How is Student Loan forgiveness potentially going to affect the country?
According to one source, it might just fuel a boom for those who deal in comic books.
Seem like a silly argument? Well, COVID stimulus was behind significantly increased comic values for those who buy and sell or otherwise invest in vintage comics.
And there’s a strong possibility that student loan forgiveness might drive up values for my collection, and make it tougher to buy those back issues I had when I was a kid. According to Comic Book value website “Go Collect”:
As we all know, the pandemic and federal stimulus sparked the largest one-year jump in comic book values in history. While we can’t attribute the boom entirely to stimulus checks, it would surprise no one if comic book investors used that extra cash to buy key issues they couldn’t afford in the past.
and..
..millions of Americans, and thousands of comic book investors, just had millions of dollars of student loan debt wiped off their ledgers. Just as investors spent their stimulus checks on comic books, it’s likely they may do so again since their discretionary budgets just received an unexpected boost. In addition, since the comic book market is currently in a bear market, these investors who are now flush with cash have financial incentives to “buy the dip.”
The confluence of these two factors, relatively low values and larger discretionary budgets, could fuel another comic book boom.
I can confirm prices on comics seem to have gone crazy. As I notice that some things that I’d left in a box in the garage for years now were potentially worth $50 or $100, and some books that sold a few years ago in the local comic store were now on their shelf behind the counter for over $1000, there are definitely collectors with cash to burn who are driving prices up.
Some might say that the latest runs on the market are courtesy of tax dollars being shifted to people who are spending it on the important things.
Like that back issue of Spider-Man that they had to have.
The lock downs benefited big alcohol and big pharma.
I think there is a case for damages to US students attending college between 1996 and 2005. University employees as well, but we’ll need whistle blowers in IT departments of universities to step forward.
Post Patriot Act, US IT is a real mess ..
Wow, I had no idea this was happening. I’ve got a comic book collection of over 11,000 comics from between 1959-2011. I don’t pay as much attention to the industry as I did years ago.
Maybe I can retire early. Now just need to find that one person with the deep pockets.
The biggest pain I found was putting everything I had into bags with acid free backing boards. That gets expensive. (With 11k books, that’s prob a $1000-2000 in bags & boards)
The weird thing about the industry is that they’re getting more persnickety on condition than ever before.
Yea, I have everything bagged and boarded and in long boxes. Never had anything professionally graded. It’s just been a hobby for me since 1978. There are some famous treasures in there.
Grading has to raise the value of a book considerably before I shell out the $30 or so cash for each book for grading. I’m also having some of my recent key issues pressed and professionally cleaned before they’re graded. That adds another $15-30 per book.
Glad to see I worked my tail off so a bunch of overweight neckbeards with gender study degrees could afford comic books.