For those of you that were around in the 90s, was the 'crash' a good thing?

[comicstock]

I never went for the foil covers or the gimmicks.

I got sucked in once. I was sitting at home one day reading about Spiderman #1 coming out. All these different covers - green, black, gold. I was out of the hobby at the time, but remember thinking "This is wild! I have to get in on this!" The next day I went to the LCS in my neighborhood.

 

When I had my comic stores in PA and the Death of Superman issues came out, there was a big shortage of the premium, black bag editions. Customers stood in line an hour before I opened waiting to get their copies. Since stores were allocated, we only allowed one premium per customer. Many were not pleased but I wanted everyone to get one. I remember one guy, in his 30s, purchasing the premium edition and after paying, he clutches it with a grin saying to me "this will help fund my kid's college". It was so dopey, I just nodded and he hustled out of the store. My guess is Princeton wasn't in his kid's future.

[oakman29]

I never went for the foil covers or the gimmicks.

I got sucked in once. I was sitting at home one day reading about Spiderman #1 coming out. All these different covers - green, black, gold. I was out of the hobby at the time, but remember thinking "This is wild! I have to get in on this!" The next day I went to the LCS in my neighborhood.

 

When I had my comic stores in PA and the Death of Superman issues came out, there was a big shortage of the premium, black bag editions. Customers stood in line an hour before I opened waiting to get their copies. Since stores were allocated, we only allowed one premium per customer. Many were not pleased but I wanted everyone to get one. I remember one guy, in his 30s, purchasing the premium edition and after paying, he clutches it with a grin saying to me "this will help fund my kid's college". It was so dopey, I just nodded and he hustled out of the store. My guess is Princeton wasn't in his kid's future.

 

Awesome

[Buzzetta]

Except for picking up a monthly copy of ASM I stopped collecting all together sometime between 2002-2004. I sold off my Batman run from around 200 to then present. I sold off my GI Joe complete run. I think I picked up a Hulk 181 and Avengers 4 sometime in between for a couple hundred.

 

I got back in for 2010 when I wanted another AF15 and swore I would be in and out.

 

You all see how that worked out for me...

[Ken Aldred]

I never went for the foil covers or the gimmicks.

I got sucked in once. I was sitting at home one day reading about Spiderman #1 coming out. All these different covers - green, black, gold. I was out of the hobby at the time, but remember thinking "This is wild! I have to get in on this!" The next day I went to the LCS in my neighborhood.

 

When I had my comic stores in PA and the Death of Superman issues came out, there was a big shortage of the premium, black bag editions. Customers stood in line an hour before I opened waiting to get their copies. Since stores were allocated, we only allowed one premium per customer. Many were not pleased but I wanted everyone to get one. I remember one guy, in his 30s, purchasing the premium edition and after paying, he clutches it with a grin saying to me "this will help fund my kid's college". It was so dopey, I just nodded and he hustled out of the store. My guess is Princeton wasn't in his kid's future.

 

Awesome

 

Amazing, looking back, how naive we were in believing that death had any significance and permanence in comic books.

[Ken Aldred]

 

For the record, I did read the Death of Superman arc in trade form, and thought it was pretty good.

 

The Superman titles were generally good, solid reads in the 90s, and the death story was on that same level, with added poignancy, of course.

[awe4one]

No. The crash killed comic book collecting IMO. There were many new collectors that got drawn into the hobby that got burned badly. The comics community is at fault. I see the same things today.

 

Jim

[rjrjr]

So the answer is no... It was NOT a good thing.

It devalued the modern mainstream comic book as reading material, and as art and reduced it to a collectible that is generally worthless or, even worse, has a PERCEIVED value despite being relatively worthless.

What would be the good reason for it?

Perhaps there is more than one reason a person collects what they do. When I was a kid, I collected comics because they were cool, not because they had any kind of value. Same with people who collect, say, knick-knacks of pigs. It's not important to them that there is any kind of monetary value to them.But, if I'm understanding you correctly, value is very important to some collectors - whether it is a collector of comics, OA, etc.

 

So if that is true, that there are collectors who care about the value of their collection, and there are collectors who don't, then I can see how the crash would be bad for some and welcomed by others.

 

A quick thought ... you know those people who have $1,000,000 paintings on their walls? Are they collectors of art, or are they collectors of expensive paintings? I wonder if they would have those paintings if they didn't have any monetary value.

 

I don't want you to misconstrue what I'm saying. It would be super if the books in my collection were valuable. But for some, myself included, how much a comic is worth, or will be worth, doesn't come into play when adding books to my collection. (that probably comes from having a collection of comics with an average grade of VG)

 

I remember when those G&T Enterprises indexes came out. I had lists of all the cool comics that I wanted to get (not valuable comics). Did you do the same? I'm sure there are 1,000s of kids out there who would welcome a crash with open arms.

 

I don't collect for the monetary value either. I would have a hard time spending money on a comic just for it's value without caring about its content.

[rjrjr]

I never went for the foil covers or the gimmicks.

I got sucked in once. I was sitting at home one day reading about Spiderman #1 coming out. All these different covers - green, black, gold. I was out of the hobby at the time, but remember thinking "This is wild! I have to get in on this!" The next day I went to the LCS in my neighborhood.

 

When I had my comic stores in PA and the Death of Superman issues came out, there was a big shortage of the premium, black bag editions. Customers stood in line an hour before I opened waiting to get their copies. Since stores were allocated, we only allowed one premium per customer. Many were not pleased but I wanted everyone to get one. I remember one guy, in his 30s, purchasing the premium edition and after paying, he clutches it with a grin saying to me "this will help fund my kid's college". It was so dopey, I just nodded and he hustled out of the store. My guess is Princeton wasn't in his kid's future.

 

Awesome

 

Amazing, looking back, how naive we were in believing that death had any significance and permanence in comic books.

 

I find it amazing that readers today get suckered into the death of major characters. These comic companies are not going to kill off these characters permanently. Too much product tied up with the IP to do that.

[comicwiz]

My memory of it is pretty specific. I was the kid that took the road less travelled, as many of the friends I hung out with who also happened to collect would make weekly trips to the Silver Snail and spend a good amount of money buying new comics. I went knocking door to door hoping to find old comics. Nothing about the newer stuff appealed to me as much. I do remember that anything Byrne, especially X-Men, was white hot. I landed a great collection of them - I never told my parents about this one purchase either as they were already super-protective and wouldn't allow me to go into people's houses without one of them accompanying me, but this one collection with a near complete run from the early 100's through to the mid-150's belonged to a biker. I was really concerned if I didn't move the deal along quick, the guy would have pawned them, so I grabbed all the cash I had with me at the time and walked out with everything. All Byrne cross-over stuff, like MTU 53, were priced really high at the time in shops, and sadly, a good chunk of this stuff hasn't really budged in value almost 30 years later.

 

But a few years ago, I really got a different perspective on that era. I ran into an old shop owner who was having a garage sale. The guy was super-bitter about the whole experience of losing his shop. He lost quite a bit of money, and got sucked into the whole hype machine at the time. One of the things I remember him telling me was walking into a few shops looking for books for his own collection that eluded him, and he'd see shop owners stick week old books on the wall for $10, $20, $30, even as much as $50, and they'd sell them like clockwork. So he, like most others at the time, got caught up in it, heavily speculating and buying multiple copies of books only to be left with all this unwanted inventory when the business tanked. He had more money tied-up in his inventory than he needed to float the business, so when the gears came to a grinding halt, he lost everything. It was sad hearing this, especially since the guy looked pretty effected by it, but I guess the guys who were probably removed from the blood-letting were the guys that weren't buying anything new.

 

I think the collectors who witnessed the 90's crash and avoid moderns probably get an unfair shake as elitists or snobs to newbies, but they're more likely guided by an instinctive response to never allow themselves to be fooled twice.

[David-Lance Roten]

I completely missed the 90's crash having gotten out of comics in early 1988 (college, car, girls in no particular order). Didn't return until 2009/10. I was around the card collecting game however, and I saw the name Roger Salkeld mentioned by a poster. He was the "next Roger Clemens" if memory serves. Inserts and over production killed that hobby for me. By 2000 I bailed on card collecting, not returning until 2013

[Mercury Man]

I completely missed the 90's crash having gotten out of comics in early 1988 (college, car, girls in no particular order). Didn't return until 2009/10. I was around the card collecting game however, and I saw the name Roger Salkeld mentioned by a poster. He was the "next Roger Clemens" if memory serves. Inserts and over production killed that hobby for me. By 2000 I bailed on card collecting, not returning until 2013

 

That'd be me. I heard next "Nolan Ryan" in my old haunts. Remember when you only had 1 baseball card company for a long time- TOPPS. Then Donruss and Fleer. Then Upper Deck. Then everything went bat sheet crazy.

 

That was around the same time Death of Superman, Image etc. It all ties together IMHO.

 

Beanie Babies too. People bought those things & treated them better than a gold bar.

 

 

[the blob]

During the crash , what was it like buying gold and silver age keys. I could imagine they were cheaper but how much cheaper? Always wanted to know.

 

What was pricing before for a action comics 1 , detective 27, cap 1, AF15 ?

 

cheaper than now, of course, but that stuff held up pretty well. sure, if you had a lot of cash you could probably buy out store inventory and do well if they happened to have some SA keys in stock, but chances are that sort of stuff was sold off first to pay bills before they finally gave up.

 

also, "old skool" grading might have made some of the SA stuff less of a good deal by today's grading standards. I'm not sure CGC really tightened grading on GA books though, but it definitely tightened it on SA books.

[the blob]

I was just starting to work as an adult so my disposable income was starting to happen.

I did buy the current books (seems like the releases were Friday back then) on pay day. I would buy Image and Valiant thinking about the flip later but I never bought tons of them. I had friends who did buy 5 or so of all the #0's and #1's. They do not collect at all now.

I do remember once it started to fall apart being able to grab semi keys for a song. Hulk 181 for $70 or so and ASM 300 for $35. TMNT seemed to be high and I never was able to pick up 1-4. When CGC started I slabbed multiple 181's that ranged from 5.5 and up. I did leave completely for about 10 years though as the current stuff did not interest me and the local shops had focused on Heavy role playing games. The Origin series with Wolverine brought me back in and I focused on SA and BA along with that and a few new books here and there.

 

Hulk #181 for $70 seems high for the time period. Maybe I'm mis-remembering though.

 

A nice copy of Hulk 181 for $70 was ridiculously low during that period. That's not a book that really went down in a major way. ASM 300 OTOH, yes, I picked up a pretty nice (9.0?) copy for a lot less than $35. Heck, I picked up a slabbed 9.4 for $60 shipped in like 2001.

[Bronty]

I removed myself from the hobby in the 80s ... I blame girls and drugs for that. But it seems to me that if I were actively collecting during that time, it would've been nice. I guess for dealers/sellers not so much, but it had to be great if you were strictly a collector. Although, it seems like so much emphasis is put on how much one's collection is worth these days, I imagine even collectors were experiencing a certain amount of disappointment.

 

I consider the crash a bad thing. Some collectors quit the hobby because of all the multi covers and many quit after the crash. Seems like I talk to collectors all the time who quit in the early 90s and eventually came back many years later.

 

Me too, I remember local cons in the 80s being vibrant, packed full of energy and cons in the 90s being depressing affairs.

[NoMan]

I never went for the foil covers or the gimmicks.

I got sucked in once. I was sitting at home one day reading about Spiderman #1 coming out. All these different covers - green, black, gold. I was out of the hobby at the time, but remember thinking "This is wild! I have to get in on this!" The next day I went to the LCS in my neighborhood.

 

I got suckered once way back in 1981 as a kid buying 50 copies of Dazzler #1. If I remember correctly that was the very first direct sale comic and it was a BIG DEAL.

 

I learned early, I guess and didn't go for the variant stuff at the LCS. It was all about story and the stories were starting to suck so I bail in the late 80s.

[NoMan]

I never went for the foil covers or the gimmicks.

I got sucked in once. I was sitting at home one day reading about Spiderman #1 coming out. All these different covers - green, black, gold. I was out of the hobby at the time, but remember thinking "This is wild! I have to get in on this!" The next day I went to the LCS in my neighborhood.

 

When I had my comic stores in PA and the Death of Superman issues came out, there was a big shortage of the premium, black bag editions. Customers stood in line an hour before I opened waiting to get their copies. Since stores were allocated, we only allowed one premium per customer. Many were not pleased but I wanted everyone to get one. I remember one guy, in his 30s, purchasing the premium edition and after paying, he clutches it with a grin saying to me "this will help fund my kid's college". It was so dopey, I just nodded and he hustled out of the store. My guess is Princeton wasn't in his kid's future.

 

I remember going in Golden Apple Comics in Los Angeles when that Death of Superman thing was happening and "dopey" is the perfect word for it. The owner (the heavyset guy who has since passed away) asked me if I wanted go in front of the local news cameras for the "big story" on the DEATH OF SUPERMAN.

 

Said, "No Thanks."

 

 

[Ken Aldred]

 

Me too, I remember local cons in the 80s being vibrant, packed full of energy and cons in the 90s being depressing affairs.

 

I did feel a similar shift in the ones I attended here in the UK.

[1Cool]

The crash couldn't have occurred at a worse time for me. I graduated college in 1996 and proceeded to sell off my whole collection of mostly late 80s and 90s books for a grand. Probably spent $7,000 - $8,000 over the decade in buying the books so it definitely hurt the pocket book because I always assumed I'd at least break even when it came time to sell.

[Dick Pontoon]

I missed the whole thing.

 

Started collecting in the 70s, stopped in the 80s, didn’t start again until around '04.

[architeuthis]

...but I still to this day hate seeing card collectors selling comics. They don't love the hobby one bit.

 

As someone who has collected baseball cards far longer and far more seriously than comics, I wish I could take exception to this statement, but sadly I cannot. Card collecting is, I fear, in much worse shape than comics, after just as devastating an implosion in the 90s.

 

A huge amount of card collectors are just straight up degenerate gamblers, throwing hundreds of dollars at slots in online breaks of $1000+ per box product, all for the one 'sick hit'. If it isn't a chrome blue wave superfractor autographed patch card serial numbered to 1 of 10 or 1 of 5 or 1 of 1, it's a junk card and you'll be lucky to sell it for $5-10. At best. Base cards (you know, plain old cardboard baseball cards like we've all collected for the last half a century or so) just go right in the garbage. They spend $75-500 and way, way more for a box... and just THROW AWAY ALL THE CARDS except the big $$$ hits. Don't build sets, sell team sets... just trash 'em. Nothing but the gimmicks, autographs, memorabilia or low serial numbered cards are worth anything to a very large collector base.

 

In my local shop last week, a 20-ish guy stood there and ripped two boxes of Topps Heritage (one of the only current products I like... current cards in the vintage styles, very collectible as a set and actually has a bit of value just as cards) Fairly inexpensive cards, but $160 and two boxes later, he didn't get any 'huge hits'. He was going to just throw them in the dumpster on the way out because he "didn't get sh*t worth flipping" The owner and I rescued them and I got to almost completely finish off my 2016 Heritage set for basically free. There were tons of short printed and decent cards there, many an easy sell at a few bucks to maybe around $10 (Heritage commons even sell pretty well in the quarter and dollar boxes to all the set collectors out there), but the whole pile was just trash and not worth his time because there was nothing worth $50-150 or more. That's just sick, and it's not the first time I've seen this exact scenario happen right in front of me.

 

They aren't collectors at all, they're just buying lottery tickets.