The Future of Comic Book Collecting & Investing

[Junkdrawer]

20-30 years ago you went to a show and someone had a ASM1 on their wall and the buzz around the room was did you see the ASM1. Nobody back then imagined eBay, comic auction houses online or the size and regularity of world wide comicons. How do we predict how advanced or @&$@ up the world will be 20-30 yrs from now? Never mind this hobbie as an investment. Let's talk about global warming and natural disasters like a Katrina that you know must have gobbled up a few collectibles. Earthquakes I'm sure crack a few slabs in the past and will do so in the future. Pipes bursting, fire and any day to day disasters happen and claim collectibles everyday. Heck even the sun and uv light has deminished the value of so many items. Point is holding on to what ever it is you got and protecting it from damage theft or total devistation is a challenge and some will ultimately fail. This will thin the herd thus drive prices up naturally and along with inflation make the good stuff that survives even more amazing. On the other side will there be demand, buyers investors that is a deeper question. I see the younger people less nostalgic today. Their world is digital, it's online, is available. YouTube videos are forever. Kids today I doubt would drop $50k on anything but Nike sneakers.

[Haljordan168]

there will always be a market for first appearances of major characters as long as there is a place for those characters in pop culture and they resonate with the next generations. Corporations like Disney and DC won't be letting the value of their intellectual property in these characters diminish over time so there's good support for comic values. Although you never know which ones will be the current "hot" books, characters like batman and spider-man have stood the test of time and there will always be a following. my 2 cents...

[Jaylam]

Tangible goods have usually held their value over time. However, I see todays younger generation not liking to have (tangible) things to take care of. They don't have the time, patience nor place and most certainly don't want to put the effort in it takes to take care of this stuff and protect it or move it around. They like the convenience of the instant, intangible, at your fingertips, digital age with nothing else to weigh them down. Not to say I don't like it either, but for example, I don't maintain a large collection of record albums or even CD's for that matter anymore. Why have all that bulk when I can just download it and listen to whatever I want, when I want, by just typing in a few commands on my phone or tablet or computer? As another example, I guess you could say the same for cash money. As much as it kind of scares me, we are moving to a cashless monetary system. Heaven forbid if we get hit with an EMP pulse. Our whole way of life will get thrown into chaos.

So to me it looks like in the long run, having tangible assets, especially having fragile ones like comic books, may end up going the way of the dinosaur. Of course, there will always be a few exceptions, but eventually even those will become museum pieces.

[grebal]

20-30 years ago you went to a show and someone had a ASM1 on their wall and the buzz around the room was did you see the ASM1. Nobody back then imagined eBay, comic auction houses online or the size and regularity of world wide comicons. How do we predict how advanced or @&$@ up the world will be 20-30 yrs from now? Never mind this hobbie as an investment. Let's talk about global warming and natural disasters like a Katrina that you know must have gobbled up a few collectibles. Earthquakes I'm sure crack a few slabs in the past and will do so in the future. Pipes bursting, fire and any day to day disasters happen and claim collectibles everyday. Heck even the sun and uv light has deminished the value of so many items. Point is holding on to what ever it is you got and protecting it from damage theft or total devistation is a challenge and some will ultimately fail. This will thin the herd thus drive prices up naturally and along with inflation make the good stuff that survives even more amazing. On the other side will there be demand, buyers investors that is a deeper question. I see the younger people less nostalgic today. Their world is digital, it's online, is available. YouTube videos are forever. Kids today I doubt would drop $50k on anything but Nike sneakers.

 

Right, good points. It's not just about demand, supply is important too. And the supply of old comics is at best static, or more likely slowly dwindling (fewer books tomorrow than yesterday) or deteriorating in condition.

 

As I recall record albums were at one point declared obsolete, yet even with the kindle/digital comic age and the 'what-is-a-book?' generation there are lots of people buying up vinyl for their record collections and retro turntables.

[delekkerste]

Wouldn't trying to predict the future 20-30 years from now be counter-intuitive to the meaning of a logical analysis? If you said a few years out, fine, perhaps there's some data you can use. If any of us could predict what happens in even 10 years, I assure you we wouldn't be chatting about it with you on a forum.

 

I can't tell you how good Kevin Durant will be next season or 5 seasons from now, but I can tell you that he'll almost surely be retired in 15 years and pushing up daisies in 100 years.

 

Very often, longer-term predictions are easier to make than shorter-term predictions.

[delekkerste]

I've you'd listened to people across this time period, THE SKY HAS ALWAYS BEEN FALLING and the market is due for a huge correction in 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 soon quickly eventually a while.

 

Buy what you like.

 

I recently said on a podcast that you were right (didn't mention you by name, but referred to a post you made). In it, you shared a bit of my skepticism, but also called me out asking me why we would crash when the Gen Xers were just coming into their own. And, you were absolutely right - my analysis was very superficial/flimsy at the time. But, I think it's an air-tight slam dunk now. There was a seamless transition between the Baby Boomers and Gen Xers, yes, but I think you can bet the ranch on there being substantial disruption when the Millennials take over.

 

Not that there aren't younger fans getting into the hobby, but the reality is that fewer readers/collectors were created after the '90s comic implosion and after the Internet splintered interests in an infinite number of directions over the past 20 years. And, we know that this generation will not have the same financial advantages that the past generations have had, both in terms of income potential and not having benefited from getting in early into books and using appreciation to bolster their buying power. As such, they'll be expected to clear the comic book market at ever-increasing price levels - demographically, when Gen X becomes net sellers, the next generation simply won't have the numbers or cashola to do so without price adjusting to clear the market. That's just Economics and Demographics 101 - surely you can see that.

 

NOT that this is necessarily going to happen imminently. I would expect Gen Xers to be net buyers for years to come, maybe even as long as another 15-20 years (in the best case). But, I think within two decades (if not sooner), we'll reach a tipping point. Crash? Probably not (unless things get too crazy and it triggers a cyclical downturn). But, secular stagnation will almost surely start to set in as today's 30-50 somethings become tomorrow's 50-70 somethings. Prices as a whole will stop moving up, the market will get less liquid and friendly to flippers, auctions will be less robust, more collections will get sold, etc. It'll be a very different looking market in 20 years - you can bet your bottom dollar on that.

[the blob]

Comic book investing has a lot in common with the Dutch tulip mania. Now the the publishers can pretty much keep any issue in print in one form or another, I believe comic investing's days are numbered. I doubt the investment we see today will exist in 20-30 years time. I'm sure the people who invested in tulips didn't think their investments were a bad idea at the time.

 

------

 

While the last part of your thought may ultimately be right, comic collecting really doesn't have much in common with the dutch tulip mania, which lasted about a year for the most part. comic collecting has been popular for 40+ years.

 

This is an interesting article on the tulip craze:

 

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/10/economic-history

 

Of course, ebay bids are pretty much enenforceable too!

 

 

 

 

[FlyingDonut]

I've you'd listened to people across this time period, THE SKY HAS ALWAYS BEEN FALLING and the market is due for a huge correction in 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 soon quickly eventually a while.

 

Buy what you like.

 

I recently said on a podcast that you were right (didn't mention you by name, but referred to a post you made). In it, you shared a bit of my skepticism, but also called me out asking me why we would crash when the Gen Xers were just coming into their own. And, you were absolutely right - my analysis was very superficial/flimsy at the time. But, I think it's an air-tight slam dunk now. There was a seamless transition between the Baby Boomers and Gen Xers, yes, but I think you can bet the ranch on there being substantial disruption when the Millennials take over.

 

Not that there aren't younger fans who getting into the hobby, but the reality is that fewer readers/collectors were created after the '90s comic implosion and after the Internet splintered interests in an infinite number of directions over the past 20 years. And, we know that this generation will not have the same financial advantages that the past generations have had, both in terms of income potential and not having benefited from getting in early into books and using appreciation to bolster their buying power. As such, they'll be expected to clear the comic book market at ever-increasing price levels - demographically, when Gen X becomes net sellers, the next generation simply won't have the numbers or cashola to do so without price adjusting to clear the market. That's just Economics and Demographics 101 - surely you can see that.

 

NOT that this is necessarily going to happen imminently. I would expect Gen Xers to be net buyers for years to come, maybe even as long as another 15-20 years (in the best case). But, I think within two decades (if not sooner), we'll reach a tipping point. Crash? Probably not (unless things get too crazy and it triggers a cyclical downturn). But, secular stagnation will almost surely start to set in as today's 30-50 somethings become tomorrow's 50-70 somethings. Prices as a whole will stop moving up, the market will get less liquid and friendly to flippers, auctions will be less robust, more collections will get sold, etc. It'll be a very different looking market in 20 years - you can bet your bottom dollar on that.

 

Yes but.

 

The market will be very different, yes, but we have no real idea of what it will be outside of following historical trend lines.

 

Will my 16 year old daughter want to buy slabbed comics? Probably not. But her and her friends are insane for Pokemon, and insane for "pop culture" things. What will the "collectible" be? I have no idea, but I do see lots and lots and and lots (too damn many) 16 year old boys around my house Pokemon hunting, and a lot of them reading Walking Dead trades, and a lot of them reading Deadpool, and a lot of them reading Star Wars comics. I see tons of kids playing Magic.

 

The Rule of 25 and its painful corollary the Rule of 75 always hold - I don't know why it wouldn't in 2042. Will Iron Man 1 be a collectible in 2042? Probably not. Will Action 1? I would think so. Will a Black Lotus Magic card? If the economy hasn't crashed and we aren't eating processed food paid for with UN credits, I think so.

[grebal]

...

Not that there aren't younger fans getting into the hobby, but the reality is that fewer readers/collectors were created after the '90s comic implosion and after the Internet splintered interests in an infinite number of directions over the past 20 years. And, we know that this generation will not have the same financial advantages that the past generations have had, both in terms of income potential and not having benefited from getting in early into books and using appreciation to bolster their buying power. As such, they'll be expected to clear the comic book market at ever-increasing price levels - demographically, when Gen X becomes net sellers, the next generation simply won't have the numbers or cashola to do so without price adjusting to clear the market. That's just Economics and Demographics 101 - surely you can see that.

 

...

 

I used to think a lot of the same stuff (including what was snipped) but now I think it will prove an inaccurate prediction for reasons already mentioned throughout the thread (about collectors collecting something and growth in population and growth in awareness of the characters and heroes, etc.).

 

Also, I don't think the future can possibly be as bleak as the past decade or so would suggest about the future economic prospects for the next few generations. Imo, the pendulum swing of America's embrace of mediocrity won't last.

 

[delekkerste]

The market will be very different, yes, but we have no real idea of what it will be outside of following historical trend lines.

 

The trend is your friend...until it hits an inflection point. It's human nature to simply extrapolate the past indefinitely into the future. But, as you correctly noted, things move in cycles, if very long-term ones. I'm not a believer in the Rule of 25 - far from it always holding, I see it failing more often than it succeeds. The Rule of 75 I think I can get more behind. But, in any case, inherent in your belief is something we can both agree on - different generations are interested in different things and that pop culture is cyclical over the very long-run. Being interested in Pokemon and other general pop culture may be bigger than ever, but being interested in slabbed vintage comics or any particular part of pop culture is not a constant, as you quite rightly noted.

 

I am not saying that comic collecting will die out in our lifetimes. It will be around longer than we are. But, will the Golden Era we've experienced over the past 15-20 years last forever? Unlikely. Demography is destiny and that there can be little doubt that, just as meteors annihilated the dinosaurs, we can look back and see that, roughly 20 years ago, we lost a good chunk of what had previously been an ever-growing next generation of collectors (not readers, which peaked decades ago, but future back issue collectors) to an industry-wide bust and the ushering in of a new era of media and technology. That will be the real legacy of the Rule of 25, when Gen X starts to age out and we see that while there are still younger collectors getting into the hobby, it won't be in enough numbers or with enough cash backing them to keep prices rising ever-higher in perpetuity like some/many seem to think.

[RockMyAmadeus]

 

The "Golden Era" we've been experiencing can be traced directly back to Iron Man (2008.)

 

Before that, going back to about 1994-1995, the market was still very much in its "crash" mode, from which it didn't begin to recover until the aforementioned Iron Man, and the very new "movie hype" phenomenon.

 

Yes, yes, obviously there was something of that type before Iron Man...but the Batmania of 1989 didn't extend to Avengers, or Superman, or Lobo, or Spiderman.

 

No, this "Golden Era" starts with IM, and continues through Thor, Avengers, Man of Steel, Dark Knight, etc.

 

Not even Batman Begins, or Superman Returns had much of an effect.

 

There certainly wasn't any "Golden Era" in the late 90's/early 00's. That was when the market was at its all time lowest point, so far.

 

 

 

[Wally's Comics]

Comics are just like anything else...

 

 

 

 

 

 

[delekkerste]

I used to think a lot of the same stuff (including what was snipped) but now I think it will prove an inaccurate prediction for reasons already mentioned throughout the thread (about collectors collecting something and growth in population and growth in awareness of the characters and heroes, etc.).

 

Also, I don't think the future can possibly be as bleak as the past decade or so would suggest about the future economic prospects for the next few generations. Imo, the pendulum swing of America's embrace of mediocrity won't last.

 

It takes two sides to make a market. I don't need the future to be bleak for my forecast to come true. Even if the Millennials defy expectations and prove to be just as well off as the Gen Xers, they still won't have the numbers (given the splintering of interests in the the digital era which has caused decline in interest in everything from network TV viewership to magazine and newspaper circulations to people reading comics). Mathematically, there is a finite amount of money and time and yet the number of things to spend one's money and time on has increased exponentially since the mid-1990s. The Millennials and the generation that follows them won't have the financial resources to clear the market at ever-increasing prices either, as they will not have had the benefit of riding the wave of appreciation, while even in anyone's wildest dreams income growth will continue to lag behind the projected appreciation in books. Heck, even many Gen Xers couldn't afford to buy back their own collections starting from scratch today.

 

I'm not going to hazard a guess at what happens a year or two or five or eight from now. But, the numbers simply don't add up the farther out you project.

[grebal]

Population (potential future demand) is growing. The collector 'trait' in humans will not disappear, although efforts may certainly be redirected in other directions. Comics have become more recognized, less stigmatized, and in fact the recent popularity of movies and TV will probably help not hurt the likelihood that future collectors will pick comic books as their passion.

 

Supply is static or decreasing.

 

In simple terms of supply and demand, the future doesn't look that bad.

 

Reactions like pendulum swinging back are common to students of demography.

 

In an electronic age with fewer tactile objects like books, magazines or records, the attraction might prove greater to possess what could be doubly-retro (not just old things, but those old-fashioned-book-things).

 

And this country (never mind the rest of the world, wait until Chinese kids have the means to buy old Spiderman or Batman) will not remain on the track-toward-ever-poorer indefinitely. I'm a bit more optimistic about US prospects longer term, once we shake off this malaise of mediocrity that seems to have infected us over the recent past.

[Bill1]

Dump 1.3 Billion Chinese into the market, and that may help a collection or two.....

[Marty Mann]

The Future Of Comic Books...little did I know in 1942 when I bought this issue off

the newsstand that it had any "future".

 

https://c2.staticflickr.com/3/2938/14171886545_f1d87ce66d.jpg' alt='14171886545_f1d87ce66d.jpg'>IMG ALL WINNERS #4

 

mm

[delekkerste]

Supply is static or decreasing.

 

This is a common analytical mistake. The stock of supply is static or decreasing, but the flow is not. And, as the Gen Xers age out, the flow of supply to the market will only increase (again, NOT IMMINENT - I'm talking potentially 1-2 decades from now - but a dead certainty the farther out you go given retirement and mortality).

 

 

In an electronic age with fewer tactile objects like books, magazines or records, the attraction might prove greater to possess what could be doubly-retro (not just old things, but those old-fashioned-book-things).

 

Yes, there will be some people who will seek tactile things in this ever-increasing disposable/digital/ephemeral world. However, one of the hallmarks of the Millennials is that they are increasingly eschewing material goods and ownership for renting/sharing and experiences. This topic has been discussed to death on CNBC regarding the changing spending and lifestyle patterns of Millennials and how it is affecting everything from automakers (perhaps you may have seen the Enterprise Rent-A-Car commercial during the Olympics which emphasizes that they now do ride-sharing for their Millennial clients) to brick-and-mortar retailers. Millennials are eschewing home ownership, car ownership, watch wearing, physical periodicals, watching TV shows on TV through a cable box, shopping at malls...however many are rebelling against these trends and buying/collecting like the older generations are outnumbered at the margin by those going with the flow.

 

 

And this country (never mind the rest of the world, wait until Chinese kids have the means to buy old Spiderman or Batman) will not remain on the track-toward-ever-poorer indefinitely.

 

They have already have things they aspire to buy when they get richer. Old Spider-Man or Batman comics from the U.S. are not among them.

[1Cool]

Dump 1.3 Billion Chinese into the market, and that may help a collection or two.....

 

A see this affecting a lot of markets but collectible comics is not one of them. I can't imagine comic books (especially collectible English speaking ones most of us tend to collect) will ever be a hot item for the general populous of countries like Indian and China. There may be a few collectors that pop up here and there but not enough to make much of a price difference overall.

[rjrjr]

Dump 1.3 Billion Chinese into the market, and that may help a collection or two.....

 

The problem with the thought that our industry will be saved by foreigners is:

 

a) A large part of the Western world already collects/reads U.S. superhero comics

 

b) A large part of the Eastern world is more into Japan's comic output than the U.S. comic output

 

There is no reason to believe China won't follow it's neighbors into embracing the Japanese comic output, even considering historical animosity towards Japan. That didn't stop other countries in that part of the world from jumping into Japanese pop culture including comics.

 

It is just my opinion, but I don't think you'll get a sizable enough Chinese population to care about U.S. comics to make a difference.

[rjrjr]

Dump 1.3 Billion Chinese into the market, and that may help a collection or two.....

 

A see this affecting a lot of markets but collectible comics is not one of them. I can't imagine comic books (especially collectible English speaking ones most of us tend to collect) will ever be a hot item for the general populous of countries like Indian and China. There may be a few collectors that pop up here and there but not enough to make much of a price difference overall.

 

Beat me to it.