Strategies in collecting runs: Keys first or non-keys first? 1 1

[Hudson]

55 minutes ago, TeddieMercede said:

That really stinks and I feel for you as a collector - hope someday youre able to finish it up.

Thank you, sir.

Last year I came very close to obtaining a low grade, but "affordable" copy, however the seller then decided to sell to one of his regular customers instead.

I took that as a sign that perhaps the complete Action run was not in my cards.  A tough pill to swallow, however, in the end I have to remember that comics are just possessions and not where real happiness is found.

[shadroch]

  Fifteen years ago, or perhaps more, I decided to collect every 12 cent Marvel.  I thought I had a good chunk of them, but forgot about all the obscure titles.

Fast forward to around 2007/2008. I was down to the last fifty or so books.  Went to a major convention and spent most of the day hunting for them.

Found a dealer who had a number of books, mostly Millie the Models, that I needed and was haggling over a package deal when it occurred to me I was about to drop two hundred dollars on books I didn't want, and would never read, just to complete a goal that no one but myself really cared about.  That month I purged my SA Marvels of about around two  hundred books and traded for an Avengers 4 and 9, a Spidey 14 and a GA Captain America.

My fever had broken.

Edited June 7, 2017 by shadroch

[classicaaron]

I tend to focus on the filler books first because they are cheap and usually take several shows to get the run anyway. so might as well start right away to give yourself multiple opportunities to find the books.  keys are pretty much always at every show, not everyone always brings the same drek.  plus I don't know how many times I have found the "keys" along with the fillers for the same price in the same box and saved a ton of money.  If I was just buying off the wall I would have been really mad.  I don't find the keys go up in value all that much from year to year anyway. sure over several years they do but I typically have a run done by then and on to the next one.  just as great a chance a filler catches fire and you have to over pay for something that would have cost a buck a year back anyways.  just as great a chance that $1 book becomes $50 as that $50 becoming $100 in todays movie spec world.

[F For Fake]

2 hours ago, Hudson said:

Thank you, sir.

Last year I came very close to obtaining a low grade, but "affordable" copy, however the seller then decided to sell to one of his regular customers instead.

I took that as a sign that perhaps the complete Action run was not in my cards.  A tough pill to swallow, however, in the end I have to remember that comics are just possessions and not where real happiness is found.

I've run out of "likes" to give for the day, but I think this is a very healthy way to look at it. My feeling is that once collecting starts to feel like an obligation, or begins to cause you actual stress in your real life, it's time to give it up. At the end of the day, it's just stuff. COOL stuff, no doubt, but stuff all the same.

[newshane]

I've almost completed a full run of Spawn with variants (about 340 slabs) by using a piece of advice from a respected boardie with one of the largest collections out there...

"Be vigilant...be willing to spend more money than the next guy."

I simply bought whatever I could, whenever I could...price be damned.

I did, however, try to chase down the rarest and most expensive books first.

 

Edited June 7, 2017 by newshane

[Get Marwood & I]

Once I'd finished my raw ASM runs I thought I'd go for a CGC run of 9.4 White Pages for issues 100 to 200. It was a way of continuing collecting ASM I suppose, but my heart wasn't fully in it as I'm not actually a big slab fan. 101, 121, 122 and 129 were quite pricey then so I decided to go for quantity first and picked off the cheapies thinking I'd pick off the big guns as and when bargains appeared. They didn't of course, and prices increased hugely in a short period. So I made the wrong choice on reflection from a price point of view. My 129 ended up costing me £700, almost double what I could have got it for had I purchased it first. 

So my advice, based on my own experience would be to get the pricey keys first,  on the basis that they may increase in cost far quicker than the non keys which in theory will always be freely available. 

[1950's war comics]

6 hours ago, Marwood & I said:

Once I'd finished my raw ASM runs I thought I'd go for a CGC run of 9.4 White Pages for issues 100 to 200. It was a way of continuing collecting ASM I suppose, but my heart wasn't fully in it as I'm not actually a big slab fan. 101, 121, 122 and 129 were quite pricey then so I decided to go for quantity first and picked off the cheapies thinking I'd pick off the big guns as and when bargains appeared. They didn't of course, and prices increased hugely in a short period. So I made the wrong choice on reflection from a price point of view. My 129 ended up costing me £700, almost double what I could have got it for had I purchased it first. 

So my advice, based on my own experience would be to get the pricey keys first,  on the basis that they may increase in cost far quicker than the non keys which in theory will always be freely available. 

Good advice from Marwoods friend !!

Edited June 8, 2017 by 1950's war comics

[Get Marwood & I]

3 hours ago, 1950's war comics said:

Good advice from Marwoods friend !!

If only 'I' had thought of it sooner..... ?

[Fan Boy]

17 hours ago, Marwood & I said:

 

So my advice, based on my own experience would be to get the pricey keys first,  on the basis that they may increase in cost far quicker than the non keys which in theory will always be freely available. 

That was what I did with my Jughead Comics run. I decided to jump on the keys first. I brought #1 at the highest grade possible.  Then took the other minor keys among the run, again by the highest grades possible. 

At the same time when the regular issues pop up at cheap good prices.  I brought them. I made a good decision because I have all keys done, leaving me to complete the run with no problem. 

[Get Marwood & I]

1 hour ago, Fan Boy said:

That was what I did with my Jughead Comics run. I decided to jump on the keys first. I brought #1 at the highest grade possible.  Then took the other minor keys among the run, again by the highest grades possible. 

At the same time when the regular issues pop up at cheap good prices.  I brought them. I made a good decision because I have all keys done, leaving me to complete the run with no problem. 

Perfect. Exactly what I should have done. The only saving grace for me was that the keys continued to go up in value so even though I paid more than I needed to, I'd make a nice profit today if I decided to sell. Swings and roundabouts. 

[poppy73]

I started out buying only modern books because I was unaware of what the key issues were. Now I'm educated and inclined to buy that Hulk 181 or Wolverine 1982 series in 9.8. Maybe X-Men 94. It's a whole different game and best of all it's fun. 

[01TheDude]

If you are not overly concerned with only getting high grade books - i.e. able to settle on mid-grade and even low grade, completing runs is obviously both much simpler and less expensive. It sort of matters why you are collecting the run. If you just want to have all the issues so you can read them and experience the original books -- why go crazy about grade? I've found that what collectors consider as "Reader copies" can vary greatly and to some-- a 5 or 6.0 book is sometimes referred to as reader/low-grade grade/mid-grade. I pick those up when the price is right-- upgrades can always happen later. But I do try to avoid rusty staples, missing pieces/pages, ugly stains, detached covers, and especially (apparent) brittle pages. Most of these last comments relate more to silver age books of course. Bronze age stuff has a slightly higher threshold unless I just want a placeholder for now. Having a run in CGC boggles my mind as you can't even read the books (unless you crack them out)--though I understand those who enjoy the registry points system.

[NoMan]

11 minutes ago, 01TheDude said:

If you are not overly concerned with only getting high grade books - i.e. able to settle on mid-grade and even low grade, completing runs is obviously both much simpler and less expensive. It sort of matters why you are collecting the run. If you just want to have all the issues so you can read them and experience the original books -- why go crazy about grade? I've found that what collectors consider as "Reader copies" can vary greatly and to some-- a 5 or 6.0 book is sometimes referred to as reader/low-grade grade/mid-grade. I pick those up when the price is right-- upgrades can always happen later. But I do try to avoid rusty staples, missing pieces/pages, ugly stains, detached covers, and especially (apparent) brittle pages. Most of these last comments relate more to silver age books of course. Bronze age stuff has a slightly higher threshold unless I just want a placeholder for now. Having a run in CGC boggles my mind as you can't even read the books (unless you crack them out)--though I understand those who enjoy the registry points system.

I have multiple copies of my DD Miller run completed in raw. I just like the new stands copies and thought it be fun to put a WP 9.8 CGC newstand run together. I've got em TPB too. Love the art and stories. Beginning to figure out how to get a piece of OA

[FineCollector]

20 hours ago, 01TheDude said:

If you are not overly concerned with only getting high grade books - i.e. able to settle on mid-grade and even low grade, completing runs is obviously both much simpler and less expensive. It sort of matters why you are collecting the run. If you just want to have all the issues so you can read them and experience the original books -- why go crazy about grade? I've found that what collectors consider as "Reader copies" can vary greatly and to some-- a 5 or 6.0 book is sometimes referred to as reader/low-grade grade/mid-grade. I pick those up when the price is right-- upgrades can always happen later. But I do try to avoid rusty staples, missing pieces/pages, ugly stains, detached covers, and especially (apparent) brittle pages. Most of these last comments relate more to silver age books of course. Bronze age stuff has a slightly higher threshold unless I just want a placeholder for now. Having a run in CGC boggles my mind as you can't even read the books (unless you crack them out)--though I understand those who enjoy the registry points system.

Amen.  Whenever someone dumps their S.A. midgrade "readers," I feel tingly in my happy place! 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 2017-6-9 at 3:19 AM, 01TheDude said:

Having a run in CGC boggles my mind as you can't even read the books (unless you crack them out)--though I understand those who enjoy the registry points system.

For me, getting a CGC run was just another way of extending what I was doing. I already had all the raws and had effectively run out of things to buy (Spidey-wise that is). So attempting a CGC run was a logical next step. I nearly managed it - I amassed ASM 102-200 in 9.4WP - and I have to say they did look impressive. But deep down, I wasn't a fan of graded books so there wasn't too many tears shed when I sold them.

As a collector of most things, I can totally understand those who go after graded books. There is a beautiful symmetry around a run of graded books, all lined up the same (being a bit of an OCD type all my ASM's had to be 9.4, had to be WP, had to be the same CGC case style (no old and new mix) and had to all be newsstands):

But on the flip, I don't particularly admire or envy the guy who has, say, ASM 1-100 in CGC 9.6, over the guy who has them all raw in low to mid grade. Each collection is an achievement in its own right and the only real difference determining the grade quality is the wealth of the individuals involved. That's not to belittle the guy who has the 9.6 run. It would have taken great patience and dedication to collect it, but I sometimes think we overstate the importance of grade and this can alienate those who can't afford it.

When we start talking about a quarter of a million dollars for a book, a part of me switches off. One of the reasons I dislike graded books, is that a one point difference can catapult a book financially to a ridiculous level. CGC has very much energised parts of the hobby, and provides a valuable service with its restoration checks etc, but as an experienced buyer myself, I could clearly see that a good number of my ASM 9.4 run were not NM. We all know that one CGC 9.4 can look completely different to another in the same grade.  So I prefer to let my own eyes do the talking, if you know what I mean.

I had a lot of fun cracking slabs open. I got a lot of my MJI's that way, and enjoyed busting them out, reading them, smelling and touching them, and then placing them in triple boarded mylite2s alongside their raw cousins like so: 

 

But hey, I've digressed. Whether low grade raw, or high grade slab, buy the keys first! 

 

 

[Ken Aldred]

1 hour ago, Marwood & I said:

When we start talking about a quarter of a million dollars for a book, a part of me switches off

The current escalation in prices to thousands of dollars from figures in the hundreds switched me off a while ago.

I don't have the commitment to make even that level of sacrifice.

[grebal]

Quarter of a million just for one comic book?  nobody does that!  ; )

Nothing much new to add what's already been said- my budget at the time and recognizing (or being lucky) a good opportunity has impacted my run collecting the most.

When I'm "on", and buying, I'd shop on ebay for auctions ending during dead times (Monday morning through Friday morning) and buy opportunistically even if the auction lot had more books than I needed.  I ended up with lots of extras that I later had to sell, but crossed off many from my run-list needs.  "Keys," know the rough market range for prices, and buy when the grading seem accurate or dealer I knew from past experience had strict standards.  I've since added this board to ebay for my shopping, and also checked a few local shows with mixed success.  "Runs," have become easier to fill in in a collecting universe with fewer run collectors, but on the flip side it's harder to sell my doubles and other "extra" copies I've accumulated.

I have money now, but when I didn't have so much (or was so conditioned to being a cheap a s s since I grew up in 70s with at most a few dollars a week to spend) I focused mainly on value and what I could afford at the time, so by the 90s I had most of my runs without several keys.  After I got a real yob by late 90s I found ebay wild frontier at the time and filled in many of my gaps and even bought a few unnecessary (small) collections. When I returned to collecting a year ago I filled in a lot of the remaining keys, sold off a few doubles, but even today still have a few runs that are incomplete (e.g. no FF 4, ASM 1 or AF15) or have Golden Record Reprints of a few (like FF 1, or JIM 83).  Maybe I'll shop for the missing early JIMs still on my list (87, 91, 92, 94, 95). Those are hardly keys, but each would set me back a hundred or two for decent upper midgrade (or 20-50 for lower grades).  And e.g. I love X-Men but still don't have 1, 3, 6, 8 and a few others to 42. 

I think at times I avoid completing all my runs; knowing myself, it could prompt me into new and expensive fields.

[Get Marwood & I]

18 minutes ago, grebal said:

Quarter of a million just for one comic book?  nobody does that!  ; )

Nothing much new to add what's already been said- my budget at the time and recognizing (or being lucky) a good opportunity has impacted my run collecting the most.

When I'm "on", and buying, I'd shop on ebay for auctions ending during dead times (Monday morning through Friday morning) and buy opportunistically even if the auction lot had more books than I needed.  I ended up with lots of extras that I later had to sell, but crossed off many from my run-list needs.  "Keys," know the rough market range for prices, and buy when the grading seem accurate or dealer I knew from past experience had strict standards.  I've since added this board to ebay for my shopping, and also checked a few local shows with mixed success.  "Runs," have become easier to fill in in a collecting universe with fewer run collectors, but on the flip side it's harder to sell my doubles and other "extra" copies I've accumulated.

I have money now, but when I didn't have so much (or was so conditioned to being a cheap a s s since I grew up in 70s with at most a few dollars a week to spend) I focused mainly on value and what I could afford at the time, so by the 90s I had most of my runs without several keys.  After I got a real yob by late 90s I found ebay wild frontier at the time and filled in many of my gaps and even bought a few unnecessary (small) collections. When I returned to collecting a year ago I filled in a lot of the remaining keys, sold off a few doubles, but even today still have a few runs that are incomplete (e.g. no FF 4, ASM 1 or AF15) or have Golden Record Reprints of a few (like FF 1, or JIM 83).  Maybe I'll shop for the missing early JIMs still on my list (87, 91, 92, 94, 95). Those are hardly keys, but each would set me back a hundred or two for decent upper midgrade (or 20-50 for lower grades).  And e.g. I love X-Men but still don't have 1, 3, 6, 8 and a few others to 42. 

I think at times I avoid completing all my runs; knowing myself, it could prompt me into new and expensive fields.

 

Indeed. After the initial euphoria, there's something oddly sad about completing a run. Thrill of the chase and all that. The worst thing I ever did was completing everything. I couldn't do it again, as my circumstances have changed, but if I did, keys first would lessen the impact. 

[Dick O.]

On ‎9‎/‎6‎/‎2017 at 10:35 AM, NoMan said:

I have multiple copies of my DD Miller run completed in raw. I just like the new stands copies and thought it be fun to put a WP 9.8 CGC newstand run together. I've got em TPB too. Love the art and stories. Beginning to figure out how to get a piece of OA

Please feel free to check out Part 1 & Part 2 of my guide to collecting original art; along with my weekly OA column here: Original Art Aficionado archive!

 

[NoMan]

1 minute ago, O. said:

Please feel free to check out Part 1 & Part 2 of my guide to collecting original art; along with my weekly OA column here: Original Art Aficionado archive!

 

Cool! thank you!