How many DC Completionists are left?

[jerome34]

I am curious as to how many people are left in the world who are nuts enough

to try to build a complete collection of all DC comics from 1935 - date.

 

 

There are 3 or 4 that I know about:

 

Ian Levine Complete. Collects all imprints; collects promos, premiums, and

previews. Collects some variants.

 

Jerome Wenker Missing many of the most expensive and rarest. Collects promos,

premiums, previews, all variants. Skips CMX and Wildstorm.

 

Mike (dcindexer) Collects everything (as far as I know).

 

Christine F Has GA complete. Unknown if she collects more recent issues.

 

 

 

When I started on this goal in about 1985, a complete collection would be about

14,000 which while daunting, seemed possible -- especially if you started with

the 10 most expensive and all DC Gerber 8, 9, and 10 scarcity items. (I did not

have any of either group.)

 

Now a complete collection would be about 37,000 items.

 

When I started, I estimated that, on average, there could be about 1 completionist

in each state plus about 10 outside the US for a total guesstimate of 60. Now, I

suspect there are less than 10 of us.

 

Some have given up due to the huge amount of stuff generated each year. Counting

regular issues, trade paperbacks, hard covers, archives, and the dratted variants,

RRPs, and other printed items, DC produces about 8 long boxes each year and each

year adds another short box. That assumes you can even find out everything published

in a year. (Watch out for comics included with toys.)

 

The new stuff alone seems to be designed to force even the most OCD people

away from collecting. For example: "This title sold poorly as regular issues, the

hard cover sold poorly, the trade paperback sold poorly -- it is time to print an Archive

and then next year put out an absolute." Here is another example of what I think

they must be thinking: "There are only 5 stores in the world ordering more than

40 copies of this title per month -- time for a 1:100 variant."

 

Last week, for example DC produced 9 issues with variants and 9 without for a

total of 27 issues on my pull list.

 

If I was able to get everything at cover price including all variants, RRP items, etc.,

it would run to about $6000 per year.

 

Of course the cost of the back issues keeps going up. Of the 100 most expensive

GA books in Overstreet, DC accounts for more than half (and has every year he

has that list). The top 3 items are DCs, and 17 of the top 20 items are DCs.

 

Each year my list of missing & incomplete issues gets smaller; each year the

total for all items on the list (using the Overstreet Good prices) keeps going up.

My budget does not go up.

 

So are there any other out there crazy enough to try for a complete DC collection and

doubly crazy enough to admit it?

[chromium]

Interesting topic...I'm sure there are plenty or "period-completionist" or "genre-completionist" but I don't think you'll find any more "hard-core-completionists" than you mentioned.

[Silver]

I just cant wrap my brain around it.

 

Superman 1 up

Batman 1 up

Detective 1 up

Action Comics 1 up

Adventure Comics complete

More Fun complete

World's Finest complete.

 

etc, etc.

 

those....alone....seem impossible...

 

 

now add the rest in.

[HouseofComics.Com]

interesting post, Jerome. I agree with you, there were probably more of these collectors 25-30 years ago. As Chromium said, there are lots of people who have complete or near-complete sets of "what they want" which are extensive to a point, but aren't 37,000 comics either. There are people who might have everything 1955 up or most all of the main 40s and 50s superhero books but never collected the funny animal, etc.

 

The new stuff seems so different from the old stuff that you can see why almost no one would spend thousands a year to keep up.

 

OTOH, if I had essentially complete Batman and Superman GA and SA and BA I can see the desire to keep up. It's still the same character and it's not that expensive to pick up 300 modern comics.

[jerome34]

I agree, there are period collectors, or genre collectors, or title collectors but what I

am looking for are the full blown complete collectors.

 

If someone knows of such an individual but is not sure if the individual would

want to be "outed," I would be happy with a state/country plus a single

letter (first name or board name). That should protect the individual while

eliminating duplicates.

 

Surely there are more than 3 (4?) of us out there.

 

Does anyone know if Christine is still collecting? I know she does not

want anyone contacting her (or at least she did not about 10 years ago).

[jerome34]

@silver

 

Oh, Batman 1 up and World's Finest 1 up are not impossible -- just improbable.

 

New Adventure - now that is the tough one to find.

 

Action, Detective, More Fun - very expensive and many issues hard to find.

 

If you do not have them now, good luck on finding all the funny animals,

funny people, westerns, war, romance, and miscellaneous titles of the

late 1950's.

 

Joy, joy, joy.

 

[PokerKid]

It seems like comics - to a lesser extent - did in the completionists with the variants. When I started collecting baseball cards in the mid 1980s, completing all the mainstream sets was possible. However, in the 1990s the variants started stretching the collector too far making it a challenge to keep up with the current stuff. Now with the ultralimited and 1/1 cards, it is impossible to even get a complete year from most manufacturers.

 

I am blown away by the handful of you who have had the dedication to pursue such a collection. Any chance you can show a few pictures of how you warehouse 37,000 books?

[jerome34]

Part of the reason for this topic is how variants have killed completionists. Cards did

it in the 1990's and comics have done it in the past 5 years.

 

Not only is it impossible to get all the dratted variants, it is almost impossible

to even find out what has come out.

 

If there are are, say, 40 DC completionists for the modern age, and we all

stopped buying every Absolute, Archive, RRP, and every variant we can track

down, I suspect the sales of such items would take a heavy hit.

 

If we refuse to bid on the RRP editions, then the DC RRP items would wind up

with a FMV down around 10-20 dollars and, as the LCS owners learn they cannot

cover costs of Diamond gatherings by auctioning/selling the RRP items, attendance

at such gatherings would drop.

 

Incidentally, what I say about DC's self-destructive generation of variants looks

to be matched by Marvel's variants.

[markseifert]

Very interesting topic indeed.

 

A few years back I asked in the GA section if there were any complete Timely sets around. Interestingly, the consensus was there currently are none (the last intact set apparently was assembled by well known Marvel indexer George Olshevsky, but I think that was sold / broken apart), and there are few if any even attempting to assemble the non-hero part of the set. Very tough indeed.

 

(as an aside, googling Olshevsky just now I was very surprised to find that he's a paleontologist and mathematician of note)

 

Anyway, I'm pleased to see collectors still attempting these things, Jerome. What percentage of the total number of books would you say you've assembled so far?

[G.A.tor]

i have had, though not all at once (golden age only, as silver age and later, if you are not condition sensitive, is "easy", just a matter of spending the money)

 

action 1 up

tec 27 up (and concievably have had the toughest 1-26, so likely "could" have done 1 up)

batman 1 up

superman 1 up

wonder woman 1 up

sensation 1 up

green lanter 1 up

all american 16 up (1-15 would be a bit of a challenge, I suspect)

funny stuff 1 up

all star 1 up is easy

comic calvacade 1 up is relatively easy

adventure and more fun from super hero up is easy, from initial to superhero would be the biddest challenge, in my opinion...

etc, etc

[batman_fan]

Very interesting topic. I know for myself, I set a goal of every Batman and Detective. I finished the Batman run, but the Detective run proved too costly to complete so I gave up. If you have limited funds, it is just too much effort to complete.

[40sJohn]

I'm not in the modern market but I do wonder whether variants really generate more sales?

[plasticide-migration]

Part of the reason for this topic is how variants have killed completionists.

 

You don't have to have all the variants to have a complete set. It's just a different cover (and a waste of money), the interior is the same. The interior is all that matters.

[jerome34]

@Mark:

 

I need to update my lists so these figures could be off by a few.

 

Of the regular issues, I am missing 46 and have 136 that are incomplete.

Of the 2741 variants on my list, I am missing 113.

I am missing 23 older promos, giveaways, and other such oddities.

I am missing 45 of about 709 more recent giveaways, etc.

I am missing 41 of about 313 previews.

 

A few items are on more than one list.

 

So, in total, I am missing somewhere between 400 and 500 items. The number

fluctuates as sometimes I discover something and get it at the time (BIN), sometimes

I discover an item and bid on it but do not add it to the list until I: 1) lose it to a sniper;

or 2) win it and get it in hand. There are a lot of items I see once and take notes

on to add to my want list; there are also lots of items that I suspect exist but have

never seen any proof one way or the other.

 

My guess is that the total DC collection (ignoring CMX and Wildstorm) is

about 37,000 (plus or minus 2000). So, I guess I am missing slightly more than

one percent.

[jerome34]

@gator

 

Assuming you have had Detective 1 up, then you have had, at one time or

another, about half of the issues I am missing and about half of the issues I

have that are incomplete.

 

But I am just a poor old man with a limited budget which is why many of the

Overstreet 100 are on my missing/incomplete lists. Up until recent times,

the books I want have been ones you can get if you have a lot of time but

not a lot of money (or a lot of money and not much time). I have put in the time;

now at least half of the books are ones that require a lot of time AND a lot of

money.

 

Why try to complete something possible? What do you do then?

[jerome34]

In the short term, variants increase sales by one or two percent. In a slightly

longer time frame, it leads collectors to not only stop getting variants but also

stop getting the title (or completely exit from comic collecting).

 

You do not need to get the variants to have a complete run of the title and

story lines which is why variants are counted separately from the regular list.

You could define your collecting parameters to exclude them. I choose to

include them.

[plasticide-migration]

You do not need to get the variants to have a complete run of the title and story lines which is why variants are counted separately from the regular list. You could define your collecting parameters to exclude them. I choose to include them.

 

But I am just a poor old man with a limited budget which is why many of the

Overstreet 100 are on my missing/incomplete lists.

 

Think of all the real (OPG 100) comics you could've bought with the money you spent on variants

[markseifert]

Nicely done! My hat's off to you, it's cool to see people who focus on sets and runs -- so I find this phenomenal.

 

Do you have a sense for what the toughest modern DC variants are?

 

@Mark:

 

I need to update my lists so these figures could be off by a few.

 

Of the regular issues, I am missing 46 and have 136 that are incomplete.

Of the 2741 variants on my list, I am missing 113.

I am missing 23 older promos, giveaways, and other such oddities.

I am missing 45 of about 709 more recent giveaways, etc.

I am missing 41 of about 313 previews.

 

A few items are on more than one list.

 

So, in total, I am missing somewhere between 400 and 500 items. The number

fluctuates as sometimes I discover something and get it at the time (BIN), sometimes

I discover an item and bid on it but do not add it to the list until I: 1) lose it to a sniper;

or 2) win it and get it in hand. There are a lot of items I see once and take notes

on to add to my want list; there are also lots of items that I suspect exist but have

never seen any proof one way or the other.

 

My guess is that the total DC collection (ignoring CMX and Wildstorm) is

about 37,000 (plus or minus 2000). So, I guess I am missing slightly more than

one percent.

[jerome34]

Most variants I get for less than $3.00 apiece. Many I get for less than $1.00. So if

I skipped getting variants for the last three years (which is when I started actively

chasing them), I might have saved up enough to get a low grade copy of one of the

last items on the Overstreet 100 -- that is, if such a copy came to market. That

would be one item in 3 years.

 

Now, I can get one or more items most months and can also build a list documenting

what exists. Given that choice what would you do?

 

(I also get/update about 10 - 20 regular issues a year but that will slow down as I eliminate

the items with less that obscene prices.)

[jerome34]

The toughest modern variants to get?

 

a) Selected RRP items which are listed at crazy prices I cannot justify paying ;

for example: Batman 608 RRP.

 

b) Slow selling titles with 1:100 variants.

 

c) Items that come with toys/figures/DVDs. Usually undocumented; often you

can (once you know they exist and which version of the thing they come with)

get the thing plus comic for a lot less than the comic without thing. It does give

you things to get rid of.

 

d) Items you do not know exist. There seems to be a lot of this out there.