Why should a key issue be worth so much more than a non key issue? 1 1

[William-James88]

On 2/12/2024 at 4:12 PM, thehumantorch said:

It's always supply and demand.  New Mutants is very common, even in high grade, but demand is also high.  If demand is high prices are higher.

Hell, SA Fantastic Four and Spider-man aren't rare.  Huge print runs and likely 100,000 or more surviving copies of most of those books.  Even AF15 isn't rare.  Demand is strong enough to absorb the large supply and keep prices elevated.  And speculators see a potential windfall and jump onto hot or popular issues and increase demand.

it truly is that simple, I don't get what people are missing. 

[shadroch]

In my house, we'd get a dozen Hostess donuts each week. Four sugar, four plain and four cinnamon.   Each type was in equal numbers but one type was far more popular.  You could call them the keys to the box. 

[William-James88]

On 2/13/2024 at 2:35 PM, 666-6666 said:

Who cares, he's just a dumb Coinee  They can't appreciate comics.

Joking aside, there is a lot someone coming from coin collecting would not understand about comics. The collections are entirely different. With coin collecting, the intrinsic collecting goal is to have all the years of a specific coin. They even have specially made presentation binders  for that. So the base demand is essentialy the same for each coin. So then what matters is scarcity. Which is where the initial take for this thread comes from.

comic runs, however dont have unified or common demands. While there is just 1 tiny dime to collect per year, there are between 12-20 comics for the main Batman title to collect. Collecting all US coins in one year gives you the 5-10 coins to add to one’s collection annually and costs next to nothing. So being a yearly completionist is relatively easy, low cost and low space. But each year there are thousands of US comics, which would cost someone tens of thousands to purchase and require a whole lotta room. So there are far far fewer yearly comic completionists out there and thus no uniformed base demand. 

 

so right then and there we can see how the two hobbies cant really be compared. Supply and demand will still dictate the collectible’s price but the factors involved with that equation will be completely different

[Lazyboy]

On 2/12/2024 at 6:20 PM, newshane said:

I used the word "popular" only once in my original post, to describe the Walking Dead and why many consider it a key. 

Would you disagree if I revised the statement to "important" and if so, on what grounds? 

The book is a key on multiple levels. Do you disagree? 

You don't really think I was taking issue with TWD 1, do you?

Popular covers, no matter what words you use to describe them, are not important. Character crossovers are not important, they are just likely to be in higher demand and have higher value due to appealing to more than the normal audience for an issue. Issues worked on by "famous" creators?

[Lazyboy]

On 2/13/2024 at 10:56 AM, William-James88 said:

On 2/3/2024 at 12:24 PM, Mokiguy said:

their demand established by pure speculation among collectors because a certain character showed up and has little to do with the amount of any particular issue produced. And that to me seems odd ....... sort of backward and ripe for a collapse some day like Tulips in Holland in the 1600 hundreds or more recently the dot.com bubble of the late 90's where people were throwing money at and buying any stock that was tech or had dot.com in it's name. I don't know much about sports trading cards, but didn't they also have a similar bubble and collapse and now only certain prized cards have any value?

Personally I think a true scarcity is what should drive demand and not greed and speculation. But that's just my humble opinion.

You are understanding the situation perfectly.

No, he certainly is not. Natural demand by collectors is completely different than speculation and scarcity should (and does in the vast majority of cases) have nothing to do with the demand for a comic book.

[newshane]

On 2/13/2024 at 10:25 PM, Lazyboy said:

Issues worked on by "famous" creators?

Not all keys, but certainly in demand. Consider Frank Frazetta or Matt Baker. 

I mean, I would consider their first works to be "important" but that's just me. 

There will always be contention about what makes a key and what does not. 

If we really want to get silly, let's talk about "semi-keys."  

Edited February 14 by newshane

[William-James88]

On 2/13/2024 at 11:50 PM, newshane said:

Not all keys, but certainly in demand. Consider Frank Frazetta or Matt Baker. 

I mean, I would consider their first works to be "important" but that's just me. 

There will always be contention about what makes a key and what does not. 

If we really want to get silly, let's talk about "semi-keys."  

We have modern examples too. The Alex Ross Covers for recent Hulk books make those books higher in demand and thus more pricey than other issues in the same creative run. There's also the artgem covers on the Batgirl run, and plenty more examples. And one of the probable best examples would be Batman 423 that's only a big deal because of a cover by Todd McFarlane.

[Zonker]

Detective Comics #880 

[The humble Watcher lurking]

On 2/13/2024 at 11:50 PM, newshane said:

Not all keys, but certainly in demand. Consider Frank Frazetta or Matt Baker. 

I mean, I would consider their first works to be "important" but that's just me. 

There will always be contention about what makes a key and what does not. 

If we really want to get silly, let's talk about "semi-keys."  

That is a great example as people who were buying Frazetta and Baker did very well compared to people who bought a bunch of the bronze age and copper movie hyped keys, especially long-term going forward.