How many are we?

[Zonker]

3000 is way too low an upper estimate.

Our own flying-donut has more than 5000 unique feedbacks.

Reportedly the Saturday attendance at this year's Heroes Con in Charlotte exceeded 10,000 people.

 

I'd guesstimate roughly half of the buyers of the more popular current comics are actively filling Bronze, Silver, Golden Age want lists. So call it 50,000, also factoring in those people who have given up on Moderns but still buy back issues. Of course I don't think they're all chasing slabs or high grade, so that's why they're probably off your radar!

[Aman619]

 

just trying to scare up a few more votes..

[marvelcollector]

It's got to be in the five digits.

 

That would be just 200 per state..... has to be that many.

[Aman619]

yeah. Im starting to look at it that way. Every convention Ive been to has had many guys shopping for books, in all grades. Obviously the large NY and CA conventions draw hundreds of true collectors...and even th etiny Motel type weekend shows draw dozens or close to a hundred show up....so multoply by each large city/convention and yeah, the answer must be in the thousands....

[Point Five]

Even with the understanding that the hobby is declining, a figure like 50,000 still seems too low to me. Just to take one random/unscientific sampling, I think a major key listed on ebay (say, a Batman #1) would have no trouble reaching 500-1000 views. It's hard to believe a full 1-2% of the back issue buying population would be actively browsing the GA section of ebay in and would happen to click in.

 

Unless the full question is "how many back issue buyers are there that are obsessed as we are"!

[action1kid]

I still say its 12,879

[Aman619]

maybe. however page views are a deceptive figure since the same person gets counted each time they visit. If it only counted unique visits yeah.... but, nobody wants that - they all want high page counts. Maybe not Ebay, but you know what I mean. The internet isnt set up that way.

 

I will say I think 50000 is too high.

[jmg3637]

I am actually surprised that over 1/3 think that the number is less than 3000.

 

How many show up at the SD con?

 

 

What is the current circulation of the top books?

 

I would guess that the number of collectors is closer to 100k

[Comicdey]

I am actually surprised that over 1/3 think that the number is less than 3000.

 

How many show up at the SD con?

 

 

What is the current circulation of the top books?

 

I would guess that the number of collectors is closer to 100k

 

It just goes to show how much we think we live in a vacuum.

[Aman619]

I am actually surprised that over 1/3 think that the number is less than 3000.

 

How many show up at the SD con?

 

What is the current circulation of the top books?

I would guess that the number of collectors is closer to 100k

 

hold on. I specifically phrased the question to exclude convention goers and casual readers and fans of comics or their creators and tried to zero in on those of us with specific collecting goals and wantlists who ACTIVELY seek out back issue books. There is some crossover with the current readership... but its not "one-to-one." How many "hardcore collectors", not casual ones (who may but a few books a year) are there??.

 

We cant rely on Con attendence either. From what dealers tell me, shows are becoming a loss leader as they bring in fewer and fewer sales from fewer and fewer attending collectors! San diego may draw 50000 people... but they just aren't paying the attendance fees to buy back issue comics! They are attracted to movie stars, video games, porno queens and comics artists and writers... The comics dealers are bunched up in the corner off to the side nowadays..

[Aman619]

hers another slant to my query. Most of us who were buying raw since before CGC have made the switch to slabs, or at least have been buying raw AND slabs. And those of us who have done so, have found there way here to the CGC boards to learn an ddiscuss and show our books. So, is the current CHC Boards population a good estimate of the total number of "hardcore" collectors? and if not, what % of ALL collectors are here... and what % of those here fit my description of "hardcore"

 

Im sort of asking if these boards are really representative of the majority of collectors, and how many have NOT been buying slabs etc.

 

 

just some musings before turkey day...

[Zonker]

Look at Joe Koch's eBay feedback: Over 26,000 unique pieces of feedback. Given his current online inventory is 99% comics, I'd expect a similar % of those feedbacks are from comic collectors, "hardcore" or otherwise.

 

How many registered here on the forums? 8000 including coinees and untold number of shills. I'd guess perhaps 500 active unique comics collectors posting here.

 

This place represents the distinct minority, less than 1%.

[Aman619]

"unique" feedback? Is that really different from total feedback? How many lots has he auctioned off? And who calculates "uniqueness", Ebay, or the seller? If it IS 26000 unique buyers, that speaks loudly for a pretty high number !

[Zonker]

The way eBay feedback works is a given userid only gets counted once. So if I buy from you and leave you a positive, and then later I buy from you again and leave you a positive again, the 2nd feedback from me does not up your score. I guess they do that so that friends cannot bump each other up in feedback, or more likely to fend off vendettas where somebody continues to win auctions for the sole purpose of negging the seller and driving the seller's score down.

 

So "unique" in this context is completely rules-driven: It means as far as eBay can tell, Koch has sold to 26,000 different buyers. Of course, this does allow for the possibility of double, triple counting one person + all his various eBay shills!

[Aman619]

I see. Seems to me that there cant be too many double IDs in that 26000, so most of it must be unique... unless a heck of a lot of ebayrs have more than one buying ID and Koch has had an ongoing effort to "get out the vote" over the years.... At worst, the true figure must be at least HALF the 26000...

[gasa]

I'm new here, and am enjoying the dialogues.

 

Any guesses as to how the percentages of active collectors break down: GA only, SA only, BA only, GA/SA, SA/BA, GA/SA/BA?

[action1kid]

The order I would say is the reverse of what you printed

[the blob]

Criminey, I think 3,000 people show up at the Big Apple conventions over a good weekend (perhap's that's wildly optimisitc, Metroplisent probably knows) and the vast majority of those people seem to be there to buy some comics as the non-comic stuff is not nearly as big as at San Diego.

 

Plus that show at the Javitz COnvention Center here practically turned into a riot. True, some of those people might have been there to meet modern creators and what not and don't actively collect back issues, but a lot of people were waiting outside freezing their rear's off, they must be pretty serious! (What was the capacity there, 10,000-15,000?)

 

I also suspect there are also a lot of people who go in and out of collecting. Might be into it for a while, take a break for a year because they're busy with other stuff or broke, get back into it, etc.

 

I'd venture to guess that 500 different people have bought back issues from me over the last few years on ebay and I'm a teeny tiny player with an ebay store that only has 300-400 items at any given time.

[the blob]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300053502857

 

Now mind you, all 6500 of these probably didn't sell, but who the heck would buy one other than a serious fan and collector?

[gasa]

So given action1kid's observation from 12/14, then what might be the percentages of total collectors in each category? For example, something like:

 

GA/SA/BA: 20%

SA/BA: 20%

GA/SA: 20%

BA only: 25%

SA only: 10%

GA only: 5%