Will there be a Market for "Completionist" Comic Books in 30 Years?

[vaillant]

Actually eBook readers (not tablets) offer a relaxed reading, but I can’t think of them for novels, let alone for comics. I like to lay out essays which might not be longer available in paper or rare books in PDF format to read on eBook readers, but not novels (besides, eBook readers like Kindle do not allow for a fixed layout and to properly present a book you have to control how the lines flow).

 

For comics… not at all, I have never seen reading comics as a "throwaway" kind of reading experience: even for comics I cared a little for I just passed them to some kid or friend. Or to my dentist and/or hair stylist for his waiting room…

[Phantalien]

I think the market will be skewed by unreprinted issues attaining the higher prices as the comic book is the only medium to actually read it.

 

I think Golden Age will stay golden until they all get reprinted. I wish I had enough money to be able to read and enjoy GA Green Lantern and Dr. Fate.

[rodan57]

But what about Action #101, Batman #102, Amazing Spider-Man #53, etc? These are routine issues of these long running titles where nothing all that special happens.

 

Heresy!

[dupont2005]

I think all these variant covers will be just as worthless as the regular covers later on.

[Davenport]

You also have a couple of generations of current and former collectors now, who see that hauling around and/or storing their childhood collections generally hasn't been worth the effort in a financial sense. I imagine it's harder to get excited about filling holes or picking up the earlier parts of runs when what you already have isn't that valuable or difficult to replace to begin with.

What you point out can't be overstated. In 30 years a lot of "100% transfer" will have occurred. No one can take it with them. Runs going back to market, to a relative, museum or dumpster, from a time when everything got bagged and stored.

 

That, along with all the other emerging factors...

-digital archives

-a generation with new and differing nostalgia

-virtual storytelling (3D worlds, VR goggles, immersive 'comic book' experiences)

-middle class financial strains (robotics and AI job-competition to sort out)

-entertainment tech we can't even imagine yet.

[slym2none]

I think all these variant covers will be just as worthless as the regular covers later on.

 

Or in the case of the Star Wars 100+ variants, probably not gonna have to wait for "later on." But by all means, slab them if you want to, folks!

 

 

 

 

-slym

[catrick339]

But what about Action #101, Batman #102, Amazing Spider-Man #53, etc? These are routine issues of these long running titles where nothing all that special happens.

 

Heresy!

 

Yeah, what he said.

 

Don't know about Batman 102, but Action 101 is chock fulla fun!

 

[Tempus Fugit]

When I started to seriously fill out my FF 1-100 run about 5 years ago, I was worried about having to pay serious money for fillers and possibly having difficulty if/when the time comes to sell them.

 

A few of these books: 12, 25, 39, 45, 45 etc could end up being able to finance the entire run in the end.

 

My point is that FF 1-100, ASM, 1-200, JiM 83-120, TOS 39-60 etc are nearly all keys. Being a completionist is what led me to having the keys in the first place. New keys seem to pop up twice a week these days.

 

Being a completionist is an economical way to make sure the boat does not leave without you.

[Tony S]

That one can buy reasonably decent copies ( VF/NM or better) of most comics produced between 1975 and now for less than cover price of a new comic answers this question. There will always be someone completing a run ( full or partial) of just about any title, but they won't have to pay much for anything that doesn't break out as a "key'. You can pick up a lot of books in decent shape that are 30 -35 years old for around a buck apiece, especially if you buy runs, lots or find someone blowing them out at a con.

 

Go back 30 years to the mid 80s, and most comics that were 30-35 years old at the time (1950s) were only going to be around a buck or less if they were low grade lesser superhero books or stuff that wasn't really collected much, like teen, western, and romance, and back then it was more of a challenge to complete runs of that stuff. Part of the interest in completing runs is the hunt, that's why there is so much interest now in the uber-high grades for stuff that is easy to find in merely 9.2-9.4 condition.

 

You also have a couple of generations of current and former collectors now, who see that hauling around and/or storing their childhood collections generally hasn't been worth the effort in a financial sense. I imagine it's harder to get excited about filling holes or picking up the earlier parts of runs when what you already have isn't that valuable or difficult to replace to begin with.

 

I think SA, especially Marvel may continue to be an exception. Once you've got the keys, the rest of the runs aren't so expensive and numerous that it becomes financially impossible (unless you insist on high grade), and for many collectors, the SA more than the GA represents the foundation of modern continuity.

 

+1 to most of what is said here.

 

The market has and will continue to come into balance. There will always be collectors that want to own complete runs. If there are fewer of these collectors then it puts downward pressure on the "run" type issues, especially in average condition. But when these books get cheap enough, they draw collectors in. So it while it might be possible that the next few decades exert some downward pressure on run books in average condition, I don't believe we'll see a time where literally no one wants them.

[Gracias-migration]

My point is that FF 1-100, ASM, 1-200, JiM 83-120, TOS 39-60 etc are nearly all keys.

 

What keys are there in the ASM run between # 53 - 95? Death of Capt. Stacy?

[EC ed]

Being a completist collector is a psychological state...for some fraction of collectors, collecting makes little sense without adopting a completist viewpoint. So, unless there is a structural shift in human psychology, there will always be completists among us....and thus, a market.

[dupont2005]

Being a completist collector is a psychological state...for some fraction of collectors, collecting makes little sense without adopting a completist viewpoint. So, unless there is a structural shift in human psychology, there will always be completists among us....and thus, a market.

Sure, but being a pog completionist is a lot easier on the wallet today than it was in 1993

 

[Tony S]

My point is that FF 1-100, ASM, 1-200, JiM 83-120, TOS 39-60 etc are nearly all keys.

 

What keys are there in the ASM run between # 53 - 95? Death of Capt. Stacy?

 

15 cent cover price ASM's have always sold well for me. There aren't big key issues between 53-95, but there are some break out issues

 

59 1st cover app MJW, 1st Brainwasher

78 & 79 1st app Prowler

86 Reintro Black Widow in new costume

90 (as noted) Death of Capt Stacy

93 1st app Arthur Stacy

94 Origin retold

 

Ought to be a minor keys:

56 - 1st app Capt Stacy

67 - 1st app Robbie Robertson

73 - 1st app Silvermane

 

[jerome34]

On the DC side, I can see "completionists" going for the "new 52" issues

and completely ignoring the older books. Some may go for just select titles,

a few may go for all titles. Whether they go for the variants or whether the

variants chase them off completely is a separate question. (DC is averaging

11+ variants per week for EVERY week since the "new 52" started.)

[That Ron Dude]

The market for completionist collecting is already kaput.

 

The lifestyle of sprawl and largesse is long gone. The middle-class is becoming more minimalist. Single folks don't want to be paying for large pads - they simply can't afford it on their paychecks, even if they have 3 jobs. The 30 something's and older with kids are always struggling for space, and curating a collection with young kids around is tough. The elite - let's face it, the worlds richest have been taking baths with this economy just as much as the stories we hear of them making fortunes.

 

It's happened in every major collectible category. Coin collectors aren't going for complete year sets or types. Card collectors - gravitating to rookies. Toy collectors - first wave, character debuts. Comics - well, if you haven't seen the way everyone is looking for the same 20 key books, then there's no point even asking the question.

 

It comes down to scaling to economic circumstances, demographics, and disposable incomes. There is another side of this that's worth hearing. I know several massive comic and coin collections. The owners will not piece them out. I have tried to work the numbers, but even if I can make 20-30% return, I need to consider inheriting the headache of storing 90% of the books, which are full runs of every major Marvel SA title, and the flagship DC titles. The coins are cool, but the stuff older than a 100 years old are typically smaller fragments of the the bigger collections. The key dates, rare types and error coins are what people care about from the rest, and hanging on to a set for displaying or browsing might seem fun, but makes no economic sense.

 

Do I blame these guys for holding out for the right buyer who wants an instant collection? Not one bit. And make no mistake about it, the pattern of completists methods are on a collision course with key collecting and it's costing us all, because the few who do give in, are forcing the values to climb, because the only way they'll allow their collections to be cherry-picked is to make it worth their while to sit on the rest. Want the book - the acquisition cost has to incorporate leaving their collections incomplete, and the owners stuck with stuff no one wants.

 

 

 

The dealers have become well versed in paying higher, because the market has been tolerant and are absorbing the goods, even at the rate of growth some of these keys are experiencing. Resistance will come, whether it's collectors who won't allow their collections to be pieced out, or dealers marking up at a price point where collectors just start to throw in the towel.

 

Thank you. Very well thought out. There is a lot there to think about.

[01TheDude]

In a nutshell, I think some here are over extending how popular it was to collect comics during any era. And to assume that the current thought processes of the majority is somehow the way ALL kids from the past two generations think is far too broad a generalization. It only takes a small percentage of those groups to have the interest in these books to keep the hobby moving forward. The movies alone should keep the interest high for decades to come.

 

my two cents

 

 

for those who have the time-- my long winded thought process...

 

I hear the argument that the last two generations have no interest in amassing stuff etc and it made me think back to my childhood in the 1970s. Back then- not every kid collected comic books. It was a small percentage and this may be true throughout time. Many people collect many different things for a ton of reasons. I think we are over reaching saying the last two generations don't have kids who have the desire to collect books.

 

It isn't as if the people who focus on collecting golden age are strictly collecting childhood memories. I don't think the age or type of books has a particular attachment to when you were born. If something interests you, you go for it. The pure tonnage of books from the 1980s through the 2000s (also referred quite often as drek as a body) makes those books more often than not worthless. Some say the same is true of 1970s books and to a lesser extent 1960s. But remember that in 30 years, these books will be over 70 years old and rapidly deteriorating (at a far less rate than golden age of course thanks to mylar/backing boards etc). But with each passing year, fire, war, flood, and other tragedy-- less and less survive. We may not have a paper drive that kills off collections like they did in WW2 -- but these books are in as much risk as any. About the only ones that seem slightly not at risk are the drek primarily because they were bagged and boarded immediately and that they were not printed on newsprint.

 

My thinking based on this is that the shear number of available pre-1980 comic books will continually dwindle while the population continues to grow. That small percentage of kids/adults interested in the hobby --even if it stays the same low percentage-- will maintain the need to get those books at the very least at current levels.

 

[makeminemego]

Is someone putting together a run of ASM #1-50 a completionist? FF #1-100?

 

And I'm not asking that rhetorically, I'm not sure if a completionist is focusing only on an early run of a title, or all issues of a title, like 196x-current.

 

If people collecting early runs of a title are considered completionists, then yes, I think there will always be collectors pursuing those issues.

 

Moderns and even Bronze books could be a different story though.

[rjrjr]

Being a completist collector is a psychological state...for some fraction of collectors, collecting makes little sense without adopting a completist viewpoint. So, unless there is a structural shift in human psychology, there will always be completists among us....and thus, a market.

 

Hey! I resemble that remark!

[dupont2005]

In a nutshell, I think some here are over extending how popular it was to collect comics during any era. And to assume that the current thought processes of the majority is somehow the way ALL kids from the past two generations think is far too broad a generalization. It only takes a small percentage of those groups to have the interest in these books to keep the hobby moving forward. The movies alone should keep the interest high for decades to come.

 

my two cents

 

 

for those who have the time-- my long winded thought process...

 

I hear the argument that the last two generations have no interest in amassing stuff etc and it made me think back to my childhood in the 1970s. Back then- not every kid collected comic books. It was a small percentage and this may be true throughout time. Many people collect many different things for a ton of reasons. I think we are over reaching saying the last two generations don't have kids who have the desire to collect books.

 

It isn't as if the people who focus on collecting golden age are strictly collecting childhood memories. I don't think the age or type of books has a particular attachment to when you were born. If something interests you, you go for it. The pure tonnage of books from the 1980s through the 2000s (also referred quite often as drek as a body) makes those books more often than not worthless. Some say the same is true of 1970s books and to a lesser extent 1960s. But remember that in 30 years, these books will be over 70 years old and rapidly deteriorating (at a far less rate than golden age of course thanks to mylar/backing boards etc). But with each passing year, fire, war, flood, and other tragedy-- less and less survive. We may not have a paper drive that kills off collections like they did in WW2 -- but these books are in as much risk as any. About the only ones that seem slightly not at risk are the drek primarily because they were bagged and boarded immediately and that they were not printed on newsprint.

 

My thinking based on this is that the shear number of available pre-1980 comic books will continually dwindle while the population continues to grow. That small percentage of kids/adults interested in the hobby --even if it stays the same low percentage-- will maintain the need to get those books at the very least at current levels.

I agree that collecting isn't going to die any time soon. But prices will fluctuate wildly is my guess. It's already happened when the internet took comic book pricing out of the hands of dealers and into the hands of customers. Where a books worth is based on what someone is willing to pay, and not what someone is willing to charge. It's made the most sought after comics worth fortunes, and the staggering majority of comics nearly worthless. What used to be considered near mint, or priced at the Overstreet Near Mint price, is now considered about Fair. The past ten or fifteen years has had a major impact on the collectors comic economy. And I think as technology advances we'll just see more surprises. Some pleasant, some unpleasant. But I do think that demand will shrink as people become interested in other things, and now the option to read the story without owning the actual original vintage comic exists.

[FineCollector]

If people collecting early runs of a title are considered completionists, then yes, I think there will always be collectors pursuing those issues.

 

Moderns and even Bronze books could be a different story though.

 

The price of mid-90's Amazing Spider-Mans right before the reboot tells me that people are attempting runs of what some would consider lesser importance.