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Collect Stuffed Bears

Started by blazingbob,

38 posts in this topic

clobberintime

clobberintime

Posted
Posted

Ok -making cracks at a guy's hairline is a little below the belt ( I smell a Viagra joke there somewhere). I am not just a member of the hairclub for men, I am the PRESIDENT! Well I have my wife to re-assure me that my hair is not thinning out but I am keeping Si Sperling's number in the rolodex.

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delekkerste

delekkerste

Posted
Posted

CGC should get into action figure slabbing. My goodness, some of the prices being realised are freaking mind-blowing.

 

Holy $#@&!!! Those prices are unbelievable. You want to know something funny, though? There was a Time Magazine article around 1986 or thereabouts on investing in collectibles. They interviewed an expert on toys who said that those Star Wars action figures would never be worth much because so many were produced. DING! Thank you for playing!!!

 

You know what the "comic book expert" said in the article? His pick was to buy that X-Men: Heroes for Hope one-shot with a price target of $100 in 10 or 20 years. DING! Thank you for playing!!!

 

Gene

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clobberintime

clobberintime

Posted
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I think at the last con i went to, I saw more figures and statues than comics! Heck - I am even buying them. I have all of those little hero clix things - even the new marvel set and the whole DC thing. Just got the new FF action figures and they are great. My 4 year old and i had a fight with hulk and Thing today but luckily cap showed up in time to call a truce! The Doc Doom figure from the new FF set is really great.

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delekkerste

delekkerste

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i think cgc would make a killing with mag grading, like you say CI there are a hellava lot more people that have collected magazines than comics

 

I seriously doubt this. Sure, people who *read* magazines outnumber us by a whopping margin. But who actually "collects" non-comic magazines seriously? And of those who do "collect" magazines, how many store them in bags and boards and preserve them like comics? Who collects full runs of SI (better have your own personal warehouse for that)? Sure, I have a bunch of SI swimsuit issues and whatnot, but get them slabbed? Are you out of your mind? If ever there were publications that were not meant to be slabbed and rendered unreadable, it's the SI swimsuit issues!!

 

I agree that, if given the chance, speculators/dealers will slab all those SI issues with Jordan covers and try to sell them to moneyed sports memorabilia nuts with money. But that will largely be "manufacturing a collectible" as CI puts it. I doubt that 99% of the few magazine collectors in existence are going to care all that much if a magazine is a 9.6 or a 9.8. I doubt there are many magazine collectors who will be willing to pay $2,000 for last month's Sports Illustrated just because CGC gave it a 10.0. In short, I don't think the market for slabbed non-comic magazines, if it ever happens (I just don't see the demand being high for that product), is going to look anything like the slabbed comic market. The mentality between the two hobbies is not even close to being comparable.

 

The number of magazine collectors who are willing to pay big bucks and who preserve their collections like comic collectors is tiny, I'm willing to bet. When was the last time you heard anyone going to the San Diego Magazine Con International (never, because it doesn't exist as there's no demand for it). When was magazine collecting even recognized as a hobby? Is there an Overstreet guide for it? Of course not. Let's not get carried away by something that may never even come into existence.

 

This reminds me about all that hoopla about how everyone in America would be surfing the Web on their cell phones. I said bull****, show me the demand for this service - what percentage of the American population would pay big bucks for the privilege of surfing the Net in an extremely limited way on a 1.5" screen? Mark my words, this non-comic magazine grading will be the same way (if it ever even happens). It may eventually happen and have a short speculative boom, but it will quickly die off and become as unpopular as the WAP cell phone service as I guarantee that there is no prolonged, sustainable demand for it. Magazine collectors do not collect magazines like comic collectors collect comics.

 

Gene

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comicinvestor-migration

comicinvestor-migration

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Hey Del, I hate to disagree, but there are a ton of people that collect SI, Playboy, etc., not to mention old Western Mags, Hockey News, etc. and these do have some serious values attached to them. Some old ones in NM/M would rival the key issues we all drool over.

 

The reason mag collectors haven't banded together is that the selection is incredibly wide, and there is no easy Marvel/DC/Other categorization as there was during the 1960's and 70's. And don't discount the effect that Grading has on valuation and demand; the number of comic collectors is very low, but CGC has really opened the door up for Ma and Pa Kettle to toss their money into the fray.

 

I think only the mainstream, older, important magazines could ever take off for grading, especially since these issues demand a premium raw on EBay right now. I don't see a demand for a CGC 10.0 Time mag from last week, but I do see high prices for the first Michael Jordan SI cover in 9.6. Personally, I know relatives and friends who would love to own prime copies of the Wayne Gretzky SI covers, especially in a case that could be shown off.

 

In that way, I don't see it being much different than CGC comics, with only the valuable/key issues being graded in any real number or fetching any real price premium.

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delekkerste

delekkerste

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Hey Del, I hate to disagree, but there are a ton of people that collect SI, Playboy, etc., not to mention old Western Mags, Hockey News, etc. and these do have some serious values attached to them.

 

I just don't think the obsessive grading & pricing mentality exists for magazines and I don't think the hobby/market is remotely close to as developed as the comic hobby. In the comic world, we're concerned about the smallest spine ding, we've grown up bagging & boarding books, we track eBay sale prices daily, look at Wizard every month and buy the Overstreet guide every year. The word "restoration" makes most of us cringe. We buy multiple copies of new books for speculation. We try to complete runs. Who goes out and buys a case of unread TV Guides hoping to cash out in the future? I just can't see Darth slabbing new SI's and getting people to buy 9.8s for $75 a pop.

 

If, as you suggest, only the keys will get slabbed, I don't see the submission volume warranting anyone going into the business. Even CGC would have to consider the likely limited submission volume versus the expense and hassle of designing different size cases for all the various magazines out there. Also, given the labor intensity of page counting, etc., the pricing scale might very well be higher than for comics. And also, what grading criteria would be used? An Overstreet-like 10-point scale? Is it really relevant for magazines?

 

Not to mention, what do we like about CGC anyway, and is it relevant to the non-comic magazine world? We like the third-party grading aspect, the restoration check and how a comic looks in the slabbed case. With regard to magazines, is there a big dispute between collectors regarding grading? Is grading even defined very well? Is restoration a big problem? No, no and no. So, basically, this service would only exist to make magazines more displayable and to manufacture a new type of collectible. I doubt the former reason is sufficient to drive long-term demand and I'm sure any speculative hype resulting from the latter would die out really quickly as people quickly determine that there isn't a big market for this kind of stuff. Think about how low submission volume will be relative to comics where dealers send in Origins by the caseload and where both non-keys and keys are slabbed all the time.

 

I think if you consider these factors that the service would definitely be a risky proposition for any company that offered it. Not saying it won't happen, but I don't think it's a good idea.

 

Gene

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Joanna

Joanna

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Posted

To look at it another way, comics certainly didn't start out being a collectable, or Edgar Church would be just another guy in Colorado with a pantry full of books. It's the fact that it wasn't a collectable that helped make it into one. Just like action figures staying on the card (when I was a kid, that would've been deemed really stupid. How do you play with it on a card?). And comics were very disposable in the silver age, as well. It was the advent of the direct market that made back issues into a huge deal as opposed to an oddity (those few people chasing Action 1). Suddenly,there were back issues available. A place to sell and buy them.

 

I still had a small stack of comics from my youth (a mere shadow of the original amount I bought) but the first thing I did when I re-entered comics was begin to chase down all the books I used to own, or missed when I was a kid.

 

I think it's possible that magazines could grow to be a bigger profile collectable. There are stores that sell back issues, there are tons of mags on ebay, and there is probably a lot of interest should the buzz begin.

 

That said, personally, I think the future is in slabbed bears.

 

-- Joanna

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delekkerste

delekkerste

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I think it's possible that magazines could grow to be a bigger profile collectable. There are stores that sell back issues, there are tons of mags on ebay, and there is probably a lot of interest should the buzz begin.

 

Again, I doubt this. If you didn't collect magazines as a kid, are you going to become suddenly nostalgic for them now? How many kids collect magazines nowadays? Does this currently barely-existent hobby have a future in the Digital Age? These are the important questions you have to ask yourself, not whether you think the idea is cool.

 

And it's one thing for magazine collecting to increase in popularity. Quite another for people to start shelling out big bucks for slabbing costs and slabbed back issues. Just because lots of magazines are bought and sold on eBay does NOT necessarily translate into collectors wanting to slab their wares. As CGC comic collectors, we tend to think that it would be cool to slab everything in plastic, from comics down to your deceased pets. But that is NOT the mentality non-comic collectors have. Whenever I try to explain CGC's popularity to non-collectors, they are incredulous that anyone would bother to slab a book. Do not make the mistake of translating a comic collector's perspective into other segments of the population.

 

Of course, no one can tell what's going to happen before it happens. But if you read my 3 posts on this subject, I've listed numerous hurdles that the fledgling slabbed magazine market hobby would have to overcome. My educated guess is that it will not do so successfully.

 

Gene

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delekkerste

delekkerste

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Clobberin', my wisdom cannot be condensed into a fortune-cookie sized soundbite. grin.gif Anyway, there are plenty of posters besides me and CI who also write long posts. I certainly don't mind reading long posts, as long as people have something interesting to say.

 

Gene

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blazingbob

blazingbob

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$6,000 for a bear? That's insane! What the hell is the seller thinking? It just lays there, doesn't even talk. You hug it, talk to it and still it does nothing. At least my CGC holder can be useful, serving tray, shield when I play pretend with my daughter and lethal weapon when hurled against a wall unleashing shrapnel in all directions.

 

grin.gif

 

 

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