Best & Worst years to own a store? 1 1

[cmixer]

 

So, is it fair to say the HIGH POINT (profit wise) was 1989;

And the LOW POINT (loss wise) was 1999?

[shadroch]

When Marvel comics were .50 cents, my cost was about .27 a pop. An independent published  comic was $1.50, with my cost being .77 cents.

In the next few years, shipping costs shifted to distributors so my margins were almost always fifty percent.

When Marvel switched to self distributing, margins dropped across the board. Most smaller stores saw their margins drop over ten percent, and ended up having to pay for shipping again. Marvel also flooded the market with product and forced shops to buy inferior books in order to get the popular lines.

I was managing a shop in Puerto Rico when Marvel did this and overnight, our shipping cost went from near zero to over a thousand dollars a month. We ended up dropping a few smaller lines as they just weren't viable to sell at cover.  A few books, we couldn't sell at cover and had to put them immediately into back issue status at a premium. Staff cuts were made, to the point that the owner had his kids coming in after school to bag comics, and serious thought was given to adding a surcharge on every new book. Instead we went with raising most back issues by a quarter,which lowered sales a bit. 

The shop was more of a vanity project for the owner and when profits were lowered, he decided to shut down.  It was almost ten years before a comic shop opened 

to replace it.

[shadroch]

2 minutes ago, cmixer said:

 

So, is it fair to say the HIGH POINT (profit wise) was 1989;

And the LOW POINT (loss wise) was 1999?

I'd say by around 1997, most of the weaker, badly run stores had closed.

[Ken Aldred]

It seemed to me that the speculator boom really hit the UK in 1990, noticing that the London shops started hiking their prices up on back issues.

I suggested 1991 because I recall the signs of real excess then, such as racks and racks of bagged X-Force 1.

[aardvark88]

17 hours ago, shadroch said:

It was when Comic Value Monthly started outselling X-Men that the warning lights went off!

Did not know that CVM outsold X-men before the advent of Wizard mag #1 (summer, 1991). Just recall summer, 1989 being Bat Mania with the Batman vs Joker movie #1, Prince Bat-soundtrack, DC with a string of hits like Killing Joke in deluxe, prestige format then Bat: the Cult mini being distributed by so many regional comics distributor that popped up:

 

[01TheDude]

10 hours ago, Ken Aldred said:

On 1/8/2018 at 1:34 PM, Marwood & I said:

Blimey, yes, that takes me back liz. Pilgrimages to far out shops that were shut on arrival 

Back then this was quite common with comic shops in small, English towns.

The shop employees would know everyone in town, and knew you weren't local, and so they would pretend to be closed.

also---- “Stay off the moors! Stick to the road.”

[shadroch]

1 hour ago, aardvark88 said:

Did not know that CVM outsold X-men before the advent of Wizard mag #1 (summer, 1991). Just recall summer, 1989 being Bat Mania with the Batman vs Joker movie #1, Prince Bat-soundtrack, DC with a string of hits like Killing Joke in deluxe, prestige format then Bat: the Cult mini being distributed by so many regional comics distributor that popped up:

I have no idea how CVM monthly did nationwide, but on LI it was by far my best selling monthly. 

BTW- Both the Killing Joke and The Cult came out before the movie. Not sure how long before but I am guessing at least a year. 

When new ownership of Marvel looked at the couple of dozen distributors making money off its product , they decided to uproot the whole system and deal direct to shops, making an extra nickel a book. As any sane person expected, the result was a disaster and thousands of shops went out of business.  Ownership raped the company and our hobby, pocketed hundreds of millions of dollars and declared bankruptcy. 

 

[aardvark88]

5 hours ago, shadroch said:

 

Even back in 1987, Overstreet (Quarterly) Comics Price Bulletin was slow to report hot b/w like Fish Police #1 hitting $35, as comic shops/fans were speculating on the next TMNT #1 b/w. The glory days of 1988:

G.I. Joe #2 1st print nm $36, Hulk 181 nm $65, Amaz Spider-man #50 vf $15, AF #15 g $175, Amaz Spider-man #1 vg $225, DD #1 nm $300, Iron Man #1 WAY over Guide selling at f/vf $75.

[lizards2]

7 hours ago, 01TheDude said:

18 hours ago, Ken Aldred said:

On ‎1‎/‎8‎/‎2018 at 12:34 PM, Marwood & I said:

Blimey, yes, that takes me back liz. Pilgrimages to far out shops that were shut on arrival 

Back then this was quite common with comic shops in small, English towns.

The shop employees would know everyone in town, and knew you weren't local, and so they would pretend to be closed.

also---- “Stay off the moors! Stick to the road.”

That movie used to scare the pee-waddlin' out of me when it came out.  I remember going to a midnight movie showing at the U of O back in about 1983, and getting out when it was over - walking back home to the Fraternity through the Pioneer Graveyard, and many viewers were baying at the moon on their way home!   

[the blob]

22 hours ago, Ken Aldred said:

It seemed to me that the speculator boom really hit the UK in 1990, noticing that the London shops started hiking their prices up on back issues.

I suggested 1991 because I recall the signs of real excess then, such as racks and racks of bagged X-Force 1.

Yes, but Image and Valiant came along and pumped some more money into comic shops for a while. I got back into collecting in Fall 1993. I don't think shops were closing yet, but you could see the overstock at the shows, etc. Pre-Unity valiants were still valued (in theory), but the stuff that had come out after then was 25 cent box fodder.

[Ken Aldred]

7 minutes ago, the blob said:

Yes, but Image and Valiant came along and pumped some more money into comic shops for a while. I got back into collecting in Fall 1993. I don't think shops were closing yet, but you could see the overstock at the shows, etc. Pre-Unity valiants were still valued (in theory), but the stuff that had come out after then was 25 cent box fodder.

In the UK you could see it starting to hit hard around 1994.

Talking of Pre-Unity Valiants, 1993, a copy of Harbinger 1 was £100, by summer / autumn 1994 you could find them for £5.

Edited January 10, 2018 by Ken Aldred

[the blob]

44 minutes ago, Ken Aldred said:

In the UK you could see it starting to hit hard around 1994.

Talking of Pre-Unity Valiants, 1993, a copy of Harbinger 1 was £100, by summer / autumn 1994 you could find them for £5.

Yea, I was waiting to find them in a dollar box...never did.

I also wonder if things fell off faster in the U.K. My friend who had a comic shop had a theory that valiant was actually pushing some of those back issues up in value, calling stores over and over asking about them to make them seem more in demand, occasionally buying some for an inflated price to help prop up the market. He said he never really sold them well, but he would constantly get calls about whether he had them, etc.

 

 

Edited January 10, 2018 by the blob

[aardvark88]

42 minutes ago, Ken Aldred said:

In the UK you could see it starting to hit hard around 1994.

Talking of Valiants, 

My buddy invested all his liquid savings of $6k at the time into flawless mint copies of Image and post-Unity Valiants. He pre-ordered in 1993 so received a generous 35% off cover price. Thought he was guaranteed to make big $$ by 1994. No dealer wanted to buy or trade for any of his long boxes of overstocked Image and Valiants, so he eventually begged the dealer he bought them from to take them back for $1,200 in trade  credit towards future comics or supplies purchases.

[kimik]

21 minutes ago, the blob said:

Yea, I was waiting to find them in a dollar box...never did.

I also wonder if things fell off faster in the U.K. My friend who had a comic shop had a theory that valiant was actually pushing some of those back issues up in value, calling stores over and over asking about them to make them seem more in demand, occasionally buying some for an inflated price to help prop up the market. He said he never really sold them well, but he would constantly get calls about whether he had them, etc.

 

 

 

In 1999-2001 I cleaned out all of the local stores/flea market dealers/other vendors at shows of their pre-unity/late run/gold/platinum/red/VVSS/other incentive/etc. for $0.10 - $1.00 apiece for the first couple of years, then they started asking up to $5 for some of the tougher ones. My favorite buy was a long box from one LCS at 3 for $1. I snagged 10 Harby 1s, 3 Harby 0 Pinks, a bunch of VVSSs, 10 - 20 of all pre-unity #1s, etc. The Harby #1s still had the $150 sticker prices on them.  It was fun listening to the LCS owner complain about Valiant ruining the comic market while I was cleaning him out of anything worthwhile.

Even into 2003 I was landing the pre-unity and late issues at shows from other dealers for $0.10 - $0.50 apiece, even Harby #1. What they did not know was awesome to profit from.

[Erndog]

On ‎01‎/‎08‎/‎2018 at 2:35 PM, lizards2 said:

I don't know how people even find shops anymore.  It used to be the phone book. 

They have the internet on computers nowadays

[lizards2]

51 minutes ago, Erndog said:

On ‎1‎/‎8‎/‎2018 at 11:35 AM, lizards2 said:

I don't know how people even find shops anymore.  It used to be the phone book. 

They have the internet on computers nowadays

Yes, but see my previous comments about how unprofessional past shops have been.  In the day, the yellow pages was the only way.  Now, so many businesses don't use that tool.  Just saying there are lots of things that aren't on the internet.

[the blob]

1 hour ago, kimik said:

 

In 1999-2001 I cleaned out all of the local stores/flea market dealers/other vendors at shows of their pre-unity/late run/gold/platinum/red/VVSS/other incentive/etc. for $0.10 - $1.00 apiece for the first couple of years, then they started asking up to $5 for some of the tougher ones. My favorite buy was a long box from one LCS at 3 for $1. I snagged 10 Harby 1s, 3 Harby 0 Pinks, a bunch of VVSSs, 10 - 20 of all pre-unity #1s, etc. The Harby #1s still had the $150 sticker prices on them.  It was fun listening to the LCS owner complain about Valiant ruining the comic market while I was cleaning him out of anything worthwhile.

Even into 2003 I was landing the pre-unity and late issues at shows from other dealers for $0.10 - $0.50 apiece, even Harby #1. What they did not know was awesome to profit from.

By 2003 those Harby 1s were worth $20+ pn ebay if I remember correctly.

 

[Martin Sinescu]

2 hours ago, aardvark88 said:

My buddy invested all his liquid savings of $6k at the time into flawless mint copies of Image and post-Unity Valiants. He pre-ordered in 1993 so received a generous 35% off cover price. Thought he was guaranteed to make big $$ by 1994. No dealer wanted to buy or trade for any of his long boxes of overstocked Image and Valiants, so he eventually begged the dealer he bought them from to take them back for $1,200 in trade  credit towards future comics or supplies purchases.

Yeah, I tried to convert several long boxes of comics into SW figures via the LCS (this would've been maybe '95). Of course I came out on the losing end of that trade, but the owner said he wouldn't take the Valiants at all. I felt like I at least won a minor victory by leaving the Valiants in the box and forcing him to find out later that he was stuck with more. 

Incidentally, I loved CVM. I kept one copy and it's fun to go back and browse the prices, see what's "broken out" and what hadn't been discovered yet, as well as see which books I'd highlighted that I was hunting.

[kimik]

2 hours ago, the blob said:

By 2003 those Harby 1s were worth $20+ pn ebay if I remember correctly.

 

Yes. There was a spike in prices from 2003 - 2004 that made it very worthwhile. At the time the $USD was worth $1.40 - $1.50 CDN so I made a killing flipping books on eBay. It was fun times thanks to eBay buyer Aug002 and all the people trying to punish bid him/her on Valiants. I can remember getting $60 - $80 for VF/NM Chaos Effect Omega Golds, $100 - $150 for Chaos Effect Alpha Reds, and $50 - $100 for Unity Reds. There were plenty of VVSS issues selling for $40+ then as well. It took a while to go through the five longs of Valiant stuff I had cobbled together, and thankfully after I finished with that another small LCS received a huge pile of backstock boxes from another store that went under and it contained a ton of the Valiant incentives and pre-unity/late run issues so I could reload. In hindsight, I should have also snagged the long box of Rai #0s he had as well, but they were common as dirt back then (there was a long and a bit of Turok 1s as well  ). 

[the blob]

18 hours ago, kimik said:

Yes. There was a spike in prices from 2003 - 2004 that made it very worthwhile. At the time the $USD was worth $1.40 - $1.50 CDN so I made a killing flipping books on eBay. It was fun times thanks to eBay buyer Aug002 and all the people trying to punish bid him/her on Valiants. I can remember getting $60 - $80 for VF/NM Chaos Effect Omega Golds, $100 - $150 for Chaos Effect Alpha Reds, and $50 - $100 for Unity Reds. There were plenty of VVSS issues selling for $40+ then as well. It took a while to go through the five longs of Valiant stuff I had cobbled together, and thankfully after I finished with that another small LCS received a huge pile of backstock boxes from another store that went under and it contained a ton of the Valiant incentives and pre-unity/late run issues so I could reload. In hindsight, I should have also snagged the long box of Rai #0s he had as well, but they were common as dirt back then (there was a long and a bit of Turok 1s as well  ). 

Yes, I remember the canadian dollar was really low then there was some art supply company in canada and everything was half price if you paid in U.S. dollars, plus shipping was so much cheaper then. I wanted to get back into painting and buy tons of blank canvas and other supplies ... was right on the edge of putting in a huge order to take advantage while I could and then thought better of it as I did not have the room for all this stuff. probably a good idea not to as I have a box of blank canvases I have never used, paints from 14 years ago I never used, and a professional easel I bought (for a great price) I have also never used. life just got in the way.