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Post by Slam_Bradley on May 29, 2014 9:50:28 GMT -5
My kids always say they want mine. Oddly they have unfettered access to them and yet seldom read them. They do read my trades, but the boxes of floppies just kind of gather dust.
A home for all my SF paperbacks is a bigger concern for me.
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Post by MDG on May 29, 2014 10:32:44 GMT -5
Rob Allen and I have an informal understanding that whichever one goes first leaves his comics to the other. If there's a lot of that going on in the collector community then the appearance of our generation's hoards on the open market may not be a foregone conclusion. My "comic friends" and I have an informal understanding that when one of us goes, the others will help the family liquidate the collection as best possible (in my case, it's less comics than original art). What I've been seeing is an increasing bifurcating of the market with slabbed books going for more and more and unslabbed books--almost regardless of condition--going for less. And 90% of post-80s books for cover or less. |
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Post by Cei-U! on May 29, 2014 10:57:01 GMT -5
Putting on my lawyer hat, Kurt you and Rob should probably formalize that. Not only is there the issue of your heirs not knowing your intention, but those intentions aren't binding unless there's a written will. If your (or Rob's) collection is viewed in monetary terms they could well decide to just sell it and cash in. Point taken, Tim, and a formal will is something I've been considering for quite a while (though Rob's wife and my sister are both aware of the arrangement). Cei-U! Also needs some dadgummed life insurance! |
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Post by tolworthy on May 29, 2014 12:12:49 GMT -5
From a British point of view this is sometimes very sad. I suspect it's the same in many smaller markets. While American comics have a market for generations to come, some British comics will be forgotten forever. For four reasons:
1. The market is much smaller
2. We had comics that had ten or twenty stories per week. They are easy to lose. Take one of my favourites, Bewitched Belinda: its web presence is a couple of stubs and that is all. No anthologies of course. Yet the art and stories were superb!
3. Fans (in my experience) only care about them for nostalgic purposes. The next generation will not have that nostalgia, and will have no reason to hear about the stories, or to dig out whatever copies remain.
4. Copyright laws forbid surviving fans from bringing these to a wider audience in any quantity. Yet the people who own the copyrights are generally unaware they do, and have no priofitable way to monettise them even if they did.
Here are two examples of dying classics:
The Badtime books:
Growing up I was greatly influenced by the Badtime Bedtime books. This was the last mainstream work by one of the big four British artists, and he put his heart into them. But a few years ago when I looked online, they were only footnotes. Nobody was talking about them, there was no way to buy them (they are pull outs, so generally missing from back issues), and there were no web sites devoted to them. So I made my own site. If I had not done so, I suppose they would be forgotten when my generation dies.
Janus Stark: a very popular character for many years in Britain and on the continent, yet there are no reprint anthologies. I suspect the surviving readers are too thinly spread to justify the cost. If even a popular character can be forgotten, what hope is there for the hundreds (thousands?) or lesser strips?
Marvel's Galactus will never be forgotten. But Buster's Galaxus? Beautiful art, lovely stories, and likely to be forgotten forever.
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Post by Randle-El on May 29, 2014 12:15:37 GMT -5
I sometimes wonder if digital comics will play a factor in modern printed comics (21st century) increasing in value someday in the distant future, simply by virtue of digital surpassing print as the preferred medium for comics distribution and print comics being released in ever diminishing numbers. Print runs these days seem to be a lot lower than they were in the past, and if the demand is there for actual printed material, perhaps we may see a resurgence in values among collectors? Well there's no doubt in my mind that comics from around 2000 to 2010 will be worth big money one day since average print runs were about 30,000 copies per issue AND a lot of current readers don't bother to bag and board their books anymore, assuming they're worthless as investments. Any issue from that span that ends up being a key first appearance will be worth big money one day. While I'm not generally a speculator, I grabbed up as many copies as I could of the first Damian Wayne, Kate Kane, and Miss Martian when they hit stands. Along similar lines, certain indie books will also likely have high values due to low print runs and (now) increased exposure due to TV and movie licensing. Now that indie books in general, and Image in particular, are on more people's radars, they have upped the prints runs a lot more. And I'm sure speculators are looking for the next Walking Dead to cash in on, so there's less likelihood for current books to reach as high values. But those books from the last decade are already fetching a pretty penny -- at least when considering how recent they are. |
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Post by Deleted on May 29, 2014 12:31:32 GMT -5
Too early in the morning to be thinking about the D word! I recommend waiting till noon or thereabouts to start thinking about me. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 29, 2014 12:52:53 GMT -5
I'm far too young to worry about it yet. I wonder if they really will be a big drop of items in the market, though. It's not like comics are the easiest things to sell... it may be many end up moldering in storage units/basements/garages/etc.
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Post by Deleted on May 29, 2014 12:54:32 GMT -5
I sometimes wonder if digital comics will play a factor in modern printed comics (21st century) increasing in value someday in the distant future, simply by virtue of digital surpassing print as the preferred medium for comics distribution and print comics being released in ever diminishing numbers. Print runs these days seem to be a lot lower than they were in the past, and if the demand is there for actual printed material, perhaps we may see a resurgence in values among collectors? Well there's no doubt in my mind that comics from around 2000 to 2010 will be worth big money one day since average print runs were about 30,000 copies per issue AND a lot of current readers don't bother to bag and board their books anymore, assuming they're worthless as investments. Any issue from that span that ends up being a key first appearance will be worth big money one day. While I'm not generally a speculator, I grabbed up as many copies as I could of the first Damian Wayne, Kate Kane, and Miss Martian when they hit stands. I am not so sure. Your working on the assumption the demand for those stories will be for the original printed copies, which for the most part may be true for our generations of collectors, but may not be true of the current crop coming in. Trade collections and digital access is changing the demand paradigm slowly. Second, those trade collections have even smaller print runs and go out of print quickly, and don't linger in back issue bins, so if folks are looking for smaller print run collectibles, the trade collections are a better candidate for that because there are fewer of them and mostly already in the hands of people who wanted them so supply will be even shorter than the floppies. Silver Age books are not high value because of scarcity of supply, but because of volume of demand. Demand drives collectors prices not supply. Non-key books are available in the same numbers as key books, print runs didn't change much, but demand for keys is higher, thus higher prices. Short supply books that have no demand are still low value to worthless. High demand books command high higher values even when there is a plentiful supply. If there is a high demand for those 2000-2010 books in their original floppy format, then yes prices will go up, but if there is no demand, it doesn't matter how many or how few of them were printed, their value will remain low. Certain books from that period have started to shoot up because of increased demand for them-Harley Quinn appearances primary among them, while others with even lower supply continue to sit in dollar and quarter bins not moving. Simply put no demand, no buyer, no increase in value. For those books to go up in value, there will have to be a demand for those sories in that format, and neither is guaranteed in the changing market. -M |
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,871
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Post by shaxper on May 29, 2014 14:49:58 GMT -5
My kids show very little interest in my comics, and unless that changes I'm pretty sure I'll eventually give them away to someone who can truly appreciate them. Good thing we have this board to find candidates!!!  I'm wary of public libraries because they tend to do away with a lot of material, and comics by their very nature are fragile, hard to put on shelves and not meant for frequent manipulation. I fear they'd be dumped in pretty short order. Hopefully that decision won't have to be made until 2040 or something. I intend to reread the damn things a few times yet. Agreed. Having worked in two libraries, what I saw both times was that donated collections, no matter how fascinating, were unappreciated by the library staff and used poorly. Often, they just went straight to the library book sale and were sold at shamefully low prices. I rescued a lot of interesting collections from that fate, including the complete writings of Abraham Lincoln, a collection of versions of The Arabian Nights/ A thousand and One Nights, and even a complete VHS collection of Pam Grier films, all of which I liberated from my first library for a paltry $20 before they were broken up for the book sale. |
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,871
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Post by shaxper on May 29, 2014 15:07:34 GMT -5
Well there's no doubt in my mind that comics from around 2000 to 2010 will be worth big money one day since average print runs were about 30,000 copies per issue AND a lot of current readers don't bother to bag and board their books anymore, assuming they're worthless as investments. Any issue from that span that ends up being a key first appearance will be worth big money one day. While I'm not generally a speculator, I grabbed up as many copies as I could of the first Damian Wayne, Kate Kane, and Miss Martian when they hit stands. I am not so sure. Your working on the assumption the demand for those stories will be for the original printed copies, which for the most part may be true for our generations of collectors, but may not be true of the current crop coming in. Trade collections and digital access is changing the demand paradigm slowly. Second, those trade collections have even smaller print runs and go out of print quickly, and don't linger in back issue bins, so if folks are looking for smaller print run collectibles, the trade collections are a better candidate for that because there are fewer of them and mostly already in the hands of people who wanted them so supply will be even shorter than the floppies. I suppose this is possible, but I haven't seen any indication floppies are losing steam as collectibles. If anything, prices have been rising for the past few years after a long slump following the '90s bubble bursting and the rise of ebay. This is an excellent point to consider, as well. The decline of fans from the Silver Age will lessen demand. I'd only been considering the supply side and how their books being dumped on the market would hurt it. |
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Post by Deleted on May 29, 2014 16:45:07 GMT -5
A home for all my SF paperbacks is a bigger concern for me. Move 1,200 miles away, rent a storage room for everything you can't carry in two subcompacts, get divorced a few months later, then in the ensuing chaos forget to make sure that rental on the storage room is being paid. Your (ex-)in-laws will be happy to make sure your several thousand sf (& other) paperbacks, hardcovers, zines, etc. are no longer a concern of yours. (No, I don't blame them a bit. Mr. Stupid* should've made sure the damned storage place got paid, &/or somehow gotten his ass back to Phoenix to go through its contents.) *Though I guess Kurt couldn't be bothered, understandably enough ... |
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Post by superecwfan1 on May 29, 2014 17:27:52 GMT -5
Damn that sucks Dan to hear. Hopefully ya rebuilt your collection.
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Post by Deleted on May 29, 2014 17:39:55 GMT -5
I don't own many valuable comics, but I have a couple. I should put a post-it on those ones indicating they are valuable and should be sold individually, maybe leave behind a template on how to properly sell a comic. The rest can go at bulk rate, and a lowball is fine if some local flipper will be happy at $20-$50 per longbox.
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Post by Deleted on May 29, 2014 18:18:35 GMT -5
Damn that sucks Dan to hear. Hopefully ya rebuilt your collection. Pretty much, yeah. One of my bedrooms contains nothing but books, almost floor to ceiling. |
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Post by hondobrode on May 29, 2014 18:45:09 GMT -5
I think paper will always be collectible, but I don't collect. I read.
Hardly any of mine are bagged or boarded. If they are, I bought them that way.
My son loves em like I do and all 3 of my daughters like different things. It'll all get divided to them later.
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