My comic shop owner told me to stop buying variant covers and save for keys instead

Honestly, I thought the guy at Cosmic Comics in Portland was just trying to upsell me on expensive books. But after 6 months of following his advice and buying older keys like New Mutants 98 and Ultimate Fallout 4, my collection's value actually went up. He said variants are just hype that fades, and man he was right. Anyone else had a shop owner give advice that actually paid off?

3 comments

3 Comments

milaw1428d ago

is it really that deep though? @harperg76 i feel like both can be traps if you don't know what you're doing. mine just told me to stop buying stuff because it looked cool and that advice worked out fine for me so far.

the_miles22d ago

That Batman 423 for 40 bucks is rough but honestly that's a you problem for not checking the grade better. I bought a raw Hulk 181 for 300 in 2019 and thought I was an idiot but now it's worth triple that. @harperg76 you're acting like variant buyers don't get burned way worse all the time. My friend dropped 200 on a virgin cover of something hyped last year and it's worth like 60 now. Keys have decades of collector demand built in, variants are just flavor of the month gambling.

harperg7628d ago

Oh man, I gotta respectfully disagree here. I get why that worked for you, but not every key is a slam dunk either. I bought a beat up copy of Batman 423 for $40 thinking it was a safe bet and it's barely budged in 2 years. Meanwhile I grabbed a Skottie Young variant of something random for $15 that shot up to $80 because his stuff got hot. Variants CAN be pump and dump traps but so can keys if you buy the wrong ones. The trick is knowing which books have actual staying power, not just following blanket advice.