Why has price of comics risen over the years? 0

[That Ron Dude]

What has made collectable comics increase in value? They could have just as easily gone down.

Foremost, I think many people came to realize that the printed value of comics by Stan Lee, Al Feldstein, Jack Kirby, Al Williamson, Siegel and Shuster, Neal Adams and so on is just worth a lot more than the dime or so it cost on the stands or the dollar or so a collector’s bookstore might have been charging for it. And people seemed to be realizing that around 1965. Comics before that are collectable and valuable, and much less so after that. I might call that inherent collectability— there being less items available then there are people who want the item. But other things put the value of rare comic books through the roof and I will state as many as I can.

1. The Rocket’s Blast Comic Collector: The fanzine advertised in Marvel Comics. With a copy any one could have an idea of what other people thought their comics were worth.

2. Howard Rogofsky and Robert Bell: They realized that people would pay far more than people in the RBCC were asking for their comics. Their catalogues were available for a quarter.

3. Conventions: In 1970 there were only two within a five hundred mile radius of Toronto. There a collector might see a comic he had been previously unaware of and decide to collect it.

4. The Overstreet Price Guide did a lot to formalize the price of comics. The Gerber photo guide also made collectors aware of the scarcity and value of the comics of the past.

5. Comic books were a disposable art form. While a quarter million copies of Amazing Fantasy 15 were printed, there are probably only about five thousand existent today. There would be even fewer Amazing Fantasy 14s. 

6. Comic stores were perma-cons. They became fan meeting centres and some were run by knowledgeable people like George Henderson who owned Memory Lane, Toronto’s first comic store and Ron Van Leeuwen who owned Silver Snail, Toronto’s second. It could be depressing buying comics that were priced factoring in the store’s cost of heating, electricity and and taxes. But factoring in the cost of postage or convention admission could be depressing, too. 

7. Hoarding: People accumulated huge collections for pennies a book. Businesses like Mile High and My Comic Store have huge inventories where a stray issue can be found but at a significant premium. Others did it on a smaller scale. On a micro-scale an old friend, Cliff Letovsky, bought a hundred copies of Conan #1 when it came out. I am not sure if that raised or lowered the price of the comic in the Montreal area. I guess it depends on how much patience Cliff had.

8. Bags, boards, and boxes: These kept the comics in nicer condition. More could be charged for comics in nicer condition. One dealer pointed out to me that they also make the comics look like they are in nicer condition.

9. Direct Market: At a certain point a reader had to purchase his new comics from a comic store. There, back issues could also compete for his attention.

10. Collections like White Mountain, Mile High and other pedigrees: They allowed the owners to charge a premium on comics in the best condition with an interesting history.

11. Ebay, Heritage and Comiclink: With eBay, a comic that once might have been available only occasionally at a convention, became available permanently and in quantity. This, one would think, would send down the price. But eBay also made everyone into a potential dealer. At one time a collectable comic purchased in a comic store would be worth half the price if sold back to the store. That became irrelevant. The comic can now be resold for about the same amount at any time through eBay. This caused many to loosen the purse strings with the knowledge that their money wasn’t going into a black hole. In my opinion, it was eBay more than anything that made things go up.

12. Condition mania: CGC allowed people to agree upon the condition of a comic. This made comics more liquid but also introduced a behaviour which rewarded very slight differences in condition, some undetectable, disproportionately to other factors.

13. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and 1990s speculation. No one wanted to miss the next TMNT #1. Smart operators knew this and put out small run comics with as many #1 designations as possible such #1 ASDFJKL Summer Special, #1 ASDFJKL Adventures, #1 ASDFJKL, #1 ASDFJKL Swimsuit issue, #! ASDFJKL Comics and Stories. They would put multiple covers on each issue and send limited amounts of some of the covers to stores creating instant collectables. There were lots of tricks. Someone remarked that if stocks traded the way comics did at that point, people would be jailed.

14. A wealthy basketball player. I wish I could remember the details but a basketball player who had the money paid an unprecedented amount for a rare comics. That sent the whole high end of the market up.

15. Movies: They draw attention to certain characters sending the books through the roof. Groot in Tales to Astonish #13 sent a $25 comic into the thousand dollar range.

16. Key Issues: Issues with certain characteristics go up while the ones around it stay lower. I have heard this attributed to the notion that people's dwellings are smaller now and collectors have no room for runs. They buy primarily key issues. It could also be that the runs are now purchased in reprint, at a much lower price.

17. EBay goes BUY-IT-NOW: The people who manage EBay decided that it would become a sellers market. They give ads which are initially free, charging only when the items sells. This gives a seller every incentive to price high and troll for suckers.  
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18. Business plan of dealers: It seems to make more sense to dealers to sell fewer comics at high price than more comics at low price. Less transactions occur therefore less work. It is easier to restock. Their businesses can look like museums with few items moving, but they can sell very few and still turn a profit.

19. The early generation of collectors is now in their sixties or worse. Many of us have paid off our houses and our children’s education. We can buy things that we have always wanted but have been too cash strapped to buy. We can buy that Corvette or that Incredible Hulk #1.

Any other ideas?

Edited July 12, 2017 by That Ron Dude

[1950's war comics]

All the stamp collectors moved to greener pastures....................

[lizards2]

It was inertia - that bastich ...,  

[letsgrumble]

This looks like a syllabus for a 19-week course… which I would take!  

A lot to ponder and discuss. So, to start, I’ll take Point #16 Key Issues for $200, Ron.

You make a valid point. Dwellings are much smaller and collectors have no room to keep runs. There are also risks and liabilities that deter collectors from keeping large quantities of books around the home; i.e., see recent threads re theft and flooding. There’s also the thought of being served divorce papers. Comics are not cheap. Captain Obvious here: It’s much more manageable to keep 100 books worth $30,000 than say 5,000 books worth $30,000. 100 books are easier to liquidate.

There are not many run collectors out there anymore. As a kid, the thrill of hunting books to complete a run was primal to collecting. I was driven to collect runs for reasons in this order: 1) to read the books, 2) satisfaction of completing a title… 3) the monetary value of the books, a distant third, was possibly the farthest thing from my mind (BTW, Marvel Two-In-One #1-100 and X-Men #94-#143 were among the first runs I completed as a kid). Today, when attending cons - while I know things have changed - I am surprised at the number of attendees who don’t bother digging through the bins and are only interested in the top-dollar key books on a dealer's wall. But I also realize that I’m out of touch.

[jpepx78]

One word: money.

In addition to your points, money is one of the main reasons for the rise in value of some collectible comics.

 

Inflation: if you spent $100 in 1957, 1977 & 1997 you would need to spend $871, $404 & $152 in 2017 respectively to match the same buying power.

 

Rising household income: Although the average household income has increased greatly from the 1930s to the present, the true average income has only increased slightly after adjustments for inflation and taxes. However those in the higher income brackets would have more disposable income. It's probably easier to make a lot of money now than decades earlier.

 

 

Third party grading & encapsulation: grading and slabbing has simplified the transaction process by making collectible comics as just another commodity like soybeans, pork bellies or gold. Years of sales data from dealers or auction houses has established certain collectible comics as viable "investments". People with real money are comfortable with spending tens of thousands or more on certain comics.

[Glassman10]

you left out the Mom's of America throwing out all that mind rotting trash found under the beds of teenagers and younger most everywhere in America.  Mom's made stuff scarce. By the time we were up to the bronze age, even Mom's had figured out that they shouldn't throw this stuff out. Too Late! Suddenly it was all being kept carefully . Beyond a few comics in the 70's, most are static. The values related to the memories of the kids of those Mom's caught up but really not until fairly recently when it became respectable to "Invest" in comics. I have an AF15 and I paid nothing for it. I got it back around '67 and it had perceived value then of about $80 bucks, a lot of money for that time.  It wasn't really until around 2004 that it began to shoot up . Most other books around it did but not very much and AF15 is not actually a rare book. I think there's around 2000 of them .  It doesn't matter if you're good if you're first. Stamps and coins remained static in all that time for the most part. Coins have done better lately. Mom's I notice never threw out coins.  My Pogo Books, which I adore are fundamentally worthless. 

[Aweandlorder]

20. disposable income

[ygogolak]

1 hour ago, Aweandlorder said:

20. disposable income

That's number 19.

[Broke as a Joke]

Who was the wealthy basketball player?

[Dick Pontoon]

Because everybody wants some, I want some too. Everybody wants some, hey, how about you?

[jimhouston1]

I think there are less full run collectors because the comic buyers today may not be reading the comics they buy. 

Marvel comics we read as kids were continued into the next issue. I knew my son was reading the comics I gave him because he would ask me for the next issue. My wife and I were happy to know he was reading the comics. 

Even though DC comics were not alway continued next issue there was continuity. We knew some D.C. Heroes were on Earth 1 or Earth 2 and could easily explain it.

Also, any slabbed book is not read unless it's broken out of the slab. 

We paid higher Prices If we wanted to know how a story ended and missed an issue. Especially if it became a key issue. 

[1950's war comics]

19 hours ago, letsgrumble said:

This looks like a syllabus for a 19-week course… which I would take!  

A lot to ponder and discuss. So, to start, I’ll take Point #16 Key Issues for $200, Ron.

You make a valid point. Dwellings are much smaller and collectors have no room to keep runs. There are also risks and liabilities that deter collectors from keeping large quantities of books around the home; i.e., see recent threads re theft and flooding. There’s also the thought of being served divorce papers. Comics are not cheap. Captain Obvious here: It’s much more manageable to keep 100 books worth $30,000 than say 5,000 books worth $30,000. 100 books are easier to liquidate.

There are not many run collectors out there anymore. As a kid, the thrill of hunting books to complete a run was primal to collecting. I was driven to collect runs for reasons in this order: 1) to read the books, 2) satisfaction of completing a title… 3) the monetary value of the books, a distant third, was possibly the farthest thing from my mind (BTW, Marvel Two-In-One #1-100 and X-Men #94-#143 were among the first runs I completed as a kid). Today, when attending cons - while I know things have changed - I am surprised at the number of attendees who don’t bother digging through the bins and are only interested in the top-dollar key books on a dealer's wall. But I also realize that I’m out of touch.

 

Excellent synopsis !  

[Silver Ager]

Same cycle as other stuff (except pogs, they don't count). People like stuff, throw stuff away, wish they could buy stuff again later. Prices of stuff goes up. Movies + television pushes prices of often heretofore-ignored stuff to silly heights. Good point about smaller homes/downsizing. I hear it is a trend with the younger sort.

Edited July 13, 2017 by Silver Ager

[kav]

On 7/12/2017 at 4:19 PM, That Ron Dude said:

  One dealer pointed out to me that they also make the comics look like they are in nicer condition.

yep.  much nicer.

[Glassman10]

What I really miss is a Kenner's Hydroelectric set from the early  sixties. . If you had two of those things you could really damage some nice wooden floors. Comics at least did not damage anything but the minds and morals of youth-          hard to prove.  Something about preexisting conditions

[Batman1fan]

I wonder at what point will the ever increasing price of comics begin into dissuade the majority of buyers from buying new comics.  I can remember when the cover price rose from 60 cents to 75 cents back in the early 1980s, and it was a big deal at the time, at least to me at 12 years old.  I never received an allowance, so my comic book money came from mowing lawns or doing odd jobs around the house, and a 15 cent increase at that time meant that I could no longer buy all of the titles that I had been purchasing.  With cover prices now at 3.99 and up, how in the world can the average kid today afford to buy and collect new comics?  I stopped buying new comics when DC made the decision to put out Batman and Detective twice a month.  I could no longer justify spending four dollars for a new comic book that took me less than ten minutes to read, when for the same four dollars I can get a low grade silver age or a mid grade bronze age comic that takes me a half hour to 45 minutes to read, and I'm happier to have in my collection to boot.  I just have to wonder how much higher cover prices can go up before the resulting loss of buyers willing to pay those cover prices means that comic publishers will price themselves out of profitability?