Big props for the work that went into this. While it would be best to apply a secondary scale, there is room for a formula that begins "If x= (21 or + ), then..." in order to determine how condition impacts investmentworthiness across different individual comics. Because while Blue Chip and Gold Star comics are basically solid investments in any condition, a 3.0 of comic that scores a 20 may not be as good an investment as a.9.8 of comic that scores a 17. The other option would be to alter the scoring system to account for 10 possible scores of the Supply category, as some books (especially price variants) may have three or less copies in the highest grade available which would make a 9.6 of an exceptionally rare Canadian Bronze Age comic or a 8.5 of an Atomic age War, Romance, or Horror comic exponentially more valuable than a higher grade, more common in higher grades Superhero comic. Maybe as important as how many copies there are in high grades on the census would be how many are actually available for sale at any given time, which allows for a shifting score by any given date or another extra-point variable for real world scarcity -especially since slabs get cracked and resubmitted without census numbers changing. And many collectibles have been lost in the California fires of the last five years -also without being removed from the census population numbers.
So, Let me get this straight. From now on, when we list something on Ebay the title would go something like this. Daredevil #1 CGC 9.8 , Swag 26, Marvel, 1964. I Love it! All kidding aside, it is an excellent system. Im sure it could be refined as exceptions are found. Would be interesting if it could be made popular. I like the whole idea! Kudos!
Lmaooooo bro the Darkhawk killed me!!! Low key I want a copy just because you like it so much!! Awesome video man! I'm new to this.. I'm 30 years old and mad that i didn't get into it earlier! The art work. The history.. simply amazing stuff.. and it looks amazing in the game/man cave room!
It's so precious to see your love for darkhawk I still can't tell if you're being sarcastic I love that you've pick something and held onto it I'm guessing you have a hundred of these sitting in a box somewhere
These are so clever and fun. You make 50 minutes go by fast it's so interesting. Your cover recreations are awesome lol. We know census numbers but are there counts or estimates for how many of the key comics like AF 15 Action 1 etc were actually produced back in the day?
This is absolutely brilliant! Thanks for putting in the work to making this a legit resource to help figure out a book's "weight". I really think I could watch books get "scaled" all day long!
Hey Swag, Love the scale as I do most of your vids. Just wondering if there should be a way to work the condition of the book into the Swag Scale? Some books are worthless in low grade while quite valuable in high grade. Shouldn't that fact play a role as I make my purchasing decisions? Thanks for all you do and Darkhawk certainly is NOT a top 20 superhero...sometimes the truth hurts.
Great video, always enjoy your ideas of sharing comic interest. this is working scale. your humor with presentation of videos always keeps me watching thank you......
I love it. Great analysis. I'm going to use this scale from now on. Great set-up and punchline. Love your content. Keep it up. Swagscale, plus the silver and bronze index FTW. Ain't no stopping us now!
Great system! Would be cold to see an add on scale to it regarding ungraded/graded, condition/grade, which grading company it was graded, price paid (how good of a deal you got it), and external factors/potential (movies, games, shows, toys, etc…)
Absolutely LOVED your Action Comics, Detective, Hulk, etc. They are in great condition, you should really get them slabbed. ;) Keep up the great work man!
I grew up buying and reading comics as a kid. Now as a working adult I work in the private bank wealth management industry, I am familiarized with the various investment options our clientele has. Comic books and collectibles fall under alternative investments. Due to liquidity constraints compared to other asset classes, they hold a higher degree of risks and can be very hard to value in real-time. If I am not mistaken it seems to me that the next buyer of the same comic book and grade kind of determines the new value which has a high degree of uncertainty since we don't know the circumstances as to why the seller agreed to a lower price or the buyer agreed to pay a higher price and it may not be the same reason for every case. I also learned collectibles can be expensive to preserve/hold as inventory and sell since platforms take a cut. The best thing to do with collectibles is only buy something you actually like and subjectively value.
Yeah. I agree Kang is a top 30. No villain will ever top Thanos, plus not that excited about upcoming Avengers movies without Tony Stark and Steve Rogers.
Had to go against the scale! Picked up a copy of Darkhawk 1 in a 9.6 tonight 😂 for 54.59 👍😝 Then well I couldn't stop there and added a Marvel Age 97 9.4 🤪 Love these videos!
Really appreciate that you discuss and bring up the odd and different facets of comics history. I'd love to have a conversation with you about the industry and my perspective on investing in a hobby and get your thoughts. What happens when readers/collectors get priced out of their hobby by investors? And at that point how sustainable is it?
At first I thought this was going to be another Beautiful Mind/Glenn Beck video. But I have to admit this is a pretty smart take on investing that looks like it took a lot of effort to create. So I'm guessing all my NFL Superpro aren't going to fund my retirement.
Excellent video and interesting scale, pretty accurate except for the Darkhawk, which we all know is investable. Because I am the one guy that collects Black Widow, I looked up the Marvel hero ranking on Ranker, and was shocked to see she was ranked 11th. Did not expect that.
Interesting concept; thanks so much for taking the time to share. Quick question: when you're talking about top hero/villain, do you mean a top 10 DC or Marvel hero/villain or top 10 "overall" hero/villain?
here are some books i want to get this year rated with the swag scale: Action comics 252 : 4,3,3,2,4 = 16 some risk Action comics 40 : 5,5,5,2,5 = 22 blue chip Spawn 1 1:250 Black/white edition : 1,3,5,2,4 = 15 speculative spawn 1 error variant : 1,5,5,2,5 = 18 low risk Fantastic four 3 : 4,3,5,3,4 = 19 Certified key Edge of spider-verse 2 9.8 : 1,3,3,3,3 = 13 highly speculative Giant size X-men 1 : 2,1,5,5,4 = 17 low risk i think for moderns you should only count 9.8s in the supply category if thats what u want to get. thats why i gave eosv 2, 3 points. very nice system and thought exersice! kinda fits with how i view these books thanks for all the content! always great infos and nice entertainement^^ Hail Darkhawk 1
Great system! One suggestion: adding a category 6 - is the comic a variant or later pressing? If its not, no change in points. If it is, minus three points. This to perserve that 1st pressings are typically more valuable. Since later pressings have smaller print runs, category two would get an artifical boost. This would counter that.
Hi Swagglehaus, great video. Though 1000% reliability of your scale is a little sus 😂, your category five is on point and overall includes some great metrics. Glad to see you have Darkhawk a mention 👍🏽. For demand, I agree it is variable and always to be monitored in real-time with consideration to a comics desirability over the longer span of time. Thanks!
I had a similar scoring system in my mind. The only thing I would point out is there should be another +1 modifier applied to the ascetics category where coolness can have that iconic status. AF 15, Chamber of Chills 19, Pop Kill 3, Detective Comics 880 would be examples. These are books highly sought after purely for the great covers so should get an extra point for that reason.
Very interesting! But now you know I have to ask, since it looks easlily solved for: what is the list of all the Gold star books? Looks like it can't be more than like 30 or so of them. Would love to see th vid on that ;) - Great content BTW!
If I may make a suggestion? How about a vid explaining what investing really means? Is there a finite definition? Every comic channel hap hazard throws the word "investing" around but no one ever really defines it. I don't sell comics so am I an investor? When I try purchasing them below retail and I inadvertently investing?
I loved the video but have some questions. Would you change the supply value between direct and newsstand issues? I personally think it matters a big deal no way would I value a 9.8 direct as much as a 9.8 newsstand. That being said would I score it based off newsstand supply or total supply across the Variants? E.g ASM 252 direct has a census of 19000 while newsstand has a census below 700? For this reason alone I try to only buy newsstand and don't actually value any direct copies.
I love the Swag scale and it should become the industry standard. That being said, Darkhawk not being rated a blue chip exhibits a glaring flaw in the system. You need a modifier of 20 for 90s kid nostalgia l.
How would you handle a multi key like FF 48 which has the first Silver Surfer and Galactus (name on the cover trumps anything CGC says, this isn’t exactly Hulk 180)? Give a bonus 5 points?
I have to make the point that for Groot, you applied the 'MCU effect' to the popularity of the character but not the demand... should be applied to both no? That said, I need to print out a pocket sized swag scale for when I go hunting lol
I don't think a book like X-Men 1 would necessarily qualify as "top 20 character", but I do think they are an essential team in comics, and it needs not only top 20 but the bonus point for probably the most popular team in comics.
Magneto has been voted #1 villain by several outlets but I could certainly see him in the top 10 pretty easy given his history and switch between hero and villain. Professor X, Jean Grey, Cyclops, are all pretty high up there on the hero side given their history and impact. Granted I am an X-Men guy but they are pretty high impact along with Wolverine, Storm, etc.
Swag i was trying to work out something very similar to this but using the value end of things.. with some additions. You would add the FMV x CGC slabs. = Total (company) Value Have you toyed with something similar to this? Also what about modifiers for multi intro or amazing story arcs(maybe like Killing joke, Death of the Family) Not the best examples sorry top of my head.
Big props for the work that went into this. While it would be best to apply a secondary scale, there is room for a formula that begins "If x= (21 or + ), then..." in order to determine how condition impacts investmentworthiness across different individual comics. Because while Blue Chip and Gold Star comics are basically solid investments in any condition, a 3.0 of comic that scores a 20 may not be as good an investment as a.9.8 of comic that scores a 17. The other option would be to alter the scoring system to account for 10 possible scores of the Supply category, as some books (especially price variants) may have three or less copies in the highest grade available which would make a 9.6 of an exceptionally rare Canadian Bronze Age comic or a 8.5 of an Atomic age War, Romance, or Horror comic exponentially more valuable than a higher grade, more common in higher grades Superhero comic.
Maybe as important as how many copies there are in high grades on the census would be how many are actually available for sale at any given time, which allows for a shifting score by any given date or another extra-point variable for real world scarcity -especially since slabs get cracked and resubmitted without census numbers changing. And many collectibles have been lost in the California fires of the last five years -also without being removed from the census population numbers.
So, Let me get this straight. From now on, when we list something on Ebay the title would go something like this. Daredevil #1 CGC 9.8 , Swag 26, Marvel, 1964. I Love it!
All kidding aside, it is an excellent system. Im sure it could be refined as exceptions are found. Would be interesting if it could be made popular. I like the whole idea! Kudos!
Lmaooooo bro the Darkhawk killed me!!! Low key I want a copy just because you like it so much!! Awesome video man! I'm new to this.. I'm 30 years old and mad that i didn't get into it earlier! The art work. The history.. simply amazing stuff.. and it looks amazing in the game/man cave room!
Swaggle Sessions - Perfect mix of sarcasm and actual advice. No one does it better!
Would have loved to see you do your Avengers #1 on the SWAG scale.
"And I'm happy to own one..."😆 nailed it.
Brilliant!! Best video i’ve seen as a tool for collectors! Thank you for all you do for our awesome community!!!
It's so precious to see your love for darkhawk I still can't tell if you're being sarcastic I love that you've pick something and held onto it I'm guessing you have a hundred of these sitting in a box somewhere
Wow I never finished watching this until now! It's a seriously good scale. I tip my hat to you swag for putting this together. Thank you very much!
Dude, when did you pick up all these keys! 🍻
Hundreds of people low key picked up that Darkhawk 1 because of you Swag, so we were waiting with glee. Lol
3 minutes in, and I sincerely hope this is a 45 minute troll of the investment crowd. Either way, I am 100 percent on board for the schooling here.
These are so clever and fun. You make 50 minutes go by fast it's so interesting. Your cover recreations are awesome lol. We know census numbers but are there counts or estimates for how many of the key comics like AF 15 Action 1 etc were actually produced back in the day?
Love this! I watched all 46 minutes and the end was the absolute best! Great work my man!
This is absolutely brilliant! Thanks for putting in the work to making this a legit resource to help figure out a book's "weight". I really think I could watch books get "scaled" all day long!
Awesomeness Mickey! We all love the white board videos! So great, and hilarious!
Hey Swag, Love the scale as I do most of your vids. Just wondering if there should be a way to work the condition of the book into the Swag Scale? Some books are worthless in low grade while quite valuable in high grade. Shouldn't that fact play a role as I make my purchasing decisions? Thanks for all you do and Darkhawk certainly is NOT a top 20 superhero...sometimes the truth hurts.
😂😂😂 The Darkhawk at the end was a nice touch...Great video 🤟 Very interesting way of looking at investible books 🤔
Great video, always enjoy your ideas of sharing comic interest. this is working scale. your humor with presentation of videos always keeps me watching thank you......
I love it. Great analysis. I'm going to use this scale from now on. Great set-up and punchline. Love your content. Keep it up.
Swagscale, plus the silver and bronze index FTW. Ain't no stopping us now!
Excellent piece of work. 👏👏👏 it will become a valuable companion when participating in the hobby.
This would have been my favorite class in school. Great video and very helpful especially for newer collectors. Very Swaggy !
Great system! Would be cold to see an add on scale to it regarding ungraded/graded, condition/grade, which grading company it was graded, price paid (how good of a deal you got it), and external factors/potential (movies, games, shows, toys, etc…)
Absolutely LOVED your Action Comics, Detective, Hulk, etc. They are in great condition, you should really get them slabbed. ;) Keep up the great work man!
Awesome video, do you have a downloadable doc. that we could use? Wanting to follow along, but not sure if you made something already.
This video is telling me you have way more time on your hands than you have comics to read 😆
I grew up buying and reading comics as a kid. Now as a working adult I work in the private bank wealth management industry, I am familiarized with the various investment options our clientele has. Comic books and collectibles fall under alternative investments. Due to liquidity constraints compared to other asset classes, they hold a higher degree of risks and can be very hard to value in real-time. If I am not mistaken it seems to me that the next buyer of the same comic book and grade kind of determines the new value which has a high degree of uncertainty since we don't know the circumstances as to why the seller agreed to a lower price or the buyer agreed to pay a higher price and it may not be the same reason for every case. I also learned collectibles can be expensive to preserve/hold as inventory and sell since platforms take a cut. The best thing to do with collectibles is only buy something you actually like and subjectively value.
Your killing me Smalls! 😂 Love it bro
You are my favorite comic book UA-cam 'er
Love the condition of your Action comics 1! Really interesting video.
Yeah. I agree Kang is a top 30. No villain will ever top Thanos, plus not that excited about upcoming Avengers movies without Tony Stark and Steve Rogers.
Excellent! I'll make you an offer for your key comics! The art is just so spectacular!
Had to go against the scale! Picked up a copy of Darkhawk 1 in a 9.6 tonight 😂 for 54.59 👍😝
Then well I couldn't stop there and added a Marvel Age 97 9.4 🤪
Love these videos!
You are the man, Mr. Swagglehaus
Haha thanks 😅
This is exactly the content I love. Is there a chart written out we can reference or use? Is there a sheet of numerous books scored?
Really appreciate that you discuss and bring up the odd and different facets of comics history. I'd love to have a conversation with you about the industry and my perspective on investing in a hobby and get your thoughts. What happens when readers/collectors get priced out of their hobby by investors? And at that point how sustainable is it?
You deserve a Gold Star for that artwork, Swag. 🤣 Great video!
Brilliant video as always. PLEASE!!! Do a top 10 underrated books based on the Swag Scale.
Interesting scale, and excellent ending 😂
Love the ending 😂👍🏽
Fantastic content. Thanks for all the effort
Also agree about Groot.
At first I thought this was going to be another Beautiful Mind/Glenn Beck video. But I have to admit this is a pretty smart take on investing that looks like it took a lot of effort to create. So I'm guessing all my NFL Superpro aren't going to fund my retirement.
Great video!! System makes a lot of sense!! I’m using the Swag Scale for now on!
Excellent video and interesting scale, pretty accurate except for the Darkhawk, which we all know is investable. Because I am the one guy that collects Black Widow, I looked up the Marvel hero ranking on Ranker, and was shocked to see she was ranked 11th. Did not expect that.
Nice, fascinating and informative video 😂👀
Bravo broheim! I enjoyed that, 100%
Love the whiteboards!!
Listening to this on audio, I was sooo jealous 😅
Great video. I hope you reference the Swag Scale going forward.
This is a great thought tool and exercise but I WOULD LOVE to see this done for runs of series. TO rate the value of different runs.
Great video Im going to watch this one again
Lol love the end!
That was fun. Thanks.
Interesting concept; thanks so much for taking the time to share. Quick question: when you're talking about top hero/villain, do you mean a top 10 DC or Marvel hero/villain or top 10 "overall" hero/villain?
here are some books i want to get this year rated with the swag scale:
Action comics 252 : 4,3,3,2,4 = 16 some risk
Action comics 40 : 5,5,5,2,5 = 22 blue chip
Spawn 1 1:250 Black/white edition : 1,3,5,2,4 = 15 speculative
spawn 1 error variant : 1,5,5,2,5 = 18 low risk
Fantastic four 3 : 4,3,5,3,4 = 19 Certified key
Edge of spider-verse 2 9.8 : 1,3,3,3,3 = 13 highly speculative
Giant size X-men 1 : 2,1,5,5,4 = 17 low risk
i think for moderns you should only count 9.8s in the supply category if thats what u want to get. thats why i gave eosv 2, 3 points.
very nice system and thought exersice! kinda fits with how i view these books
thanks for all the content! always great infos and nice entertainement^^
Hail Darkhawk 1
Could give the GSX #1 the bonus point to get it closer to the certified key range.
Fantastic video 🤙🏴
Darkhawk is the most important. Well played.
Awesome video. Would love to see more comics measured by the SwagScale.
That was a fun, unique video. Wen with the spreadsheet?
i'm high af,and i could not stop laughing -- swag scale
Great system!
One suggestion: adding a category 6 - is the comic a variant or later pressing? If its not, no change in points.
If it is, minus three points.
This to perserve that 1st pressings are typically more valuable. Since later pressings have smaller print runs, category two would get an artifical boost. This would counter that.
Hi Swagglehaus, great video. Though 1000% reliability of your scale is a little sus 😂, your category five is on point and overall includes some great metrics. Glad to see you have Darkhawk a mention 👍🏽. For demand, I agree it is variable and always to be monitored in real-time with consideration to a comics desirability over the longer span of time. Thanks!
LOVE IT! I almost want to get Darkhawk 1. Almost
I had a similar scoring system in my mind. The only thing I would point out is there should be another +1 modifier applied to the ascetics category where coolness can have that iconic status. AF 15, Chamber of Chills 19, Pop Kill 3, Detective Comics 880 would be examples. These are books highly sought after purely for the great covers so should get an extra point for that reason.
Very interesting! But now you know I have to ask, since it looks easlily solved for: what is the list of all the Gold star books? Looks like it can't be more than like 30 or so of them. Would love to see th vid on that ;) - Great content BTW!
If I may make a suggestion? How about a vid explaining what investing really means? Is there a finite definition? Every comic channel hap hazard throws the word "investing" around but no one ever really defines it. I don't sell comics so am I an investor? When I try purchasing them below retail and I inadvertently investing?
I loved the video but have some questions. Would you change the supply value between direct and newsstand issues? I personally think it matters a big deal no way would I value a 9.8 direct as much as a 9.8 newsstand. That being said would I score it based off newsstand supply or total supply across the Variants? E.g ASM 252 direct has a census of 19000 while newsstand has a census below 700? For this reason alone I try to only buy newsstand and don't actually value any direct copies.
Reverse pump and dump on darkhawk, smart!
you should make an infographic of this and post it containing all the categories and numbers! would be super handy!
I love the white board!!! 😁
Hahaha Darkhawk makes another appearance !!
Is cgc census data available via a web database api like rest? That would allow you to build a pretty sweet app.
Any book from like 2007 and onwards should get like negative 16 points to be on the safe side.
I read today that Marvel will start filming Thunderbolts & actress Julia Louis Dreyfus from Seinfeld will be in it. Very interesting
Do you have a numerical value for variants? Because those would change dramatically in the supply category.
Spider-Man, Superman, Batman, Darkhawk If they ever make a show on Darkhawk, I would hope you are in it
An interesting modifier is the Supply category. Amazing Fantasy over a 9.6, etc.
I love it!
Hilarious Darkhawk forever!
LOL, good stuff, thanks man
I love the Swag scale and it should become the industry standard. That being said, Darkhawk not being rated a blue chip exhibits a glaring flaw in the system. You need a modifier of 20 for 90s kid nostalgia l.
The government should bailout AF15 just like they did the big banks.
Pfffft my complete runs of image and dark horse comics from the 90s are my retirement fund. Yup them babies are gonna rake in the cash baby! 😂😂😂
How much for that Action #1 sketch cover?! That thing is 🔥❗
Haha this was brilliant
How would you handle a multi key like FF 48 which has the first Silver Surfer and Galactus (name on the cover trumps anything CGC says, this isn’t exactly Hulk 180)? Give a bonus 5 points?
I have to make the point that for Groot, you applied the 'MCU effect' to the popularity of the character but not the demand... should be applied to both no? That said, I need to print out a pocket sized swag scale for when I go hunting lol
I love that Batman #1!!!!
SWAGalicious
Woot!
I don't think a book like X-Men 1 would necessarily qualify as "top 20 character", but I do think they are an essential team in comics, and it needs not only top 20 but the bonus point for probably the most popular team in comics.
Looks like the bonus point only applies to top 20 characters.
Magneto has been voted #1 villain by several outlets but I could certainly see him in the top 10 pretty easy given his history and switch between hero and villain. Professor X, Jean Grey, Cyclops, are all pretty high up there on the hero side given their history and impact. Granted I am an X-Men guy but they are pretty high impact along with Wolverine, Storm, etc.
@@joshuawyatt4381 I ain't dissing on X-Men, dude.
Swag Superman is destroying the car because they kidnapped his gurl… love your videos tho
Did you include liquidity as a factor?
great. All my comic books are a 3 on the Swag Scale.
hereby we will foster dependency for comic knowledge on our viewers
in a manner similar to the DENNIS system
And then…seperate entirely 😂
You are speaking…..like…former President, uh, ….Obama. But GREAT video!
Darkhawk 1 9.8 is my goal book😊
someone needs to get a pdf of the swag scale so i can print it and get it on my wall!
Swag i was trying to work out something very similar to this but using the value end of things.. with some additions. You would add the FMV x CGC slabs. = Total (company) Value
Have you toyed with something similar to this? Also what about modifiers for multi intro or amazing story arcs(maybe like Killing joke, Death of the Family) Not the best examples sorry top of my head.
Funny video!