Are we at a peak of back issue worth/sales? 6 6

[ComicConnoisseur]

59 minutes ago, Mercury Man said:

God, how I loved the concept of the 'rewind fee'.   The last bastion of trying to make people accountable for living in a society, in which stuff is shared.    Now we laugh and make snide comments  at this.   Look at the scooter thing many cities are trying.  More end up getting trashed than used. 

lol. I remember that.

[vheflin]

The hero movies AFAIK do well in China.  It would only take a tiny fraction of well-heeled Chinese movie fans catching the collecting bug and values will not only hold but could continue to outpace inflation for decades to come.

And there's also India...and the number of existing back issues can never grow.

if CGC Beijing opens, then sky's the limit.

[kimik]

16 hours ago, delekkerste said:

C'mon guys.  What % of back issue sales, or sales of "keys" as Ryan is arguing, are made by female collectors, and does anybody really believe it spiked starting in 2010-11 because of New 52 to a level that would be germane to the current conversation?  Sadly, I doubt that data is out there, but, I bet if you actually looked at the hard numbers and not just anecdotes and viewpoints distorted by confirmation bias (go re-read your copy of Thinking in Bets ), that you'll find that this phenomenon does not actually exist.  

Kind of reminds me about the argument in the original art side of the hobby about people's anecdotes about knowing such and such under-40 person getting into the hobby and, thus, the long-term future of the hobby is secured.  Not only do I not believe that anecdotal reports of a 30-something here or there getting into the hobby amount to enough Millennials and Gen Z collectors to clear the market for the Gen Xers, but, I am metaphysically certain that, never mind the numbers, they definitely won't have the financial resources to clear the market at present levels, let alone higher.  And that's not a shot at the lack of money by the Millennials or their reputed preference for experiences over the things, it's just a recognition of reality that OA prices have so far outstripped the income gains of 99.999% of the population that even their present Gen X and Boomer owners couldn't reassemble more than a small fraction of their collections at current prices if they had to.  

Similarly, how many of these New 52-reading new female collectors does it take to replace even one rabid, high-end Gen X back issue collector?  Over in OA land, there are some Gen X and Boomer collections so large and valuable that it would literally take hundreds of new, typically-sized Millennial collectors to clear even ONE of these collections at present market values (let alone assuming prices will continue to increase indefinitely)?  I go to enough cons to see that half of the attendees are female, but, I also hang around the comic booths enough to know that the same half of the attendees is doing low single-digit levels at best of vintage back issue buying by $ volume. 

You are totally dismissing the younger male collectors, Gene, and focusing only on my female collector comment. While Alberta may be an outlier, there is a large cohort of collectors younger than I am (born in 1975) that is driving the local market. Locally, the old farts (Gen X and boomers) are divesting keys/collections rather than buying them for the most part. I have posted on this numerous times over the past 15 or so years we have been debating this topic on the boards, but the new generation of collectors focuses on keys, not filling runs. We have repeat buyers that started as young as 13 snapping up keys and classic horror books to collect and for the crack/press/resub game. And, I need Karl to repost his "Girls Don't Buy Comics" meme, but there are a number of female collectors that do buy keys locally. 

Notice that I am not commenting on the OA market, which I have viewed as overvalued since I sold off most of mine a few years back. The OA game may be outpricing the market, but other than the top end GA keys, comics are way more affordable for collectors. A key SA art piece is worth several $10Ks, but outside of AF #15, you can still buy a decent low grade copy of any SA comic key for less than $10K (and BA keys for way less than that). 

Edited August 10, 2019 by kimik

[XxSpideyxX]

On 8/9/2019 at 7:43 PM, HouseofComics.Com said:

There was the big 2017 dip as referenced in this thread but this year is flat in dollars to last year and down about 5% in units.

https://www.comichron.com/

That's the overall trend for years also--dollar volume flat, with declining units.

My quick take on the movies was that they brought all the lapsed collectors who quit in the 90s back into the hobby. And there were a ton of them out there. But that's kind of a one-time generational thing. OTOH, people are living longer and the rich get richer, so I can see even declining numbers of collectors keeping things going (if not setting records). As for the low end, I feel that the internet really helps because people can more easily learn about collecting and what's out there and it's such an inexpensive hobby on the low end. You can get plenty to read and plenty of books for $100 a month.

This is completely true for me.  From the late eighties until the end of the 90s, I collected Amazing Spider-Man comics. I had a set of nearly 2000 Spidey comics, but no Silver age keys, even though I had read them all.  Then the clone saga happened, stretched out for 2 years, and pissed me off so bad I stopped collecting and even sold all the comics I had to start life with a bit of extra money as a newlywed and welcoming my first child.  

I never stopped loving Spider-Man.  I just stopped buying and reading the comics.  Every so often I would pick up a new issue, but I never found anything that peaked my interest.  Instead I’d buy occasional Spidey merchandise like toys, clothing, magnets, etc.

Now I’m 40 and the past 10 years of Marvel movies have definitely rekindled my original love for Spider-Man comics.  But rather than buy up a huge collection, I want to own some of the few key issues that were my absolute favorite stories and art.  I want to own the best versions I can afford of those, and nothing more.  

These few issues (ASM 33, 39, 50, etc) symbolize and summarize why I love Spider-Man.  I could (and should) write an essay for each comic I own.

But I could have bought raw versions or even reprints.  I bought these issues in at least a 9.0 slab so they present really well (I could stare at them all day) but also to hopefully gain value.  I’m just not sure this will happen to any significant degree.  

[lou_fine]

On 8/9/2019 at 6:34 AM, XxSpideyxX said:

I'm certainly not trying to use these as a retirement fund, but I also hope I'm not completely wasting money.

You most definitely should not be counting on your comic book collection to form the BULK of your retirement fund, especially if you are doing your purchasing in terms of today's red hot marketplace with their hyper inflated prices. 

Then again, there's also absolutely nothing wrong at all with having your comic book collection act as the nice plump cherry on top of your retirement fund, especially if you had brought them back in the 90's at what were then perceived to be hyper inflated prices during that particular go round of the big red hot GA market.  

[MisterX]

I kind of think the peak of back issue worth/sales is already behind us.

Keys continue to go up, but what about the rest of the books? The run books, the drek, the forgotten pop culture figures like Rin-Tin-Tin and Joe Palooka?

Is anybody getting full guide prices for mid-grade back issues of The Beagle Boys, or Dale Evans or Dagar the Invincivble? How about Jonah Hex or the Warlord or the Defenders?

Did they ever?

There's probably millions of these books laying around, depreciating by the second. 

Then again, I'd be happy to be wrong. 

 

[delekkerste]

On 8/10/2019 at 12:52 PM, kimik said:

You are totally dismissing the younger male collectors, Gene, and focusing only on my female collector comment. While Alberta may be an outlier, there is a large cohort of collectors younger than I am (born in 1975) that is driving the local market. Locally, the old farts (Gen X and boomers) are divesting keys/collections rather than buying them for the most part. I have posted on this numerous times over the past 15 or so years we have been debating this topic on the boards, but the new generation of collectors focuses on keys, not filling runs. We have repeat buyers that started as young as 13 snapping up keys and classic horror books to collect and for the crack/press/resub game. And, I need Karl to repost his "Girls Don't Buy Comics" meme, but there are a number of female collectors that do buy keys locally. 

Notice that I am not commenting on the OA market, which I have viewed as overvalued since I sold off most of mine a few years back. The OA game may be outpricing the market, but other than the top end GA keys, comics are way more affordable for collectors. A key SA art piece is worth several $10Ks, but outside of AF #15, you can still buy a decent low grade copy of any SA comic key for less than $10K (and BA keys for way less than that). 

You and others are already proving my point.  The younger collectors coming into the hobby are focusing on keys rather than runs, because it's more social media friendly, because they often don't have as much space, but, crucially, because to collect runs at these prices is no longer possible.  There simply won't be enough money coming into the hobby to clear the market at ever-rising prices when the Gen Xers cash out.  Eventually it will catch up to the keys, too, not just the run-fillers. 

Local Alberta female collectors buying keys...how much do you think they spend in the aggregate?  Seriously, is it even worth talking about?  I asked my friend at one of, if not the, largest vintage comic dealers in the world and said he only has one to two dozen female clients in total, and it didn't sound like they represent a meaningful amount of his business.  

Edited August 12, 2019 by delekkerste

[kidcolt]

I have a 18 year old son, he use to collect sports cards and comics however this was only because I did and he wanted similar interest. Since he was 13 he hasn’t had any interest in either and none of his friends collect. My son is a athlete and very out going, he isn’t into video games either. At card shops and shows I rarely see anyone under the age of 30 with any interest in comics. If there are young kids they are usually there with their dad or mom sharing an interest but don’t seem to into it. I really think the comic industry especially back issues are in trouble and will he is a lot of trouble in another 20 years. I think the hobby has already seen its resurgence which came from the movie franchises. I think it’s all down hill from there. Too be honest I hope it is. IMO prices jumped way to high too fast. As an older collector it shocks me to see how expensive some of the over and poorly produced comics sell for. I understand the key first appearance taking a jump but there is a lot of drek out there, I can’t see all of that staying hot. People bought as investment and hope, there won’t be enough demand for the amount of it that was produced.

[dupont2005]

1 hour ago, MisterX said:

I kind of think the peak of back issue worth/sales is already behind us.

Keys continue to go up, but what about the rest of the books? The run books, the drek, the forgotten pop culture figures like Rin-Tin-Tin and Joe Palooka?

Is anybody getting full guide prices for mid-grade back issues of The Beagle Boys, or Dale Evans or Dagar the Invincivble? How about Jonah Hex or the Warlord or the Defenders?

Did they ever?

There's probably millions of these books laying around, depreciating by the second. 

Then again, I'd be happy to be wrong. 

 

You’re absolutely right, but for run collectors it’s great news as long as you held onto those first apps of Gambit and Concrete from when you were a kid

[PopKulture]

4 hours ago, MisterX said:

I kind of think the peak of back issue worth/sales is already behind us.

Keys continue to go up, but what about the rest of the books? The run books, the drek, the forgotten pop culture figures like Rin-Tin-Tin and Joe Palooka?

Is anybody getting full guide prices for mid-grade back issues of The Beagle Boys, or Dale Evans or Dagar the Invincivble? How about Jonah Hex or the Warlord or the Defenders?

Did they ever?

There's probably millions of these books laying around, depreciating by the second. 

Then again, I'd be happy to be wrong. 

 

I don't know if it's some form of latent paranoia or just a touch of pessimism, but I agree with you mostly, and yet I keep getting outbid on run books on the Bay at what seems like a 90% rate, even though my bids are often in line with the much maligned Overstreet. And I'm not just talking about something like a 12c Kid Colt Outlaw I'm missing, I get outbid on things just as obscure Rinty and Joe Palooka, especially if it's a popular seller like blissard or the like. 

Now, a downturn in the market no doubt would hit many of us that aren't cashing out now (if we are near THE peak), but I look forward to buying oodles of stuff I'm missing on the cheap when prices do come down. 

Edited August 12, 2019 by PopKulture

[MyNameIsLegion]

5 hours ago, delekkerste said:

You and others are already proving my point.  The younger collectors coming into the hobby are focusing on keys rather than runs, because it's more social media friendly, because they often don't have as much space, but, crucially, because to collect runs at these prices is no longer possible.  There simply won't be enough money coming into the hobby to clear the market at ever-rising prices when the Gen Xers cash out.  Eventually it will catch up to the keys, too, not just the run-fillers. 

Local Alberta female collectors buying keys...how much do you think they spend in the aggregate?  Seriously, is it even worth talking about?  I asked my friend at one of, if not the, largest vintage comic dealers in the world and said he only has one to two dozen female clients in total, and it didn't sound like they represent a meaningful amount of his business.  

+1

I've spent the last 10 years buying out collections from guys in their 60s-70's that collected runs.  Easily over 30k comics. All the major keys sold right away to flippers to press and slab. We slabbed very little because they weren't 9.4 grade-worthy.   CGC has sucked up vast amounts of the available money for comics towards a minute % of the total number of back issues in existence.   A millennial might fork over a few hundred here and there to build one or 2 boxes of slabbed keys but they are not going take that exact same sum of money (which they have less of) and buy 30 long boxes to lug around for the next 30 years.  They don't have the space to store that in their tiny apartments and tiny houses in hip urban areas.  If there are REALLY into it, they can read comics on their iPad and show off a couple of keys to their buddy's while drinking their IPAs and "Smart Water"  

CGC, Convention, and has-been celebs have siphoned off most of the money in the Pop-culture space that used to just be comic conventions.  Add ebay fees, paypal fees, shipping fees, pressing fees, insurance, and HA's buyers premiums and sales tax and there went 40% of all the money in the hobby before you even got that hot book in your hand to read, or not read in the case of CGC. And if you forego the genuine article for that digital subscription to the back issues of that collected edition, you just selected against all those dusty back issues. 

The hobby is is still being buoyed by old Gen-Xers and younger Boomers who still think in that old school collectors mentality of "Hey I can get a short box of comics in VF for $2 bucks apiece? Cool!" Because it's still wired in our brains that it's a bargain considering what new comics cost, with fewer pages and less story, and we remember when comics only cost between 12-50 cents cover.  That is not the experience of Millennials and Gen Z.  They never HAD boxes of comics they bought off the stands. So why on earth would they suddenly get nostalgic in their 30's-40's when they hit their peak earning years? Not gonna happen.  10 years from now it will be a much different hobby. Gen X is too small to pass on the knowledge, history, and interest in back issues as a whole to our younger siblings or children.  Gen X's love for comics has manifested itself in a different medium. Movies and Television, to wider appeal and more money, but the net effect is a  much thinner, more superficial level of comic book nerdiness that skips OVER the collector to reach the fans.  It's just math and demographics.  Debate all you want, but you can't debate facts. 

Edited August 12, 2019 by MYNAMEISLEGION

[XxSpideyxX]

7 hours ago, PopKulture said:

 even though my bids are often in line with the much maligned Overstreet.

I've missed this conversation.  I grew up reading and loving the new editions of Overstreet over the years.  Has it become obsolete due to grading and the fluctuations of online auctions?  

But doesn't your statement kind of validate Overstreet since you are often in line with that they report?  

 

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

It’s only in the last 2 years, near the end of my career, that I’ve had a few extra bucks for the longest love of my life. I may be wrong wrong wrong, but I think the keys will continue their ascent. If I didn’t believe that I wouldn’t have paid the stupid money I’ve paid. I didn’t get in when prices were reasonable; I got in when they were insane. But still, I came in. 

I don’t think I will be the last. Not nearly

[HeyMoe]

I'm not going to read through every post here, but there's something that needs to be dealt with. Something that subtly adds to price and sales.

Exchange rate.

If the Australian dollar was at parity to the US$, you would see so much of an increase in sales, and therefore competition in key issues, it would upset the market.

I can drop a good chunk of change tomorrow on something I want, but tell me its going to cost me 40% more?!.  

There is a very large,and untapped global market for comic books. You get access to that ... 

[1Cool]

39 minutes ago, HeyMoe said:

I'm not going to read through every post here, but there's something that needs to be dealt with. Something that subtly adds to price and sales.

Exchange rate.

If the Australian dollar was at parity to the US$, you would see so much of an increase in sales, and therefore competition in key issues, it would upset the market.

I can drop a good chunk of change tomorrow on something I want, but tell me its going to cost me 40% more?!.  

There is a very large,and untapped global market for comic books. You get access to that ... 

Are young people in Australia comic book collectors.  I know what I see at Cons here in the US but maybe teens in other countries are acting differently.  The problem I see is shipping cost and the small number of English speaking countries that aren't already big comic book collectors (ie Canada and England)

[Hamlet]

8 hours ago, PopKulture said:

I don't know if it's some form of latent paranoia or just a touch of pessimism, but I agree with you mostly, and yet I keep getting outbid on run books on the Bay at what seems like a 90% rate, even though my bids are often in line with the much maligned Overstreet. And I'm not just talking about something like a 12c Kid Colt Outlaw I'm missing, I get outbid on things just as obscure Rinty and Joe Palooka, especially if it's a popular seller like blissard or the like. 

Now, a downturn in the market no doubt would hit many of us that aren't cashing out now (if we are near THE peak), but I look forward to buying oodles of stuff I'm missing on the cheap when prices do come down. 

Yeah, I don't think run books are doing badly, all things considered.  They just look like no one wants them in comparison to the hot keys.  

 

[Ken Aldred]

3 hours ago, HeyMoe said:

I'm not going to read through every post here, but there's something that needs to be dealt with. Something that subtly adds to price and sales.

Exchange rate.

If the Australian dollar was at parity to the US$, you would see so much of an increase in sales, and therefore competition in key issues, it would upset the market.

I can drop a good chunk of change tomorrow on something I want, but tell me its going to cost me 40% more?!.  

There is a very large,and untapped global market for comic books. You get access to that ... 

The sterling to US dollar exchange rate is currently pitiful, and likely to descend still further towards parity.  I was very relieved to have stopped buying original comics before this additional obstacle was incorporated into a perfect storm, as the current speculation era was then in full swing.

For me, great timing to avoid this complication having any significant effect.

[porcupine48]

3 minutes ago, Ken Aldred said:

The sterling to US dollar exchange rate is currently pitiful, and likely to descend still further towards parity.  I was very relieved to have stopped buying original comics before this additional obstacle was incorporated into a perfect storm, as the current speculation era was then in full swing.

For me, great timing to avoid this complication having any significant effect.

The loonie exchange is extremely painful on this end let me say.What irks me is it's more expensive to get a parcel from the states sent here than say if I was ordering an item from yourself or another UK chum.More from New York than France?Good grief.

[Lazyboy]

4 hours ago, GreatCaesarsGhost said:

I may be wrong wrong wrong, but I think the keys will continue their ascent. If I didn’t believe that I wouldn’t have paid the stupid money I’ve paid.

For now? Yes. For long? Well, I hope you won't need that money in the distant future.

[Krismusic]

46 minutes ago, porcupine48 said:

The loonie exchange is extremely painful on this end let me say.What irks me is it's more expensive to get a parcel from the states sent here than say if I was ordering an item from yourself or another UK chum.More from New York than France?Good grief.

I agree with that US shipping to Canada can get crazy at times.