When would you say that average people started "knowing" that comics could be valuable? 1 1

[mcribar]

I realized it when I first started collecting in the mid 70s but many others at the time already knew it.  Conventions were popping up all over the place.  Overstreet contributed greatly to the collector perception of value and potential investment opportunities when they started publishing.  Remember there was no internet.  All you had was discussion at conventions, Overstreet and a handful of lesser/underground publications that were not readily available.   When I started collecting Whiz #1 was the top dog at 10k.  Action surpassed it a a few years later.

[Larryw7]

Marvel Comics 1 was the most valuable book when I started collecting. I think it was listed at 7500.00 in OSPG.

[KirbyJack]

1 hour ago, Gonzimodo said:

I remember when I first started collecting comics in the mid-80s, whenever I told someone that I did, the first question out of their mouth was always, "What's the most valuable one you have?" It always kind of grated on me that comics had value to "normies" only as an investment.  (This was back when people still thought that reading comics made you some kind of weirdo. )  So the idea that comics had some value as collectibles has been around at least as far back as I can remember.

This bothers me, too. My older brothers would shake their heads and say, “ if I had those comics, I’d sell em so fast... prolly get me a Camero!”

 

[Gonzimodo]

11 minutes ago, KirbyJack said:

This bothers me, too. My older brothers would shake their heads and say, “ if I had those comics, I’d sell em so fast... prolly get me a Camero!”

 

Ugh, you, too?!  Although with prices being what they are these days, I kind of wish I could be a little more mercenary about my collection.  But I just know I will suffer immediate seller's regret if I start selling off my collection again.  I was selling like a madman about twenty years ago and regret a lot of it. 

[KirbyJack]

Just now, Gonzimodo said:

Ugh, you, too?!  Although with prices being what they are these days, I kind of wish I could be a little more mercenary about my collection.  But I just know I will suffer immediate seller's regret if I start selling off my collection again.  I was selling like a madman about twenty years ago and regret a lot of it. 

I did sell off a big chunk of my collection, but don’t really regret anything. The sell-off started in part because owning an Amazing Fantasy 15 was getting too stressful! I expect that’s why I’ll eventually sell off the rest. 
The exit strategy is to keep the perpetually worthless Marvel’s Greatest Comics until I croak. They will always be easy to own and enjoy.

[valiantman]

3 hours ago, mcribar said:

I realized it when I first started collecting in the mid 70s but many others at the time already knew it.  Conventions were popping up all over the place.  Overstreet contributed greatly to the collector perception of value and potential investment opportunities when they started publishing.  Remember there was no internet.  All you had was discussion at conventions, Overstreet and a handful of lesser/underground publications that were not readily available.   When I started collecting Whiz #1 was the top dog at 10k.  Action surpassed it a a few years later.

Is it too late to vote?

I'll say 1968. 

Marvel had exploded into the comic book world with "magazines that don't insult your intelligence" (their tagline) in the early 1960s so the "comics are for kids" idea was pushed to the edge (again). 

By 1968, Marvel realized they could slap a "#1" on the cover of pretty much anything, or change the title to the name of the main character, and addict a portion of a generation into buying the next 50+ issues... or the next 300+.

They weren't being thrown away like 1950s goofy super-animal books.  Comics were "serious" and any #1 was a big deal "for the future" in terms of value. 

The average person might not have suspected the true value of early Golden Age books, but the average person had lived their entire adult life with comic books on the newsstand next to Life and Time magazine.  

By 1968, it should have "just made sense" that the oldest coins, stamps, postcards, maps, cars, sports cards, or comics would be considered "antiques" with some premium value like antique furniture and glassware. 

I wasn't there, so I'm not using the single data point of experience... I'm using the millions of data points in the CGC Census.  If you want any high grade popular book, just start at 1968 and it'll be easy (if you've got the money).

Edited April 27, 2021 by valiantman

[Hollywood1892]

The day I joined the boards

 

[rabidwolf]

when TMNT 1 was selling for over $100 a few years after it came out in 1984

[serling1978]

4 hours ago, KirbyJack said:

I did sell off a big chunk of my collection, but don’t really regret anything. The sell-off started in part because owning an Amazing Fantasy 15 was getting too stressful! I expect that’s why I’ll eventually sell off the rest. 
The exit strategy is to keep the perpetually worthless Marvel’s Greatest Comics until I croak. They will always be easy to own and enjoy.

Curious what was stressful about owning AF15?? 

 

I need that kind of stress in my life. 

Edited April 28, 2021 by serling1978
Dumb typo that I'll blame on my phone

[lordbyroncomics]

4 hours ago, valiantman said:

Is it too late to vote?

I'll say 1968. 

Marvel had exploded into the comic book world with "magazines that don't insult your intelligence" (their tagline) in the early 1960s so the "comics are for kids" idea was pushed to the edge (again). 

By 1968, Marvel realized they could slap a "#1" on the cover of pretty much anything, or change the title to the name of the main character, and addict a portion of a generation into buying the next 50+ issues... or the next 300+.

They weren't being thrown away like 1950s goofy super-animal books.  Comics were "serious" and any #1 was a big deal "for the future" in terms of value. 

 

This is not true actually. Marvel's distribution was controlled by DC which limited how many books could put out, hence the split titles like Tales to Astonish, etc.

When Martin Goodman sold Marvel to Chemical Corp., it freed them up to expand the line, hence new titles. Since some of these titles simply took on the numbering of the anthology book one of the heroes had appeared in, which would diminish the theory that they "realized" they could "slap a #1" on the cover. Many, many, many comics professionals who worked in the Silver Age have established that they didn't put any stock into such things and, if you study comics history, a first issue number was seen as detrimental to the casual buyer who was apparently less enticed to try an untested book. Hence, the many comics which started with a later issue number. 

If the question is, when did the normal, non-fans public generally have a conscious recognition that old comics were valuable... then it was certainly not in 1968, as evidenced by the lack of thousands of Americans hoarding Iron Man #1, etc. I'm currently reading fanzines from 1979-1981 every night before bed and even last night, there's an issue of TCJ where a guy bought a quarter page advertisement to sell his Action Comics #1, asking $3,000 for it. 

[Lazyboy]

16 hours ago, Gatsby77 said:

The Death of Superman was definitely the beginning of the end. That was what - November of 1992? The next month the big books were Venom: Lethal Protector # 1 and Secret Defenders # 1.

And then April 1993 it all broke down.

People mock Turok # 1 for its 1.6 million copies, but forget it was only like the 5th-best selling book of the month, after the Return of Superman ones.

April 1993 alone probably put 20% of the comic shops in the country out of business.

But what fascinates me is the difference between Superman 75 (1993) and Captain America 25 (2007).

Both books had hourly shifts in prices, but the rise of eBay in the interim increased the velocity of Cap 25's rise and fall.

Day of, the book went from $2.95 to $60. There were sales on eBay as high as $60 per *in bulk*; yet two weeks later it was available on eBay for just $10 shipped.

That was because Marvel printed an extra 100,000,000* copies over the initial order numbers and everybody reordered them when they learned about the contents of the issue, not feeBay.

 

* number may not be quite accurate

[Lazyboy]

48 minutes ago, wisbyron said:

This is not true actually. Marvel's distribution was controlled by DC which limited how many books could put out, hence the split titles like Tales to Astonish, etc.

When Martin Goodman sold Marvel to Chemical Corp., it freed them up to expand the line, hence new titles. Since some of these titles simply took on the numbering of the anthology book one of the heroes had appeared in, which would diminish the theory that they "realized" they could "slap a #1" on the cover. Many, many, many comics professionals who worked in the Silver Age have established that they didn't put any stock into such things and, if you study comics history, a first issue number was seen as detrimental to the casual buyer who was apparently less enticed to try an untested book. Hence, the many comics which started with a later issue number. 

If the question is, when did the normal, non-fans public generally have a conscious recognition that old comics were valuable... then it was certainly not in 1968, as evidenced by the lack of thousands of Americans hoarding Iron Man #1, etc. I'm currently reading fanzines from 1979-1981 every night before bed and even last night, there's an issue of TCJ where a guy bought a quarter page advertisement to sell his Action Comics #1, asking $3,000 for it. 

Yeah, the rise of organized fandom (including some speculation) is not the same as the general public realizing comics could have value.

[nmtg9]

In Britain in 1989 the Batman movie brought comics to the mainstream. 

There was a Daily Mirror (tabloid newspaper) article about Duncan McAlpine buying AC1 for £10000, that was probably the first time collectible comics has been mentioned in the mainstream I imagine. 

I kept the article for years, probably to remind myself why I was keeping all these rags 🤣

[Larryw7]

This isn't as notable in the grand scheme, but the 1966-1969 Batman television show brought out some mainstream articles about comic collectors, making sure they poked a little fun at the rubes who were spending the outlandish price some were paying for comics(ie, fifty bucks apiece for the first appearances of Superman and Batman). 

[1950's war comics]

4 hours ago, Larryw7 said:

This isn't as notable in the grand scheme, but the 1966-1969 Batman television show brought out some mainstream articles about comic collectors, making sure they poked a little fun at the rubes who were spending the outlandish price some were paying for comics(ie, fifty bucks apiece for the first appearances of Superman and Batman). 

makes sense !

[Ares]

On 4/26/2021 at 10:46 PM, wisbyron said:

The guy was polite but annoyed and again said like, "but it says 'Collector's Item'"-

I always said if it says collectors item its not

[KirbyJack]

Absolute museum pieces, all of em.

[Math Teacher]

@KirbyJack, I find it interesting that some of these covers were redrawn (but still faithful to the original cover), while some just used the original cover.

[valiantman]

11 hours ago, wisbyron said:

... it was certainly not in 1968, as evidenced by the lack of thousands of Americans hoarding Iron Man #1, etc.

The most submitted book of the 1950s is Showcase #22 with just over 1,000 copies CGC graded.  Iron Man #1 from 1968, by itself, has 6,500+.

[thunsicker]

10 hours ago, nmtg9 said:

In Britain in 1989 the Batman movie brought comics to the mainstream. 

There was a Daily Mirror (tabloid newspaper) article about Duncan McAlpine buying AC1 for £10000, that was probably the first time collectible comics has been mentioned in the mainstream I imagine. 

I kept the article for years, probably to remind myself why I was keeping all these rags 🤣

@Mmehdy