Way back in July 2019 when the MCU was coming off the high of Avengers: Endgame, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige announced at San Diego Comic Con that Marvel would reboot the movie Blade with Mahershala Ali playing the eponymous vampire. Over five years later, two directors (Bassam Tariq and then Yann Demange), one voice cameo (in The Eternals), and multiple delays later, we learned that Marvel has pulled Blade from its November 2025 release date (Disney will replace the film with Predator: Badlands).
When Feige announced the Blade reboot in 2019, Tomb of Dracula #10 (which includes Blade's 1st appearance) received a small boost in value which you can observe across multiple CGC grades in GoCollect's Bronze Age CPI:
The big spike in value, however, didn't occur until about a year later when the "comic boom" occurred and the federal government provided trillions of dollars in stimulus funds to American citizens. For example, if you take a closer look at the most common grade on the CGC Census, an 8.5 (486 copies), an 8.5 reached an all-time high of $3,999 in July 2022 for a fixed price on eBay. This seller definitely sold high and most likely bought low:
A CGC 8.5 has lost about 75% of its value since July 2022.
Since then, like the rest of the comic book market, this book has plummeted in value. Although the last few sales of an 8.5 have been in the $1,200 to $1,300 range (the FMV is $1,300 according to GoCollect), just two months ago, the 8.5 pictured below sold for only $1,020 on Heritage Auctions.
Is it a good time to buy?
At current price points, is it a good time to consider purchasing a copy of Tomb of Dracula #10? It has lost approximately 75% of its value since its all-time highs back in 2022. Its current market value is approximately the same as it was back in July 2019 when Feige announced the Blade reboot.
This is just my opinion, but I think I'd avoid catching this falling knife at the moment; I think it may fall further. Not only has the film been delayed indefinitely, but there's a lot more supply of CGC graded copies of this book than there were five years ago. According to CGCCensus.com, back on July 2, 2019, just before the Blade reboot announcement, there were only 261 8.5s on the CGC Census. Today, there are nearly twice as many 8.5s on the Census. And collectors are still submitting large numbers of this issue to CGC for grading; during the past 90 days, collectors have submitted 90 copies of Tomb of Dracula #10 to CGC:
This big increase in supply is likely one of the reasons why this book has lost so much value over the past five years. There are a lot more of them in the market and just not enough demand to purchase all of them.
