About a week ago, I blogged about taking a deep dive into GoCollect’s new Big Spenders Club CPI. Today, I’m taking a deep dive into GoCollect’s CPI for the Silver Age. As discussed in greater depth below, you can see that Silver Age DC key issues have propped up the Silver Age CPI and that Marvel has dragged it down.
GoCollect's Silver Age CPI currently consists of 50 books. The most valuable and historically significant Silver Age books (e.g., Showcase #4, Fantastic Four #1, Amazing Fantasy #15) are included in GoCollect's Big Spender Club CPI and not in its Silver Age CPI. To be sure, the Silver Age CPI still includes some heavy hitters including Fantastic Four #5 (1st appearance of Doctor Doom), Showcase #22 (1st appearance of Hal Jordan), Detective Comics #359 (1st appearance of Batgirl), and Tales to Astonish #27 (1st Silver Age appearance of Ant-Man).
If I were to create my own Silver Age Index, I might not have included Daredevil #7 (1st red costume), Thor #165 (1st full appearance of Adam Warlock after several cameo appearances), and the Silver Surfer #4 (Silver Surfer vs. Thor on cover). Instead, I would've probably included the first appearances of iconic characters and teams such as Hawkeye (Tales of Suspense #57), Vision (Avengers #57), and the Teen Titans (Brave and the Bold #54). In my mind, the Teen Titans are a much more historically significant team than the Suicide Squad (Brave and the Bold #25 is included in the index).
Silver Age DC comics in the Index have provided strong ROI over the past five years.
Over the past five years, many of the books that make up the Silver Age Index are actually doing REALLY well. Interestingly, most of those books were published by DC including Showcase #22, Adventure Comics #247 (first appearance of the Legion of Super-Heroes), Action Comics #242 (first appearance of Braniac), and Action Comics #252 (first appearance of Supergirl).
Looking at trajectories of these four books across 12 or 13 grades, you'd never think we were in a bear market! Remarkably, there's almost no evidence that the "comic boom" had any impact on any of these books.
Seven Silver Age Marvel comics have dragged the Index down over the past two years.
Still, the overall index has declined since it reached its peak in July 2022. Seven Marvel books have really pulled the Index down during the past two years: Strange Tales #110 (1st appearance of Dr. Strange); Fantastic Four #4 (1st Silver Age appearance of Sub-Mariner); Fantastic Four #48 (1st appearance of the Silver Surfer); Tales to Astonish #44 (1st appearance of the Wasp); Tales of Suspense #52 (1st appearance of Black Widow); Thor #165 (1st appearance of Adam Warlock); and Marvel Super-Heroes #13 (1st appearance of Carol Danvers).
When you look at the aggregate values across several CGC grades for many of the books above, it looks like they may have over-corrected to me.
One takeaway from the Silver Age CPI is that Silver Age DC key issues have turned out to have provided a much higher ROI than similar Marvel key issues over the past five years. How many of you would've guessed that five years ago? Certainly not me!
