to invest.
edited by oxbladder on 8/23/2017
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BC2015 Posts: 5
8/22/2017
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Great advice! Thank you!
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