New Breed of Dealers and Collectors?

[MrBedrock]

The comic shops I frequented in the late 1970s... Mike's Comic Hut, Richie's Comic Den, etc...

I was thinking of calling my store Richie's Comic Hut. It seemed so original once upon a time...

[NewWorldOrder]

The circlejerk you refer to can be traced to a couple of things. One of them is the CGC registry whereby collectors get to enter their collections and see how well they do against their collecting peers. Ooooh, ooooh, if I add a 9.6 to my collection I get more points and I'l have the best. Instead of parading around a show with my highest graded copy under my arm getting oohs and aahhs from my buddy I can get some ooohs and aaahs from my forum buddies.

 

Personally, I think the Matt does good work thread had a little to do with Matt's work and a little bit of "Look what I got".

 

Everybody wants to be a BSD. Amazing that owning the Highest graded copy of a comic book could give you that status for your 15 minutes of fame.

 

As far as everybody being in a upgrade mode sometimes it's as simple as a collector completing his/her run and now they need something to do/collect. Being a High grade dealer I must say that the high grade market does contain a very "interesting" type of collector.

 

As a dealer I really don't play with my stock. How much time do you think dealers have to do the type of book analysis that these games entail?

 

As far as the multiples go I recommend that collectors focus on the 9.0-9.2 grades with excellent eye appeal (for Silver Age). This grade range is generally still priced using the overstreet price guide except for certain issues.

 

Guys who use GPA for pricing raw are basically stating subliminally that they don't want to leave any money on the table. That alone says a lot to me and frankly if I wanted to pay GPA I would buy the book in the holder already.

 

 

Bob (aka My Boss),

 

Your are correct sir!

 

I started that thread for a little bit off everything.

 

I would half to agree with you on your above statement.

 

I would not consider my self a newbie in the Hobby what so ever, but I would consider my self the “new school” of comic collecting. The CGC boards were created for new school and old school collectors alike to come together and interact, share views, latest news, and off course SHOW OFF YOUR GEMS!

 

Collecting comics wouldn’t be as fun to me if I couldn’t see what everyone else is collecting and vice versa.

 

Without CGC I would not have come back into the hobby, Period!

 

There is place in our great hobby for everyone whether you chase HG Slabs or low-grade readers copies, and that is great!

 

As to 15 minutes of fame…………

 

See ya at Big Apple Boss!

 

You better have my decaf coffee for me so I can sell for ya!

 

 

 

[Old Fashion PB and J]

SHOW OFF YOUR GEMS!

 

 

 

Dude...

[NewWorldOrder]

SHOW OFF YOUR GEMS!

 

 

 

Dude...

 

what?

[Ogami]

SHOW OFF YOUR GEMS!

 

 

 

Dude...

 

what?

 

 

Martin and Lewis, everybody. They're here all night.

[tth2]

Collectors who before were completely content with a "NM" comic in their collection, let's say one that would be graded today by CGC as a 9.4, now aren't since there are some out there "officially" graded higher (a phenomenom that didn't exist before). Instead of moving on to other holes in their collection, they now include upgrades of issues they already have and were previously fine with. Pretty much a collecting circlejerk unless they have the cash to continually buy 9.8 or higher copies. Page quality certifications also drive this upgrade need...

I don't think this is anything new, although I would agree that it's much more common now.

 

But lots of ultra-HG collectors, including myself, have been upgrading their "NM" books to even better copies for decades. It wasn't quite as black & white as it is now, where the number or PQ at the top of the slab establishes if a copy if "better", but in the old days, lots of guys with a NM copy would replace it if they found a copy that was a NM+ or NM/M, or if it seemed to be of the same structural grade but had better ink reflectivity or whiter pages.

[tth2]

Although we can never go back and there are many things I like about CGC and the current system, I must say I prefer the 1980s grading of good, fine and mint (with some slight variations in between) that lacked the continual cutthroat and greedy attitudes that are more prevalent today.

Talk about looking back through history with rose colored glasses. One of the big reasons for CGC's quick acceptance in the market was because of all the abuses that took place in those "good old days". While I have become very disillusioned with a lot of what's going on in the slabbed market these days, I have zero desire to go back to the earlier era.

 

Plus, you seem to have completely skipped the 90s, when guys like Rosenberg, Greenhalgh and Roter were coming out with all sorts of super-fine grading distinctions and charging extortionist (for the time) prices for small incremental differences. Doesn't anybody else remember Roter's NM+++ grades?

[tth2]

I smashed all my Grateful Dead ... CD's last night

[ciorac]

I think the mid-80's were the best time to collect

The only problem with the mid-80's and earlier was that it was much harder to find the rarer books. Other than the occasional item in the CBG or finding something at a convention you really had to be diligent to turn up something cool, particularly with golden age.

But the books I bought in the seventies and eighties have more meaning to me in some ways because they were tougher to come by.

 

That is one of the things I miss most about the hobby. Now you can find everything you want, if you just have enough money. Since I don't have enough money, it just adds to the pain.....

[namisgr]

For me the enjoyment of collecting is still there, but it's just different than it was in the seventies when I started. Back then, conventions and mail order had alot more "wow" to them, especially since there were very few Silver Age Marvels that I had even seen copies of (with the exception of my friend Kevin's collection amassed from the time he was nine).

 

Now the books are readily available and all familiar, but the thrill is still there in being able to build sweet and lengthy runs of books that were completely unimaginable back in the day.

[TupennyConan]

I'm not crazy about the term circlejerk.

[esquirecomics]

Plus, you seem to have completely skipped the 90s, when guys like Rosenberg, Greenhalgh and Roter were coming out with all sorts of super-fine grading distinctions and charging extortionist (for the time) prices for small incremental differences. Doesn't anybody else remember Roter's NM+++ grades?

 

I totally skipped the 90s. I took one 80s and went right to the 2000s.

[djpinkpanther67]

Robert Bell...

[Cody_Starbuck]

Plus, you seem to have completely skipped the 90s, when guys like Rosenberg, Greenhalgh and Roter were coming out with all sorts of super-fine grading distinctions and charging extortionist (for the time) prices for small incremental differences. Doesn't anybody else remember Roter's NM+++ grades?

 

I totally skipped the 90s. I took one 80s and went right to the 2000s.

 

I did too. It takes a lot for me not to like comics, but the 1990s managed to do it.

[Ogami]

I was on comics hiatus 1995-2002

[VintageComics]

I was on comics hiatus 1995-2002

 

Me too. Almost those exact same years.

 

(thumbs u

[Ogami]

I was on comics hiatus 1995-2002

 

Me too. Almost those exact same years.

 

(thumbs u

 

It took very little to catch back up to speed. My big mistakes were in not getting a TMNT 1, Albedo 2, and AF 15 quicker.

 

 

[VintageComics]

 

You better have my decaf coffee for me so I can sell for ya!

 

 

 

Why do I see a B Itch slap coming pre opening time of the next con?

 

[Designer Toast]

I hadn't started collecting again at the time, but went to a comic show in Portland that was (best guess) a year or two after CGC opened shop. A lot of old time dealers at the time were saying third-party graded comics would be a passing fad lasting maybe another year or so. Obviously those folks were dead wrong.

 

There definitely is a new breed of collector out there and I have to give CGC credit for giving the comic industry a much needed shot in the arm. With that, I do not submit books not strive for 9.8 and above copies of anything. I only buy slabs on the cheap, probably having spent under $60 on the most expensive slab I have ever purchased. I've toyed with the idea of submitting books, some days I'm serious about it, other days I don't think it'd be owrth it to me personally and it isn;t my collecting focus at all.

 

Just where do you think this industry would be without CGC? I can tell you I likely would be able to purchase key books cheaper

 

The new breed of collector is actually a 40 something year old collector that probably left the hobby in the 90s because of the old game. Sell the book at NM buy the book at VF. Those days are over and a lot of us are coming back to the game and I for one would never buy a high grade book unless it was slabbed.

 

You ask where the industry would be without CGC and you are right to say books would be cheaper. But the industry would be a lot smaller and would not have the buzz it has today. There is nothing wrong with wanting the best as long as you have the money to pay for it. You may not get your money back on the book but there will always be a market for it to sell.

 

That was exactly my point - the comic industry would be much smaller and CGC did play a big role in reviving collecting after the gimmicking and over publishing of the 90s.

[joeypost]

Don't pick on Bob. He's much nicer in person than he is here on the boards.

 

I've heard just the opposite about you.

 

Well, I'm a on the boards and I'm a in person. So, I'm pretty much the same all the way around.

 

Jim,

 

Your actually closer to a fork than a spoon.