How many is “too many”? 5 5

[revat]

53 minutes ago, revat said:

Probably around three long boxes in total, with two of them being stock for potential sale

I would also say I don’t think anyone is “obsessed” until they hit 25k in “keepers”

[exitmusicblue]

You know nothing, Pat Sajak.

 

 

...that said, my personal count is probably around 1000.

[valiantman]

14 hours ago, jsilverjanet said:

I was watching Wheel of Fortune and the contestant was a comic book collector. He said he had 8,000 comics (25-30 long boxes) to which Pat Sajak said something about it being an obsession. 

Obsession is the key word here. 

It only takes about $800 to get to 8,000 comic books, if you don't care what you're buying.  There are thousands of books you can buy for a dime and the seller is probably happy to be rid of them.

I don't think anyone who spends $800 collecting something is necessarily obsessed, since a car "collector" won't even get to two cars without spending at least that much.

On the other hand, if you mortgage your house and eat ramen every day for thirty years to build up enough money to buy a single copy of Action Comics #1, you're obsessed for 30 years and your comic collection would technically be zero books.

Edited September 17, 2020 by valiantman

[unmovedmover]

I have about 12K books and have reached the point where I have more than I want.  I am actively trying to reduce the number by up to 50%, focusing more on quality over quantity.  

 

[ThothAmon]

Gulp. When I moved from Rochester to Connecticut about 18 years ago literally 1/4 of the mover’s bill was bringing my 150 or so long’s and shorts here. Since then, and after adding a half dozen or so new collections and countless online buys, I’d estimate about double that now. Hoarder, objectively yes, but I’ve sold too many over the years to admit it to myself. 

[F For Fake]

2 hours ago, Jimmy11 said:

I've got 2-3,000 comics from my 25 year Pull List by itself. Seems like you guys don't have a weekly pull list?

Nope, quit buying moderns a while back. The only new books I get are Love and Rockets and Aliens related stuff. The final nail was when I quit getting Batman. Hadn't missed an issue since the 80's. Sold them all, bought hardcovers of the stuff I wanted to read. I like the look of hardcovers on the shelf rather than boxes of single issues I'll never look at again.

[KirbyJack]

I’d estimate I’m around 2 thou. 
I purged several thousand comics to help pay off the house and I miss very few of them. I’m enjoying my collection more, and I can find everything!

[Robot Man]

I gave up counting long ago. I keep mine in mag boxes. I have a spot for my collection. I have no more room for boxes. So if I buy more, then some gotta go. Not as hard as one would think. 

You can never have enough of them and yet, it can easily get out of hand. I have easily realized this. 

I wonder if that comic nerd flirted with Vanna? I sure would have. She probably has a close closet that would dwarf my comic collection...

[manetteska]

17 hours ago, jsilverjanet said:

I was watching Wheel of Fortune and the contestant was a comic book collector. He said he had 8,000 comics (25-30 long boxes) to which Pat Sajak said something about it being an obsession. 
 

8K seems about average to me and I think for many of you seems quite low

so what is the average comic collection size? 

Long boxes are so 2018.

[KirbyJack]

38 minutes ago, Robot Man said:

 She probably has a close closet that would dwarf my comic collection...

Vanna White has a closet to rival even Odin’s!

[Domo Arigato]

 

4 hours ago, Jimmy11 said:

17 hours ago, aardvark88 said:

16k comics and mags: roughly 40 longs bagged and boarded. 

Uhm, 40 long boxes is more like 10,000 comics, no?

 

Edited September 17, 2020 by Domo Arigato

[dupont2005]

Depends on your space and your disposable income. At one time I had about 10,000 comics. Now I have maybe 2000-3000 and can’t even fit them all in one place. If your house looks like an episode of hoarders you have too many. If you can’t pay the bills you don’t have money for comics either. 
 

But if you can live comfortably with the size and cost of your collection it’s not too much 

[dupont2005]

1 hour ago, KirbyJack said:

I’d estimate I’m around 2 thou. 
I purged several thousand comics to help pay off the house and I miss very few of them. I’m enjoying my collection more, and I can find everything!

I’m ready to do another purge. I want to wait until unemployment is somewhere under 20% when I do it though. My fiancé would rather I threw them all away right now so she could have that closet space for purses  

[aardvark88]

4 minutes ago, Domo Arigato said:

 

 

Rest are a mix of short boxes and mag boxes full of mylared comics, fanzines, prozines, mags.

[Gem_Mint]

thats why you sell em all and convert to omnibus.

[Ken Aldred]

6 hours ago, F For Fake said:

This is me. I think I topped out at around 12k for the personal collection. A couple of years ago I started selling most of it off. Nowadays I'm down to less than 1500 books, comes out to around 12 shorts or thereabout, plus a handful of slabs. Aside from the slabs, most of what I kept is worthless, just runs I loved from my youth.

However, taking the place of those longs, I now have shelf after shelf of hardcovers, omnibus, etc. So, there's no escaping the sickness, really!

Exactly.

For a long-term, diehard collector, say, over 2 decades, accumulating 10,000 + items isn't that difficult.

However, as has been pointed out in the Omnibus / Absolute thread, there are so many amazing hardcover reprint collections currently being published that I regret not having any more space to add these, thanks to storage being taken up by too much original copy drek.  And, by now I have around ten years of collected editions to chase up, anyway, with many OOP, and even many recent books having very small print runs and selling out overnight.  As you said, for this particular type of reading and collecting, it's a hoarding Golden Age; one, unfortunately, passing me by.

Edited September 17, 2020 by Ken Aldred

[Lazyboy]

24 minutes ago, dupont2005 said:

I’m ready to do another purge. I want to wait until unemployment is somewhere under 20% when I do it though. My fiancé would rather I threw them all away right now so she could have that closet space for purses  

Tell her to give up on those stupid purses and buy you some more comics!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I mean, if you change your mind about getting married.

[Kevin.J]

10 years ago I gave away about 100k+ books, not sure where that leaves me now but still too many.

This what I have left not including the loft and garage

 

 

[Get Marwood & I]

19 hours ago, Kevin.J said:

                                                                                       

[Buzzetta]

5 hours ago, Jimmy11 said:

I've got 2-3,000 comics from my 25 year Pull List by itself. Seems like you guys don't have a weekly pull list?

Amazing Spider-man...

That's it. 

Now, that works out really well... but then once ever decade it doesn't.  So when my LCS asked me if I wanted my Edge of the Spider-verse 2 since he has known me since I was 14.  (He retired last Christmas) I read it in the store behind the counter while he took a cigarette break and put it back in the register pile for him to sell for someone else. 

BUT!!!

If I bought say 5 titles a week... how much am I spending over the course of a decade to get that ONE single issue that will become huge?    I may get it but I believe you come out a loser in the end with the money spent and the amount of dreck at your feet as well as the space you have used up.