Are trades and hardcover reprints "collectible?" 1 1

[Readcomix]

I guess I'm a mix on these. I will read and release stuff that stays in print -- always easy enough to get another Watchmen or Kingdom Come etc. -- but I find a small subset stays in my permanent comic collection -- my Fireside Books original printings of the Marvel Origins books from the 1970s, Shazam from the 40's to the 70's HC, Mike Higgs' HC Monster Society of Evil, the leather-bound Miller Batman from Longmeadow Press, etc.

I have found some out of print sc's sell well when I come into them as part of large collections that I buy for a few keepers and a bunch of read and release material.

[Cat]

7 hours ago, wolverine180 said:

I would have to be in the same camp with you on this.  I think you opinion matches mine on this matter. And it is not to put there "collection" down or anything. But call it what it is...a graphic novel collection. 

This pattern, that you are seeing more and more of from your findings could just stem from lack of education.  Graphic novels are just a collection of reprinted comic books. They may see the comic book part and just classify it as such without knowing the true diversion.  It is also reasonable that they "the poster" seen others calling it a comic book collection and in turn figured they have one as well.  So in short. Yes it's a collection, but a graphic novel collection.  It would be nice to eductate people on this matter. But bright side is that these stories, collections and art are being a appreciated. 

It's not a graphic novel collection. A graphic novel is a specific format, one that hasn't been serialised, traditionally. An important distinction. 

[Ken Aldred]

I'm not particularly bothered about what format I read and accumulate comics in; original issues or remastered trade paperbacks, hardcovers or digital, as long as it makes my access to stories which I want to read much more easily achievable.

[Kramerica]

4 hours ago, Ken Aldred said:

I'm not particularly bothered about what format I read and accumulate comics in; original issues or remastered trade paperbacks, hardcovers or digital, as long as it makes my access to stories which I want to read much more easily achievable.

I concur! And if they look real pretty gathered all together on my bookshelf that is the cherry on top 

[Brian48]

I would love to have the HC version of Origins of Marvel Comics by fireside.  Only saw one or two come up for sale in the last few years.  Always, the price was way over what I wanted to pay for the condition that it was in. 

[miraclemet]

18 hours ago, Mecha_Fantastic said:

It's not a graphic novel collection. A graphic novel is a specific format, one that hasn't been serialised, traditionally. An important distinction. 

agreed. 

 

I call TPBs and Hard covers that collect runs of issues for an overarching story "collected editions" 

graphic novels are something else (books that are conceived as a single tome and are issued as that single tome)

[miraclemet]

I have collected "collected editions" for as long as I've been back in the hobby (2008). I like reading complete stories all in one book rather than having a pile of floppies to unbag, read, rebag and then work thru the separate issues. 

As others have said there is a niche secondary market for these collected editions due to them in some cases being limied in their print run, and then going out of print. Going OOP (out of print) is more common with Marvel than DC, but it happens with both. 

As someone else said, the risk with collecting these books is that a publisher can, at any point, go back to print and your OOP book is now readily available for far less than what your version was worth when there was not availability. I remember this happening back in 2009 or 2010. Marvels Omnibus line had quite a few titles that had gone OOP and were selling for 2x-3x their cover price (and you have to remember that often when people pre-order these books they are getting them for 30-50% off cover price, so it's more like 5-6x what they originally paid). Marvel decided to do a new printing of them, and there was a rush in the market of people who were collecting for value to try to unload their copy (that they had likely bought at "collectible" prices after it went OOP). Some of those volumes have again gone OOP (the Thor one comes to mind), while others are still in print (ASM). Again, DC and Marvel are different. Many of the "Absolute" editions like Watchmen and such are still easy to find because DC keeps them in print. 

I actually sold 90% of my CE collection when I moved to Europe, and now that Im back in the states I've been working on rebuying much of my library. Some volumes that I sold (here or on eBay) are now worth 5-10x what I sold them for (because they went out of print in the subsequent years). I've told myself that I'll never pay "collectible" prices for any of these books, becuase they can so easily plummet with a publisher announcement, so I just have to let the idea of a few of them go. 

Something else that gets considered within the CE niche is production quality. Earlier prints of some Omnibuses are more valuable due to better production quality (more binding stitching, less glue) leading to one edition being valued over another. Sometimes it's even the printing quality of the pages (some books have over/under saturated colors and are less desirable to the collector than other editions). Again, its a super small niche section of the hobby, but there's a passion among us that keeps it interesting and competitive. It's not unlike say when people were collecting price variants before everyone decided on the valuation of those price variants, or Whitmans... its niche enough that you find treasures from time to time because people don't necessarily know the "value", but wide enough that there's still competition and community out there. 

And dont even get me into the niche of binding your own comics to make your own collected editions.... that's a whole different can of worms!

Here's an old picture of my bookshelves.

 

[Aweandlorder]

8 hours ago, miraclemet said:

I have collected "collected editions" for as long as I've been back in the hobby (2008). I like reading complete stories all in one book rather than having a pile of floppies to unbag, read, rebag and then work thru the separate issues. 

As others have said there is a niche secondary market for these collected editions due to them in some cases being limied in their print run, and then going out of print. Going OOP (out of print) is more common with Marvel than DC, but it happens with both. 

As someone else said, the risk with collecting these books is that a publisher can, at any point, go back to print and your OOP book is now readily available for far less than what your version was worth when there was not availability. I remember this happening back in 2009 or 2010. Marvels Omnibus line had quite a few titles that had gone OOP and were selling for 2x-3x their cover price (and you have to remember that often when people pre-order these books they are getting them for 30-50% off cover price, so it's more like 5-6x what they originally paid). Marvel decided to do a new printing of them, and there was a rush in the market of people who were collecting for value to try to unload their copy (that they had likely bought at "collectible" prices after it went OOP). Some of those volumes have again gone OOP (the Thor one comes to mind), while others are still in print (ASM). Again, DC and Marvel are different. Many of the "Absolute" editions like Watchmen and such are still easy to find because DC keeps them in print. 

I actually sold 90% of my CE collection when I moved to Europe, and now that Im back in the states I've been working on rebuying much of my library. Some volumes that I sold (here or on eBay) are now worth 5-10x what I sold them for (because they went out of print in the subsequent years). I've told myself that I'll never pay "collectible" prices for any of these books, becuase they can so easily plummet with a publisher announcement, so I just have to let the idea of a few of them go. 

Something else that gets considered within the CE niche is production quality. Earlier prints of some Omnibuses are more valuable due to better production quality (more binding stitching, less glue) leading to one edition being valued over another. Sometimes it's even the printing quality of the pages (some books have over/under saturated colors and are less desirable to the collector than other editions). Again, its a super small niche section of the hobby, but there's a passion among us that keeps it interesting and competitive. It's not unlike say when people were collecting price variants before everyone decided on the valuation of those price variants, or Whitmans... its niche enough that you find treasures from time to time because people don't necessarily know the "value", but wide enough that there's still competition and community out there. 

And dont even get me into the niche of binding your own comics to make your own collected editions.... that's a whole different can of worms!

Here's an old picture of my bookshelves.

 

This pretty much covered everything. Great post!

[Ken Aldred]

17 hours ago, miraclemet said:

agreed. 

 

I call TPBs and Hard covers that collect runs of issues for an overarching story "collected editions" 

graphic novels are something else (books that are conceived as a single tome and are issued as that single tome)

I agree.  For me, graphic novels tell, and have been marketed as, new, self-contained stories, such as A Contract With God, Sabre, Detectives Inc, Death of Captain Marvel, Arkham Asylum, Catwoman: Selina's Big Score, Sgt Rock : Between Hell and a Hard Place, or Jim Starlin's more recent Infinity trilogy, rather than single volumes reprinting already-published material.

There is the original graphic novel (OGN) vs. graphic novel distinction, with the above examples falling into the first category, and collected editions of existing, episodic material such as DKR and Watchmen in the latter. 

I still prefer OGN vs collected as the more accurate categorisation.

 

[nocutename]

I very much feel like my collected editions are part of my comic collection.  OOP books become a hunt to try and find them at regular retail price.  The truth is that some TPBs have a smaller print run then their single comic version.   In all honesty, I call them graphic novels most of the time.   Mainly that is because I don't want to explain the difference to a non-comic reader.   Here's my bookshelves after I reorganized all the books last year.  I have some in my closet too because I don't want to double line them up like but had to for my Batman on the bottom shelf.

 

 

PS Yes they are all bagged.

Edited June 6, 2018 by nocutename

[kidcolt]

They are still just reprints of comics in a collected format. I really don’t care what edition it is the cheaper the better. If there is three printings and it’s still has the same page and cover quality and size than I will go with the cheapest. There is a market for trades 1st prints but it’s not as big as many would think. Even OP books can and will likely be reprinted.

[Bryan65]

"Batman from the 30's to the 70's" (1971) is my HOLY GRAIL of reprints!  It was my favorite book when I was a young kid.  A few years back I lucked out and found a beautiful copy, dust jacket near flawless with no dents/bends, bone white pages.  It is impossible to find a decent copy of this book today, I searched for years before I lucked out and found this copy.  Is it a valuable book?  I do not know, but to me it is priceless!

[steveinthecity]

18 minutes ago, Bryan65 said:

"Batman from the 30's to the 70's" (1971) is my HOLY GRAIL of reprints!  It was my favorite book when I was a young kid.  A few years back I lucked out and found a beautiful copy, dust jacket near flawless with no dents/bends, bone white pages.  It is impossible to find a decent copy of this book today, I searched for years before I lucked out and found this copy.  Is it a valuable book?  I do not know, but to me it is priceless!

Had the same book.  It was amazing to me to see all those stories reprinted that I’d never be able to read otherwise. There’s a Superman version of this that I need to hunt down one of these days.

[Number 6]

26 minutes ago, steveinthecity said:

Had the same book.  It was amazing to me to see all those stories reprinted that I’d never be able to read otherwise. There’s a Superman version of this that I need to hunt down one of these days.

And Shazam. 

[miraclemet]

56 minutes ago, Bryan65 said:

"Batman from the 30's to the 70's" (1971) is my HOLY GRAIL of reprints!  It was my favorite book when I was a young kid.  A few years back I lucked out and found a beautiful copy, dust jacket near flawless with no dents/bends, bone white pages.  It is impossible to find a decent copy of this book today, I searched for years before I lucked out and found this copy.  Is it a valuable book?  I do not know, but to me it is priceless!

These were classic library books at my library. They're hard to find cause most were beat and well read library copies. The Batman one, the Superman one, and a few others. They're a great bit of survery reading through the decades. 

[Bryan65]

17 hours ago, Number 6 said:

And Shazam. 

Yeah, I could kick myself because the same dealer I bought the Batman book from had the Shazam book in beautiful condition and asking ONLY $40, but I let it slip away.

[EC Star&Bar]

Here are the editions of those that I own:

Shazam! From the 40s to the 70s (Harmony) -- paid only $3 for my copy, decades ago

Batman: From the 30s to the 70s (Crown, 2nd print stated, blue cloth)* --  Note:  Not a single Penguin or Catwoman story in here!!!

Superman: From the 30s to the 70s (Crown, 2nd print stated, red cloth)*

Superman: From the 30s to the 80s (Crown) -- a little better selection of stories overall, replacing some tedious Bizarro stuff

(* Bonanza Books editions also exist for these two books.  Jackets look the same, but different cloth and a few minor changes within.)

I think one reason the Shazam! book tends to be expensive is the lack of later editions.  It's also the BEST compilation of all.

 

 

[01TheDude]

I have always enjoyed these types of books and have used them to fill in my collection in places where owning the real books is not realistic. I started buying them early in my collecting days via the various Fireside editions. I also consider the Marvel Treasury sized books part of this type of collecting (just an opinion- though some treasury books are actually first prints). One of my favorite early books like these were not even reprints of comics but a discussion/art work from Steranko's History of Comics Vol 1 and 2. The artwork on the covers of those alone were worth the money I paid at the book store. What a joy finding them there (along with the FIreside Marvel books!).

Since returning to the hobby 5 years ago, I have added several newer TPBs and other book collections that fill gaps in the collection. Some I just sort of stumbled upon via a contest here, others were direct buys off ebay for things like the opening Journey Into Mystery Thor issues (83-100) which I only had a single ratty copy of (#98). So in answer to your question--- I find these materials very collectible, occasionally rare and valuable, and for the most part-- priceless additions to my other comics.