Welcome to the Comic Book Insider for March 2nd, 2022 – FREE edition.
Each week we give you the scoop on undervalued, mispriced and hidden gems in alternative and fractional investing.
Table of Contents
Comic Books performance in 2022
Comics continue to trend upwards with very little signs of the market slowing anytime soon.
Low and middle-end graded copies are starting to see more growth, but key comics in high grades are still the fastest appreciating.
Raw copies of key comics are starting to disappear. CGC is experiencing huge delays which could keep the increase of supply at a reasonable level for the rest of 2022.
Fractional Markets
Unfortunately that trend doesn’t carry over to the fractional markets, which have been selling off for the last couple of weeks despite a positive return for the year so far.
This is similar to what we’re seeing elsewhere in fractional markets where nearly all asset classes are down regardless of the broader market.
Comic Books performance last week
Fractional secondary markets
More losers than winners last week as more assets dropped into negative territory. The biggest loser was Batman #5 on Rally, which dropped 41%.
Auctions
Goldin wrapped up its huge comic auction last week. The good news is that prices were very strong across the board, and certainly no sign of the high-end graded market slowing down yet.
Here’s a round-up of the most notable sales:
- A Superman #1 CGC 3.0 was the top seller at $720,000. This is up 132% from the last sale of a 3.0 in December 2020.
- The Batman #1 CGC 5.0 that we talked about last week finished at $510,000, up 42% from the last sale of a 5.0 in April 2021.
- Amazing Fantasy #15 CGC 7.5 sold for $312,000, exactly double the last sale which was in April 2021 also.
- The Incredible Hulk 1 CGC 8.0 sold for $210,000, up a very decent 50% from the last sale in September 2021.
Comic Books dropping this week
New IPOs
Dibbs will IPO its second comic book today (Thursday 3rd March).
Detective Comics #140 CGC 7.5 Cream to Off-White Pages
- Market Cap: $55,000
- Inferred Value: $60,000
- Retained Fractions: $11,000 (20%)
- Dropping: On Dibbs, Thursday March 3rd at 1 PM ET.
- Our view: [INSIDERS ONLY]
What’s the scoop on this IPO?
This is the first appearance of the Riddler, one of Batman’s most notorious enemies, and second only to the Joker in most people’s eyes.
First published on October 10th,1948 at a cost of 10 cents, this issue outlines the life of a young Riddler, then known as Edward Nigma (E-Nigma, get it?).
Here’s his origin story:
After a teacher announces a puzzle contest, a young Riddler becomes obsessed with learning and tricking others with his puzzles. Edward decides that Batman will be a worthy opponent and traps Batman and Robin on a pier, where the dynamic duo find a way out just in time only to see a question mark floating in the water. These games would continue for years until present day.
Currently, CGC has graded only 169 of these in original condition, and five of them have a CGC grade 7.5, with just 11 graded higher than this. So this 7.5 grading puts the book in the top 10% of all copies ever graded, which is quite a big deal.
Here’s a round-up of the best comps we could find:
- Only one 9.6 grade exists; no 9.8s exist. That 9.6 graded copy sold for $456,000 in June of 2021
- The last CGC 7.5 to sell was in April 2021 and it sold for $40,800 at Heritage
- The most recent sale of a graded copy was at Heritage, where a 5.0 sold for $25,200
And in terms of other current and upcoming listings:
- One of the only non-restored raw copies is currently listed for $12,700 OBO on eBay
- A CGC 5.0 is up on Dacardworld for $32,500
- A 3.0 is currently listed on ComicLink, though it’s ending this week.
- And there are two more coming at Heritage Auctions – a 5.5 and a 4.0
Secondary markets
On Dibbs, we have The Incredible Hulk 181 CGC 9.0 trading, which you may remember we talked about three weeks ago. Dibbs has no lock-up period, and assets trade 24/7. Despite all that, trading seems to be pretty flat on that one, at least for now.
The Detective Comics 58 CGC 8.0 with The Penguin’s first appearance is on Rally. It had a $60,000 IPO in November. This comic is up 21% in the last 12 months. It only has 1 buyer so far, but plenty of sellers willing to take a loss or break even. The last sale of a 7.5 was in September for $44,400. There aren’t enough sales to justify the $60,000 as of right now. I think we can find a better spot.
Coming up next week
Comic Link has their Winter Featured Auction going on as we speak. It has staggered end dates and will wrap up fully next week.
The weekly Heritage has all the usual suspects plus a few standouts, including this Amazing Fantasy #15.
Goldin is having their now-standard “monthly sports and pop culture auction”. You can find 81 comics on there, and they all end on Tuesday, March 15th.
