How long until dollar boxes are all $2 boxes? 1 1

[HotKey]

With the comic market exploding like it is, will it mean the end of the dollar box? I've already seen one store switch to a 2 dollar/3 for 5 box setup.

[Ken Aldred]

$2 would be dirt cheap.

Eventually the boxes will be priced at at least $10 a copy, as drek books cease to exist, and instead are recategorised as ‘dormant keys’.

All such comics are, even now, sleeping giants, waiting to be awakened from decades of slumber by signals from the media. 

 

Edited April 7, 2021 by Ken Aldred

[theCapraAegagrus]

2 hours ago, HotKey said:

With the comic market exploding like it is, will it mean the end of the dollar box?

No.

[Bookery]

There is definitely resistance above the $1 level.  But it is a bit odd in some ways.  When I started out in 1984, comic cover prices were 75c.  Back issues, after a couple of months, were bagged and boarded and put out at $1 (the thinking was that customers expected to pay a slight premium for stores to maintain inventory of out-of-print issues).  Over the years, cover prices rose to $1.00, $1.25, $1.50... and non-key back-issues were still $1.  As prices escalated... $2.00, $2.25, $2.50... back issues were.... $1.  Now many comics are $3.99, $4.99, $6.99 (!)... and back-issues are $1.

Whenever these boards start talking about how comic book prices are exploding (based on a few mega-keys and temporarily-hyped movie tie-ins), it might be reasonable to be reminded of this.  99% of the comic book issues out there, adjusted for inflation, have actually declined massively in value compared to original retail.

[1Cool]

5 hours ago, HotKey said:

With the comic market exploding like it is, will it mean the end of the dollar box? I've already seen one store switch to a 2 dollar/3 for 5 box setup.

I'm not sure about the end of $1 boxes but the explosion of certain obscure comics (looking at you Westcoast Avengers) could spell the end of $20 bulk long boxes.  Why sell 10 long boxes of drek to someone for $200 when a handful of them could get that in a few years if a book explodes.  People could simply just run out of room and need to sell but I'd say the buying opportunity for $20 longboxes have to be down.

[valiantman]

Just curious... for those who have been buying "longboxes sight unseen" (the ones filled with absolute junk) for decades... how much has the price changed?

If it will always be possible to buy the absolute worst books of all time for $0.10 each (or less), then there will always be dollar boxes.  They just won't have as much variety in them.

[KirbyJack]

My LCS tried to have a dollar box, but we rebelled.

It’s still a quarter box.

[shadroch]

3 hours ago, Bookery said:

There is definitely resistance above the $1 level.  But it is a bit odd in some ways.  When I started out in 1984, comic cover prices were 75c.  Back issues, after a couple of months, were bagged and boarded and put out at $1 (the thinking was that customers expected to pay a slight premium for stores to maintain inventory of out-of-print issues).  Over the years, cover prices rose to $1.00, $1.25, $1.50... and non-key back-issues were still $1.  As prices escalated... $2.00, $2.25, $2.50... back issues were.... $1.  Now many comics are $3.99, $4.99, $6.99 (!)... and back-issues are $1.

Whenever these boards start talking about how comic book prices are exploding (based on a few mega-keys and temporarily-hyped movie tie-ins), it might be reasonable to be reminded of this.  99% of the comic book issues out there, adjusted for inflation, have actually declined massively in value compared to original retail.

You are mixing back issue sections with dreck boxes.  My first store did very well with back issues, they were well more than 50% of my sales. 

A three month old Marvel title would get bagged and a small premium put on it. Most books with 50 or 60 cent books were 75 cents as a back issue. I still had a 3/$1 section that was mostly beat up back issues in VG or less, or a sprinkling of recent books I had over-bought.

As prices climbed for new books, stores got better at ordering. Having 12 books left over at thirty cents a piece stung a bit but  when each mistake cost you a dollar or more you learn not to do this.

As stores ordered to sell out, back issue sections shrunk. 

Eventually, the shops junk section rose from 3/$1 to $1.  When it cost the store $3 to buy a new comic that it sells for $5.99, most shops would rather sell out than have leftovers. The better the store gets at ordering, the less fodder it ends up with.

Selling your new books for $5.99 but having a large selection of dollar books doesn't make sense to me. 

Edited April 7, 2021 by shadroch

[StingerMcK]

Nope. There's still tons of junk out there.  My LCS has $1 box for fill a bag for $10.

[Hamlet]

9 minutes ago, shadroch said:

You are mixing back issue sections with dreck boxes.  My first store did very well with back issues, they were well more than 50% of my sales. 

A three month old Marvel title would get bagged and a small premium put on it. Most books with 50 or 60 cent books were 75 cents as a back issue. I still had a 3/$1 section that was mostly beat up back issues in VG or less, or a sprinkling of recent books I had over-bought.

Yes, this is a pretty important distinction.  The $1 boxes at the LCS that I go to are not back issue boxes, they are "dreck" boxes. They typically don't include any books of any titles I collect.  The back issues are much more expensive.

Back in the day, that "dreck" would have been in quarter boxes.

Note that the quality of "dreck" varies a huge amount by venue.  In my LCS, it is mostly books I would be uninterested in taking for free.  At small conventions, I will often walk out with 100+ books because they dump lots of cold mainline Marvels back to the 80s in them.  Stuff like Byrne FF, Spectacular Spiderman, the non-key X-men in the 170-250 range, Simonson Thor, banged up 70s books, etc.  I suspect that these types of books are going to get harder to come by, and may end up as $2 books soon ( if they haven't already -  I haven't been out much lately ).

[ADAMANTIUM]

I mostly run into half price boxes, cover price boxes, and and unmarked find out at register but still always about $1 boxes  

personally and business wise, I'm agreeable with the cover price boxes, as they're usually the highest a sift through but seems the best if we all end up doing away with $1 boxes  

well for modern anyway 

Edited April 7, 2021 by ADAMANTIUM
for modern!

[OtherEric]

Given that I grabbed a bunch of books from a quarter bin at my LCS last week... the dollar box isn't going away any time soon.  Although the way the store has it set up, there are about 16 long boxes worth of dollar bins and 3 long boxes worth of quarter bins.

[adampasz]

What's next after "minor keys"?

12 hours ago, Ken Aldred said:

‘dormant keys’

[Buzzetta]

Remember that rather large modern thread I did.  

Some stuff went to Staten Island. 

There will never be a shortage of stuff that nobody wants. 

[Ken Aldred]

24 minutes ago, adampasz said:

What's next after "minor keys"?

 

12 hours ago, Ken Aldred said:

‘dormant keys’.

 

Yes, I know !

I’m really surprised I haven’t seen the phrase used here.

An obvious marketing tool for the leftovers.

Edited April 8, 2021 by Ken Aldred

[HotKey]

1 hour ago, Ken Aldred said:

 

Yes, I know !

I’m really surprised I haven’t seen the phrase used here.

An obvious marketing tool for the leftovers.

I can see several boxes next to Dormant Keys lol... "Potential Keys" "Future Keys" "Undiscovered Keys" "Non-Key Keys" 

[shadroch]

2 hours ago, Buzzetta said:

Remember that rather large modern thread I did.  

Some stuff went to Staten Island. 

There will never be a shortage of stuff that nobody wants. 

A couple of the really ugly ducklings I bought from you grew into exquisite swans

[Buzzetta]

5 hours ago, shadroch said:

A couple of the really ugly ducklings I bought from you grew into exquisite swans

Which ones?  I am curious.   I think you bought a couple of Avenging Spider-man 9's (1st Carol as Captain Marvel) for 33¢ or something.   Keep in mind that there were board members here who passed on those books .    

All of those books came from "Ted from a couple of towns away" from where you worked and were a "Stinky" assortment of books.   He knew he was going to retire in a few years at that point and wanted to move inventory.   At that point I have known him for for well over twenty years so I wound up moving around a dozen boxes worth of inventory as a favor. 

There were a couple of issues that I kept for myself with his permission that have turned out to be worth a decent amount.  One book is in the multiple four figures in a 9.8.

[Bookery]

19 hours ago, shadroch said:

You are mixing back issue sections with dreck boxes.  My first store did very well with back issues, they were well more than 50% of my sales. 

A three month old Marvel title would get bagged and a small premium put on it. Most books with 50 or 60 cent books were 75 cents as a back issue. I still had a 3/$1 section that was mostly beat up back issues in VG or less, or a sprinkling of recent books I had over-bought.

Let me clarify.  I am talking about new stock that after 6 months or a year, if unsold, is probably going to go into the $1 bins.  Low-grade stuff is altogether different... in fact, most lower-grade non-key books from the '80s on are probably going into my dumpster... even my $1 stock needs to be in nice condition.  We do several hundred per week in $1 books, but then we have 30,000 of them in stock (I've got ample space, so it's not like I'm sacrificing room for more profitable items).  And, most importantly, I'm not saying they should be worth more... $1 is obviously where the market is at.

But many collectors still, after all of these years, have a false sense that ALL older comics are, or should be, worth some sort of premium, probably due to years of  Overstreet filling the guide with "drek" and assigning it a value.  I recently had someone offer me a collection of 6000 bulk ($1-stock books)... but I couldn't shake him off his expectations of getting $20,000 for them!  His reasoning was, that he couldn't possibly be expected to receive less than what he paid for them!

This seems to exist primarily just with comic collectors.  In fact, other areas of used merchandise (otherwise known as "back-issues") do far worse.  But no one expects that $25.00 James Patterson hardback to be worth a premium down the road... in fact just 6-months after release it will likely end up in the $1-Book Swap type stores that are springing up around the country.  That's a 95% drop in retail value.  But the book isn't intended to be, nor is thought of, as a potential collector's item.  It's meant to be read and enjoyed, and afterward, if not kept, it joins the ranks of other garage sale fodder.  

But with comics, instead of assuming up front that you are buying it purely as reading material, and if it becomes collectible that's a bonus... many still treat them as if the majority will be collectible down the road.  

[dupont2005]

I think I’m younger than many on here and I remember when they were quarter boxes