MH Chuck's WW Dallas Report

[The Troll King]

Chuck and I had an extremely nice conversation for about 20 minutes at the LCS about market trends and how eBay has hurt a lot of different collectible markets. (As many of you know I use to sell old toys)

 

Can you go into this more?

 

Absolutely!

 

Chuck and I discussed his trip to the Ohio auction where he saw lots of old toys and such sell for very little primarily very old porcelain dolls that use to command quite a premium. He said that most of them were selling for under $50 which really surprise him.

 

I then discussed how I use to sell old toys such as 12" G.I. Joes, old Star Wars, Barbies, Lunch boxes, board games, Megos, etc.

 

Star Wars toys were about the newest things that I sold.

 

I told Chuck that at one time around 1992-1994 I was paying upwards of $80-$100 just for naked 12" Joes in my area just because there were no more to be had and I was selling them for between $120-$150 with no clothes!

 

Chuck and I both agree that when eBay first started (I was on it begrudgingly 3 months after they started, I had been using AuctionUniverse prior to that which is now gone but which did not have all the fees associated with eBay accept FVF's) anyway, sorry, went off on a tangent. Chuck and I both agree that in the beginning eBay was great! Why? Because for the first time you could now find and LOOK AT things that most people either would never see or would be extremely hard to find REGIONALLY.

 

The first year or so on eBay was a gold mine for dealers such as myself as at the same time the stuff that our "regional" customers were tired of looking at now had an easier, wider audience. Mind you, and I explained this to Chuck as well, I had been advertising in Toy Shop and Auction Figure News for awhile and have probably sold and shipped Star Wars toys (mostly Star Wars) to over 250 different countries.

 

I was very fortunate that I was never "burned" in credit card scams, etc. but we were always very careful about those types of things. I even had one guy send me $900 in 9 brand new $100 bills from Belgium once (for two items BTW) that was sent Certified Mail that my mail man just simple left in my mail box with the Certified Mail signature card (the one where anyone who even touches the envelope has to sign it) still attached to it! I mention this $900 as an example that you will see below.

 

Anyway, for awhile eBay was fine. Then, something happened in all collectibles markets that started to really hurt EVERYTHING. It was not solely over-production of items that killed the market. (i.e. X-men #1, etc.) Anyone who believes that does not undertand all the facts from a sellers perspective. It wasn't just crappy stories and art, or any of the other things people blame the various market crashes on.

 

This is where Chuck and I agreed the most, the root cause of most collectible markets crashing was that COLLECTORS saw how much money was being made all over the place and decided to try and become DEALERS. When this happened around 1995-1996 everything came crashing in. All the stuff that collectors had been collecting now became "inventory". At the same time these new "dealers" would go to shows/cons expecting to pay "dealer" prices as they were going to try and resell it themselves through some other venue.

 

Greed, and $ signs became the name of the game and with a huge influx of things that people thought were rare or hard to find... prices PLUMMETTED!

 

eBay was a delivery mechanism for dooming most collectible markets because it quickly became apparent that a (sorry Star Wars talk, not sure if you know too much about Star Wars toys, bare with me) Yakface figure which was fetching upwards of $250 LOOSE! was now a lot more common than people realized despite being only available in Europe and Canada. I'll have to dig it out, cause I'm not positive where it is, but I have a picture of about 20 Yakface figures and about 20 Blue Snaggletooth's all lined up and every one of them sold for over $200 LOOSE at one time.

 

Yakface is still a "grail" of a figure but it has settled down to about the $150 range where it had been 15 years ago!

 

Going back to my $900 story... the two items that this guy bought were a Radio Controlled Sandcrawler loose but complete, and a Boxed A-Wing fighter. I see a sandcrawler on eBay now for $51 whereas I sold this last one for $400 in about 1996.

 

Looking at the old price guides you can see that prices for that stuff were high, but... people were paying it!

 

Now back to comics. Chuck and I agreed that because of eBay, average people had an outlet to become "dealers" and sell their stuff to a worldwide audience. Lots and lots of comics, toys, dolls, whatever turned up out of peoples collections/inventory and eventually of course like anything, supply doesn't always equal demand. This in turn depressed many many prices.

 

I don't know if the average person realizes this or not, but ACROSS THE BOARD most of this type of stuff is MUCH more common than once realized. There are ALWAYS exceptions of course in every hobby, but that is why those items will always fetch huge amounts of money.

 

Here we are more than 10 years later and if I wanted... I could buy naked Joes on eBay all day for $40. that's what I was paying for them in the late 80's!

 

To sum all this up... things that were available regionally to a regional audience were selling for much higher prices. Once outlets like eBay came along, those regional customers now had access to the world and prices started to drop due to availability of EVERYTHING!

 

Sorry this was so long, hope you stuck it out! I know I rambled from time to time.

[drice6900]

Chuck and I had an extremely nice conversation for about 20 minutes at the LCS about market trends and how eBay has hurt a lot of different collectible markets. (As many of you know I use to sell old toys)

 

Can you go into this more?

 

Absolutely!

 

Chuck and I discussed his trip to the Ohio auction where he saw lots of old toys and such sell for very little primarily very old porcelain dolls that use to command quite a premium. He said that most of them were selling for under $50 which really surprise him.

 

I then discussed how I use to sell old toys such as 12" G.I. Joes, old Star Wars, Barbies, Lunch boxes, board games, Megos, etc.

 

Star Wars toys were about the newest things that I sold.

 

I told Chuck that at one time around 1992-1994 I was paying upwards of $80-$100 just for naked 12" Joes in my area just because there were no more to be had and I was selling them for between $120-$150 with no clothes!

 

Chuck and I both agree that when eBay first started (I was on it begrudgingly 3 months after they started, I had been using AuctionUniverse prior to that which is now gone but which did not have all the fees associated with eBay accept FVF's) anyway, sorry, went off on a tangent. Chuck and I both agree that in the beginning eBay was great! Why? Because for the first time you could now find and LOOK AT things that most people either would never see or would be extremely hard to find REGIONALLY.

 

The first year or so on eBay was a gold mine for dealers such as myself as at the same time the stuff that our "regional" customers were tired of looking at now had an easier, wider audience. Mind you, and I explained this to Chuck as well, I had been advertising in Toy Shop and Auction Figure News for awhile and have probably sold and shipped Star Wars toys (mostly Star Wars) to over 250 different countries.

 

I was very fortunate that I was never "burned" in credit card scams, etc. but we were always very careful about those types of things. I even had one guy send me $900 in 9 brand new $100 bills from Belgium once (for two items BTW) that was sent Certified Mail that my mail man just simple left in my mail box with the Certified Mail signature card (the one where anyone who even touches the envelope has to sign it) still attached to it! I mention this $900 as an example that you will see below.

 

Anyway, for awhile eBay was fine. Then, something happened in all collectibles markets that started to really hurt EVERYTHING. It was not solely over-production of items that killed the market. (i.e. X-men #1, etc.) Anyone who believes that does not undertand all the facts from a sellers perspective. It wasn't just crappy stories and art, or any of the other things people blame the various market crashes on.

 

This is where Chuck and I agreed the most, the root cause of most collectible markets crashing was that COLLECTORS saw how much money was being made all over the place and decided to try and become DEALERS. When this happened around 1995-1996 everything came crashing in. All the stuff that collectors had been collecting now became "inventory". At the same time these new "dealers" would go to shows/cons expecting to pay "dealer" prices as they were going to try and resell it themselves through some other venue.

 

Greed, and $ signs became the name of the game and with a huge influx of things that people thought were rare or hard to find... prices PLUMMETTED!

 

eBay was a delivery mechanism for dooming most collectible markets because it quickly became apparent that a (sorry Star Wars talk, not sure if you know too much about Star Wars toys, bare with me) Yakface figure which was fetching upwards of $250 LOOSE! was now a lot more common than people realized despite being only available in Europe and Canada. I'll have to dig it out, cause I'm not positive where it is, but I have a picture of about 20 Yakface figures and about 20 Blue Snaggletooth's all lined up and every one of them sold for over $200 LOOSE at one time.

 

Yakface is still a "grail" of a figure but it has settled down to about the $150 range where it had been 15 years ago!

 

Going back to my $900 story... the two items that this guy bought were a Radio Controlled Sandcrawler loose but complete, and a Boxed A-Wing fighter. I see a sandcrawler on eBay now for $51 whereas I sold this last one for $400 in about 1996.

 

Looking at the old price guides you can see that prices for that stuff were high, but... people were paying it!

 

Now back to comics. Chuck and I agreed that because of eBay, average people had an outlet to become "dealers" and sell their stuff to a worldwide audience. Lots and lots of comics, toys, dolls, whatever turned up out of peoples collections/inventory and eventually of course like anything, supply doesn't always equal demand. This in turn depressed many many prices.

 

I don't know if the average person realizes this or not, but ACROSS THE BOARD most of this type of stuff is MUCH more common than once realized. There are ALWAYS exceptions of course in every hobby, but that is why those items will always fetch huge amounts of money.

 

Here we are more than 10 years later and if I wanted... I could buy naked Joes on eBay all day for $40. that's what I was paying for them in the late 80's!

 

To sum all this up... things that were available regionally to a regional audience were selling for much higher prices. Once outlets like eBay came along, those regional customers now had access to the world and prices started to drop due to availability of EVERYTHING!

 

Sorry this was so long, hope you stuck it out! I know I rambled from time to time.

 

So what I got out of this is that Ebay simply made for an environment that favored the buyer due to making collectibles more available, while at the same time hurting the dealers who tried to keep prices artificially high. I have no problem with that.

 

Don't you think that the fact the last 3 Star Wars movies really stunk, and that people started to see the toys as over-produced, over-hyped garbage might have actually hurt the SW collectible market even more?

 

And GI Joe was bound to dwindle down in value the farther we get away from the late 80s and the popular cartoon show.

[HouseofComics.Com]

Sorry this was so long, hope you stuck it out! I know I rambled from time to time.

 

Post of the day!

[The Troll King]

 

So what I got out of this is that Ebay simply made for an environment that favored the buyer due to making collectibles more available, while at the same time hurting the dealers who tried to keep prices artificially high. I have no problem with that.

 

Don't you think that the fact the last 3 Star Wars movies really stunk, and that people started to see the toys as over-produced, over-hyped garbage might have actually hurt the SW collectible market even more?

 

And GI Joe was bound to dwindle down in value the farther we get away from the late 80s and the popular cartoon show.

 

It wasn't that prices were artificially high because people from all over the world WERE paying the prices. When you're selling enough to make pure PROFIT of over 20k a month JUST in SW toys then the prices were NOT too high.

 

My partner and I couldn't keep some things in stock due to demand! We were constantly testing the market for higher prices and no matter what we did we couldn't keep certain things. The last 3 SW movies hadn't even come out yet and the Special Editions had just started to get released at the peak of all of this. Once people decided that they could make money off of eBay and AuctionUniverse by flipping to others is when everything came crashing down. Eventually they ran out of people to flip to.

 

It would seem that the "over-produced, over-hyped garbage" that you are refering to is all of the product that Kenner was producing after 1995. I'm NOT talking about that stuff! I'm talking about everything produced BEFORE 1986.

 

Also, obviously you know nothing about G.I.Joe as the late 80's and the "popular cartoon show" (which I've never even seen and I'm in my mid-30's) had NOTHING to do with the OLD 12" Joe Market.

 

I didn't sell "little Joes" as I called them because at the time there was little value in them. The 12" market was strong for a long time and I'm talking about the ones produced from 1964-1976.

 

12" Joe collectors are the male equilivant to Barbie collectors, condition is everything and accessories galore are to be had! People who collected military toys LOVED and still love old 60's Joes. My best repeat customers were Joe collectors and probably still are. Quantities of them can be had now though for much less money.

 

You can't look at it simply as a "buyers market" now for the last several years as you're talking about major depreciation of an industry. Just because prices are lower and things are easier to find doesn't mean that it's good for the hobby. What it means is that (and I can promise you this) there are LESS people collecting in the hobby (whether it be SW, Joe, or hell even Smurfs) and long term losing collectors is NEVER good for ANY hobby. Once people lose interest, the hobby dies, and no one wants that.

[FlyingDonut]

Chuck and I had an extremely nice conversation for about 20 minutes at the LCS about market trends and how eBay has hurt a lot of different collectible markets. (As many of you know I use to sell old toys)

 

Can you go into this more?

 

Absolutely!

 

Chuck and I discussed his trip to the Ohio auction where he saw lots of old toys and such sell for very little primarily very old porcelain dolls that use to command quite a premium. He said that most of them were selling for under $50 which really surprise him.

 

I then discussed how I use to sell old toys such as 12" G.I. Joes, old Star Wars, Barbies, Lunch boxes, board games, Megos, etc.

 

Star Wars toys were about the newest things that I sold.

 

I told Chuck that at one time around 1992-1994 I was paying upwards of $80-$100 just for naked 12" Joes in my area just because there were no more to be had and I was selling them for between $120-$150 with no clothes!

 

Chuck and I both agree that when eBay first started (I was on it begrudgingly 3 months after they started, I had been using AuctionUniverse prior to that which is now gone but which did not have all the fees associated with eBay accept FVF's) anyway, sorry, went off on a tangent. Chuck and I both agree that in the beginning eBay was great! Why? Because for the first time you could now find and LOOK AT things that most people either would never see or would be extremely hard to find REGIONALLY.

 

The first year or so on eBay was a gold mine for dealers such as myself as at the same time the stuff that our "regional" customers were tired of looking at now had an easier, wider audience. Mind you, and I explained this to Chuck as well, I had been advertising in Toy Shop and Auction Figure News for awhile and have probably sold and shipped Star Wars toys (mostly Star Wars) to over 250 different countries.

 

I was very fortunate that I was never "burned" in credit card scams, etc. but we were always very careful about those types of things. I even had one guy send me $900 in 9 brand new $100 bills from Belgium once (for two items BTW) that was sent Certified Mail that my mail man just simple left in my mail box with the Certified Mail signature card (the one where anyone who even touches the envelope has to sign it) still attached to it! I mention this $900 as an example that you will see below.

 

Anyway, for awhile eBay was fine. Then, something happened in all collectibles markets that started to really hurt EVERYTHING. It was not solely over-production of items that killed the market. (i.e. X-men #1, etc.) Anyone who believes that does not undertand all the facts from a sellers perspective. It wasn't just crappy stories and art, or any of the other things people blame the various market crashes on.

 

This is where Chuck and I agreed the most, the root cause of most collectible markets crashing was that COLLECTORS saw how much money was being made all over the place and decided to try and become DEALERS. When this happened around 1995-1996 everything came crashing in. All the stuff that collectors had been collecting now became "inventory". At the same time these new "dealers" would go to shows/cons expecting to pay "dealer" prices as they were going to try and resell it themselves through some other venue.

 

Greed, and $ signs became the name of the game and with a huge influx of things that people thought were rare or hard to find... prices PLUMMETTED!

 

eBay was a delivery mechanism for dooming most collectible markets because it quickly became apparent that a (sorry Star Wars talk, not sure if you know too much about Star Wars toys, bare with me) Yakface figure which was fetching upwards of $250 LOOSE! was now a lot more common than people realized despite being only available in Europe and Canada. I'll have to dig it out, cause I'm not positive where it is, but I have a picture of about 20 Yakface figures and about 20 Blue Snaggletooth's all lined up and every one of them sold for over $200 LOOSE at one time.

 

Yakface is still a "grail" of a figure but it has settled down to about the $150 range where it had been 15 years ago!

 

Going back to my $900 story... the two items that this guy bought were a Radio Controlled Sandcrawler loose but complete, and a Boxed A-Wing fighter. I see a sandcrawler on eBay now for $51 whereas I sold this last one for $400 in about 1996.

 

Looking at the old price guides you can see that prices for that stuff were high, but... people were paying it!

 

Now back to comics. Chuck and I agreed that because of eBay, average people had an outlet to become "dealers" and sell their stuff to a worldwide audience. Lots and lots of comics, toys, dolls, whatever turned up out of peoples collections/inventory and eventually of course like anything, supply doesn't always equal demand. This in turn depressed many many prices.

 

I don't know if the average person realizes this or not, but ACROSS THE BOARD most of this type of stuff is MUCH more common than once realized. There are ALWAYS exceptions of course in every hobby, but that is why those items will always fetch huge amounts of money.

 

Here we are more than 10 years later and if I wanted... I could buy naked Joes on eBay all day for $40. that's what I was paying for them in the late 80's!

 

To sum all this up... things that were available regionally to a regional audience were selling for much higher prices. Once outlets like eBay came along, those regional customers now had access to the world and prices started to drop due to availability of EVERYTHING!

 

Sorry this was so long, hope you stuck it out! I know I rambled from time to time.

 

 

Wait a minute. You're saying that eBay sucks for the collectibles market because collectors aren't getting *spoon* *spoon* by dealers anymore? The collectibles market is doomed because some poor slob that used to have to pay you $900 for a Star Wars toy can now, through the efficient worldwide market place, find the toy for $150 because that's what the market bears? You've got to be kidding me.

 

What eBay has done is made it much much harder for dealers like Chuck to screw customers on price (grade, everything else, is not what I'm talking about here). You'd better adapt to this, because this is the way its going to be for everything from now on.

Go read this and then come back. I'm absolutely stunned by your argument, just stunned.

[The Troll King]

 

 

Wait a minute. You're saying that eBay sucks for the collectibles market because collectors aren't getting *spoon* *spoon* by dealers anymore? The collectibles market is doomed because some poor slob that used to have to pay you $900 for a Star Wars toy can now, through the efficient worldwide market place, find the toy for $150 because that's what the market bears? You've got to be kidding me.

 

What eBay has done is made it much much harder for dealers like Chuck to screw customers on price (grade, everything else, is not what I'm talking about here). You'd better adapt to this, because this is the way its going to be for everything from now on.

Go read this and then come back. I'm absolutely stunned by your argument, just stunned.

 

Read my follow-up

[The Troll King]

Oh and, not to hi-jack this thread, but if you wanna know what crashed the "new" toy market starting about 1995 then I'd be more than happy to discuss that as well, as it was something entirely different going on with that stuff as opposed to the old.

[tth2]

Wait a minute. You're saying that eBay sucks for the collectibles market because collectors aren't getting *spoon* *spoon* by dealers anymore? The collectibles market is doomed because some poor slob that used to have to pay you $900 for a Star Wars toy can now, through the efficient worldwide market place, find the toy for $150 because that's what the market bears? You've got to be kidding me.

 

What eBay has done is made it much much harder for dealers like Chuck to screw customers on price (grade, everything else, is not what I'm talking about here). You'd better adapt to this, because this is the way its going to be for everything from now on.

I agree. eBay (and the internet) have definitely leveled the playing field. Old School dealers gripe because the good old days when they were the only outlet and could therefore buy at 50% or less of Guide are gone. And of course the existence of CGC has helped to eliminate some of the additional profit margin that they built in by overgrading their books.

 

Yup, I don't miss those days at all.

[The Troll King]

Wait a minute. You're saying that eBay sucks for the collectibles market because collectors aren't getting *spoon* *spoon* by dealers anymore? The collectibles market is doomed because some poor slob that used to have to pay you $900 for a Star Wars toy can now, through the efficient worldwide market place, find the toy for $150 because that's what the market bears? You've got to be kidding me.

 

What eBay has done is made it much much harder for dealers like Chuck to screw customers on price (grade, everything else, is not what I'm talking about here). You'd better adapt to this, because this is the way its going to be for everything from now on.

I agree. eBay (and the internet) have definitely leveled the playing field. Old School dealers gripe because the good old days when they were the only outlet and could therefore buy at 50% or less of Guide are gone. And of course the existence of CGC has helped to eliminate some of the additional profit margin that they built in by overgrading their books.

 

Yup, I don't miss those days at all.

 

Well, comics are entirely different. What I think happened (and this is strictly my opinion) but I think a lot of the people that were once collecting toys went back to collecting comics!

 

Toys have been MUCH slower to recover with the exception of items that are in extremely great condition. Comics on the other hand have recovered at a faster rate in part I believe to more people over the last 5 years coming back into them.

 

As far as buying at 50% of guide, that equation was completely out of the picture where I was concerned. I was paying more for quality rather than just quantity unlike a lot of others were doing. When I say I was paying $80-$100 for a naked Joe I can assure you I was one of the few paying that much. Then again, other dealers weren't able to buy any either because they WEREN'T willing to spend more.

 

What's funny too, I just remembered, is that some of the Star Wars figures were easier to sell for a premium LOOSE then they were in the package!

 

Specifically I can remember Paploo the Ewok. This figure was very popular because it was released under the Power of the Force line in 1985 with a POTF Coin in the package. I think at one time I had about 20-30 of them in the package. The packages were kind of beat up and the price on them at the time was $50. At the same time I could easily sell the same figure loose for $40 so when I would run out of loose ones I'd tear open a package to be able to sell a loose one and then I could still sell the coin by itself for $10

 

When other dealers and some collectors found out I was doing this they were STUNNED that I would OPEN a carded figure to be able to sell the figure to someone that wanted a loose one. My response was always, "what difference does it make. I'd much rather sell the darn figure to someone loose then have a bunch of beat-up carded figures that would take 3 times as long to sell."

 

Ultimately my goal at the time was I didn't ever want to have to tell someone that I didn't have something. If I didn't have it, I'd get it within 48 hours no matter what it took because I wanted to make people happy.

 

It wasn't just about the money with me, it was about having happy customers and I LOVED what I was doing.

[HouseofComics.Com]

Btw, I said post of the day because it was interesting, not because I necessarily agreed with everything. If not for the internet I'm not selling comics today so I like that overall trend.

 

I was particularly interested in the comment about collectors deciding to become dealers.

[Sal]

 

 

Wait a minute. You're saying that eBay sucks for the collectibles market because collectors aren't getting *spoon* *spoon* by dealers anymore? The collectibles market is doomed because some poor slob that used to have to pay you $900 for a Star Wars toy can now, through the efficient worldwide market place, find the toy for $150 because that's what the market bears? You've got to be kidding me.

 

What eBay has done is made it much much harder for dealers like Chuck to screw customers on price (grade, everything else, is not what I'm talking about here). You'd better adapt to this, because this is the way its going to be for everything from now on.

Go read this and then come back. I'm absolutely stunned by your argument, just stunned.

 

Read my follow-up

 

hate to say it, but your follow-up doesn't change a thing Donut is saying.

 

prices are due to demand. demand is driven -among other things- by scarcity, perceived or actual. what you and the rest of the dealers were doing back then was making hay from perceived scarcity. any market is incomplete when only using perceived scarcity to drive prices

 

eBay eliminated that false perception. you say so yourself. the market has actually normalised, not "tanked." i'm sorry it hit you, but i'm NOT sorry it hit Chuck. as a collector, a true collector, eBay is heaven on a bun

[The Troll King]

 

 

Wait a minute. You're saying that eBay sucks for the collectibles market because collectors aren't getting *spoon* *spoon* by dealers anymore? The collectibles market is doomed because some poor slob that used to have to pay you $900 for a Star Wars toy can now, through the efficient worldwide market place, find the toy for $150 because that's what the market bears? You've got to be kidding me.

 

What eBay has done is made it much much harder for dealers like Chuck to screw customers on price (grade, everything else, is not what I'm talking about here). You'd better adapt to this, because this is the way its going to be for everything from now on.

Go read this and then come back. I'm absolutely stunned by your argument, just stunned.

 

Read my follow-up

 

hate to say it, but your follow-up doesn't change a thing Donut is saying.

 

prices are due to demand. demand is driven -among other things- by scarcity, perceived or actual. what you and the rest of the dealers were doing back then was making hay from perceived scarcity. any market is incomplete when only using perceived scarcity to drive prices

 

eBay eliminated that false perception. you say so yourself. the market has actually normalised, not "tanked." i'm sorry it hit you, but i'm NOT sorry it hit Chuck. as a collector, a true collector, eBay is heaven on a bun

 

Well, in reality it didn't hit me as I quit selling toys the way I was quite awhile ago.

I have since run into guys that I knew back then that are still struggling to make a go of it that have told me that I got out of it at the right time.

 

It wasn't necessarily that I wanted to get out of it, it's just that there weren't large collections to be found anymore. The DFW area especially is really dry for any type of collectible.

 

There wasn't a "perceived" scarcity, things WERE scarce REGIONALLY. There's a huge difference. Yes the market has normalized, but there was no "false" perception. Regionally many things are still scarce.

 

Oh and to further respond to what Donut said... I never claimed that any market is DOOMED because of eBay, only that eBay was a huge factor in the collectible market crashes that occured 10 years ago. From a collector standpoint I'm all for lower prices! From a dealing standpoint a collectibles business that primarily only deals in old product (such as I did) will always struggle.

 

Oh and Donut, I honestly don't see how "Long tail" theory applies to an antique/collectibles type market as those businesses exist solely on items that are no longer produced. The success of Long Tail businesses is shouldered on low cost production and near zero inventory costs. Why do you think Wal-mart has caused companies like Huffy and Levi's to produce their items in Mexico now? Sam Walton is rolling in his grave!

[joeypost]

I saw him there scurrying thru the 50¢ boxes like a rat on crack. His boy was pulling everything out with a 60¢ or less cover price. He was about 1/3 of the way throug the baxes so I jumped in on the other end and started doing the same thing. I made a pile of about 75 books and just sat on them until Chuck left then I put them back.

 

[langur88]

 

 

Wait a minute. You're saying that eBay sucks for the collectibles market because collectors aren't getting *spoon* *spoon* by dealers anymore? The collectibles market is doomed because some poor slob that used to have to pay you $900 for a Star Wars toy can now, through the efficient worldwide market place, find the toy for $150 because that's what the market bears? You've got to be kidding me.

 

What eBay has done is made it much much harder for dealers like Chuck to screw customers on price

 

[The Troll King]

Another thing I thought of this morning also that I'd like to add:

 

When things did become more available to people on eBay and other venues sure you can say that the market settled itself out but you have to understand and realize too that prices didn't just plummet because of availability but also because LOTS of people were getting out of these collectible fields as well.

 

You can argue all day that it's better for buyers because prices are low but at the same time you HAVE TO HAVE BUYERS to begin with!

 

On another aside, I'd also like to ask, doesn't anyone miss the days of hunting down that ONE issue that you haven't been able to find in forever?

 

Doesn't anyone miss the search? Usually the "find" is much more satisfying once you've spent awhile to look for something.

 

DadandSon is a perfect example, he has put together one of the best Strange Tales runs you will find in UNDER 2 months!

 

Before that would have taken years to do!

 

I guess with todays entitlement mentality and the "instant gratification" society that we live in things have permanently changed.

[Sal]

On another aside, I'd also like to ask, doesn't anyone miss the days of hunting down that ONE issue that you haven't been able to find in forever?

 

Doesn't anyone miss the search? Usually the "find" is much more satisfying once you've spent awhile to look for something.

 

there are still many, many people doing just that. the same kind of guys who were once looking far and wide for a Yakface or whatever instead of a Han Solo figure are now trying to find a HG copy of Tomahawk 116 instead of some SA Marvel that's been pressed and coaxed into the stratosphere.

 

AFAIC, my search is to find great deals. a VF copy of Atom 33 or whatever for under 7 bucks is just as interesting to me as a 9.4 copy of ASM 16 or whatever

[The Troll King]

On another aside, I'd also like to ask, doesn't anyone miss the days of hunting down that ONE issue that you haven't been able to find in forever?

 

Doesn't anyone miss the search? Usually the "find" is much more satisfying once you've spent awhile to look for something.

 

there are still many, many people doing just that. the same kind of guys who were once looking far and wide for a Yakface or whatever instead of a Han Solo figure are now trying to find a HG copy of Tomahawk 116 instead of some SA Marvel that's been pressed and coaxed into the stratosphere.

 

AFAIC, my search is to find great deals. a VF copy of Atom 33 or whatever for under 7 bucks is just as interesting to me as a 9.4 copy of ASM 16 or whatever

 

I can understand that. Maybe that's what the biggest change in the marketplace is. Condition has definitely become ultra important over the last several years whereas it wasn't quite as big a fact in the late 80's and early 90's. As far as comics, sure we all wanted HG but when it came to toys, most people were just happy to have found something that they could pick up in their price range that they may never see again (at the time at least).

 

I remember when the subject of professionaly graded toys first started and most of us laughed thinking that it would never work. In reality it never really has caught on nearly as big as slabbing comics or cards. People like to "display" toys, not have them sealed up in some plastic cube.

 

Plus 40 year old virgin types like to set up dioramas and such. (Don't laugh I know lots of people that did this) and what good is an AFA'ed toy to them?

 

 

[dudeman5000]

I saw him there scurrying thru the 50¢ boxes like a rat on crack.

 

 

Chris

[Frederic9494]

On another aside, I'd also like to ask, doesn't anyone miss the days of hunting down that ONE issue that you haven't been able to find in forever?

 

Doesn't anyone miss the search? Usually the "find" is much more satisfying once you've spent awhile to look for something.

 

DadandSon is a perfect example, he has put together one of the best Strange Tales runs you will find in UNDER 2 months!

 

Being a ST collector, I'm living the thrill of the hunt on a weekly basis (if not daily! ).

 

It's true that Paul (DadandSon) has put an impressive ST run. What helps a lot in his case, is that he's not trying to match the grades of certain neighboring books in his run, e.g. he is focusing on completing his run, leaving upgrades for later, which is a valid objective.

 

On my part, I have set certain restriction to my Strange Tales run (ex: ST 104-121 in CGC 8.5, ST 122-134 in CGC 9.0) which makes the hunt very difficult for some books. It's almost been two years since I started, and am not close to finish my run...

[dzminn]

 

You can argue all day that it's better for buyers because prices are low but at the same time you HAVE TO HAVE BUYERS to begin with!

 

I understand what you are saying……from a selling perspective. However there are people that believe that they will never sell their collectible and therefore want to buy them as cheaply as possible. The idea of selling at a later point doesn’t enter into the thought process – just the acquisition of the item.

 

On another aside, I'd also like to ask, doesn't anyone miss the days of hunting down that ONE issue that you haven't been able to find in forever?

Doesn't anyone miss the search? Usually the "find" is much more satisfying once you've spent awhile to look for something.

For the hardcore collector there is always another item to search for and with competition driving the price point lower they will be able to buy even more of what they want. The want lists will just get bigger as they can buy more, whether it is comics, cards, toys etc.

 

This is not a bad thing from a collector’s viewpoint.