Collections drying up? 4 4

[Hamlet]

3 hours ago, kimik said:

I have been commenting on this for a while now. Keys and hot covers are where the action will be in the future for the hobby (just like it is for sportscards, stamps, coins, etc.) Due to the various reprint formats available to readers, there is no need to fill runs any more with more expensive back issues. Instead, collectors will just buy the key/hot cover book and read the rest via reprints. It is the way all hobbies evolve. 

Of course collectors could also take the next logical step and just buy reprints of the keys as well. ?

The problem with these types of collectors is that they have a lot less personal interest in the hobby itself.  I suspect they are simply buying keys because other people are buying them and they like buying the hot item with the rising price.  

In a downturn, these types of buyers can disappear fast, IMO.

FYI--  if no one bothers with run books anymore, they won't be expensive.  I enjoy buying 50+ year old books out of the dollar boxes.  

 

[thehumantorch]

6 minutes ago, Hamlet said:

Of course collectors could also take the next logical step and just buy reprints of the keys as well. ?

The problem with these types of collectors is that they have a lot less personal interest in the hobby itself.  I suspect they are simply buying keys because other people are buying them and they like buying the hot item with the rising price.  

In a downturn, these types of buyers can disappear fast, IMO.

FYI--  if no one bothers with run books anymore, they won't be expensive.  I enjoy buying 50+ year old books out of the dollar boxes.  

 

Have to agree.  Increasing prices attract speculators and card dealers and if prices begin to drop they'll sell out faster than you can say swampy beaver.  It's dangerous when people who have no loyalty to the art form are driving up prices. 

[FineCollector]

14 minutes ago, thehumantorch said:

Have to agree.  Increasing prices attract speculators and card dealers and if prices begin to drop they'll sell out faster than you can say swampy beaver.  It's dangerous when people who have no loyalty to the art form are driving up prices. 

Inflated prices don't scare me, you should pay what you're happy paying for a comic.  If the market changes, that's the risk you take for buying now instead of later, whether you see a gain or a loss.

I have a bigger issue with dealers disregarding the bulk of a collection because the books aren't worth their time.  The short term flip has done immeasurable harm to the hobby.  The buying public sees their local "expert" treating titles like they're worthless, so they think the books are worthless too.  The dealer, in turn, complains that nothing sells, claiming "people only want keys," and can't understand why no one will pay for his bin stock. 

[thehumantorch]

5 minutes ago, FineCollector said:

Inflated prices don't scare me, you should pay what you're happy paying for a comic.  If the market changes, that's the risk you take for buying now instead of later, whether you see a gain or a loss.

I have a bigger issue with dealers disregarding the bulk of a collection because the books aren't worth their time.  The short term flip has done immeasurable harm to the hobby.  The buying public sees their local "expert" treating titles like they're worthless, so they think the books are worthless too.  The dealer, in turn, complains that nothing sells, claiming "people only want keys," and can't understand why no one will pay for his bin stock. 

That's a chicken or an egg problem.  Is the dealer influencing collectors or are collecting patterns influencing what a dealer values and is willing to buy.  My basement is full of run books I've tried to sell repeatedly and at lower and lower prices.  Meanwhile I'm getting offered collections with more of the same.  Ultimately I'll buy almost everything and the price I pay depends on how quick it will sell, how many copies I have buried in my basement and how much it will ultimately sell based on experience.

I may be reinforcing the stereotype for unloved books but I think the buyer has set the trend.  Of course a lot of the buyers are part time dealers looking to flip.

[FineCollector]

I feel that anytime you're approached with the question, "what should I read?" that's a golden opportunity to start someone on a "drek" title.  Every comic movie and tv show (except Lucifer) is tied to at least one drekky title you can recommend.  The issues won't sell themselves, but turning a customer onto something like Mike Grell Green Arrow, Peter David Supergirl, Ordway Superman, or Ron Lim Captain America is a happy time for everyone.

[spreads]

12 hours ago, 1Cool said:

Probably 50 long boxes of $15 per long box books like Valiant and crappy 90s books.  There is 100 long boxes of 80s books like Alpha Flight, Kazar, X-Factor, Marvel Two In One.  But the last 100 long box is nicer books like New Mutants, Justice League of America, Flash, lots of Conan, Wonder Woman and Flash.  With all the 80s books it seems like a decent deal for $0.10 a book ($30 a long box) but you would of course be able to move a ton of books at $1 a book.

Oh man that sounds horrible! 

Remember my story of the friend above?  He paid less than $10 a box for the independents, and a lot of the stuff was NM/NM+....he's still sitting on massive inventory despite his constant advertised sales;  I don't, however, setup at shows, can anyone confirm how many of those $1 books will move?  Taking away semi-keys, how many books from a title like Conan would move at $1 each?

Edited June 11, 2017 by spreads

[piper]

I've been following this thread with much interest. I used to be a "run collector", but came to the realization that. I could either have volume and skip the pricey books or limit the scope of my collection to keys, classic covers, and specific short runs of books.

Ultimately, I picked the latter. Why?

- They take up less space.

- I hate lifting long boxes 

- Budget. I don't have infinite amounts of money to work with.

- Saleability. My wife or kids won't be stuck trying to sell the "Drek" after I'm gone.

- Collecting runs of GA books is near impossible for me.

- Quality over Quantity

I still have small runs that I'm working on: 

-ASM 1 - 50 (At one point, I had 1 - 700)

-Famous Funnies 209 - 216 set. Need 216

- FF 1 - 10

I have more fun collecting this way and isn't enjoyment why we do this?

I will also mention in passing that my What If Vol 1 and Phantom Stranger sets will never be sold unless I find an upgrade.

[Hamlet]

7 hours ago, thehumantorch said:

That's a chicken or an egg problem.  Is the dealer influencing collectors or are collecting patterns influencing what a dealer values and is willing to buy.  My basement is full of run books I've tried to sell repeatedly and at lower and lower prices.  Meanwhile I'm getting offered collections with more of the same.  Ultimately I'll buy almost everything and the price I pay depends on how quick it will sell, how many copies I have buried in my basement and how much it will ultimately sell based on experience.

I may be reinforcing the stereotype for unloved books but I think the buyer has set the trend.  Of course a lot of the buyers are part time dealers looking to flip.

You must be thinking of later books and higher prices than me.  I don't see much of anything SA sit too long if it gets put in a dollar box.  I see a lot of mangled SA books sit when priced too high though.  

Ultimately, for the later drekky stuff, the guy running a small local con here has a bunch of tables where you can fill a box for  a pretty modest price.  I think it works out to 3/$1.  He moves a lot of books every convention.  

I don't think it is necessarily bad that the money is focusing on keys and higher grade books.  Why should runs of common, low grade books cost much?  Everyone has gotten so focused on the money that they've forgotten that the original purpose of these things was cheap entertainment.

[SteppinRazor]

7 hours ago, thehumantorch said:

That's a chicken or an egg problem.  Is the dealer influencing collectors or are collecting patterns influencing what a dealer values and is willing to buy.  My basement is full of run books I've tried to sell repeatedly and at lower and lower prices.  Meanwhile I'm getting offered collections with more of the same.  Ultimately I'll buy almost everything and the price I pay depends on how quick it will sell, how many copies I have buried in my basement and how much it will ultimately sell based on experience.

I may be reinforcing the stereotype for unloved books but I think the buyer has set the trend.  Of course a lot of the buyers are part time dealers looking to flip.

I don't think comic book dealers are strong enough to set the market. And if they can sell something, they will. I also don't think speculators are the only ones buying keys.  Once there are standards set for importance, people want the important thing.  The standards get set as part of group dynamics and human nature.  When you get offered runs, you don't overpay typically, right?  If you don't overpay, it's not fair to say you aren't valuing them either, you're just following established parameters.  But the only way runs will gain value is if people start paying more money for them.  Dealers can't just start charging more for them and then trying to convince people that they're worth it.  They'll go out of business.

Look in the PGM forum.  Everyone is asking for grades on keys.  Everyone slabs keys, not just speculators.

[Artboy99]

21 minutes ago, Hamlet said:

You must be thinking of later books and higher prices than me.  I don't see much of anything SA sit too long if it gets put in a dollar box.  I see a lot of mangled SA books sit when priced too high though.  

Ultimately, for the later drekky stuff, the guy running a small local con here has a bunch of tables where you can fill a box for  a pretty modest price.  I think it works out to 3/$1.  He moves a lot of books every convention.  

I don't think it is necessarily bad that the money is focusing on keys and higher grade books.  Why should runs of common, low grade books cost much?  Everyone has gotten so focused on the money that they've forgotten that the original purpose of these things was cheap entertainment.

We have 200 long in Dave's basement ( sorry Dave! I need to buy a bigger home? ) and most of it is 80's to current from collections we have managed to buy. I agree the SA books sell...we can't keep them. We also struggle to find collections that contain those books: they are out there, but the competition to acquire them is huge here in Edmonton.

Today at a local comic show we have several longs of books priced at 0.25 C each. I will report back here and let you guys know how they did.

4 for 1! Got to be a great deal right? Already had a fellow comic seller browse the boxes yesterday, his first comment was "I can see why these are 0.25 c", then he pulled a dozen books and paid us before we all went out for dinner. If I can't sell the books for 0.25c then what do I pay for them? Seems 0.10c is possibly to much. 0.05c? $10 for a longbox? If I can't sell them the buyers are setting the price for this stuff and that means the next time I see a collection that contains these books I simply pass: already have it, can't sell it. It is worthless.

I am thinking for the next big multi day show Dave and I should build a few absolutely drek boxes and put them under the tables with a sign on them "FREE!" entice the kids to grab as many books as they want.

Sounds like a great idea. The problem is always space/ cost of space versus return on that space and room in transport vehicles. Hard to bring something that takes up space that is generating nothing but good will.

Edited June 11, 2017 by Artboy99

[1Cool]

1 hour ago, Artboy99 said:

We have 200 long in Dave's basement ( sorry Dave! I need to buy a bigger home? ) and most of it is 80's to current from collections we have managed to buy. I agree the SA books sell...we can't keep them. We also struggle to find collections that contain those books: they are out there, but the competition to acquire them is huge here in Edmonton.

Today at a local comic show we have several longs of books priced at 0.25 C each. I will report back here and let you guys know how they did.

4 for 1! Got to be a great deal right? Already had a fellow comic seller browse the boxes yesterday, his first comment was "I can see why these are 0.25 c", then he pulled a dozen books and paid us before we all went out for dinner. If I can't sell the books for 0.25c then what do I pay for them? Seems 0.10c is possibly to much. 0.05c? $10 for a longbox? If I can't sell them the buyers are setting the price for this stuff and that means the next time I see a collection that contains these books I simply pass: already have it, can't sell it. It is worthless.

I am thinking for the next big multi day show Dave and I should build a few absolutely drek boxes and put them under the tables with a sign on them "FREE!" entice the kids to grab as many books as they want.

Sounds like a great idea. The problem is always space/ cost of space versus return on that space and room in transport vehicles. Hard to bring something that takes up space that is generating nothing but good will.

Giving away a book to the kids worked great at the Cons I set up at last year.  Even if the kids didn't buy any other books the mob around the table prompted other people to stop by and take a look.  Worse thing you can have is an empty booth.  There is a tipping point where it's too busy but I'd rather be closer to that end.  Giving away a free book to anyone under 18 led to me selling 1,200 $1 books at one 3 day con with all of them being 90s drek.

[Hamlet]

19 minutes ago, 1Cool said:

Giving away a book to the kids worked great at the Cons I set up at last year.  Even if the kids didn't buy any other books the mob around the table prompted other people to stop by and take a look.  Worse thing you can have is an empty booth.  There is a tipping point where it's too busy but I'd rather be closer to that end.  Giving away a free book to anyone under 18 led to me selling 1,200 $1 books at one 3 day con with all of them being 90s drek.

That is a good idea.  Get those books out of your hair and potentially create new customers over the long term.  

[fastballspecial]

2 hours ago, spreads said:

14 hours ago, 1Cool said:

Probably 50 long boxes of $15 per long box books like Valiant and crappy 90s books.  There is 100 long boxes of 80s books like Alpha Flight, Kazar, X-Factor, Marvel Two In One.  But the last 100 long box is nicer books like New Mutants, Justice League of America, Flash, lots of Conan, Wonder Woman and Flash.  With all the 80s books it seems like a decent deal for $0.10 a book ($30 a long box) but you would of course be able to move a ton of books at $1 a book.

Oh man that sounds horrible! 

Remember my story of the friend above?  He paid less than $10 a box for the independents, and a lot of the stuff was NM/NM+....he's still sitting on massive inventory despite his constant advertised sales;  I don't, however, setup at shows, can anyone confirm how many of those $1 books will move?  Taking away semi-keys, how many books from a title like Conan would move at $1 each?

High grade will move. People always looking for high grade copies for their collections even Conan.

[lou_fine]

2 hours ago, piper said:

I've been following this thread with much interest. I used to be a "run collector", but came to the realization that. I could either have volume and skip the pricey books or limit the scope of my collection to keys, classic covers, and specific short runs of books.

Ultimately, I picked the latter. Why?

 

- Quality over Quantity

+1

Yes, I also came to the same realization some 20+ years ago, as you should always go for quality over quantity. 

Especially in a marketplace where it's almost impossible to move out off the shelf CA books guiding for $12 even at a $3 price point, and yet you have frantic buyers beating down the doors and bidding $30K+ for relatively lower graded vintage quality books that guides at only $12K. 

[lou_fine]

15 hours ago, Sqeggs said:

18 hours ago, lou_fine said:

Just curious, but what type of GA keys are crazy hot this year, but were dumb cheap only a short year ago? 

As far as I know, the GA books that are currently hot right now have been hot for an extended period of time.  Not aware of any new hot GA books that have just popped up onto the scene. 

MF 73 maybe?  Or has it been more than a year since that one popped?

Yes, that one popped back in June of 2015 when CC was able to auctioned off a VF copy for something like $99K.

The book has basically dropped back or at best plateaued at that level since that time. 

[ComicConnoisseur]

On 6/5/2017 at 4:27 PM, 1Cool said:

Comic book characters seem to be hotter then ever so I'd guess people just equate popularity to $$ so they spend extra time researching and trying to sell the books themselves.  I'd guess the amount of picked clean collections will become more prevalent since the people will give up after the easy online sales books are gone.  I also see less and less Silver-Age books floating around whereas the amount of Bronze/Copper collections seem to be exploding. 

The cat's out of the bag now. Who always dominates the top ten hollywood blockbusters every year? Superheroes.

Looking at You-Tube top trending videos we will find the Black Panther trailer is top trending video. 

Everybody and their grand mother know these comics are hot.

A better way to clean up his look for LeBron,Brady,Pokemon and Magic The Gathering cards as some people don't know some of these cards are worth hundreds to thousands. This is so much different than comics where just about everybody knows the keys are worth something.

[lou_fine]

On 6/6/2017 at 8:50 AM, Artboy99 said:

On 6/6/2017 at 8:31 AM, thehumantorch said:

Trust me, there's at least 1 OO GA collection left.  My partner Karl went over and looked at a few of the boxes before the owner got tired.  Detective 28 up, Batman 1 up, All Stars, Timelys, it's out there and when it comes to market - assuming the heirs don't toss it - it'll be huge.  The early Detectives were probably VF or better.

Shhhh, as per the owner we are not to talk of this in open forum.

Aahhh, I believe it's probably a bit too late to keep this quiet now.   

Did I read somewhere that this owner is already into his mid 90's and that you guys believe this collection would be a slam dunk to achieve pedigree status?

I believe the owner must be fully aware of exactly what he has in terms of their value, and if so, I hope he's done his estate planning with respect to the dispersal of this collection already.  Unless he believes in the law of immortality or thinks he has found the fountain of youth which he will make use of when the time comes. 

[FineCollector]

1 hour ago, lou_fine said:

+1

Yes, I also came to the same realization some 20+ years ago, as you should always go for quality over quantity. 

[Fan Boy]

4 hours ago, spreads said:

Oh man that sounds horrible! 

Remember my story of the friend above?  He paid less than $10 a box for the independents, and a lot of the stuff was NM/NM+....he's still sitting on massive inventory despite his constant advertised sales;  I don't, however, setup at shows, can anyone confirm how many of those $1 books will move?  Taking away semi-keys, how many books from a title like Conan would move at $1 each?

With whatever space I have at home, I tend to stay away from having long boxes with dreks like independents, 3rd or (4th?) tier superhero titles or anything by runs after 1990s. One dealer tried to offer me $5 for each short box full of good reader books ( some even are CA books, some BA stuff). I said to him that they are meant for someone who might enjoy cheap reading, not to keep as collectibles. Eventually, these boxes will go be auctioned off someday? I have to keep moving stock for fresh books to come.  I am just a part time dealer on my spare time to keep build up my personal collection.  

If I was to own a house ... yeah, for sure I would be like you guys with 100, 200+ long boxes in basement! 

[Fan Boy]

4 hours ago, Artboy99 said:

 

I am thinking for the next big multi day show Dave and I should build a few absolutely drek boxes and put them under the tables with a sign on them "FREE!" entice the kids to grab as many books as they want.

Sounds like a great idea. The problem is always space/ cost of space versus return on that space and room in transport vehicles. Hard to bring something that takes up space that is generating nothing but good will.

I did the same thing in giving away free comics. I had 3 boxes under table. Some kids were grabbing batches of books they like. One dealer even took one box away. In my mind .. "good, less space for me to haul back home"