Market, Hobby, Hobet, Marby?

[PovertyRow]

OK - this started in the Totally Shameless (but true) Suck-up Post but it is probably better as an independent topic so will just copy/paste my thoughts and see if anything comes of that, beginning with a more objective beginning as this is a new thread.

 

Well I will share my own defintions of Market and Hobby. They are intertwined. Hooked up. A symbiotic relationship. You can't have a Hobby without a Market and you can't have a Market without a Hobby.

 

To take this further, the Market can become the Hobby and the Hobby can become the Market. Allow me to elucidate:

 

We have a Hobby - collecting comic books. In the pre-collector days (aka mid 60's) you had to go to places like used book stores or junk shops or whatever or, if you were lucky, hook up with friends who also collected comics, to expand your collection of anything that was older than what was currently on the rack. I assume, and I may be wrong in my assumption but I don't think I am, that there were a LOT of comics one had never seen or even heard of until you hit that special store or found that friend who had "Huh? What is THIS?"

 

In that respect I grant you that the OS guide is probably the single largest impact on the HOBBY. It brought to the hobbyists attention lots of things they never heard of before. But it was also an impact to the MARKET because it gave prices and grades. And helped people gauge what seemed to be the proper price to pay. Hence, Hobby and Marekt intertwined in a beautiful Maypole Dance.

 

However, I submit that the ebay of today is the Overstreet of yesterday. Why? Because ebay allows the HOBBYist to actually DEFINE their HOBBY. Finally, in one single venue, one can see 109,377 (as of this writing) comic book listings in Comics alone. And the vast majority have pictures. And many have historical descriptions. Now how many comic shops, mail order dealers, etc would you have to visit to see that many instantly searchable comics?

 

IS ebay a force for the MARKET? Absolutely. But is ebay a force for the HOBBY? Absolutely without question. Ebay allows folks getting into the HOBBY to peruse areas they are interested in and see things they have never seen before. It lets them gauge their collection and their collecting proclivities against what they know about comics and helps them expand their awareness. THAT is HOBBY.

 

I have only begun here but do not wish to bore more than I have so will end here.

 

[chrisfuccione]

Great post! I agree with everything. Just some thoughts of mine. I will try and keep it on comics but knowing me I will end up talking about coins.

 

For the comic hobby I also would add, as one of the most important impact of the hobby is boards like this because it makes a community of collectors. Where before it would seem that unless you knew of any collectors that shopped at the same store as you would not have the wisdom of more experienced collectors. That is one difference between hobbies. The thing that has changed due to these boards is that on the coin side before the Internet they had local coin clubs. I just looked at the October 1968 issue of THE NUMISMATIST. They had 18 clubs in Massachusetts. Because of the boards they have disbanded or have seen their membership dwindled. On the comic side there was no clubs before the Internet and now there is a way for collectors to talk to dealers and other collectors across the country (and world) with the click of a few buttons.

 

Speaking about talking with dealers, how easy is it now to look at the inventory of 20,30,or 50 dealers in one night across the country if you are looking for a certain book. You can compare inventories and prices. Where before you were tied down with you local dealer (good or bad) or the few bigger ones that advertised in the trades. For example (I hate going back to coins over here but it is what I know best) I am working with a few dealers in other parts of the country to help me build my collections of THE NUMISMATIST. I check about four other dealers’ inventory in addition to checking EBAY on a regular basis. So that is another way that the Internet has been the biggest influence on the hobby.

 

CHRIS

 

[Darthdiesel]

Looking at it simply - OS influenced the market more than it did the hobby. one can enjoy the comic collecting hobby totally devoid of knowledge of guide price. One can just buy new books off the stands and consider that comic book collecting. The intro of prices and keys and relative worth based on condition introduces the influence on the MARKET concept.

 

Ebay affected both the market and the hobby. Collecting became easier with the intro of a 24/7 online comic con. Market affected by ebay by a few determined people fighting over a limited supply.

 

Church find - not a clue where that falls in. As a non GA collector, I was happy in my blissfully ignorant Modern fresh off the rack reading state It definitely did not affect my version of Hobby. NOr did it influence the prices in my MODERN market that I can gather???

 

So bottom line: you can have the existence of the 2 terms, separate and independent of each other; this idea does not hold for me in the way I do things, but it is possible for others. I guess the moment your hobby goes beyond readily available books and you start palying with high grade, the interdependency resurfaces.

[Joanna]

Chris,

 

Regarding the internet and communicating with other collectors: Before I got online, I used to write letters to the editor of Wonder Woman. Some of my letters were published and they put my address at the bottom. Other fans used to write to me, to discuss the books and the character. I ended up with quite a few "pen pals" from this and it was the first time I'd ever talked to strangers about comics. When the internet came, I discovered the message boards for DC Comics on AOL, and we quickly formed a community. It was like the pen pals only multiplied by a large factor. So in that way, I agree that message boards and mailing lists and other internet gathering places helped to change the hobby, with only nominal influence on the market (boards like this are an exception, as most comic gathering places talk more about storylines, characters, etc. than buying/selling).

 

-- Joanna

[PedigreeMan]

In that respect I grant you that the OS guide is probably the single largest impact on the HOBBY. It brought to the hobbyists attention lots of things they never heard of before. But it was also an impact to the MARKET because it gave prices and grades. And helped people gauge what seemed to be the proper price to pay. Hence, Hobby and Marekt intertwined in a beautiful Maypole Dance.

 

Agree 100%! Because most comic collectors have some amount of obsessive-compulsive tendencies, they also have a more-than-average desire to seek out that-which-came-before. Overstreet has always filled this need, with the Gerber Journals coming in second.

 

However, I submit that the ebay of today is the Overstreet of yesterday. Why? Because ebay allows the HOBBYist to actually DEFINE their HOBBY. Finally, in one single venue, one can see 109,377 (as of this writing) comic book listings in Comics alone. And the vast majority have pictures. And many have historical descriptions. Now how many comic shops, mail order dealers, etc would you have to visit to see that many instantly searchable comics?

 

IS ebay a force for the MARKET? Absolutely. But is ebay a force for the HOBBY? Absolutely without question. Ebay allows folks getting into the HOBBY to peruse areas they are interested in and see things they have never seen before. It lets them gauge their collection and their collecting proclivities against what they know about comics and helps them expand their awareness. THAT is HOBBY.

 

Hmm ... interesting theory. Unfortunately, I don't buy it.

 

First, the nature of the Internet -- and eBay especially -- is the dissemination of transitory data: Websites come and go on a whim, completed eBay auctions disappear in the blink of an eye, etc. Unless one's a member of the truly obsessive, they're not going to be printing out or saving random auctions stating who drew this in that comic book or who wrote that in this one. They probably won't even commit much of the details to long-term memory either, leading to half-remembered facts they can't easily verify. In other words, a hard copy source of info like Overstreet is still the preferred method for information gathering. This will change eventually, but I don't think we're there yet!

 

Second, even with all of its errors (intentional or otherwise), Overstreet is still considered the definitive source on comic info. When one takes into account the sheer number of inaccurate or illiterate or just plain-hard-to-read auctions there are in a given day, it's hard to imagine anyone using eBay on a regular basis as a source of "good" or "valid" information. And if all one wants is a picture ... well, Gerber has been filling that need for over a decade now.

 

All that being said, though, I do think you've opened a nice insight into our hobby with this discussion!

 

Alan

[Zonker]

On the comic side there was no clubs before the Internet and now there is a way for collectors to talk to dealers and other collectors across the country (and world) with the click of a few buttons.

 

 

Hey Chris,

In addition to Joanna's comments, I'll just point out that there were communities of comics fans/collectors prior to the Internet-- there were numerous fanzines in the 1960s with mailing lists derived from addresses printed in comics letters pages. These fanzines ranged in subject matter from the history of old strips, to fanfic, to mostly ad-zines.

 

Also, Mark Evanier writes about having his own local comics club in Southern California in the 1960s, and I remember Maggie Thompson writing about the sense among the mid-western comics fandom community of the 1960s that you really hadn't arrived until you completed your run of Golden Age All-Star Comics.

 

But I agree as comics circulation dwindled over the last 30 years (brief speculation bubbles aside), there have been fewer opportunities for community interactions. The Internet (eBay + boards like this) is ideal for the worldwide community of collectors in what is now very much a niche hobby.

 

Cheers,

Z.

[Aces]

I don't think anything will ever match what eBay has done for collecting comics or anything.

 

Back in the 70s/80s I hated selling my Silver/Bronze comics at shops.

 

I'd walk in with X-men/ASM/FF in a ($200 OS Guide) pile...

He'd look at them and say:

"I got these in stock already...

$20 in cash and $20 in trade"

 

I'd have to take it cause there was no where else to go and sell my old comics...

 

That would made me so mad... , it put me out of the hobby for a few years until eBay came along.

[chrisfuccione]

Wow! This is great I am learning new things every day over here. CHRIS