When will moderns go down in price?

[synch]

In another topic I keep seeing people say that moderns will only go down in price so my question is when do you think this will happen ?! Also if it gets to the point where moderns are down won't that really be bad for comics as a hole ... If there was that much of a drop of interest in moderns & I can't really see comics them self doing well.. & would think it would also affect golden age prices as well...

 

[Flaming_Telepath]

Are you talking about cover price?

 

Or back issue price?

 

Because with the former, I doubt it will ever happen, but if it did, it would be good for the industry.

 

As for the latter, most moderns have no value beyond their reading content.

[PokerKid]

The moment you walk out the door?

[Mr 9.8]

Are you talking about cover price?

 

Or back issue price?

 

Because with the former, I doubt it will ever happen, but if it did, it would be good for the industry.

 

As for the latter, most moderns have no value beyond their reading content.

Ultimate Spider-man #1 seams to be the exception to the rule.

[synch]

More like collector market price

 

http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=4028562&fpart=1

 

This is the topic in question with everyone saying moderns will only go down & price & ultimately fail

 

Are you talking about cover price?

 

Or back issue price?

 

Because with the former, I doubt it will ever happen, but if it did, it would be good for the industry.

 

As for the latter, most moderns have no value beyond their reading content.

Ultimate Spider-man #1 seams to be the exception to the rule.

 

I remember having the chance to buy that variant for $30 at a fleamarket the dealer was trying to talk me into it ! Never having read the series yet though I had no interest in the book

[toro]

To me moderns are like buying a new car, they lose value as soon as you take it out of the store. There are a few exceptions to both car and comics.

 

I also agree dropping the price on new books would be a big help for the industry. I still read moderns at least 25 titles a month and I've dropped all $3.99 books except for 3.

[MedicAR]

In another topic I keep seeing people say that moderns will only go down in price so my question is when do you think this will happen ?! Also if it gets to the point where moderns are down won't that really be bad for comics as a hole ... If there was that much of a drop of interest in moderns & I can't really see comics them self doing well.. & would think it would also affect golden age prices as well...

 

Who are you calling "a hole"?

[paperheart]

The moment you walk out the door?

 

no ? was necessary. 75% depreciation the minute you leave the lot.

[dupont2005]

Yeah I buy entire runs of moderns for pennies on the dollar. One variant on eBay doesn't convince me that the price of moderns holds, or that that one variant will command that price ten years from now. I remember when the gold Deathmate comics sold for hundreds of dollars. I just bought a handful of modern TMNT from a comic shop at half cover price. That's the dealer mark up...

[synch]

But what about CGCed moderns ?..

 

 

In another topic I keep seeing people say that moderns will only go down in price so my question is when do you think this will happen ?! Also if it gets to the point where moderns are down won't that really be bad for comics as a hole ... If there was that much of a drop of interest in moderns & I can't really see comics them self doing well.. & would think it would also affect golden age prices as well...

 

Who are you calling "a hole"?

 

 

[codfish]

I don't worry about values. Many current hot moderns will most likely fade in value while other may drop a bit and hold with a relatively high cost. IMO the aftermarket value on moderns no matter how fleeting is important in keeping interest for moderns.

 

As for cover prices ... they don't bother me in the slightest. To get cheaper cover prices would mean going back to paying creators from a pool again and few people being able to make a living from creating the comics we enjoy. EVERYTHING increases in price it is a fact of life and comics are no different and certainly not the fastest increasing prices out there.

[rjpb]

The moment you walk out the door?

 

So true. Which is why I only buy them to read.

 

The current cover price doesn't bother me as my LCS offers 30% off, and I only buy 6 or 7 books a month (not including the occasional trade or hardback).

 

The only problem is I still have over twenty short boxes of copper/modern books that I've accumulated over the last 25 years, 90% of which are worth far less than cover price.

[the blob]

Problem with most moderns is that if anything gets remotely hot everyone's spare 25,000 copies hits the market (let's say half of the print run of 50K stays in the closet) killing the price. somehow walking dead back issues have held up ok, probably because stores tend to just leave them out on the rack at cover price rather than tossing them in the dollar box.

 

with that said there are always a few with staying power (which is usually, nowadays, coupled with a relatively low print-run).

 

---------------

 

As for cover prices ... they don't bother me in the slightest. To get cheaper cover prices would mean going back to paying creators from a pool again and few people being able to make a living from creating the comics we enjoy. EVERYTHING increases in price it is a fact of life and comics are no different and certainly not the fastest increasing prices out there.

***

 

greater volume could make up for that. in 1990 comics were $1 (or were they still 75 cents?) and there were plenty of folks making a good living at this. most things have not gone up 300% in price since 1990. $2 would be more palatable and comics being more like 30-32 pages at that price. back-up stories could fill in the extra pages and I'm sure there are lots of young guns breaking into the business who could be happy to add 6-8 pages of content on the cheap or they could do reprints or mix it up.

 

$2 cover prices would also mean that overstock hitting the dollar box would not be a big money loser for the shop owner. back in the early mid/80s when comics were 50-60 cents my neighborhood LCS routinely put the overstock in the 3/$1 box (except for whatever was hot like x-men). they sold well and he didn't lose money.

 

I KNOW I would buy more stuff at $2 than $3-$4, particularly to get the nicest copy I could rather than "hoping" what gets tossed in the overstock box isn't bent up.

[ashrael]

I pretty much only buy moderns as TPBs because I don't want have to worry about the condition of hundreds of comics that will probably never be worth anything (or even worth cover price).

[fantastic_four]

In another topic I keep seeing people say that moderns will only go down in price so my question is when do you think this will happen ?! Also if it gets to the point where moderns are down won't that really be bad for comics as a hole ... If there was that much of a drop of interest in moderns & I can't really see comics them self doing well.. & would think it would also affect golden age prices as well...

 

I haven't seen anyone actually try to answer your question yet. Most people seem to be assuming that Moderns are already worthless, but they're wrong, certain issues have gone up in price and have retained those levels for extended periods of time. Examples include Uncanny X-Men #266, Amazing Spider-Man #300, Amazing Spider-Man #36 (all-black cover 9/11 issue), Amazing Spider-Man Obama cover, Ultimate Spider-Man #1, etc. Many moderns have gone up in price and I'm curious about the dynamics behind that pricing myself due to the reasons everyone is pointing out, the fact that they're relatively common yet still frequently command a premium.

 

I don't really know the answer to your question, but I do know that a drop in Modern prices has very little relationship to the value of Gold or Silver comics. The entire reason Modern comics are likely to go down at some point is due to the fact that there are so many high-grade copies in collectors' possessions, but the entire reason Gold and Silver are valuable is the opposite, there are so few still in existence.

[PrismaticSmoke]

Wait, Wait comics cost 4 bucks an issue? That must be a typo, no one pays that much for a new comic book. Comics cost like 1.75 to 2.25 on average, with the occasional issue number like siege for .99 cents. where does this huge 4 buck price come in at?

[That Ron Dude]

Good question.

 

I have lost interest in modern comics though it does't necessarily reflect their quality. I just don't want to pay $4 for a comic which will be worth nothing right after I buy it and takes ten minutes to read. I would rather put that money towards an older comic that I know I will enjoy and which retains its value.

 

One friend is reading new comics on the internet and he tells me that there are a lot of good ones. He doesn't want to pay the price either.

 

The companies will have to deal with them being available to read for free, illegally and on line or legally and in a library. People like me see them as not being worth $4. As sales decrease, price goes up. As price goes up, sales decrease.

 

Fifteen years ago a very decent editor at DC, Dave Tanguay, gave me and my students a tour of the offices when we were in NY on a field trip. He told me that the books weren't selling the way they used to and that the merchandising was paying for the beautiful offices. That was reality before most of the huge movies.

 

I wonder what the price limit would be where almost no one would buy a comic. Maybe six dollars or ten dollars. I read an argument a few years ago suggesting that every reader now sees himself as a potential professional. People buy comics and read them only to know what is going on in the industry.

 

I am put off at the local conventions where $3 seems to be the going rate for purchasing a back issue comic that wouldn't be there if anyone actually wanted it. The dealers make money this way. I suppose they sell a few from each box and profit because the cost of the comics themselves was almost nothing.

 

One day that could come crashing down to. Someone like Chuck Rozanski will croak and 7 million back issues will hit the market at deep discount prices. Or even locally, one dealer could buck the trend and start getting rid of the stuff at 3 for a dollar.

 

We will see what the future brings...

[codfish]

greater volume could make up for that. in 1990 comics were $1 (or were they still 75 cents?) and there were plenty of folks making a good living at this. most things have not gone up 300% in price since 1990. $2 would be more palatable and comics being more like 30-32 pages at that price. back-up stories could fill in the extra pages and I'm sure there are lots of young guns breaking into the business who could be happy to add 6-8 pages of content on the cheap or they could do reprints or mix it up.

 

You are assuming that they would do a greater volume if they were cheaper. I think that is wrong. The access to comics is not even close to what it was in 1990. Materials are not as cheap and creators were not making even close to what they are now.

 

$2 cover prices would also mean that overstock hitting the dollar box would not be a big money loser for the shop owner. back in the early mid/80s when comics were 50-60 cents my neighborhood LCS routinely put the overstock in the 3/$1 box (except for whatever was hot like x-men). they sold well and he didn't lose money.

 

Overstock is just that. Either they are books that dealers overestimated demand on or they are books that are simply not moving so they are trying to move them on the cheap to make room for books that ARE moving. As soon as a book is marked down more than 40% of cover price the dealer is taking a loss or very close to it. Margin values have NOT changed that much over the last 20 years. They may not lose as much but they will still be losing on "overstock"

 

I KNOW I would buy more stuff at $2 than $3-$4, particularly to get the nicest copy I could rather than "hoping" what gets tossed in the overstock box isn't bent up.

 

Yeah and in 1990 I am sure you were saying this too. Only at that time you were saying that you would buy more if comics were 50 cents and not the outrageous 1.00. What if you were making enough money to buy more books? Would you be buying? Are you not making more than you were in 1990? I am sure you could cut out some of your other expenses so you could buy more books. It's the same thing. I know if I spent more wisely I could buy more comics. I could have in 1990 too but I am sure I was probably saying it was up to the comic companies and the dealers to take the brunt of my mis-spending.

 

Face it, comics are not going down in price. Ever. It is just not feasible to do so unless a whole host of other things change. Some within the industry and some outside the industry. IMO people would be even more upset if the prices of comics went down because you would have to get a whole lot less. There is simply no way that any company is going to give their customer MORE quality for less price but still pay the most of the same production costs. Maybe if printing costs, materials costs, computers, creators, etc were cheaper they might might be able to give more for less but just what are the chance of that? Even if you decrease those costs you still have the problem of access and with comic companies cutting down cost enough to get that one dollar cleaved off the price you would expect them to increase access to the product?

 

 

[whisp]

I find that the pattern is the book comes out at regular price on the shelf, stays on shelf for a few months. Then it gets put in the back issue boxes with maybe a price increase of like .50 to a $1. If they don't sell out of those boxes after a couple years they get shipped down to the $1 - $1.50 boxes. That is for majority of moderns except the few exceptions that do well here and there that where popular.

 

Will the common place modern have any value in the future? I doubt it except again for those few exceptions.

 

I have applied this to how I buy now for the most part when it comes to moderns. Only for Moon Knight main series will I go after the variants now. For any of his appearances in other titles books that have variants I will now just wait it out. Especially the silly 1 in 75's. Because of this I will actually be missing a few books towards my completion in the future. For example the 1 in 75 Secret Avengers #2 Deodato (Moon Knight cover) because I am no longer willing to pay these insane prices just to get a cover for a modern book. I may in the future cut out even trying to get modern variants for appearances all together and just try and have a complete storyline of placement for him and get just the regular issues which I have been leaning more and more towards lately. I may even start not even buying Moon Knight appearances off the shelf for the regular covers and wait for those books to hit the $1 bins.

 

Anyways I am going to wait on certain books over time to get them cheaply instead of having that have to have it now attitude since most moderns go down eventually for the most part.

[codfish]

In another topic I keep seeing people say that moderns will only go down in price so my question is when do you think this will happen ?! Also if it gets to the point where moderns are down won't that really be bad for comics as a hole ... If there was that much of a drop of interest in moderns & I can't really see comics them self doing well.. & would think it would also affect golden age prices as well...

 

I haven't seen anyone actually try to answer your question yet. Most people seem to be assuming that Moderns are already worthless, but they're wrong, certain issues have gone up in price and have retained those levels for extended periods of time. Examples include Uncanny X-Men #266, Amazing Spider-Man #300, Amazing Spider-Man #36 (all-black cover 9/11 issue), Amazing Spider-Man Obama cover, Ultimate Spider-Man #1, etc. Many moderns have gone up in price and I'm curious about the dynamics behind that pricing myself due to the reasons everyone is pointing out, the fact that they're relatively common yet still frequently command a premium.

 

I don't really know the answer to your question, but I do know that a drop in Modern prices has very little relationship to the value of Gold or Silver comics. The entire reason Modern comics are likely to go down at some point is due to the fact that there are so many high-grade copies in collectors' possessions, but the entire reason Gold and Silver are valuable is the opposite, there are so few still in existence.

 

It is because the question was vague and not very general. There are plenty (most) of moderns that can be purchased very cheaply (cover or less). If the member is asking about hot titles then it depends on which ones. I think certain issues of series like The Walking Dead will always be "expensive" because there are simply not enough to go around and the series continues to do well. Others like Deadpool will likely start dropping as soon as the market gets saturated with books (back issues or new titles). Marvel is doing everything in their pwoer right now to kill interest in Deadpool by saturating readers with Deadpool ... for example.

 

Still other issues will probably never come down because the issues have the right set of conditions to be considered "classics" and that will ensure that there is always more value assigned to those books (ASM #300, etc)