Stocks vs. Comics

[shadroch]

 

I'm sorry,but i don't follow your thinking at all. What does ebay or the internet have to do with people collecting comics ten years from now?If people are reading Spidey,DD ect ten years fom now,there will be a market for back issues, either from 2003 or from 1963.

For a kid with an extra couple of bucks to spend,i think its a great investment. Its not like he is going to buy stocks or real estate with that money.Don't recall anyone ranting about selling houses ect....

If you are happy making 2.0% on money in the bank,great.

In several decades you'll have twice as much money in a world where everything costs four times as much.Enjoy.

 

 

 

[14 of spades]

What does ebay or the internet have to do with people collecting comics ten years from now?

 

nothing. that's exactly my point. ebay and internet has A LOT to do with people collecting (speculating in) comics NOW. not 10 years from now (as an answer to your rhetorical question).

 

If people are reading Spidey,DD ect ten years fom now,there will be a market for back issues, either from 2003 or from 1963.

 

where were those people in 1997?

 

For a kid with an extra couple of bucks to spend,i think its a great investment.

 

so you concede that for kids, it's an INVESTMENT. that's fine. problem though. the hoards of kids right now who are growing up and will begin to reach financial maturity in 10 years so that they can go back and buy up all the treasures of their childhood.... where are they? i didn't see ANY at the last convention i went to. i just had a kid brother of a classmate of mine (the kid was in gr.9) ask me if i had comics and had i ever actually read one? he was curious because he had never handled a comic before. he saw me surfing ebay for comics when the question arose.

 

Its not like he is going to buy stocks or real estate with that money.Don't recall anyone ranting about selling houses ect....

 

nothing wrong with putting your money into houses.

 

If you are happy making 2.0% on money in the bank,great.

In several decades you'll have twice as much money in a world where everything costs four times as much.

 

in terms of investing, i'm glad i put my money under my mattress back in the early 1990s when all the comic-investors were telling me to pile high and deep on valiants...

[lighthouse]

USM #1 was a grand slam, but Ultimate Marvel-Team-Up #1 was a total washout. Bendis on Alias #1 was a pretty good purchase, but Bendis on Elektra #1 wasn't. Ultimates #1 seemed like a no-brainer, but wasn't Darth blowing them out around $2 a copy recently?

 

The market for new comics is fundamentally different now from the market that produced the Bronze and Silver Age books, which is a large part of why the speculation has become more complicated.

 

When the books were only distributed on newsstands, print runs were very, very stable. Pulp rates would vary somewhat depending on how exciting a particular issue was, but the available pool of copies did not change dramatically from issue to issue. You could "speculate" on Avengers 93 by going to a few extra stores and picking up their leftover copies, but most of the speculation occurred after the pool was set. Once the number of copies available in the marketplace is determined (on pulp day) then from that point on, the supply is set. If you wanted to pick up 300 copies of a book like Avengers 93, you had to do a lot of work chasing down the copies that other people bought off the rack. But your choice to buy 300 copies didn't affect the number of books in the pool...

 

With the advent of the direct market, the supply-side factors changed dramatically. Speculators could now order larger quantities of specific issues. The process of amassing 300 copies became a lot smoother. But for the most part, that type of speculation still didn't change the available pool of copies. The publishers over-printed every issue by such a large margin that increased speculation by a retailer would not affect the print run. All it affected was how quickly the book would sell out at the distributor level.

 

Fast forward to 2000, and Marvel begins "printing to order". The marketplace now for new comics is incredibly sensitive to the orders of the retailers. The print run for a title may vary by 30% up and down throughout the course of a single year. That NEVER happened in the 60s and 70s. The number of Hulk 181s is really no different from the number of Hulk 187s. But the number of Ultimate Spider-Man 3s is barely half the number of Ultimate Spider-Man 9s. The print runs change THAT dramatically, especially on hot books.

 

The tertiary result of this is that an individual retailer can now completely control the value of any issue they choose. The price to play that game is high, but the system is in place to allow it.

 

Greg Buls ordered nearly 20,000 copies of Ultimates 1. That's not a typo... Now he does have a large customer base of retailers that he sells to, and he moves a couple thousand copies of every Ultimate Spidey issue that comes out. But his order on Ultimates 1 was at least 12,000 copies beyond what it "normally" would have been for the amount of business that he does. When the prices started to rise on Ultimates 1 he started bleeding out his copies at around triple cover, then dropping to around double cover, then dropping to cover price. He got burned when the title started shipping late and demand fell off, and suddenly he was left with over 8,500 copies. His gamble on the first few thousand paid off nicely, and he probably got his cost back on the whole order. But his 8,500 copies (which are still available at 85c each) have completely destroyed any potential for that back issue in the next 3 years. It's possible that those copies will eventually be absorbed by the marketplace, but since a lot of what drives customer demand is a rising price, I doubt it will happen anytime soon.

 

For the bargain price of $11,000, Greg Buls destroyed the back issue value of Ultimates 1...

 

The danger in choosing to speculate on anything (whether it's comics or gold or tech stocks) is that you don't know who else is... If you are the only one, you've got a great chance at success... But if you decide that The Pulse #1 is THE book to buy, and I decide to order 12,000 copies for my shop, you just lost...

 

Those risks weren't there when Hulk 181 was being printed. And they certainly weren't there when Avengers 4 came out... But they are there now, and modern speculators ignore them at their peril...

[scottish]

Excellent post 'house!

[Freiherr]

Modern Comics can be great if you are lucky and can pass them off quickly. I can’t count the number of new comics that I have seen shoot up to $20-$30 within weeks. However, I would have never speculated 99% of them to do so and they always come crashing down just as fast. These books never pick back up and I doubt they ever will.

 

I believe this will be the way till the product known as comics ceases to exist.

[joe_collector]

I think in 10 years time, it'll be hard to find collectors for that tripe.

 

I've been hearing the same thing for the last twenty years.

 

 

I doubt you're saying this with a straight face.

[FlyingDonut]

I think in 10 years time, it'll be hard to find collectors for that tripe.

 

I've been hearing the same thing for the last twenty years.

 

 

I doubt you're saying this with a straight face.

 

Since 1984? I have.

[joe_collector]

I doubt you're saying this with a straight face.

 

Since 1984? I have.

 

Then we run in different crowds, as I've never heard of anyone touting a Silver or Bronze Age crash, outside of Valiant fans.

[ninanina]

Heard from Doug today, new comic sales are up 27% over last year and when Gary Dolgoff heard a buncha you guys were talking about a crash here on the forum all he could do was .

 

They are both having great years (better than last) and having a wonderful time in this hobby.

[joe_collector]

Heard from Doug today, new comic sales are up 27% over last year and when Gary Dolgoff heard a buncha you guys were talking about a crash here on the forum all he could do was .

 

As much as I admire Gary, I gotta tell you that I heard the EXACT same thing before the Independant and Valiant crashes. Dealers were laughing, raking in the money and stating that the good times will never end!

 

Even if they don't believe it, what else do you expect them to say?

[ninanina]

Heard from Doug today, new comic sales are up 27% over last year and when Gary Dolgoff heard a buncha you guys were talking about a crash here on the forum all he could do was .

 

As much as I admire Gary, I gotta tell you that I heard the EXACT same thing before the Independant and Valiant crashes. Dealers were laughing, raking in the money and stating that the good times will never end!

 

Even if they don't believe it, what else do you expect them to say?

 

Well, it is their business and they're livelihood depends on a healthy market. But, new comic sales are up 27% are they not? Although I don't think neither sells new comics (I know Doug doesn't) but it could reflect for a healthy back issue market, no?

 

Well, right now anyway.

 

I'm kinda thinking a lot of the 20 - 30 year olds that left after the 90's crash, seem to be coming back now. That's a lot of readers, no? Certainly, this increase isn't coming from the 12 year old crowd.

[joe_collector]

[but, new comic sales are up 27% are they not?

 

But compared to what?

[ninanina]

I was told 2002 levels.

[joe_collector]

I was told 2002 levels.

 

Well, the stats of new comic sales don't reflect those percentages, so I can only assume someone's working the numbers again.

 

I was assuming a short-term growth period, such a 1-3 months, but no way those are annual numbers.

[ninanina]

I can neither confirm or deny. I was told the stats were based on total Diamond $ Value. Anybody know anything about this?

 

Lighthouse?

 

Darth?

[joe_collector]

I can neither confirm or deny. I was told the stats were based on total Diamond $ Value.

 

Oh, I am laughing now!!

 

Sales - Units Sold

 

Revenue - $$$ Volume

 

So if Marvel and DC raise cover prices, and sales fall, revenues may actually rise slightly.

 

Cooking the numbers as usual.

[Illiterati-migration]

Heard from Doug today, new comic sales are up 27% over last year and when Gary Dolgoff heard a buncha you guys were talking about a crash here on the forum all he could do was .

 

As much as I admire Gary, I gotta tell you that I heard the EXACT same thing before the Independant and Valiant crashes. Dealers were laughing, raking in the money and stating that the good times will never end!

 

Even if they don't believe it, what else do you expect them to say?

 

Well, it is their business and they're livelihood depends on a healthy market. But, new comic sales are up 27% are they not? Although I don't think neither sells new comics (I know Doug doesn't) but it could reflect for a healthy back issue market, no?

 

Well, right now anyway.

 

I'm kinda thinking a lot of the 20 - 30 year olds that left after the 90's crash, seem to be coming back now. That's a lot of readers, no? Certainly, this increase isn't coming from the 12 year old crowd.

 

Did you maybe think that 27% could possibly have something to do with everyone buying extra copies of books so that they could submit them to third party grading companies and get high, high marks on them and sell them for ridiculous multiples of what they paid for them off the rack? Just SPECULATING. Get it?!?!? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[scottish]

I'm not saying yea or nay in regard to a comic market 'crash,' but increased sales can mean very little IMHO.

 

Do you think the stock brokers were touting a stock crash right before the bubble popped in 2000? And even if they believed it would (which I'm sure some did) they certainly wouldn't tell the public.

[joe_collector]

I'm not saying yea or nay in regard to a comic market 'crash,' but increased sales can mean very little IMHO.

 

Sure, but I'm checking the Diamond sales totals and there doesn't seem to be any increase in sales over 2002, and more like a decrease.

 

As stated above, these are "cooked figures" (kind of like the movie box office) where $ revenue is used (rather than units sold), and naturally coincides with some cover price increases.

 

Sales are down, there are less readers, but the gray-beards are forking out more. Rinse and repeat.

[shadroch]

I doubt you're saying this with a straight face.

 

Since 1984? I have.

 

Then we run in different crowds, as I've never heard of anyone touting a Silver or Bronze Age crash, outside of Valiant fans.

 

I'm really surprised at your response.When I started collecting, you could pickup copies of Cap america 100 in the Five dollar range.My first copy of Avengers 1 cot me around fifty dollars. Many dealers at the Creation conventions stated that no Silver Age comic would ever break the hundred dollar mark. Then it was the thousand dollar mark.

Fast forward to 1988.

The glut of new materials is beginning to affect back issue sales.You can't give away Ghost riders,TODs,bat books,Son of Satans,ect... Supes is reduced to a single centerfold in Action comics,Adventue comics featuring the Legion are commonly found in three for a dollar boxes.

Huge warehouses of unsold mid 70s books exist and no one cares.

There was no such thing as the bronze age when I started.

Dealers in the 80s couldn't give away 60s DC. I remember buying a huge run of vg-f bat books from the 60s for so little money I blew them out at 50cents a book and was quite happy.Many dealers passed on MH2 because it included way too much dead wood,books like 15-20 cent Thors and early 70s DC and Marvel.

The books were not said to be about to crash. They hadn't yet risen in value and there was not considered to be enough demand for them to do so.