The back issue bin advice from a stranger in Dayton actually paid off

Back in March I was at Comic Town in Columbus and this older collector saw me eyeing the new Spider-Man variant rack. He said 'you're gonna spend $80 on that foil cover and regret it in a year, that money is better spent on a key back issue.' I figured he was just gatekeeping or whatever, but I took his advice and grabbed a 1992 Venom first appearance for $75 instead. That book is now worth around $190 and I actually read it twice, compared to the variants I bought before which just sit in a box. He also told me to stop buying every #1 issue that drops because most of them lose value fast, and he was right about that too. I paid $60 for a first issue last fall that I can barely give away now. Has anyone else had a random shop regular give them advice that ended up being the best tip they ever got?

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the_derek18d ago

I read a piece last year on a comic forum about how the 90s speculator boom crashed the market hard, and that guy from Dayton basically gave you the same lesson. People were buying every #1 and hologram cover thinking they'd retire, then prices tanked and stayed down for decades. That Venom book is a real key, it's got staying power because the character's been huge in movies and shows ever since. The variant foil stuff is just manufactured scarcity, they print thousands and the hype dies in a few months. I learned the same thing when I grabbed a bunch of Batman 89 variants for $20 each and now they're maybe $5 on a good day. Old timers who lived through the last crash know the pattern, so when they point at a back issue, I listen now.