The last few years have been a wild trip for the comic book market as even the most minor of secrets experienced exponential growth. have we reached an inflection point? All indications point to yes. So what gives? Let’s take a look at TMNT Adventures #1, a Copper Age favorite, as well as see if we can discover something about conjecture as well as the health and wellness of the wider comic book market in general.
Some of the very first comics to irrationally take off were teen Mutant Ninja Turtle books. teen Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures #1 has been the biggest roller coaster of all.
Turtles in Time
Just to be clear, I am not composing about this comic to bash it. I absolutely like TMNT Adventures #1. I’m an 80s infant as well as it was the very first comic book series I ever collected. I still have my full run of the mini-series as well as then 1-30 of the primary title. I will never, ever offer them. That being said, loving a book as well as believing it smart to impatiently spend over $2,000 dollars on a 9.8 are two extremely different things.
Kevin Eastman as well as Peter Laird released the very first print of teen Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 in 1984, triggering an independent comic book boom. This gold rush environment in comic book collecting led to a myriad of publishers entering the market as well as obscure comics most of us have never heard of started selling for numerous dollars, a little ton of money in the 1980s.
As always, this speculative frenzy was quickly complied with by a bubble. many independent comics quickly discovered themselves in dollar bins by 1987 as well as most of the new publishers stopped to exist. The point is: Ninja Turtles are no strangers to triggering speculation; history repeats itself.
Unfortunately, it seems like, when again, the turtles are at the center of one more Copper crash. I understand that seems dramatic, however let’s take a look at TMNT adventures as well as what the turtles have generally been doing since the begin of Covid.
Off the Radar
The begin of the Pandemic is foggy for a great deal of people. many of us believed the world was ending as well as the streets of Manhattan appeared like a scene from I Am Legend. people were suddenly out of work as well as parents suddenly had youngsters at house all the time to take care of. The resultant uncertainty as well as newfound requirement for money were showed in both the stock market as well as the comic market. major secrets flooded eBay as well as were easily offered for well below fair market value. It was a fantastic time to buy if you had money on hand.
When Covid began, you might pick up a 9.8 copy of TMNT Adventures #1 for $150. I particularly keep in mind seeing an Instagram publish during that time where somebody was selling two NM+ copies for $20 combined. Raw copies were easily offered around the Web for next to nothing.
This has always been one of those books I keep my eye on just since of nostalgia. At that point, I was quite much alone in my appreciation. Let’s be honest, nobody cared about TMNT Adventures up until extremely recently. There were so many other Ninja Turtle secrets to focus on as well as it was a children’s comic created by Archie. So what happened?
The perfect Storm
Many of us were stuck inside during 2020 as well as looking for sources of entertainment. After the preliminary shock as well as fear from Covid subsided a bit, people began costs the stimulus checks that started landing. Amazon as well as Nike stock soared from pointless purchases. An incredible one in ten stimulus checks went directly into cryptocurrency. I would like to understand exactly how many of them went to comics.
My birthday is in September, as well as during that time I believed I may treat myself to a 9.8. It was fairly inexpensive as well as I had noticed in GoCollect’s database there were only a few hundred 9.8s on the census, which I believed was shockingly low. I like books with a low census. low census numbers do not necessarily mean a book is rare, however. It frequently means people just don’t care sufficient to get a book graded since it just isn’t that desirable as well as therefore isn’t worth that much money. just since there aren’t numerous countless Darkhawk #1s on the census doesn’t mean there aren’t a ton of high grade raw copies available in the wild.
I decided to pass on grabbing a 9.8. They were just not that many offered on the internet as well as I decided to grab something else. I instantly regretted it. The Last Ronin #1 dropped in October of 2020 and, in my opinion, it is largely accountable for the comic market explosion we’ve seen since then. many credit history it with keeping comic book stores afloat as well as with bringing renewed interest from Millenials to collectibles. With the release of The Last Ronin, we saw TMNT 1, 2, 3, as well as 4 all shatter records together with Raphael #nullnull