Forbes Article: What The Hell Is Going On In The Collectible Comics Market? 8 8

[RonS2112]

42 minutes ago, alexgross.com said:

thanks for sharing this. i agree that it was a well written article, and lon allen, the heritage VP interviewed for it, seemed pretty straightforward. not sure i'd expect him to answer totally honestly given the potential conflict of interest. but i liked what he said, especially "i dont know how much higher it can go." but i do not believe he can answer this last question honestly. it only takes a small number of really rich guys to game the market. i don't have any idea if that's happening, but if it were, no one from heritage would acknowledge it. 

 

RS: Are there any signs of froth or trouble ahead that you can see?

LA: I haven’t seen any clues to that yet. I wonder how much higher it can possibly go. Stuff keeps going through the roof.

RS: Finally, people have long complained that these public auctions can be subject to manipulation, with people buying and selling the same stuff among themselves to pump the prices up. How much of what we’ve seen is churn or artificial commerce?

LA: That might have been true in the 80s, or something, but now the market has just gotten so huge. You can go to any of these big shows, and just see there's 100,000 people there that are clamoring for this stuff,  so I think there's just no end in sight to the number of people that are interested in it.

Agree with your points and that it was a good article.  BUT.....some would point to the mere fact that Forbes is doing an article on skyrocketing spec prices as evidence that a bubble is getting ready to burst.  Heritage auctions is the true rarified air of this hobby and those 100,000 people he cites are probably 95% NOT viable purchasers of the products HA has to sell.

[Aman619]

27 minutes ago, RonS2112 said:

Agree with your points and that it was a good article.  BUT.....some would point to the mere fact that Forbes is doing an article on skyrocketing spec prices as evidence that a bubble is getting ready to burst.  Heritage auctions is the true rarified air of this hobby and those 100,000 people he cites are probably 95% NOT viable purchasers of the products HA has to sell.

Ah, but the sales records are made by a  slim few people , not the 100,000 at a convention, most of whom aren’t even buying comics. 

[valiantman]

If the people with serious money to invest decide they want to join the party at Heritage on the highest graded books and original art, there is honestly no limit to prices.

How do we know this? 

Because artwork by Roy Lichtenstein is a rip-off of true comic art and comics themselves, and it has sold for $165,000,000 for just one painting.

If the fake comic art can be $165,000,000 for one item, there is absolutely no limit to what the real thing could be.

 

[musicmeta]

I really enjoyed reading the article. 

[Cat]

23 hours ago, thehumantorch said:

I was gonna say the same thing.  The writer understands what's going on and states it clearly.

Forbes apparently lets basically anyone write for them, if you're good enough they'll buy the article. That's according to one of their regular writers, Paul Tassi, who covers video games, mostly one in particular. 

Those standards are allegedly not that high, and I've certainly seen Tassi make many mistakes over the years, but I don't know that it's fair to expect him to have an editor who knows the minutiae of one video game. It is what it is. 

[BabyAteMyDingo]

On 6/24/2021 at 7:05 PM, Aman619 said:

But it’s good promotion for comics.  I forwarded it to my financial guys who mocked my comics collection!

That's great you are able to push it in the financial peoples faces.

I have to wonder if this "good promotion" is actually a bad thing for comic books. Have you ever been on a project and everything gets set up just so by people who love the project and then some bloke who knows squat or could care less about it takes over? And turns it into something unrecognizable? And ruins it? Causing the fun and value to drop out of the bottom?

It is like inviting a burglar in to admire our jewelry collection. This is this and that is that and this is how that works and that is how this works. They don't care about aesthetics. They care about money. When they wring everything they can out of something, they vanish in a puff of smoke.

[Courageous Cat]

tons of new money coming form deeeeeeep pockets IMO. If ya think you've been priced out of the hobby before, now ya really have