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

[XxSpideyxX]

Since this was (a few pages ago) part of the discussion, I thought this chart was worth posting (from Reddit).

I don't have the graphic capabilities to stack these, but it would be interesting to see the peak genre in each decade.    This chart suggests that some genres have steadily grown over time (documentary, thriller) while others have diminished (musicals, war).

I'd be curious to see a similar graph depicting the sale of stamps, comics, sports cards, coins, vinyl, and other collectible items over time.  

My guess is that, unlike movie genres, most collectibles have experienced a "peak" and have fallen off since.  I would also venture a guess that each collectible has a respective decade where it was most popular before being surpassed by another.

Edited August 13, 2019 by XxSpideyxX

[ComicConnoisseur]

1 hour ago, NoMan said:

i have a friend. he's 90. has 5 buildings of paperback books. many of them rare raymond chandler first editions. same with phillip k , william burroughs, and you know, just rare paperbacks. I really worry about him. ask 100 people on the street who raymond chandler was. Oh yes, the movies. Always the movies. There were raymond chandler movies, too, you know.

I see my friend and it just seems like an ominous warning. 

A problem with that stuff is the ip owners of those works didn't keep their stuff in front of modern audiences. That`s were Spider-Man and Batman win as those characters keep updating their stories for every generation to keep them in the public eye to keep up the interest.

Philip K. `s Bladerunner first movie came out in 1982 and was a modest hit, but the second Bladerunner movie came out in 2017 which is 35 years later and by then most of the 18-34 crowd really didn't know about it.

They waited to long to keep the Bladerunner ip updated so many of the young modern audiences had no clue what Bladerunner was about.

[NoMan]

57 minutes ago, ComicConnoisseur said:

A problem with that stuff is the ip owners of those works didn't keep their stuff in front of modern audiences. That`s were Spider-Man and Batman win as those characters keep updating their stories for every generation to keep them in the public eye to keep up the interest.

Philip K. `s Bladerunner first movie came out in 1982 and was a modest hit, but the second Bladerunner movie came out in 2017 which is 35 years later and by then most of the 18-34 crowd really didn't know about it.

They waited to long to keep the Bladerunner ip updated so many of the young modern audiences had no clue what Bladerunner was about.

call me old fashioned, it's just sad to me. so many, many good stories, and nothing. All Philip Marlowe is is an IP. 

I don't doubt you or coming down on you or anything you understand. We deserve the films we have.

[D84]

10 minutes ago, ComicConnoisseur said:

A problem with that stuff is the ip owners of those works didn't keep their stuff in front of modern audiences. That`s were Spider-Man and Batman win as those characters keep updating their stories for every generation to keep them in the public eye to keep up the interest.

Philip K. `s Bladerunner first movie came out in 1982 and was a modest hit, but the second Bladerunner movie came out in 2017 which is 35 years later and by then most of the 18-34 crowd really didn't know about it.

They waited to long to keep the Bladerunner ip updated so many of the young modern audiences had no clue what Bladerunner was about.

Blade Runner tanked at the box office but made a decent amount on home video.

It was no surprise that the sequel bombed as well.

[ComicConnoisseur]

3 hours ago, justafan said:

AF15, like the Mickey Mantle card, is both a status trophy comic for wealthy casual fans and a Spidey super fan must have in almost any condition.

Here is a great example of what I am alluding to.

I would definitely pick AF#15 over the Mickey Mantle rookie card for the same reasons in that Spider-Man is making millions of new fans every year while Mantle`s audience is aging and dying off.

In about a little in over a year`s time all three of these were big hits with mainstream audiences introducing millions of new Spider-Man fans for new generations.

   

 

with Mickey Mantle nothing big and new happened.Mantle just doesn`t have the juice to compete with Spider-Man. Just nostalgia with the old audience that watched him play in the 1950s and 1960s. Once that old audience fades so will Mantle`s popularity.

This is why superheroes like Batman and Spider-Man are the best bets because they don't stagnate and continually update for the new modern audiences.

So that`s the key to Marvel and DC characters because they kept their characters in the public eye better than just about anyone else has.

Edited August 13, 2019 by ComicConnoisseur

[ComicConnoisseur]

13 minutes ago, NoMan said:

call me old fashioned, it's just sad to me. so many, many good stories, and nothing. All Philip Marlowe is is an IP. 

I don't doubt you or coming down on you or anything you understand. We deserve the films we have.

Bogart`s my favorite actor, but how many people under 40 heard of this?

They haven't done nothing with the ip, so it fades to just a niche audience sadly.

 

Edited August 13, 2019 by ComicConnoisseur

[NoMan]

2 hours ago, XxSpideyxX said:

Since this was (a few pages ago) part of the discussion, I thought this chart was worth posting (from Reddit).

I don't have the graphic capabilities to stack these, but it would be interesting to see the peak genre in each decade.    This chart suggests that some genres have steadily grown over time (documentary, thriller) while others have diminished (musicals, war).

I'd be curious to see a similar graph depicting the sale of stamps, comics, sports cards, coins, vinyl, and other collectible items over time.  

My guess is that, unlike movie genres, most collectibles have experienced a "peak" and have fallen off since.  I would also venture a guess that each collectible has a respective decade where it was most popular before being surpassed by another.

 The reason (plug any genre film in here) became popular is that someone made a good one, that's all. And dumb-dumb heads go let's make Westerns cause they're popular now. No, someone just made a good western is all. I asked a construction owner friend onetime why they keep building stuff when nobody's moving into them and there is plenty of empty stuff already. Wish I could remember the specifics of the answer. Something about the financing having already been lined up years ago and something else and something else. I believe that's why there's movies like Friday the Thirteenth Part 17 are made when nobody really wants them. Anybody remember the magazine Fangoria? The reason the original editor Bob Martin left and became a casino blackjack dealer is a fascinating read.

Edited August 13, 2019 by NoMan

[NoMan]

1 hour ago, ComicConnoisseur said:

Bogart`s my favorite actor, but how many people under 40 heard of this?

They haven't done nothing with the ip, so it fades to just a niche audience sadly.

 

The Big Sleep has one of the best written endings of a book anytime, anywhere, anywho. Words to remember and live by. I don't know what to do to keep it "front and center with the kids," make it a video game in a sex chatroom with people that you don't know actually exist with a comment sections for plenty of trolling?

Edited August 13, 2019 by NoMan

[ninanina]

We had a similar thread  about 10 - 15 years ago about a similar subject, it was mostly are we at the tail end of collecting. This was right around the time when movies based on super heroes initially started. I remember some mentioning after 3 or 4 years it will die off and so will comics. I'll say what I said 10 years ago, there will always be something that drives this hobby. Ten - fifteen years ago, it was the movies that helped kick start the hobby after the '90's crash and now I can say Disney will push it for years to come. I don't think there is anything to worry about back issues being in demand. They'll go up, they'll go down but as long as Disney is driving these characters no worries. How long before DC and Marvel Characters appear in the same movie. So much can be done. And now, Disney has their own channel. They are going to have to fill up the hours with something more than re-runs. How long before we see some of the original Disney characters dress up as Super Heroes on Saturday morning. There's our next generation.

[Bookery]

2 hours ago, NoMan said:

how can I help my friend with his paperback collection? they are paperbacks in the hard boiled genre and what I call the sleaze genre. Think Orrie Hitt and Clyde Allison

Those are at least among the more collectible paperbacks... though values fall far short of comics, of course.  The Allisons can be $100+ in high grade.  Good girl art is still sought, even in paperbacks.  Also, in paperbacks, it's detective and crime fiction that leads the way... not science-fiction.  The volume would be too time consuming (and for too little on many of them) to deal with eBay.  You'll have to find a dealer, and that will depend upon where you live (or an auction house which will put many of them in lots).  The paperback collectors that are still out there are very grade conscious... even more than comic collectors.  Sincs PBs cost less, they can afford to hold out for the best. A few authors are still collectible... Jim Thompson, Charles Willeford, Harlan Ellison, Harry Whittington, Edward D. Wood, early Dean R. Koontz.  Cover art still reigns... Frazetta, Belarski, Bergey, Saunders, etc.  There seems to be some renewed interest in horror paperbacks... even into the '70s and '80s with lower-print run and more obscure titles and authors.

[zeezee]

Great thread 

[Bookery]

49 minutes ago, ComicConnoisseur said:

Bogart`s my favorite actor, but how many people under 40 heard of this?

They haven't done nothing with the ip, so it fades to just a niche audience sadly.

 

The problem here is, when popularity is tied to an actor, what can you do to increase popularity after they're gone?  I don't think much can be done about it.  I  certainly don't want to see their films re-released in 3-D technicolor... or worse, I don't want to see "Bogart" appearing in a new bunch of R-rated action movies via CGI.  Every year at the pulp conventions there are discussions on what can be done to revive the popularity of pulp stories.  The answer is obvious... nothing.  No generation ever goes back and craves the writers of 80-100 years ago... and especially not the workman-like tales of first-draft word-machines.  Occasionally a small number of new collectors in each generation seek out historical artifacts and collect them.  But few do so to read them.  It's hard enough to keep up on contemporary stuff.

I recently rented the excellent Stan and Ollie movie.  After only a few weeks, the sole copy at the video store was for sale (something they generally don't do with just one copy in stock).  I suspect I was the only renter of it they had.

[1Cool]

26 minutes ago, ninanina said:

We had a similar thread  about 10 - 15 years ago about a similar subject, it was mostly are we at the tail end of collecting. This was right around the time when movies based on super heroes initially started. I remember some mentioning after 3 or 4 years it will die off and so will comics. I'll say what I said 10 years ago, there will always be something that drives this hobby. Ten - fifteen years ago, it was the movies that helped kick start the hobby after the '90's crash and now I can say Disney will push it for years to come. I don't think there is anything to worry about back issues being in demand. They'll go up, they'll go down but as long as Disney is driving these characters no worries. How long before DC and Marvel Characters appear in the same movie. So much can be done. And now, Disney has their own channel. They are going to have to fill up the hours with something more than re-runs. How long before we see some of the original Disney characters dress up as Super Heroes on Saturday morning. There's our next generation.

I don’t remember the thread 10 years ago but I bet it involved the decline in the sky high comic prices since CGC brought with it crazy prices and people worried if it could last.  This is a whole new animal all together.  If you have no new collectors of comics who will want to buy comics in 25 years (rule of 25 always is in effect) then what does it matter what movies come out or what characters are popular.  The world is quickly moving past physical publications and I just find it highly unlikely we will be looking back 20 years from now and passing our books on to that generation.  They may love super heroes and a select few will pick up books as a hobby but I think comics will be seen as a niche market at best.

[HouseofComics.Com]

6 hours ago, Bookery said:

 

But here's the rub... in all of those above areas, the really expensive stuff exists in very few copies.  There's probably fewer than two dozen 1st edition Tarzan of the Apes in dust-jacket.  Maybe a few more extant copies of The Great Gatsby.  The most valuable pulps have just a few dozen known copies.  The big expensive movie posters sometimes have existences in single digits.  It only takes 50 or 100 wealthy collectors bidding against each other to keep those items valuable.

 

That really surprises me about Great Gatsby considering Fitzgerald was a well-established author at the time he published that. Didn't think people would be throwing it away, especially since it became very popular only 20 years later.

Edited August 13, 2019 by HouseofComics.Com

[Number 6]

3 hours ago, Bookery said:

Also-- lest I sound too negative... let me add a bit of sunshine.  Whether it's books or comics or whatever... yes... the number of collectors is dwindling... which means there eventually won't be enough collectors to sustain prices on routine copies... (sunshine still on its way, really).  BUT... precisely because of this there is increased demand for high-grade material.  Even the books I mentioned will sell, sometimes for record prices, if both scarce and in high grade.  Right now, as I type, Heritage is auctioning off the phenomenal Glynn Crain collection.  The original art is going very high.  And it looks like high-grade pulps and vintage books are also doing well (there are some dust-jackets in this collection I've never seen before).  The 3rd edition of my pulp guide should be out by the end of the year... and I'll say upfront that many low-grade copies have changed little in the past decade... but copies above-average have generally increased substantially.  Also art takes precedence over authors now (which may explain why a lot of modern 1st editions don't do that well anymore... the jacket art is often abysmal if even present at all).

Thanks for the heads-up on the 1st edition books in the HA auction. 

I see a book I definitely want to go for though I doubt I’ll win it. 

[paperheart]

1 hour ago, ComicConnoisseur said:

Bogart`s my favorite actor, but how many people under 40 heard of this?

They haven't done nothing with the ip, so it fades to just a niche audience sadly.

 

great book, great movie. what are you arguing for? The Big Sleep 2? Ridiculous.

[Hamlet]

1 minute ago, paperheart said:

great book, great movie. what are you arguing for? The Big Sleep 2? Ridiculous.

The Sleepening

[delekkerste]

6 hours ago, october said:

That's a good point regarding the relative scarcity, and I was mostly thinking of rare top-tier Gold when posting. However, I did consider the number of copies of, say, AF 15 as well....because I think it fits into that 1%. A counter example:

My dad and I attended The National card show the other weekend. He hasn't collected since the mid-late 1980's, so he was eager to see how prices had fared in his absence. He commented that they have not moved much as far as he could tell, for things like his 1955 All-Americans or early 60's Topps baseball sets. What HAS moved? A lot? 1952 Mantles. Through the roof, despite it not being rare at all. I think that's a decent parallel to books like Hulk 1 or AF 15. Comics and cards that are considered the pinnacle, transcend the hobby, and are immediately recognizable fare well somewhat regardless of supply. They are wantlist touchstones for a big majority of people in their respective hobbies. I'd put a VERY small number of books into that category though. Less than a dozen post 1960.  

NY Times article on baseball cards from March 23, 2018:   "...a small group of collectors with about $20 million among them ran up prices in 2016, but the broader collecting market did not follow. “They put all their money into one card and not others,” he said. “They created outliers they couldn’t maintain. The market has had to reassess itself.”"

The article doesn't mention which card it was, but, I'm pretty sure it's the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle that was targeted by this cabal, as I had heard there was a group of investor types running prices up on the card.  I was very interested in getting a PSA 8 example back around 2011.  Prices had been more or less stable for several years, trading in the $75-$90K range, and it appeared that, with no real catalyst to send them higher, they would continue to be range-bound or maybe grind a bit higher over time.  So, when I found myself as the underbidder for one at auction in 2011, I decided not to top the $86.6K (winning) bid, figuring I'd just hop on the next example that came by.  But, then the card just went parabolic, soaring to as high as $660K at a Heritage auction in 2017 (a beautiful example just sold for $489K yesterday on eBay; the market seems to have peaked for that card).  No movie hype.  No Chinese buying.  No rhyme or reason whatsoever.  

I've been following the sports card market for the past several years and even some of the permabull types here would be horrified at what's going on in that hobby, with gimmicky manufactured collectible cards from the 2000s and 2010s routinely getting 5 and even 6 figures at auctions.  It's certifiably insane; how anyone thinks this garbage is going to hold its value over the long run is utterly mind-boggling. 

I agree that there will be a huge hollowing out of the comic hobby, and that it will be a tiny % of books that will stay relevant over time - "less than a dozen post-1960" means that most "keys" from this period won't make the cut over the long-run.  As for whether that tiny % will not only hold their value but continue to progress by leaps and bounds, though, remains to be seen.  I mean, sure, that's been the pattern in stamps and cards and the like, but, don't forget about all the macro tailwinds that have bolstered prices over the past 25 years even as the rest of these markets was entering secular stagnation/decline.  Will the comics market bifurcate and the true keys continue to appreciate strongly starting from 2019 levels (already sky-high I would argue) as opposed to, say, 1994 (pre-Internet, pre-asset bubble era, pre-Gen X maturation/nostalgia, etc.) levels (i.e., those other hobbies' top examples were starting from a much lower base and had such strong tailwinds over the past 25 years when those markets started to hollow out; comic keys would be starting from a very different point).  I suspect that the outperformance will be more relative than absolute when compared to filler books.  Time will tell...  

Edited August 14, 2019 by delekkerste

[october]

 

55 minutes ago, delekkerste said:

But, then the card just went parabolic, soaring to as high as $660K at a Heritage auction in 2017 (a beautiful example just sold for $489K yesterday on eBay; the market seems to have peaked for that card).  No movie hype.  No Chinese buying.  No rhyme or reason whatsoever.  

That's not without analog in the comic hobby. Both Hulk 1 and AF 15 spiked for seemingly little reason not that many years ago. It doesn't take a stretch of the imagination to see collusion on those as well. 

56 minutes ago, delekkerste said:

I've been following the sports card market for the past several years and even some of the permabull types here would be horrified at what's going on in that hobby, with gimmicky manufactured collectible cards from the 2000s and 2010s routinely getting 5 and even 6 figures at auctions.  It's certifiably insane; how anyone thinks this garbage is going to hold its value over the long run is utterly mind-boggling. 

It's unreal, and I send my dad choice auction links from time to time for us both to marvel at. People think the variant craze in comics is bad? It's nothing, NOTHING compared to sports cards. The 1/1 phenomenon is lunacy. 

59 minutes ago, delekkerste said:

I agree that there will be a huge hollowing out of the comic hobby, and that it will be a tiny % of books that will stay relevant over time - "less than a dozen post-1960" means that most "keys" from this period won't make the cut over the long-run.  As for whether that tiny % will not only hold their value but continue to progress by leaps and bounds, though, remains to be seen.  I mean, sure, that's been the pattern in stamps and cards and the like, but, don't forget about all the macro tailwinds that have bolstered prices over the past 25 years even as the rest of these markets was entering secular stagnation/decline.  Will the comics market bifurcate and the true keys continue to appreciate strongly starting from 2019 levels (already sky-high I would argue) as opposed to, say, 1994 (pre-Internet, pre-asset bubble era, pre-Gen X maturation/nostalgia, etc.) levels (i.e., those other hobbies' top examples were starting from a much lower base and had such strong tailwinds over the past 25 years when those markets started to hollow out; comic keys would be starting from a very different point).  I suspect that the outperformance will be more relative than absolute when compared to filler books.  Time will tell...  

It's impossible to know what the future holds, or the timeline for cultural or demographic changes, but I have heard examples from enough hobbies to feel comfortable saying the middle 10-90% is the most vulnerable. People will be buying cheap ($1-10) readers and will desire top tier rarities and keys for years to come. I don't think we will see the same manic value spikes as the last decade, but I think the best of the best will continue to appreciate. Will the hobby value an Iron Fist 14 in 9.0 or a Tomb of Dracula 10 in 8.0 or a JIM 112 in 6.0 or a Batman 234 in 7.0 the same or more in ten years as it does now? I am much less confident. Too plentiful, too expensive for the reader crowd, too cheap and common for the high rollers. 

[PopKulture]

9 hours ago, october said:

I am interested in maybe 20 sportscards. That's it. I recently picked up my first, a 1933 Sport Kings Ruth. Guessing there are card guys who are the flipside of the coin, and only want a TOS 39 and JIM 83 or the equivalent. 

Man, that's a great example! 54 Bowman Williams or Crackerjack Jackson make your cut?