Are you happy with the focus of your collection? 2 2

[D84]

Since Golden Age has gone crazy lately, I'm finishing my collection of all Silver Age appearances of The Spectre.

[adamstrange]

I'm very happy with my focus.

I'm very unhappy that others have the same focus.

[Robot Man]

My main focus and has been as long as I can remember is Golden Age.

I do have a lot of SA, BA and Platinium but GA is king.

Most people would think I'm not very focused at all due to the large number of books and the different genres I like. I like ALL genres. I have Superhero, Horror, Crime, Good Girl art, Humor and Funny animal, westerns ect.

They are very well organized by major publishers and genres. I have actively searched out many books and just stumbled upon stuff I never knew about box diving. Doesn't matter what box I pull out, every genre makes me happy. Many, I remember exactly where I got it and maybe what I paid. Most are just lost to time. But I enjoy pretty enjoy much all I have aquired.

I have gotton to the point where due to space and my age, I am weeding down a lot. Some books have no real significance other than I liked it or got it cheap at the time. These are starting to go. But most bring me a lot of joy. I'm probably in at least one box every day for a while.

Has been great to get my mind off the mess life has become the past 6-8 months.

[Buzzetta]

Part of me wishes I had gotten a little more into modern keys just so I could take advantage of everyone who thinks they are paying for their grandkid's college education with first appearances of C list Batman villains. 

This way I could put it more toward Golden Age. 

These days, when I see a CLink auction, I look through Golden Age offerings first.  After I am done seeing if there is anything I want for myself, I look at ASM upgrades and if there is a book I can justify upgrading at the price that makes sense, I look for anything else that I can easily flip. 

 

[Qalyar]

6 hours ago, october said:

Couldn't be happier with my collection. I keep the things I think are awesome and actively purge/sell anything that is anything less. It's "only" ~1,000 books, but I love every single one. I allow no junk, fillers, run completion issues, placeholders or "eh, this is kind of cool" stuff into my shortboxes. Why waste time/money/energy on borderline purchases when I could focus on something better?

It helps that I am not a completionist and have no interest in full runs. 

So, I basically have two separate collections with very, very little overlap. One side is like this. It consists only of widely-collected books. It has a lot of turnover, and no sacred cows. I add to it when I get the opportunity to pick up sweetheart deals. I subtract from it when I get a chance to cash in, or when I want more liquid assets, or when I just want to throw some money at personal amusement because it's freaking 2020 and sometimes you just have to. I'm ... I don't want to say I'm happy with these books. More than anything, I don't really care about these books. My interaction with them is transactional. That's why I'm sad when quite a few contributors here prioritize their collecting goals solely on the monetary value of the books they own. Cash money is good stuff. But... that's not what collecting means to me, I suppose.

The other side is my permanent collection. They're titles that personally interest me, for whatever reason, and I almost exclusively collect them in full runs of slabbed high-grade copies (or, at least, that's the goal...). The overwhelming majority of those books are low-interest. That almost always means hunting down high-grade copies of books that no one else wants, and paying for the slabbing myself. The chase is part of the fun. My permanent collection is the opposite of an investment. A substantial fraction of those slabs are probably worth break-even on the slabbing and shipping fees (although in full disclosure there are a few in the several-hundred-dollar range and maybe one or two that would push 1000; I'm not a high roller in this hobby). But it doesn't matter. They're not for sale, now or likely ever. Barring the missing issues, I'm almost always happy with the things I put in my permanent collection. I'll admit, there are a couple pieces that annoy me because I dropped the ball on pre-submission grade assessment (and I'm about to eat one more of those, because I somehow managed to swap my 9.8 contender with my undercopy before packing up my most recent lot...). But as a whole? Yes, I'm quite happy with what I collect.

[nepatkm]

Which focus are we talking about. 🤣

However, the answer would be yes. I collect what I like, and maybe going down a rabbit hole with with my graded books, ( I’m not a seller) but where I’ve decided Comics that I want graded, and ungraded sits fine with me. 👍
 

Now if we go back to my younger years, yes made bad calls 

 

Edited October 13, 2020 by nepatkm

[BabaLament]

I've started thinning out my collection, focusing on the Spider-Man & Venom stories I enjoy. I've had to curtail my collecting due to other priorities of the home-improvement variety; its hard to buy books and put in a pool at the same time.  Someday though, when I get the mortgage monkey off my back, I'll be able to focus more on the comic collection.

 

[speedcake]

I think so?

I've been much happier since I dropped my weekly pull list, purged moderns from my collection, and at least focused on Silver and early Bronze age Marvel (and DC horror), but I find it incredibly hard to narrow my focus further than that for long. I have ADHD that is at times pretty severe, so while I can maintain interest in a broad subject (comics) I cannot easily focus on completing say one run at a time or collecting one sub-genre, etc.  I'm way too compulsive and unorganized.

But keeping my collecting mostly within a certain era, while hard for me to do, is helping. There are enough sub-genres to spaz out on within the Silver/Bronze Marvel segment of the hobby to satisfy my dumb incorrectly wired brain. I can jump between horror mags/comics, super-hero books, specific artists, or something else to my heart's delight and still love them all.  Of course, my one real goal is to have a complete X-Men run at least up to 144. I chip away at it here or there, but I know that if I could achieve the kind of focus a normal person can I'd have finished it long ago. So that's frustrating, but I'll get there eventually.

All in all though, yeah I'm happy with how my collection is going.  I don't think I could ever narrow my collecting down too much, so I just try to buy quality copies of comics within my chosen genres/eras and do my best to stick to that.

I don't know why this question was so hard for me to answer.

[ADAMANTIUM]

Along those lines 

I can get one sided through my collection 

I've almost run out of things that I can afford easy 

I still want things, but it's hard sometimes to save for so long and spend it all on 1 book and then save for the next one.

So there are things that I've compromised and said that I enjoy just because I can buy more of them at one interval to spread out the week, month, year.

I prefer older books or non moderns, but I'm at the point that what I deem is a worthy copy is out of my price range, so i spread interests, find niches, and stretch to collect constantly rather than drooling.

Some may look at that as

But it is a hunt, I have to have $$ to be able to hunt, and everything that I could want would take too much patience for pay off with my budget

 

[KCOComics]

Yes, I thoroughly enjoy my collection. 

I'm probably a little too unfocused right now. I'm working on GA / SA and BA runs all at the same time. Then I'll get distracted by some comic i never knew I needed until it was for sale and I just had to have it. 

 

As a collector, I do get a big thrill out of getting big keys and early runs. As a comic book fan, right now I'm reading a ton of 50s books. SciFi, crime, suspense. Its probably my favorite era. I love the stories and art and readers are relativity affordable. 

Edited October 13, 2020 by KCOComics

[Ryan.]

I'm happy with my focus today. Will probably be unhappy with it tomorrow. Thursday still unclear. 

[Shadow]

I’m relatively happy. My focus does have the completionist curse. I tend to like 1970’s era. Late 70’s was when I started. DC and Marvel. Glad I stopped buying new books 5 years ago. Was just filling space.

[ADAMANTIUM]

3 minutes ago, Ryan. said:

I'm happy with my focus today. Will probably be unhappy with it tomorrow. Thursday still unclear. 

[Ken Aldred]

11 hours ago, speedcake said:

I think so?

I've been much happier since I dropped my weekly pull list, purged moderns from my collection, and at least focused on Silver and early Bronze age Marvel (and DC horror), but I find it incredibly hard to narrow my focus further than that for long. I have ADHD that is at times pretty severe, so while I can maintain interest in a broad subject (comics) I cannot easily focus on completing say one run at a time or collecting one sub-genre, etc.  I'm way too compulsive and unorganized.

But keeping my collecting mostly within a certain era, while hard for me to do, is helping. There are enough sub-genres to spaz out on within the Silver/Bronze Marvel segment of the hobby to satisfy my dumb incorrectly wired brain. I can jump between horror mags/comics, super-hero books, specific artists, or something else to my heart's delight and still love them all.  Of course, my one real goal is to have a complete X-Men run at least up to 144. I chip away at it here or there, but I know that if I could achieve the kind of focus a normal person can I'd have finished it long ago. So that's frustrating, but I'll get there eventually.

All in all though, yeah I'm happy with how my collection is going.  I don't think I could ever narrow my collecting down too much, so I just try to buy quality copies of comics within my chosen genres/eras and do my best to stick to that.

I don't know why this question was so hard for me to answer.

Interesting to read from someone else with attention deficit, although mine's autism rather than pure ADHD-related.

For me, the pull list was, in the end, nothing more than a typical routine which those with my condition tend to adhere to, even though the journey to the LCS each week was becoming more and more difficult to make, and eventually it was a relief to break the cycle and move on. Sounds simple, but I'd been doing it for nearly three decades and it wasn't an overnight transition.

As you said, with a neurotypical focus I could've got my back issue collection finished ages ago, but at least luckily I just about managed to get my most important single issues purchased before prices went insane.  Unfortunately, I'm just total, disorganised, entropic chaos. Appallingly bad.

It's been a hard question for me to answer as well, because there've been many on-and-off realisations across the years, not just sudden clarity.

Edited October 14, 2020 by Ken Aldred

[Ken Aldred]

5 minutes ago, Ryan. said:

I'm happy with my focus today. Will probably be unhappy with it tomorrow. Thursday still unclear. 

Razor-sharp focus by my standards.

[Drummy]

I've been pretty steady in my focus the past five years or so -- gathering 22 Marvel SA keys in mid-grade with white pages and nice eye appeal.  16 down, 6 to go...

...and I'm starting a small collection of Marvel original art from my childhood as well.  Super fun and EFFING expensive.  

Dan

[speedcake]

1 hour ago, Drummy said:

I've been pretty steady in my focus the past five years or so -- gathering 22 Marvel SA keys in mid-grade with white pages and nice eye appeal.  16 down, 6 to go...

...and I'm starting a small collection of Marvel original art from my childhood as well.  Super fun and EFFING expensive.  

Dan

Original art is something I'd like to start adding to my collection as well, at some point.

[followtheleader]

Disatisified.  

Out of control in size.  Often makes me want to sell it. 

Though it's quite organized, it's hard to find books quickly. 

I've massively gutted in the past.  And I'm definitely more of a run guy, then singles.

Patrick

[WeR138]

What is this "focus" of which you speak?  

[Morganmi]

Focus! Hulk no need Focus! Hulk see comic Hulk like, Hulk buy comic! Hulk no like comic anymore .. Hulk Smash!!.. wait.. no no Hulk Sell comic to friend. Yea that better.