Comic book buying and selling, just like a lot of other kinds of economic activity, is directly affected by the laws of supply and demand.

However, in the case of comics, demand is far more important than supply. This leads to the real problem of how to successfully predict an increase in demand. One way of doing this is gauging ahead of time which comics will, in fact, generate a high demand in the coming months and years. Here’s a way to anticipate demand other than researching what movie studios and publishers are up to.

Keep track of comics sent over to CGC to be slabbed.

There’s an obvious and direct connection between comics meant to be sold and slabbing. many people report that selling comics is much easier with slabbed (certified and officially graded) items than raw and un-slabbed copies.

The reasons for this are many and not directly relevant to the topic at hand.

What is relevant about the correlation between slabbing and buyer demand is that the vast majority of comics sent to the CGC for official grading are often sent in with the intent of eventually being sold. Here’s where keeping up with the CGC census statistics (either on GoCollect.com, which has a handy CGC certification look up feature, or on a website such as cgcdata.com) proves useful.

As an example, I’ll focus here on a regularly slabbed and popular, as well as consistently well-selling, comic: star Wars #1 (July 1977) – first issue to comic series; movie adaptation . Marvel’s first issue of star Wars is currently the number eleven most wanted Bronze-Age comic bought and sold this month, according to GoCollect dashboard data. At a certified 9.8 grade it has a current free market value of $975.00 and is trending with mixed and mostly negative returns at present.

Still, even with currently shrinking demand, this comic can still be considered a good investment as it’s a comic with pop culture clout that may eventually go up again in value. star Wars is still a pop culture phenomenon and there’s a new movie due soon.

Turning to census data, in relation to sales data for star Wars #1, shows us that the initial rise and fall in value of SW #1 can be directly synced to the release of the latest trilogy of star Wars movies, which have acted as catalysts helping to send this comic into orbit in terms of prices.

Let’s look at how the submission rate to CGC corresponds to the last huge spike in demand for this comic (beginning with the 2014 lead up to the release of ‘The force Awakens’) that led to record high sales in 2015.

Currently there are precisely 7,954 copies of this comic on the CGC census. Statistically, this is on the high side, altogether there are only twelve comics with a higher total number on the entire census (see here).

If we go back to July of 2001, the number of slabs for SW #1 was exactly 259 and month after month it was increasing at a slow but steady pace until, by November of 2007, there were a total of 1,420 certified copies on the census: a rise of 81% in six years.

With no movie news on the horizon, but still relatively low supplies, the average selling price for one of the 72 graded 9.8 copies in late 2007 was around = $776.75.

The announcement that a new series of ‘Star Wars’ films would begin filming was made during October of 2012.

Just before that announcement, on September 24, 2012, the number of SW #1 sent in to be slabbed had risen from 1, 420 to 2, 045 total copies.

Notice this was already a notable increase from 2007 levels of 30%, and with 9.8 graded copies now standing at = 151 up from the previous 72.

The announcement of the upcoming films however pushed demand even higher. and this is again detectable on the CGC data.

From September 24, 2012 to November 25, 2014 (just before the release of ‘The force Awakens’ teaser trailer), the number of copies on the census totals = 2, 963, with the number of 9.8 copies at = 248 up from 151, an increase again of 30% of total units but this time in just two years. remember it had taken six years to go from 259 units to 1, 420. and prices on certified blue label 9.8, using sales from September 24, 2012 to just before November 28, 2014 (when the first teaser trailer for force Awakens was released), looks like this:

09/24/2012 = $400.00 (eBay)
10/29/2012 = $462.77 (eBay)
01/07/2013 = $395.00 (eBay)
02/10/2013 = $454.10 (Heritage Auctions)
03/29/2013 = $575.00 (eBay)
05/29/2013 = $550.00 (eBay)
07/09/2013 = $649.00 (eBay)
11/11/2013 = $579.00 (eBay)
11/23/2013 = $537.00 (Heritage Auction)

The increased supply was beginning to outpace the demand for the number of available books leading to a drop but with a gradual uptick trend in prices. SW #1 in certified 9.8 grade now coasted at an average price of around $511.30.

What does the CCG data during the same period show? The trailer acted to increase submissions of star Wars #1, and by December 1, 2015 there are 4,325 copies on the census with 9.8s now maknull