bc Posted February 22, 2019 Share Posted February 22, 2019 Since the US Census is next year, maybe you can get this added to the questionnaire. thehumantorch 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dupont2005 Posted February 22, 2019 Share Posted February 22, 2019 8 hours ago, ComicConnoisseur said: I will say higher just by sheer volume who go to San Diego Comic Con and NY Comic Con. To cosplay, get free swag, attend panels about movies and TV shows. Even among the readers and collectors in the crowd, I’m betting many of them read/collect moderns and hardcover reprints, not actual old back issues. I haven’t been to SDCC since like 1991 but from what I hear it’s barely about comics anymore and a lot of dealers consider it not even worth going. It’s more of a pop culture show now ComicConnoisseur 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr bla bla Posted February 22, 2019 Share Posted February 22, 2019 17 hours ago, Jaylam said: Well kav, there’s you and I, so we know there’s at least two! And me, thats three ... Jaylam 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaylam Posted February 22, 2019 Share Posted February 22, 2019 (edited) Growing up in the late 60's and throughout the 70's, besides myself, I knew of at least 4 other of my contemporaries that were pretty solid comic book collectors and 1 pretty avid Mad Magazine collector. I was probably the most diverse of those, into a little bit of about every genre, with heavy emphasis on super-heroes. One guy was a Magnus Robot Fighter fan, another was DC only, but hated Superman, another was an Aquaman fan, and another was pretty much Marvel only except for he liked Batman too. There were a few girls I noticed with Archie and some Romance books at school once in a while, but I never really communicated with them to see how much they were into it. We didn't have the social media back then like we have today, so connecting with someone outside of my immediate circle of friends and people at school was pretty uncommon. There may have been other more serious fans and collectors near me, but how was I to know? Edited February 22, 2019 by Jaylam Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justafan Posted February 22, 2019 Share Posted February 22, 2019 I'm thinking it's close to the average of non event, non #1 renumber, non variant Superman, Batman, Spider-man, X-men sales + the average of all non #1 indie comic sales in a given month that is not May or december. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dupont2005 Posted February 22, 2019 Share Posted February 22, 2019 1 hour ago, justafan said: I'm thinking it's close to the average of non event, non #1 renumber, non variant Superman, Batman, Spider-man, X-men sales + the average of all non #1 indie comic sales in a given month that is not May or december. Those are all current release numbers though. It could be a comparable number but I suspect plenty of current release buyers don’t collect BA and older back issues and I suspect a lot of BA and older back issue collectors don’t buy current releases Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Point Five Posted February 23, 2019 Share Posted February 23, 2019 14 hours ago, dupont2005 said: Those are all current release numbers though. It could be a comparable number but I suspect plenty of current release buyers don’t collect BA and older back issues and I suspect a lot of BA and older back issue collectors don’t buy current releases Yep. And between back issue collectors and new issue readers, there are umpteen little collecting sub-universes. Consider that even dead-as-a-doornail titles and genres on ebay from any given decade that are 100% under our radar still have buyers at the right low price. You would probably have to define 'comic collector' a bit more precisely to attempt an answer, but I have trouble imagining that everyone in the US actively collecting comics, or who has collected sporadically over the years and still holds attachment to them, wouldn't quite easily break a million. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the blob Posted February 23, 2019 Share Posted February 23, 2019 Why are you excluding folks who collect only comics from the last 28 years from the equation? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dupont2005 Posted February 23, 2019 Share Posted February 23, 2019 I think a lot of the auction and estate sale (random local auctions, not the big comic ones) comic sales are being purchased by those junk flippers who watch too much TLC shows. I had a few at my garage sales and I’ve bought off a few through craigslist. They don’t know a thing about conics, don’t care about comics, they’re just aspiring pawn stars Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lizards2 Posted February 24, 2019 Share Posted February 24, 2019 18 hours ago, dupont2005 said: I think a lot of the auction and estate sale (random local auctions, not the big comic ones) comic sales are being purchased by those junk flippers who watch too much TLC shows. I had a few at my garage sales and I’ve bought off a few through craigslist. They don’t know a thing about conics, don’t care about comics, they’re just aspiring pawn stars Dude - where have you been the past 2 1/2 years? The rumors were dead or in jail...., welcome back! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dupont2005 Posted February 24, 2019 Share Posted February 24, 2019 54 minutes ago, lizards2 said: Dude - where have you been the past 2 1/2 years? The rumors were dead or in jail...., welcome back! I felt like I had a bit of an internet addiction and quit all message boards and social media for a while lizards2 and grebal 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lizards2 Posted February 24, 2019 Share Posted February 24, 2019 26 minutes ago, dupont2005 said: 1 hour ago, lizards2 said: Dude - where have you been the past 2 1/2 years? The rumors were dead or in jail...., welcome back! I felt like I had a bit of an internet addiction and quit all message boards and social media for a while These boards are the only social media I have, but I do feel like I need a break sometimes! My wife calls these boards, "Facebook for Nerds" dupont2005 and Brock 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony S Posted February 25, 2019 Share Posted February 25, 2019 (edited) No one really knows for sure. In the past, the circulation of the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide was considered a benchmark for SERIOUS collectors, as it was a publication that only comic book dealers and serious collectors would have a reason to purchase. Maybe a few thousand more copies to libraries. Problem there is that the sales (circulation) of the OPG have never - to my knowledge - been published. I've heard rumors. No idea if close or not. And for every "serious" comic book collector there might be 50 or even 100 that are casual. And for the past decade, maybe longer a lot of collectors no longer see the OPG as truly essential. There are about 2000 comic book stores in North America. You could make guestimates at the minimum number of collectors it would take to support a comic book store. 50? 100? And some larger, well established stores would have much more than the "minimum" we might set. One could look at circulation numbers for popular comic book titles/characters. Considering that comic books are almost exclusively sold at comic book stores, anyone walking in to buy Batman or Spider-Man probably thinks of themselves as a collector. Those titles usually sell in the 80,000-100,000 copies a month, with special issues doing 2-3x that. The problem with this approach is that there are a lot collectors - serious collectors like myself - that don't purchase new comic books. Back of the napkin guesstimates from all the various sources suggest there is probably a minimum of 100,000 serious collectors and many multiples of that number that could be called casual collectors. If considering anyone that considers themselves a comic collector - serious, casual and in between - A million doesn't sound unrealistic number Sources of information that might get a lot closer to an answer include eBay, My Comic Shop, Mile High Comics. If eBay would agree to do such, knowing how many unique visitors browsed and made purchases in the comics category over a period of 12 months would be pretty informative. Same way with unique visitors to MCS and Mile High. But I'm 1000% certain that information won't be made available. They would view it as proprietary. Edited February 25, 2019 by Tony S kav, CycleGirl and grebal 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FoggyNelson Posted February 25, 2019 Share Posted February 25, 2019 One collector here to add to the list👏👏💚 1950's war comics and ComicConnoisseur 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kav Posted February 25, 2019 Author Share Posted February 25, 2019 On 2/23/2019 at 11:47 AM, the blob said: Why are you excluding folks who collect only comics from the last 28 years from the equation? Good question. I was trying to exclude folks who buy moderns for a while then forget about comics. I figgered people that actively seek out back issues would be 'collectors'. And by back issues I didnt want to mean a comic printed a couple years ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
masterlogan2000 Posted February 25, 2019 Share Posted February 25, 2019 On 2/22/2019 at 9:13 AM, AnthonyTheAbyss said: Assuming only males collect comics and 1 in 200 = .05 * 152M = 7,600,000 Your numbers may be off by a decimal point. kav 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kav Posted February 25, 2019 Author Share Posted February 25, 2019 Taking all the educated guesses and all factors into account and using the formula the number of collectors in the US is 832,123. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnthonyTheAbyss Posted February 25, 2019 Share Posted February 25, 2019 49 minutes ago, masterlogan2000 said: Your numbers may be off by a decimal point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OahuApp Posted February 26, 2019 Share Posted February 26, 2019 I am just saying for my small state and island in particular where the bulk of the population resides, there are less than 1,000 collectors of older stuff and maybe a third of that being active. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcjames Posted February 26, 2019 Share Posted February 26, 2019 C = 1/5(F + S) Where: C = # of comicbook collectors (buy/hold/read/horde, occasionally sell to support collecting) F = # of comicbook flippers (buy/sell quickly, rarely holding much inventory and don't read it anyway) S = # of comicbook speculators (buy/hold/sell, purely as "investments" in lieu of bitcoin) Why 1/5? As good a fraction as any other! kav 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
