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Plan of attack for collecting it all?
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97 posts in this topic

40 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

If you're doing it for the love of the medium, then volume first will be satisfying. In my experience though, the longer you leave the keys, the further their prices can move out of sight. So if you're goal will only be satisfied by including them, getting them first will save you money in the long term, freeing more funds for volume down the line. My other word of caution, again from experience, is to consider fully the reality of purchasing many many comics which you may one day look at and wonder why you own them. It can happen - a high volume of 'uninteresting' books, purchased just to complete an arbitrary wider target, can lead to eventual feelings of contempt for those issues which in turn could erode the fun of attaining the overall target. My advice is to pick a smaller target, focussed around characters, genres or series that you really love.  Good luck :foryou:

Thanks for the advice. You have definitely given me something to think about.

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1 hour ago, ADAMANTIUM said:

Every single DC book? Ever?

I'd follow this criteria

Make some money and either buy a warehouse as big as city block, or make mile high an offer they can't refuse!

I suggest the latter, and start the conversation with puff puff give!

:tink:


this concept. 
 

If you want to have every book by a single publisher, buy out retailers that have a lot of back issues. 
 

I’d think that would be the only way. 

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The only imped

2 hours ago, poorcollector said:

If you wanted to collect every single comic published by Marvel or DC (pick your favorite) ever, how would you go about doing it?   I have made a list of possible ways I have thought of. 

  • Buying collections
  • Focusing on a single run at a time
  • Going after hard to find books first 
  • Starting from the golden age and working my way chronologically

Also to consider am I buying what is being currently published concurrently.  I personally think that if you buy concurrently you avoid a lot of inflated modern key/spec book prices. 

I understand this is a super lofty goal, but hey I am young. What would you do if this was you goal?  If you think this is just absolutely dumb and you don't want to play pretend you can tell me how dumb it is below haha. I am just curious and want to hear some of you guy's thoughts.

$10M would have bought you Ian Levine's complete DC collection not too long ago.  Which means you can piece one together for less.  A complete Marvel collection is much cheaper.  By comparison, that same amount might buy you the best Action 1.  So the age old debate is always quality versus quantity.

I would focus on what rock climbers call the cruxes.  Cruxes sometimes are keys, but not always.  The cruxes are the books that actually are hard to find.  You get the cruxes, and you can always pick up the other stuff later.  There are very very few truly rare DC comics, and there aren't any truly rare Marvel comics (I am talking about "newsstand" editions you could buy at a store, not manufactured collectibles, promos, giveaways, etc.).  So I would go for the rarest comics first.  And if money was an object, I would not worry about grade for the big books. Ian Levine was well off, but he bought a lot of lower graded comics.

I would focus on DC, because having a complete Marvel collection (I assume you are excluding Atlas and Timely) is not a challenge and I suspect many folks have or have had those.  Only two people have obtained complete DC collections.  So why not aim for the more impressive focus?

There are smaller challenges that might be more satisfying and are still impressive - like getting every comic mentioned in SOTI.  Only one guy has done that, and barring the discovery of another copy of the crux comic, that club can only grow by one person as far as I know. Or you could chase every LB Cole cover or every Baker cover etc.  Tough callenges but impressive if completed.  Still, there are crux books in those pursuits also which make them harder, I think, then a complete Marvel collection.

If you are going to pursue the challenge of going after an open ended target like DC, you better stay current.  

And I would crowd source the search.  That's what Ian did using these boards.  He had folks wanting to help him out with leads, and I'm sure he got some discounts by those sympathetic to his pursuit.  I know I sold the last comic SOTIcollector needed to complete his SOTI collection for less than I could have to others because I thought he deserved to meet his goal.

Of course, if money's no object, you probably aren't going to be chasing comics.  Comic collectors generally don't fall into that category.  Most of the guys with the best collections are dentists or postmen or other non-Billionaire types.

 

  

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If I wanted to put together the entire Marvel library from scratch, I’d focus first on buying all the books that are dirt cheap right now.  

 

By the time you’ve accumulated all the fodder, the market will most likely correct/crash & the rest of the books will become “affordable” again. 


As already mentioned, buying keys at current prices could be a disaster in the long run. 2c

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If money was no object I would spend it on something else! :banana:

Seriously tho, this would be a monumental undertaking that would span along time and still may never be accomplished.  If you are in any way a completist then you really need to think about how crazy it would make you if you couldn't finish.  I know it would drive me nuts!  But then again the journey might be fun, so good luck!

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10 minutes ago, sfcityduck said:

The only imped

$10M would have bought you Ian Levine's complete DC collection not too long ago.  Which means you can piece one together for less.  A complete Marvel collection is much cheaper.  By comparison, that same amount might buy you the best Action 1.  So the age old debate is always quality versus quantity.

I would focus on what rock climbers call the cruxes.  Cruxes sometimes are keys, but not always.  The cruxes are the books that actually are hard to find.  You get the cruxes, and you can always pick up the other stuff later.  There are very very few truly rare DC comics, and there aren't any truly rare Marvel comics (I am talking about "newsstand" editions you could buy at a store, not manufactured collectibles, promos, giveaways, etc.).  So I would go for the rarest comics first.  And if money was an object, I would not worry about grade for the big books. Ian Levine was well off, but he bought a lot of lower graded comics.

I would focus on DC, because having a complete Marvel collection (I assume you are excluding Atlas and Timely) is not a challenge and I suspect many folks have or have had those.  Only two people have obtained complete DC collections.  So why not aim for the more impressive focus?

There are smaller challenges that might be more satisfying and are still impressive - like getting every comic mentioned in SOTI.  Only one guy has done that, and barring the discovery of another copy of the crux comic, that club can only grow by one person as far as I know. Or you could chase every LB Cole cover or every Baker cover etc.  Tough callenges but impressive if completed.  Still, there are crux books in those pursuits also which make them harder, I think, then a complete Marvel collection.

If you are going to pursue the challenge of going after an open ended target like DC, you better stay current.  

And I would crowd source the search.  That's what Ian did using these boards.  He had folks wanting to help him out with leads, and I'm sure he got some discounts by those sympathetic to his pursuit.  I know I sold the last comic SOTIcollector needed to complete his SOTI collection for less than I could have to others because I thought he deserved to meet his goal.

Of course, if money's no object, you probably aren't going to be chasing comics.  Comic collectors generally don't fall into that category.  Most of the guys with the best collections are dentists or postmen or other non-Billionaire types.

 

  

"Total Marvel Completion" that excludes Timely/Atlas seems sort of like artificially splitting hairs for the convenience of making the goal achievable. A collection of Marvel Comics that doesn't include, say, the first appearance of Captain America wouldn't feel very complete. Of course, a complete collection of Timelies is virtually impossible, so...

As for the OP's goals... you may want to consider finding some subset to begin focusing on. Consider, first and foremost, what your eventual financial outlays might look like. Not necessarily what you have to spend now, but what you think you might ever be willing to commit to the cause. On the DC side, even the worst copies of Action 1 are probably still going to bring $100,000 and the worst Tec 27s in the neighborhood of $20,000. Many, many early DC books are ten grand apiece or more, when available (and many have only a handful of extant copies). Over on the Marvel side, AF15 is $10,000 or so for truly terrible copies or (much) more otherwise. If you include Timely Comics books, the traditional keys (Captain America Comics 1 and Marvel Comics 1) aren't going to happen in any condition for under $20,000 apiece, but the real challenge will be the various weird stuff Timely put out, some of which exists in finger-countable numbers and so defies traditional valuation.

This isn't to dissuade completionist collection. But it's important to realize what's ahead of you, and whether that means you make long-term plans or set narrower goals, is ultimately up to you.

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2 hours ago, Artboy99 said:

I highly recommend that you also consider your selling strategy if you intend to obtain every single Marvel comic because you can't take them with you.

Yes.  Look at the threads for estate sales where people announce the smoking hot deal they got and brag flipping a book they bought that day from a dead guy's collection. 

Anyone with an expensive collection should consider that.  Most heirs probably don't have the expertise to get a fair price. 

If I died and someone bought my stuff on the cheap and then bragged about it online I'd have to come back and haunt them. 

I hate those estate sale threads.

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I consider myself a Marvel completist but I have far from everything and my boundaries are all the titles that were extant at the time of FF#1 or since. I built my collection (17,000 ish) by not concentrating on anything particular; I would go to comic fairs and get sales lists and buy whatever seemed a good buy- so if one fair someone had Daredevils at a good price I would stock up on those, at the next fair if someone had Marvel reprints cheap I would get those. 
As others have said if you’re going for everything you can’t afford to be too picky on grade when it comes to early silver age keys (unless you are a millionaire). 
The other thing I would say is accept now that you’re not going to ever get everything. I’ve had target of all Marvels since 1990 and even with my boundaries I’ve accepted there are titles I’ll never complete- millie the model, kid colt, patsy Walker etc. If I concentrated on just one of these it’s doable but when I want them all and strange tales and journey into mystery etc etc and all MMMS and Marvelnania memorabilia there’s just too much to fit in a lifetime collecting.

I would think attempting to collect a complete DC or Timley/atlas/marvel collection from scratch starting today would be impossible even if you were a millionaire. 

Edited by Garystar
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12 hours ago, poorcollector said:

Thanks for the advice. You have definitely given me something to think about.

Your welcome. There's nothing wrong with any collecting goal. If we were all the same, with the same desires, the world would be a very boring place. 

That said, here is one last thought from me, to help you reach your decision. Let's say you decide to collect every Marvel. And let's just pick two random titles - Marvel Age and Spider-Girl.

Marvel Age ran for 140 issues. I collected them all. They weren't the kind of title that you could pick up at fairs (I'm in London, UK) and no one was selling them as lots on eBay. So my only choice was to buy them from online dealers - Mycomicshop, Mile High, Incognito, Silver Acre etc. Now many of the issues, if you listed them as a 1p start on eBay, may sell for 1p. It's not an exciting or particularly collectable title. And yet each comic cost me about £2 because that is what the dealers had them up for. Their value was artificially set and I had no choice but to pay those prices, if I wanted them. So I did. That meant, with bags, boards and a box, my Marvel Age set of 140 issues plus some annuals cost me about £400. Their presence indeed ticked a box on my collecting strategy list. I had them - I had them all! But did I love them? And, looking back, would I not have been better to purchase a £400 key, or a couple of books that I actually liked or had some emotional attachment to?

Spider-Girl - 100 issues before we even talk variants and offshoots (are they in your scope?). Do you love Spider-Girl, Poorcollector? Will you be happy to see an entire short box on your collecting shelf full of them? That is a set that you may well be able to snag from ebay as a relatively cheap lot. But how many such titles fit in that mould? 

Maybe do this Poorcollector, if you haven't already - do some research as to how many titles actually exist for Marvel and DC. Once the 'exciting' ones are out of the way, how many of those that are left are actually begging you to collect them and have them all neatly bagged and boarded and occupying space on your shelves? 

Now imagine your likely impossible to achieve complete end state, and try to imagine what percentage of the collection would be - for want of a better description - unreadable, unimaginative, unappealing dross. Once the wow factor of 'having them all' fades, who will care that you have them?  Now imagine trying to sell them (every body sells, or dies leaving the 'will I be ripped off' headache to a loved one).

 

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2 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

But did I love them? And, looking back, would I not have been better to purchase a £400 key, or a couple of books that I actually liked or had some emotional attachment to?

That’s a good point, Steve.

It’s impossible to say if you’ll be able to maintain the same focus  and momentum in the long term.  I know that with comics I’m in a very different place now than I was in the 80s and 90s, and the goals I had then don’t appeal to me any more.  
 
I look back and ruminate about the same thing you mentioned, was my strategy misguided, should I have bought more keys at then much lower prices rather than a ton of cheap, ultimately worthless bargain box reading material?    
 

The best outlook is to realise that it was right for you then, but, long term, your perception can change markedly and can kill those early ambitions.

I’m not saying don’t attempt this lofty goal, just adding my experience in there as a caveat.

Edited by Ken Aldred
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14 hours ago, Qalyar said:

"Total Marvel Completion" that excludes Timely/Atlas seems sort of like artificially splitting hairs for the convenience of making the goal achievable. A collection of Marvel Comics that doesn't include, say, the first appearance of Captain America wouldn't feel very complete. Of course, a complete collection of Timelies is virtually impossible, so...

As for the OP's goals... you may want to consider finding some subset to begin focusing on. Consider, first and foremost, what your eventual financial outlays might look like. Not necessarily what you have to spend now, but what you think you might ever be willing to commit to the cause. On the DC side, even the worst copies of Action 1 are probably still going to bring $100,000 and the worst Tec 27s in the neighborhood of $20,000. Many, many early DC books are ten grand apiece or more, when available (and many have only a handful of extant copies). Over on the Marvel side, AF15 is $10,000 or so for truly terrible copies or (much) more otherwise. If you include Timely Comics books, the traditional keys (Captain America Comics 1 and Marvel Comics 1) aren't going to happen in any condition for under $20,000 apiece, but the real challenge will be the various weird stuff Timely put out, some of which exists in finger-countable numbers and so defies traditional valuation.

This isn't to dissuade completionist collection. But it's important to realize what's ahead of you, and whether that means you make long-term plans or set narrower goals, is ultimately up to you.

I agree that Timely/Atlas comics definitely need to be in a "Marvel" collection.  I think that affording and finding the odds and ends issues would be the most difficult part aside from finding all of the capital necessary.  

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1 hour ago, Ken Aldred said:

That’s a good point, Steve.

It’s impossible to say if you’ll be able to maintain the same focus  and momentum in the long term.  I know that with comics I’m in a very different place now than I was in the 80s and 90s, and the goals I had then don’t appeal to me any more.  
 
I look back and ruminate about the same thing you mentioned, was my strategy misguided, should I have bought more keys at then much lower prices rather than a ton of cheap, ultimately worthless bargain box reading material?    
 

The best outlook is to realise that it was right for you then, but, long term, your perception can change markedly and can kill those early ambitions.

I’m not saying don’t attempt this lofty goal, just adding my experience in there as a caveat.

Well said Paul. I enjoyed it a lot at the time, how I collected, and I miss aspects of it. But you're spot on about changing outlooks. Comic collecting is just like life in general really - if you could go back, there are so many things that you'd probably elect to do differently. And how you feel at fifty is often a million miles from how you felt at twenty or thirty.  Having fun at the time should probably be the overriding goal. Oddly perhaps, I had almost as much fun selling as buying and I made money at the end of it, not that that was ever the goal. And as I've said before I think, there's always the chance, however slim now, that I might do it all over again. 

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18 hours ago, poorcollector said:

Part of the appeal to comic collecting for me and some other is that there is no end.  Once you complete a run or a specific set of books can they be upgraded? Do you truly believe that you will stop collecting comics books once your one goal is completed?

You are looking to collecting it all. Say 2 million issues.

My collection has has an end. Right now it may be at 10 000 issues. But it grows as I learn new things, discover stories or artists I like. That being said, I know my collecting HAS an end because there are plenty of the 2 million issues you want that I know I will never EVER want. Basically, you know your end goal and because it is so plentiful and lofty, it keeps you going. I do not know my end goal, but I know what I love and am happy to try new things, knowing eventually an end will come. 

I am also weird and currently enjoy cleaning my books and grading them myself, as well as photographing them for personal cataloguing (and in many cases, re-reading or reading because my accumulation rate has outpaced my time to read rate). 

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I guess to answer the original question of how to do it...

Step 1: Have millions of dollars

Step 2: Type "comic lot" into eBay

Step 3: Click Buy It Now on everything that is listed

Step 4: Success!

(Note...steps 1-4 will need to be repeated daily for several years...and even then, you will be missing 50% of what you seek)

Edited by comicginger1789
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