Collections drying up? 4 4

[october]

Collections drying up?

Towards the end of last fall I noticed a pretty steep dropoff in my purchases from eBay, and it hasn't really recovered. Some of it is due to my new job and increased responsibilities, but most of it seems to be a lack of good buying opportunities. I remember my feed refreshing itself regularly as new stuff popped up during the course of a weekday, now it might be a few things an hour. I thought it was just me, or just eBay, until I spoke to LCS owners in both Chicago and Nashville and they echoed my concerns. They were both exploring other advertising options because the stuff walking through the door has slowed to a trickle over the last year. Ditto with two longtime show dealers I spoke to recently. Not big national guys, but names that would be familiar to most everyone here. 

Has anyone else experienced a slowdown lately? Has demand finally caught up to supply? Are more people contending for the same stuff? Are sellers pricing things at or above market value more now? Am I just imagining things?

Edited June 5, 2017 by october

[shadroch]

No, yes, yes, yes, perhaps.

[ADAMANTIUM]

I've often wondered what will happen when all the issues of a key end up slabbed,  then I checked it at the door, I don't know a single book that had a healthy print run that has got 100,000 slabs on the census. I wonder what the most graded book is and what number it sits at in the census.... also, I'm sure there are low print run, especially moderns, that there is a high percentage of the print run slabbed.....Like print runs of 500 that are promoted as Gauranteed 9.8 etc.

in short 

I don't think that collections will dry up until EVERY BOOK OF A KEY OR COLLECTIBLE, is slabbed imo

  or at least close to it  

[STORMSHADOW_80]

1 minute ago, ADAMANTIUM said:

I've often wondered what will happen when all the issues of a key end up slabbed,  then I checked it at the door, I don't know a single book that had a healthy print run that has got 100,000 slabs on the census. I wonder what the most graded book is and what number it sits at in the census.... also, I'm sure there are low print run, especially moderns, that there is a high percentage of the print run slabbed.....Like print runs of 500 that are promoted as Gauranteed 9.8 etc.

in short 

I don't think that collections will dry up until EVERY BOOK OF A KEY OR COLLECTIBLE, is slabbed imo

  or at least close to it  

One book I've seen that has a high ratio to print run is Spider-Man 1 platinum edition. 1331 slabbed and 10,000 made

[1Cool]

Comic book characters seem to be hotter then ever so I'd guess people just equate popularity to $$ so they spend extra time researching and trying to sell the books themselves.  I'd guess the amount of picked clean collections will become more prevalent since the people will give up after the easy online sales books are gone.  I also see less and less Silver-Age books floating around whereas the amount of Bronze/Copper collections seem to be exploding. 

Edited June 5, 2017 by 1Cool

[ADAMANTIUM]

1 minute ago, STORMSHADOW_80 said:

One book I've seen that has a high ratio to print run is Spider-Man 1 platinum edition. 1331 slabbed and 10,000 made

Also there will be people who de-slab to gain a higher asking price, and as long as there are "people" who inherit an unwanted collection, there will be traffic through the door of the LCS.

Mother's are the best, but can also be the worst hahaha

As far as the "big score" where you can still get the inherited collection for "cheap", it may have gone down slightly  BUT look in the fleamarket/antiquestore/ etc thread people still have awesome finds. If your a LCS owner and don't either have the time or the ability to hussle and expect it to walk through the door? I have no idea other than it happens every sunday at my LCS.....or seems like....

[1Cool]

I will have to say the two guys I talked to recently about collections were talking about warehouses full of books they had (not sure if I believe the hype) but there has to be so many collections up for grabs once the older guys start thinking about downsizing or moving to Florida.

[aardvark88]

Even raw pre-1970 SA Marvel and DC collections are drying up locally the last 2 years. Just waiting for another wave of SA ASM to hit the auction market, as these 'elder' (age 57 to 65 years) collectors start their estate planning  and liquidating comic assets while they can still lift a short box.  

[STORMSHADOW_80]

From my experience I use to find more small collections a few years ago compared to now.

[Quicksilver Signs]

I don't think collections are drying up, just being held onto. There's more awareness with all the movie hype.

I'm pretty sure in about 10+ years time there will be a glut of collections popping up for sale, I'm 50 and plan to sell around retirement time, and there are a ton of guys my age with sweet collections. You can't take it to your grave! It's possible now might be the best time to sell, movies will dry up along with the hype, comics may well be as popular as pulps 20 years from now.

[shadroch]

Keep in mind that when the great GA collections were being discovered ,they were barely thirty years old for a great portion of them. There are tons of thirty year old collections out there undiscovered today. Heck, a Star Wars run is forty years old.

Back when I had my shop, if someone came in and said they had inherited their fathers collection, it was something to get excited about. These days, someone says their Dad had a Spider-Man #1, its more likely to be a Web of Spider-Man, or a Spectactular, at best.

[silverweb]

56 minutes ago, october said:

Collections drying up?

Towards the end of last fall I noticed a pretty steep dropoff in my purchases from eBay, and it hasn't really recovered. Some of it is due to my new job and increased responsibilities, but most of it seems to be a lack of good buying opportunities. I remember my feed refreshing itself regularly as new stuff popped up during the course of a weekday, now it might be a few things an hour. I thought it was just me, or just eBay, until I spoke to LCS owners in both Chicago and Nashville and they echoed my concerns. They were both exploring other advertising options because the stuff walking through the door has slowed to a trickle over the last year. Ditto with two longtime show dealers I spoke to recently. Not big national guys, but names that would be familiar to most everyone here. 

Has anyone else experienced a slowdown lately? Has demand finally caught up to supply? Are more people contending for the same stuff? Are sellers pricing things at or above market value more now? Am I just imagining things?

Ebay sucks these days because its so full of MyComicShop's overpriced  BIN"spoon". And other sellers are following MCS's high BIN pricing. That's one reason why I don't buy as much now on Ebay 

[valiantman]

7 minutes ago, shadroch said:

Keep in mind that when the great GA collections were being discovered ,they were barely thirty years old for a great portion of them. There are tons of thirty year old collections out there undiscovered today. Heck, a Star Wars run is forty years old.

Back when I had my shop, if someone came in and said they had inherited their fathers collection, it was something to get excited about. These days, someone says their Dad had a Spider-Man #1, its more likely to be a Web of Spider-Man, or a Spectactular, at best.

More like Spider-man #1 (1990).  If someone's Dad bought that when they were 17, that dad is 44 years old today.

[1Cool]

Hey - I'm 44!  Maybe I know that guys dad.

[the blob]

october, you're looking for higher end stuff, right?  harder to score deals.  but there seem to be plenty of arguable $30-$50 books that sometimes slip through the cracks and sell for $15 or less.

with 5,000 octobers and aweanorders all looking to score on that potential underpriced key, with search engines and snipes galore, potential russian interference and what not, it's harder to find one.

[the blob]

28 minutes ago, valiantman said:

More like Spider-man #1 (1990).  If someone's Dad bought that when they were 17, that dad is 44 years old today.

well, "inherited" implies a dead dad.  I'm 44, please don't kill me off so soon, although lately i feel like I'm pretty close.

Edited June 5, 2017 by the blob

[sacentaur]

The online experience appears to be similar to the convention circuit today, at least for the type of books (mostly Golden Age) I'm looking for.

Previously, the only limitation for purchases was how much money did I want to spend - nowadays, I can't find enough quality material.

There is something to be said about collectors getting older, retiring, or passing away but how many of those collections will end up at one of the auction houses?

Edited June 5, 2017 by sacentaur

[SteppinRazor]

I think some of it has to do with keys.  No one wants to buy collections without keys in it (I know, I want to sell mine, but I know what the keys are).  It takes time to find out what they are, but the information is out there, so people can pull them from the collection to get graded to sell, or expect some value closer to retail.  The nature of keys renders 90+% of a collection worthless.

[sagii]

I don't think there will be another 'Billy Wright' find ( 'undiscovered 'golden age Orginal owner collection with numerous key issues and rarities 

There will be other 'Dentists,  Jon Berks (though on a 'smaller ' scale) of acquired books through years of collecting. 

People are holding on to their collections for the most part. Especially with golden age where used to be under the radar stuff is being appreciated and now coveted more. A lot of folks are still  in the process of building new found interests and want to hang on to and enjoy them for a bit .

[justafan]

I used to see legit craigslist ads for SA, BA, and CA runs for ASM, Thor, Iron Man, SS, XMEN, FF, etc.  Now all I see are dealer ads.

The 2 LCS near me used to see regular SA- BA collections walk through the door or phoned in from around the state at least once a month. It's been a year since they've pulled in a new collection.

I think it's a combination of both. There are fewer collections coming to market than before and the ones that are have more market aware owners who are either pricing out the smaller dealers or going directly to the top auction houses for the convenience. 

Not sure if the scarcity has anything to do with there actually being less hidden collections or that people are quietly holding onto them.