Are prices still climbing or have they eased up a bit??? 43 43

[lou_fine]

On 2/24/2023 at 8:54 AM, Robot Man said:

I know very few people in their ‘40’s-‘50’s with boxes of comics stashed away.

That's probably because the people with boxes and boxes of untouched comics stashed away in poly bags are probably in their 60's and 70's, 

And people with boxes and boxes of read comic books carefully stashed away in mylar sleeves and boards are probably in their 30's and 40's;  

While people with long boxes and short boxes of unread comic books imprisoned in CGC or CBCS holders are probably in their 20's and 30's. 

Edited February 24, 2023 by lou_fine

[THE_BEYONDER]

On 2/24/2023 at 12:51 PM, october said:

That would be awesome. I used to crack out everything I bought, but it's too much money now. If I am buying a multi-thousand dollar slab the choice is I either collect the slab or don't buy it. I'd love to just buy raw copies, but they are impossible to find for the stuff I am after.

I play in a smaller pond, but I recently picked up a beautiful 9.2 BATs 244 that was an upgrade to a childhood copy.  Book was beautiful.  Perfect QP & White pages.  But, I couldn’t enjoy the book in the slab.   I wanted to crack it out and add it to the PC, but I couldn’t bring myself to eat the cost & sold it instead.   Now I have a gaping hole in my PC again 

[lou_fine]

On 2/24/2023 at 10:12 AM, THE_BEYONDER said:

I play in a smaller pond, but I recently picked up a beautiful 9.2 BATs 244 that was an upgrade to a childhood copy.  Book was beautiful.  Perfect QP & White pages.  But, I couldn’t enjoy the book in the slab.   I wanted to crack it out and add it to the PC, but I couldn’t bring myself to eat the cost & sold it instead.   Now I have a gaping hole in my PC again 

Yes, definitely a case of to each their own, as the CGC generation of collectors just love to see their books encased in a slab.

Not so much for some of the longer term collectors like me since the slab holders from my own personal POV are just so bulky and makes it so much more like a commercial product than an actual comic book itself.  To the point that I received my last shipment from Heritage back in 2019 and it's still sitting unopened down in my basement.  Which reminds me that I really should get around to asking them to send my next shipment out to me since it's been quite a few years now.  

Edited February 24, 2023 by lou_fine

[lou_fine]

On 2/24/2023 at 9:21 AM, THE_BEYONDER said:

I don’t think that the comics themselves will lose favour over the next few years, but I do think that the encapsulation of said comics will.   Applying the 25-year-rule to this....raw comics should be all the rage again in about 2 years. 

Maybe it will arrive sooner than you think as we are certainly seeing more and more raw books, even with the big auction houses like Heritage. 

And the strange thing, is that the relative pricing on some of the raw HTF rare GA books are actually just as high, if not slightly higher than what we are seeing with some of the slabbed counterparts from the same time period.  

[the blob]

On 2/24/2023 at 9:54 AM, GrasshopperFF said:

Where was this advice 2 years ago?! I could have been prepared for this! Who knew?

Yes, my timing into the comic book hobby could not have been worse. Jumping in at the peak, and already seeing books like Hulk 181 (7.5 grade) dropping 20%. The X-Men 4 (8.5 grade) I way overpaid for in a Heritage auction has dropped even more. It’s a good thing I didn’t need the money used for a mortgage or other necessities!

Long term (defined as 10 years or more) I feel strongly I’ll be ahead. So, no, I will not be disappointed. In the meantime, this dip was made for buying! 

Play the long game and don't stress it. ASM 129 went from being a $250-300 book in the early 90s to $25-50 in 99/2000 and then back up again. 

[the blob]

On 2/24/2023 at 11:54 AM, Robot Man said:

I know very few people in their ‘40’s-‘50’s with boxes of comics stashed away. Sure, there are some but I bump into more people that have sports cards than comics.

And the average person with a box of their childhood collection, is not or not anymore a “collector”. 

3/4 of the folks on this board were born between 1970 and 1974 though.... or so it seems

[kimik]

On 2/24/2023 at 7:53 AM, buttock said:

Go back a couple of pages for the comments, but they've been going on here for the entirety of my 2 decades on the boards.  

And I have been one of the people posting that there are a ton of young collectors, and they are spending big $$$ on books but not GA or SA. Most of the 20 and 30 yos that I see paying top dollar for books are chasing BA and CA, with less interest in SA or GA. And, some of these buyers are the ones that paid peak/record prices for CA and BA books the past two years just because they wanted 9.8s or 9.9s. Money is not the issue for them due to their business successes, they just want 9.8s. And I am not including the young crypto buyers here as they are not spending like they used to.

Edited February 24, 2023 by kimik

[drdonaldblake1]

On 2/24/2023 at 3:14 AM, Robot Man said:

I was a child of the SA. Bought, traded and read tons of them. They were very available. I discovered GA due to garage sales, used book stores and just having “10 centers” just given to me. I realized they were special and not easy to find. My interest in them shifted pretty early.

I have seen a lot of younger collectors realized the same. They start out on Moderns and work back when they realize the challenge of collecting GA. You just can’t go on eBay and find most of them easily. A LOT easier than when I started but still not easy.

I see very little if any disinterest in GA books. Prices have stabilized a little over the past couple of years but interest is still and will probably stay strong.

Comic shows, especially smaller comic centric shows are packed with willing buyers. Many of my buyers are those in their 20’s and 30’s. All genres if priced right.

CalCon show in Costa Mesa a few weeks ago. Some from my booth shots and a stack bought by a young collector with next to no discount.

 

Great to see comic con well attended👍 second photo down, back row second from the right, is that Mike Goldman of motor City comics??

[THE_BEYONDER]

On 2/24/2023 at 4:30 PM, the blob said:

3/4 of the folks on this board were born between 1970 and 1974 though.... or so it seems

[Microchip]

On 2/25/2023 at 9:11 AM, THE_BEYONDER said:

On 2/25/2023 at 8:30 AM, the blob said:

3/4 of the folks on this board were born between 1970 and 1974 though.... or so it seems

That explains the cohesive, and easy going nature of the boards 

[COI]

On 2/24/2023 at 10:08 AM, Bookery said:

Except that they have always been correct!  The straw-man argument is always presented that comics (or any pop culture collectibles market) will not "crash", when no one ever made the "crash" argument to begin with. 

This is definitely the case for my post. I put out a broad outline as to why I think this recent run-up might be the peak; I didn't say anything about a crash, or comics losing all their value, nor did I say that zoomers won't be collecting.

[THE_BEYONDER]

On 2/24/2023 at 5:28 PM, Microchip said:

That explains the cohesive, and easy going nature of the boards 

[lou_fine]

On 2/24/2023 at 1:28 PM, the blob said:

Play the long game and don't stress it. ASM 129 went from being a $250-300 book in the early 90s to $25-50 in 99/2000 and then back up again. 

Yep, I clearly remember those times and thought that I had missed my big chance to dump my copy of Spidey 129 at top dollar.  

I believe that was also the time that TMNT 1 dropped back down from its $300 level or thereabouts to its sub-$100 pricing level, and I was thinking to myself:  Boy, was I ever lucky that I said a big fast "Nyet" to that LCS owner when he offered to order me a copy of that toxic POS looking book directly from the publisher for an outrageous $300.  Especially since I handed it back to him as fast as possible so that I could look for a piece of sanity wipes to clean my hands and thinking that nobody in their right mind would ever pay $3 for that piece of crapola, let alone $300 big ones.    

[lou_fine]

On 2/24/2023 at 1:50 PM, kimik said:

And I have been one of the people posting that there are a ton of young collectors, and they are spending big $$$ on books but not GA or SA. Most of the 20 and 30 yos that I see paying top dollar for books are chasing BA and CA, with less interest in SA or GA. And, some of these buyers are the ones that paid peak/record prices for CA and BA books the past two years just because they wanted 9.8s or 9.9s. Money is not the issue for them due to their business successes, they just want 9.8s. And I am not including the young crypto buyers here as they are not spending like they used to.

I guess it's really a case of to each their own, but from your posts it sounds as though you are referring to a select portion of the CGC generation of buyers who are buying CGC labels, as opposed to buying the underlying books themselves.  

Believe it or not, although I am not sure who the buyers are, but there are also buyers spending big big dollars on GA books, regardless of the condition they are in and if they have been slightly restored or not, because they are simply ecstatic to find and have the underlying books as part of their personal collection.    

[Dick Pontoon]

On 2/24/2023 at 5:36 PM, THE_BEYONDER said:

So when the skateboard gets too rough on the knees, it's time to move up to the Green Machine?

[kimik]

On 2/24/2023 at 3:56 PM, lou_fine said:

I guess it's really a case of to each their own, but from your posts it sounds as though you are referring to a select portion of the CGC generation of buyers who are buying CGC labels, as opposed to buying the underlying books themselves.  

Believe it or not, although I am not sure who the buyers are, but there are also buyers spending big big dollars on GA books, regardless of the condition they are in and if they have been slightly restored or not, because they are simply ecstatic to find and have the underlying books as part of their personal collection.    

The younger collectors go for raw as well as slabbed, but more of them target slabbed keys and read runs via TPBs/Omnibi/Collected Editions/etc. IMHO, that is the way of the future for comic collecting. There will be demand and price gains for 1st apps and hot/classic covers, but as we have seen over time, less so for common run issues.

Alberta is a bit of an outlier where young workers have high disposable incomes and thankfully more collect comics now than in the 00s.

 

 

[THE_BEYONDER]

On 2/24/2023 at 6:12 PM, MR. Pontoon said:

So when the skateboard gets too rough on the knees, it's time to move up to the Green Machine?

Never stop rolling 

 

[Robot Man]

On 2/24/2023 at 1:30 PM, the blob said:

3/4 of the folks on this board were born between 1970 and 1974 though.... or so it seems

Probably right. But if they are here, they are active collectors. I was referring to the average guys who might have bought some comics as a kid but have actually grown up...

[Robot Man]

On 2/24/2023 at 10:12 AM, THE_BEYONDER said:

I play in a smaller pond, but I recently picked up a beautiful 9.2 BATs 244 that was an upgrade to a childhood copy.  Book was beautiful.  Perfect QP & White pages.  But, I couldn’t enjoy the book in the slab.   I wanted to crack it out and add it to the PC, but I couldn’t bring myself to eat the cost & sold it instead.   Now I have a gaping hole in my PC again 

I have actually very few graded and slabbed books. They just seem so two dimensional to me. My enjoyment level of them is just so quick. I crack out many because I want to enjoy the contents. The ones I keep slabbed are nice copies of ones I really only want for the covers anyway. Sometimes, if I really must, I buy a reader if not cost prohibitive. There are lots of ways to enjoy comics. 

[Robot Man]

On 2/24/2023 at 9:35 AM, Bookery said:

You have always been a collector after my own heart... your golden-age posts always display a wide variety of material, and not just comics.  Some of us just have an affinity for vintage items of times long past.  I'm essentially a comic book shop... that's what the customers want.  But even though they don't sell well, I still can't bring myself to abandon a selection of esoteric first editions, vintage paperbacks, posters and lobby cards (I limit my shop to paper collectibles primarily for space considerations).  I've even carried occasional items from the 16th and 17th centuries.  I do however think a lot of comics have declined in value in my 40-years of business.  Adjusted for inflation, Classics Illustrated on the whole sell for less now than they did in the 1980s.  The same with all but the earliest Disneys.  Most movie tie-ins have far less enthusiasm than they did in my early days of business.  (There was no such thing as 9.6 or 9.8 back then, so that's a different ballgame if they keep setting record prices).  And despite a huge burst in value for Matt Baker and a few hot artists, most romance comics will not sell for premiums beyond inflation-adjustments (they sell great if cheap, however).  And, of course, prices and larger popularity don't always go hand in hand.  Prices can soar on items only 100 people care about, if there are only 50 of those items to be had.  Most of us, even if we were billionaires, probably still wouldn't be spending our money on Gutenberg Bibles... it just wouldn't be in our interest-niche.  

Thanks Tim. I have always worked in advertising and graphic design as an art director. Colors, graphics and visually appealing items with some history have always appealed to me. That, and always, the "thrill of the hunt".

Many told me I should open up a comic store. I always replied heck no. I'm probably a bad business person and would get tired of it soon. Being tied to it all the time and trying to make it work would make it no fun fast.

I really admire guys like you have done it so well and still stayed positive as well as being able to pay their bills. Just not for me. 

By, the way, your store sounds like a magical place. We just don't have stores like that around here. If I am ever in the neighborhood, I will definitely make it a point to stop in and say hi.