Splitting up Books - Thoughts? 5 5

[Bronty]

I love having a complete book but in most cases it’s tough to obtain a complete book, and even tougher to justify keeping it all together from a financial POV.   

I am happy to have purchased four complete books and I have kept them together, but realistically if they were say 10x as valuable, I just wouldn't be able to do it.

So, for me, it really boils down to money.   I'd love to have all kinds of stuff.    But there's costs, and opportunity costs, that have to be considered.

Edited September 7, 2020 by Bronty

[BuraddoRun]

13 hours ago, vodou said:

As such things are "found" on occasion tucked between the backside of an old painting and the frame backer..

"He told Mr. Redden that he discarded the painting, which he disliked."

[romitaman]

after reading through this thread.....it got me to thinking of all the books i've owned over the past 31 years.......

(just guessing here off the top of my head..and i'm sure i'm forgetting alot

probably 30 kirby books from: FF, JIM, TTA, Avengers, Captain America, Machine Man, kamandi, Mr Miracle, Sandman, Eternals, Devil Dinosaur, Black Panther.  Our Army At war

Ditko: 3 ASM, 1 TTA hulk 1 tos Ironman, a few pre hero marvel/Atlas stories.

Heck: maybe 8 stories of TOS Iron Man

Ayers; A few stories

Lieber......2 dozen or more backup stories from TOS and TTA

Kubert war stories

Romita: DD 12 and 13, numerous ASM books

John Buscema: Silver Surfer - spiderman issue, a few wolverine stories

Sal Buscmea many Spec Spiderman issues and rom book

i had 5 of the zeck kraven's last hunt books (sold 1 complete) Had a secret wars book..issue 11 i think..sold it complete.

I still own 10-12 trimpe hulk books.....

sekowsky 3 complete large JLA books

Gil kane  4 Atom books (including issue #1), a green lantern book, a few ASM books

Infantino a few large Flash Stories

novick silver age Wonder Woman book

Dillin. 4-5 JLA books

Ernie Chan Sandman 

probably 20-30 EC stories from all the known artists

i'm sure there are lots more books i'm forgetting

many books were sold complete but most were split up to help me raise funds and TRADE for the art i do collect over the years

this thread really made me think back a lot!!!!!!!!!!! wowza......

Incidentally........

I have the complete ASM 46 book by john Romita (FIRST SHOCKER) which is arguably my greatest achievement  having put it together over the course of 30 years collecting.....including the fact that my very first art purchase was a battle page from asm 46 in 1989 out of the CBG from Scott Dunbier on the day after I got out of the Army...... LOL

low and behold......next month... I'm actually SELLING that very first page of art i ever bought from asm 46 in 1989....

i've always said.. EVERYTHING has a sell price and i cant take it all with me when I pass on from this life......And this collector offered me a price for me to agree to sell it.

i'm sure the art will be posted on CAF in the near future...... and i'm happy for him also as he is a good guy in the hobby who loves Spider-man, and ASM 46 is 1 of his favorite Romita drawn stories also!

Mike

Edited September 8, 2020 by romitaman

[sfilosa]

As with any "investment" (regardless if you are buying specifically for an investment or not), there is a price where it makes sense to sell. Pretty much the only "tangible" thing in life not for sale is our family/friends. And some of us probably wish we could sell off some family members.

[Rick2you2]

3 hours ago, sfilosa said:

As with any "investment" (regardless if you are buying specifically for an investment or not), there is a price where it makes sense to sell. Pretty much the only "tangible" thing in life not for sale is our family/friends. And some of us probably wish we could sell off some family members.

I couldn’t give away my ex-wife if I tried.

[delekkerste]

On 9/5/2020 at 9:36 AM, Taylor G said:

It's the buyers I have a problem with.  It's clear that for most collectors, original art collecting is just an extension of comic book collecting.  It's not about the art form, it's about the personal nostalgic thrill they get from owning a page from a story they read when they were young.  One better than having a 9.8 copy of the comic book because "there's only one copy", forgetting that if you miss this Sal Buscema page, hold on, there'll be lots more available next week.  So much for "there's only one."   

I understand that when you first get into the hobby, you can only afford single pages, and everybody wants some variety in their collections, you don't start just buying pages from a single story off the bat.  But at some point, I'd hope that people would "grow up" in the hobby and think more meaningfully about what they're trying to accomplish with their collecting.  What's the point?

Meanwhile I've heard of artists who've tried to get owners to sell their individual pages to people who are putting together stories, and the owners have refused.  Nothing trumps their thrill at having one of this artist's pages in their cookie cutter collections.

Apologies if I have offended anyone, but the OP asked.  I think this hobby has seriously screwed up priorities, and with people moving from comic book collecting into comic art collecting, from one form of atomistic consumerism into another, I expect it to only get worse.  How will this hobby be remembered in the future?

99%+ of vintage books are broken up, so if you're limiting yourself to buying complete stories, you're narrowing your potential pool of things to buy to a puddle's worth of things instead of an ocean.  And, chances are, the things you really love/appreciate will be part of the 99%+ and not the <1%.  Of course, your collection will also have far less variety/far more concentration because every purchase will be for a complete story or book, which will sap your buying power for other things really quickly.  

Of course, you can try to put books back together, but, as someone who has been trying to put a book back together (Uncanny X-Men #172; I've given up on #173 and am just trying to complete a longer sequence from that one) for the past 15 years or so, I can tell you that it's not easy.  I'm still missing about 30% of the book and have found that not everyone is eager to help you in your quest, which is their prerogative.    Anyway, the hobby would be very frustrating if all I could do is buy complete books or try to put books back together. 

I also don't think that the parallel of a clip vs. the whole film is exact.  I mean, sure, it would be great to own, say, the complete Uncanny X-Men #137 book as opposed to just a single page (just an example; I don't own a UXM #137 page).  But, X-Men #137 is really just like the last part of a film that started with X-Men #129 or 132 (depending on where you want to start the Dark Phoenix saga), and, obviously, it's not feasible to own or put back together even one of these issues, let alone 6 or 9 of them.  I think that the sequential storytelling depicted on a single page can be appreciated on its own, divorced from the rest of an issue, just as a complete book can be appreciated on its own even if it just makes up part of a full storyline.  

Edited September 8, 2020 by delekkerste

[Will_K]

50 minutes ago, Rick2you2 said:

I couldn’t give away my ex-wife if I tried.

But by breaking up, the parts were more than the whole.  Which is one of the (financial) arguments in favor of breaking up books.

[NelsonAI]

1) I once bought a complete issue and cover directly from the artist because that's how he wanted to sell his art.  It wasn't cheap either.  All I wanted was a DPS from the issue.  I ended up buying it and held onto it for years.

I never cared for the story or the cover.  After years from other collectors asking about pages, I broke up the issue and sold individual pages and the cover.

I made some $ and I still have the DPS.  So in hindsight, the artist did me a favor.  

 

2) I still have a complete Infantino / Giella Flash back-up story.  No cover obviously.  9  1/2 pages from DC.  The last 1/2 page was used for advertisements.  First appearance of Professor West, (Iris' father), before he was retconned as Detective Joe West for the tv show.  

You can still have a complete story but not the complete issue.

 

Edited September 11, 2020 by NelsonAI
Typos

[vodou]

13 hours ago, NelsonAI said:

You can still have a complete story but not the complete issue.

Says ever serious Archie-family collector, too