Income of OA Collectors

[mister_not_so_nice]

With 226 votes, we can probably start looking at this data:

 

{snip}

 

Let's see some discussion.....

 

I'm actually a little surprised there were 226 respondents in less than 3 days. That number seems like a signal of a healthy market in that there are that many people who pay close attention to the OA boards.

 

Right. I certainly can't think of 266 people that actively post in this sub-forum

 

Lots of lurkers!! Seriously, though this OA hobby has really grown. When I started in 1998 or so, it was oh so small. 1K was the big threshold in terms of expensive art !! Then it was 10K and we all joked that we couldn't name folks on one hand that would surpass that level. Then came 100K and now 3-400K. Will we hit 1 million soon?? I'm frightened to think about it!!!

 

I remember when Gene would bid on PREACHER art on eBay

I'm glad that's over

[alxjhnsn]

I got interested in comic art about the time the first of my three girls started college. My youngest graduated in May and I was feeling pretty darned rich until...

 

Yep, my wife went back to school at Rice U. Sigh...

 

 

best private school value in America. Great school. Solid baseball team.

 

I can't argue; indirectly, it's paid for my OA. BSEE '78, MEE '81. Season tickets for Baseball and Football.

 

One of the daughters is a Rice grad. Could have bought a lot of art for that money. !

[batman_fan]

With 226 votes, we can probably start looking at this data:

 

{snip}

 

Let's see some discussion.....

 

I'm actually a little surprised there were 226 respondents in less than 3 days. That number seems like a signal of a healthy market in that there are that many people who pay close attention to the OA boards.

 

Right. I certainly can't think of 266 people that actively post in this sub-forum

 

Lots of lurkers!! Seriously, though this OA hobby has really grown. When I started in 1998 or so, it was oh so small. 1K was the big threshold in terms of expensive art !! Then it was 10K and we all joked that we couldn't name folks on one hand that would surpass that level. Then came 100K and now 3-400K. Will we hit 1 million soon?? I'm frightened to think about it!!!

 

The good old days, my how I miss them

[Garf]

Well seeing as I am new to this part of the hobby I didn't have any equity to play with from previous art purchases as such... but I did spot the inflating comics bubble a few years back whilst a lot of books were still in the smart money bracket. Not something I had ever paid attention to before. My income ultimately has very little to do with my art collection. I don't spend out of pocket, just the money I make flipping books. If I do put myself in the hole then I have to pay myself back. If I wanted to spend 5 figures on on art ... well I wouldn't even be there yet. I have a family and house in tow (as others have mentioned) so art is a long way down the line when it comes to priorities.

 

Over the past few years I have watched plenty of very reasonably priced pages vanish and the sources of good deals online get picked clean. There isn't much out there from the eras that I love left in my range before heading off down a slippery slope.

 

It's nice to have pieces from books I love, and quite often it's really good fun when you paddle in the shallow end where you don't even have to take depreciation into consideration. However, buying stuff from the all time top 30 runs (where the nostalgia is) quite often starts at $500 and goes up sharply if you want something good. Regarding published work I don't see any great stepping on points in the future coming up for the next lot of new collectors. Hopefully we are going to see a few more modern classics written over the next 10 - 15 years *fingers crossed* Edit: not digital ones like Saga though ... hehe.

[Mephisto]

 

Also, going by the poll, there are actually relatively few upper class collectors. It's not hard to imagine what happens if just a few more enter the hobby. Both good and bad.

 

 

Or a few of those leave...I'd be interested to see a poll with age brackets attached and amount of money spent on OA each year. Granted over time people's income will most likely increase as they advance through their career. However, a lot of the job landscape is vastly different than it was for those who went to school and joined the work force in the past 10 to 15 years. There is a 7 year gap between my brother and myself. His generation (1970's) seemed to fair a lot better than those born post 1980's that have come out of school post 9/11.