VintageComics

No. Sorry, so it's not how many collectors there were. It was how active fandom was.

We had a great turnout. 12 people showed up and we played separate half court games of 3 on 3 and then finished with a 4 on 4 half court game before some decided they couldn't play any longer. We finished with a 3 point shootout. Thanks to the chaps below for coming to participate.: Greg Reece Austin Reece Alex Reece GAtor Myself Matt Rybarzic (sp? Sorry Matt) Stephen Ritter Doug Schmeel Mike Halperin (Jim Halerpin's son) Zeon (GAtor's son in law) Jeff Williams and last but CERTAINLY not least (actually, the tallest of us all) Richie Evans / Bedrock City ---------------------------- Honorably mention to Mike Halperin's lady Gabby who cheered us on.

I'm not being silly. My understanding of the entire discussion was about how many collectors there were in the early days. That is where the thread went off on a tangent. Now we are discussing irrelevant things like whether the Catholic church was a good reference for my little joke (and it was not personally aimed at the Catholic Church, but the age of confirmation is a well known thing so I used it to make a point) or whether my parents throwing out my comics allowed me to qualify as a collector or not. I think the discussion has now become silly. I've always believed it to be a given that there were 1000's of collectors even in the earliest days of the Silver Age and nothing I've read here has changed my mind. But the discussion has grown in breadth wider and weildier than I want to be involved so I'm just going to drop out (again). If RMA just admitted that he was wrong when he stated that there weren't 1000 collectors in 1970 it would be a different thread.

There were EASILY more than 1000 comic book collectors in 1970. I think there were 1000's and possibly 10,000's. This was the main point that started this entire tangent in the thread. Everything else is just noise, conflict of personality, needing to win an argument or people talking past each other. And head shaking.

I'll point to Lazyboy's example above, and counter with "not every copy was saved by collectors." I have things that I have saved for 30 years...not because I'm "collecting" them, but because they're not in anyone's way. And for every slabbed copy that are probably 1000's of others not slabbed. Sitting in collections.

That was happening long, long before. Very long before, by other means/individuals/entities. Mr. Lee did not special, in that regard. The point is not whether Stan Lee was special or not. It was the comic books were being read worldwide. By extension, there MUST have been more than just a few 100 or a few 1000 collectors. What percentage of readers became collectors is really what should be discussed, and I think it's MUCH higher than RMA contends it to be. Precisely. Correct. But I am just focusing on comics because it's a comics forum so as to stay on course. Are we now broadening the topic to stamps and coins?

And such as like virtually major religion in the world, but I digress. I only used the Catholic Church as an example. Each religion has it's age of entry. But more importantly, trying to draw lines around something that is fluid and dynamic is a difficult thing to do because collecting (as explained earlier) is not just one 'thing'. It's many. I don't ever remember saying that (nor does it sound like something I would say) so I'm curious about when / where I said that. It's relevant because RMA has twice said that if someone allows their parents to throw out their comics they are not a collector. From my upbrlnging, it's usually the parents that call the shots, Not the kids.

Which country? Continent. Or in the world. It doesn't matter. We're talking about collectors of comics. I just read another article. By the early 70's Stan Lee was licensing comic books in foreign languages around the world.

And I reject it as well. The only reason I can think of why someone would place such stringent qualifiers on what a collector is, is to fit their discussion point. Collecting is broad, just as you explained it to be. It can be many things or a combination of many things. And there were EASILY more than 1000 of them in 1970 based on what I've read here. I'm positive there were 10,000 of them out there in 1970 and there may have been 100,000 of them.

No, it is the mindset of the individual doing the collecting. My parents were ordered by a doctor to throw out my comics because they were giving me nightmares. It doesn't mean I wasn't a collector. I sorted my books, treasured them, accumulated them, read them and studied them (artwork, ads, everything). I literally worshipped comics and got bullied and beat up for it in grade school (which ended when I was 12). That carried on into high school. And I'm absolutely POSTIVE that there were 1000's of kids like me across the country. I didn't realize there was a 'confirmation age' where collectors were officially accepted as such like in the Catholic church. What's next? An inquisition and people have to provide some sort of certificate or visual proof to prove that they were actual collectors?

You keep adjusting goal posts. Organized is relative. Mine were kept in a pile in a drawer when I was in my single digit years. And they were taken out often and admired, read and studied. Some 7 year olds may have been much more stringent at preserving their books and this usually happened when an older relative showed them how. For me personally, my parents were very much 'anti comics' and hated them. Does that make me less of a collector at age 7? Because some parents wanted to throw their children's books out that means the kids weren't collectors? Preposterous. That's my point. Agree or disagree? Fully agree. I was absolutely a collector before I was 10, in the mid to late 70's. There are certainly 1000's of others that were as well but more likely 10,000's. As Aman said, every major college campus had Marvel fan clubs by 1972 (I think that was the date he stated).

Is the staple popped on one side of the staple or is the cover detached completely at one staple?

Speak for yourself. Ever since I dislocated my pinky in Feb. my 3 pointer has returned! It's looking like we might have a good, full court turnout. I remember the days when only a small handful of guys would show up and we'd play half court 1 on 1 or 2 on 2.

But do you remember your parents sitting down with you and your friends and helping you figure out what to do on a rainy day? My parents fed me in the morning and it was up to me to find friends who wanted to hang out and figure out what stuff we could get into for the day (building forts in the woods, playing D & D, etc). My daughter has no concept of how to entertain herself if you took away her phone. For example - we went on a family vacation with the extended family. The adults were playing a card game and I went to see what the kids were doing and they were sitting around a room playing on their phone. I had them come out and figure out something to play but it was like pulling teeth. If its not scripted the younger generation just has no imagination to create their own fun. It wasn't about teaching kids a new game (although that helps and is done by parents). It was about teaching kids to play something active rather than sit on social media. A parent's job in the digital age is to help their children manage social media. You didn't need to worry about that when you were a kid. The closest parallel I could find would be a mother telling their kids to go outside and play and force them off the television.

Yep. Parents often are too busy to show them the way. Not all, but many use social media as a babysitter.

Very common on mass produced, cheap, throw away printed material. One of the plates was slightly out of alignment during the printing process. It's common you just never noticed it before. I wouldn't worry about it.

I don't know. I kind of like the mood this picture emits and in particular I like the top of the picture as well. What I don't like is that every cover is now a poster rather than telling a story. There are so many 'awesome pose covers' I need to see. I have no interested in reading the story when I see covers like this.

I'd just disagree that preservation does not have to be one of the conditions of being a collector. Only that you collect to amass a collection. There are many collectors who are not interested in condition, except for completeness.

There's a reason for it. What is the target demographic? Who is going to be spending the most money at the movies? I'm guessing it's teenagers, who have the most (relative) disposable income and time. So it looks like they gear their stories toward that crowd. By the same token, as much as I love SA Marvels, and as much as we have a sentimental attachment to Kirby, Ditko, etc. my kids laugh at the art. It's archaic to them. Personally, I don't think the art is so bad in the FF book. Not my style but not horrible. If I handed in a project in school with art like that I'd probably get a terrific grade. What is horrible is how old things fade and when they try to reinvent them most of us old timers don't like it, but that's life.

Read an interesting article that said that Marvel went from publishing 13MIL comics per year to 70MIL comics per year by 1975. That's a lot of comics (from 1MIL a month to 5MIL a month) to be absorbed by readers. You'd have to think that by 1970 even if they were only doing a couple of million comics a month that there would be more than a few 1000 collectors.

I did sell a 9.4 at the start of the year. Haven't come across a 9.2 in a while now.

It's frustrating isn't it? No one has any way of knowing. Demand does some pretty crazy things sometimes. Also, it wasn't my intention to pick on shane1956 - I do personally find it irritating and I guess I felt the need to ask the question.

Right. I can't remember exactly when I was getting into bags and boards but it would have been when I was mobile enough to go to the local comic book store, see them and realize that I needed them. Grade 8 would have put me at about 14 or so, so I'd be able to take the bus around town, etc. I know I was actively hitting local stores by then. But I was amassing books well before that going back into early grade school I remember, because my parents kept THROWING THEM OUT because the doctor said they were giving me nightmares.

Why do people keep saying this in every thread and every discussion about values? Nobody has any way of knowing this.

This one is really hard for some people to understand. For example, I can't count the number of times someone offers me a book at GPA high but they want to value my book at GPA low and yet are convinced they are doing me a favor. Or they offer me a pile of 'junk' for one big book that I have for sale. I don't want to sell 100-200 'junk' books to recoup my cost in one of my books. Finally, as a full time dealer, I expect a trade to be weighted in my favor because I now have to sell multiple books to make up for the one I am trading away. If the trade deal is so great I wonder why they don't just sell their book and buy mine? I'd be willing to hold the book with a small deposit until you sell? That's not to say everyone is like that but it does happen a LOT. I know this is a little bit of a vent but for all the 'horrible dealer' stories out there, there are probably 10 times as many customer stories that dealers experience. We just don't share them all.