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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Jun 11, 2021 13:50:50 GMT -5
The only thing that I would say is irritating about this boom in the market of comics, and how it seems it can be manipulated if enough people try, is how even by association to any MCU movie, comic titles are being driven up in hope for catching a sucker. For instance the original GotG title and their other apperances before being driven up when the first GotG movie. "Hey that blue guy looks like Yondu from the GotG movie." Let's never even mind that they are even the same damn character outside of their apperance much less that the rest of the original team wasn't in the movie. And the various GotG teams have never been anything a like other than their role as protectors. Now all of a sudden GotG #1 is $15 when I've gotten about 90% of the title in previous years in dollar bins.
Same with appearances in anthology comics like Marvel Preview #7, I'll never have because I care about the other 95% of the comic not Rocket Raccoons like two page first appearance story. It it what it is, but I do feel like there is manipulation, or should I say sellers taking advantage of the demand. Do I need GotG #5? Yeah but not for $5 only on principle. If we don't pay the inflated price, then you would think they would settle to a reasonable price and maybe then they would start selling. But as others have mentioned it's all about what the motivation for buying a comic in the first place. The good thing at least though, in this day and age of comics, their rising popularity in general has generated lots and lots of collected editions and digital reprints that make easier now more than 25 years ago to read old comics even when the actual comic itself is scarce or in high demand dollar wise.
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Post by impulse on Jun 11, 2021 14:42:44 GMT -5
On the flip side, if you are sitting on back issues of previously-obscure Marvel characters that aren't particularly sentimental about, this is a great time to cash in on the buzz. I did pretty well unloading my Walking Dead floppies near peak buzz and zombie saturation. That worked out fairly well. Ended up using mostly store credit to get collected editions so I could read them in the future.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 11, 2021 15:16:34 GMT -5
On the flip side, you can want to pay a certain price and get a product you desire, even if that was the price you were used to paying decades ago, but if market factors have changed prices, the books are going to sell at the going rate, not what you want to pay for them. Comics have no intrinsic value, no "correct price" it is entirely a function of demand and what people are willing to pay. What people are willing to pay determines the "correct price" so if other people are willing to pay more and books sell at that price, what you think is the right price is irrelevant to everyone except you. If a book is priced at more than you want to pay for it, or were paying for it in the past, it doesn't mean it is overpriced, it means other people value it more than you and are willing to pay more and it is that which determines the market price, not the stragglers who want to pay old market prices rather than current. Trust me, I feel you, there are a lot of books being priced out of my range because of the current surge, but that's the market responding to current demand, that's the way a free market works, especially in goods that have no intrinsic or inherent value to determine pricing. Luxury goods always sell at a price people who can afford them are willing to pay for that luxury, Sometimes that prices things out of reach of some, but again, that's the nature of luxury items in a free market. Those prices aren't incorrect or unfair, they are the market at work. Could thee be a market correction down the line? Sure, but that again will be the market determining prices in response to current demand and willingness to pay by consumers, not a return to "fair" or "correct" prices. -M I think the free market consideration is an important counterpoint, the flip side as you said. The differentiator to me is "it's not unfair because that's how a free market works, but I don't like it", versus "an inflated speculator market that does not have the economic fundamentals in place for the long term". Sure, there are booms and crashes. Unexpected volatility can happen at any time, and what we are experiencing with for example the MCU exposure of classic heroes to tons more people, pandemic spending, the slabbing/grading scheme over the years (sorry, there's that cynicism again)...it's a "hyper-boom". Nobody is "wrong" to buy Hulk #181 for $6K if they want to. But would you advise a family member to do so, no matter how much they were excited to drop that coin? Versus if they had an opportunity for a rare Golden Age comic with low census numbers and better condition than normally seen. While nobody can predict the future, and maybe $6K really is the new norm for Hulk #181, we all act on imperfect information and buying on the surge upwards of a boom is, if nothing else, a much bigger gamble. Which leads to the big question: do you buy as an investment? do you buy purely for enjoyment of owning and appreciating? do you buy because collector fever has made you throw caution to the wind, and there's always time to pay off the credit card? Or some combination of all of the above? Again, no "wrong" here, but I can see scenarios: "I've always wanted Hulk #181, I know I should have bought it years ago, or months ago in this environment, but life's short, I've worked hard for my money, it's a dream and I'm going to go for it. I fully know I'm buying at the worst time in the market, but I'm blessed to have the funds and I'm going to live a little and go for it." Or maybe: "I just saw some X-Men movies, and I never read the comics but I want to start collecting! I've got these rare variant edition covers on some recent new comics and I'm hoping for 9.8 when they come back, but I just read the first appearance was Hulk #181 and it's 'the' issue to get, so I'll bid whatever it takes! I've heard this book is only going to keep getting more valuable." Ok, I'm totally staging the extremes here with a "true blue collector living a dream" versus "unwashed masses dallying in a sacred market, causing untold havoc in the long run". The motivation for buyers in any market can run the spectrum. I think maybe the gist of it for some of us who don't like what the market has turned into is that, while again nobody is doing anything "wrong", this gut feeling that many driving the speculation are not as much into a love for enjoying comic book content versus a rather rabid need to fuel constructs (like slabbed 9.8's) and buying behaviors that don't feel fundamentally sound. Plus some of us are just getting cranky as we get older because the world is changing wrong (raises hand slowly). But here's the key to all of it-the comic collecting "community" has been relatively small. so there is a limit to demand. As you said, movies and media are exposing these characters and stories to A LOT more people, and if even a small number of those decide they want to buy the first appearances in comic form in whatever grade, it is going to increase demand for those books exponentially, and back issues have always been a demand driven market rather than a supply driven market. Silver Age keys are not rare in any grade. Their value depends on how many people want them and how much those people are willing to pay. There are tons of Golden age books that are far more scarce and far less valuable because there is little to no demand for them and never will be. As demand increases for collectibles or really anything in a secondary market, prices are going to increase no matter what the supply is. The new market reality is that there is a lot more demand for these books, and so prices are rising, sometimes faster than can be imagined or previously experienced, but we've not experiences a massive increase in demand for these kinds of books like this before. The speculator boom of the 90s saw some increase in demand, but it was more focused on new releases that could be bought at cover price or a little more. Prices for those books shot up and then dropped when demand did. Silver Age keys will continue to increase in price as long as demand does. If demand drops, there will be a market correction, but how much will demand drop for the first Wolverine, or the first Spider-Man or the first Superman? Those big key books are going to keep demand, and so will keep there prices. A hot variant cover for a new issue of Spidey, or the first appearance of a minor villain currently appearing in a movie, those things might lose demand and see prices fall. but I don't think the big books will lose the gains they're making now. And there is likely to be a trickle down effect too. Is Someone a Dr. Doom fan? They want the 1st appearance of Doom but it has been priced out of their budget? Maybe they target the 2nd appearance of Doom, and so do others like them, and now that causes demand for that book to increase, and thus prices, and if it reaches affordability barriers, then the 3rd appearance and what have you, or they move to the first appearance of their 2nd favorite character instead, etc. etc. What we are seeing is a surge in prices because there is a surge in demand for the books, and that is because people outside the small niche collecting community have been exposed to the material and inspired to buy it for whatever reason. Does it suck for long time collectors? Depends if they are buyers or sellers in this market. But there's nothing fair or unfair about it. It's how prices work on goods sold in a secondary market in a free market. -M
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Post by Icctrombone on Jun 11, 2021 16:46:27 GMT -5
In the past , I have found that you can wait out a book to get the right price. Of course the top 20 books, ( Action #1, Detective #27, Amazing Fantasy #15) will never come down but everything else is subject to change. It's amazing what you can find in 5 dollar boxes these days.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 11, 2021 17:03:36 GMT -5
In the past , I have found that you can wait out a book to get the right price.
Sometimes, yes, and being in the right place at the right time. I've had many lucky breaks on ebay...
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Post by Icctrombone on Jun 11, 2021 18:19:41 GMT -5
My experience is that 90% of comics lose value. A 4 dollar book drops down to 2 dollars or less a year later.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jun 11, 2021 21:26:07 GMT -5
I simply don't buy from someone that doesn't price their books. (or cards or whatever) I'm not willing to dicker. If they have no prices and I can ask and they say 'they're all x' that's fine, but I'm not buying from someone either making it up on the fly or that is looking up in a price guide.... do that on your time, not mine, and let me decide.
I'd agree with Icctrombone... 90% of books these days are headed for the $1.. it's the other 10% you need to find if you're looking to flip.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 11, 2021 21:36:30 GMT -5
I simply don't buy from someone that doesn't price their books. (or cards or whatever) I'm not willing to dicker. If they have no prices and I can ask and they say 'they're all x' that's fine, but I'm not buying from someone either making it up on the fly or that is looking up in a price guide.... do that on your time, not mine, and let me decide. I'd agree with Icctrombone... 90% of books these days are headed for the $1.. it's the other 10% you need to find if you're looking to flip. Dollar bins are usually the result of a retailer overordering. With 90% of the books not even getting shelf copies (just preorder enough to cover pull lists), the only books that are going to see dollar bins in the future are stuff ordered to meet variant cover minimum thresholds in most shops. Sure places like Lonestar, Westfield, DCBS etc. order extras to sell for a while, but they have a wide enough customer base to sell things that they rarely end up with dollar bin books anyways. Unless people are selling off what they bought to dealers who are paying pennies on the dollar to buy those books, I am not seeing a glut of unsold copies to populate dollar bins in the future for anything published in the last 5 years or so, and moving forward, I see retailers cutting orders even closer to the bone, so I am not sure there will be enough unsold copies of more recent material to fill in "dollar bins" in 5-10 years, so what is in there will be the stuff that is already in them, and though vast, that is a finite supply, and not of interest to younger/newer readers/consumers unless it there is a media tie-in, which would take them out of the dollar bin population in most cases. So I don't see the dollar bin being a permanent fixture in the back issue landscape, I think it's lifespan is limited, and just as quarter bins became 50 cent bins became dollar bins, "dollar" bins will disappear too possibly replaced by a more expensive variant or disappear altogether when the source of books to populate them dries up. Especially as more customers go digital and trade wait for new releases, the pipeline of unsold copies and copies to be sold back to dealers will eventually dry up. -M
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jun 11, 2021 21:38:23 GMT -5
I don't think that's true... dollar bins are also for stock they have to get rid of... I agree with you that alot of stores don't order as much for the shelf as they used to, but there's still out there.
Westfield comics has a nice current virtual dollar bin, for instance.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 11, 2021 21:49:38 GMT -5
I don't think that's true... dollar bins are also for stock they have to get rid of... I agree with you that alot of stores don't order as much for the shelf as they used to, but there's still out there. Westfield comics has a nice current virtual dollar bin, for instance. Just do the hypothetical math... it's a changing environment with the PRH deal and the DCBS DC deal, but there had been about 5K Diamond accounts. A top selling book sells barely 100K. That's an average of 20 per account, but consider that DCBS, Mile High, Westfield, Lonestar, TFAW etc. probably get far more than 20 copies each, most likely representing about 50% of the books ordered combined (and probably getting a much better discount rate than the typical diamond account so they can afford those discounts and unsold copies and still be profitable). So it's more likely the median number of books ordered per shop is under 10. Using Brian Hibbs math, you have to sell through 85% of your copies ordered at MSRP to begin to make a profit, that means a shop ordering 10 has to sell 9 to not lose money. If a shop is going to be profitable and stay in business, it can't over-order, so there's going to typically be 1 unsold copy of the best selling books at those shops and less for books that sell under 75K per month because the math doesn't allow for any unsold copies of those books and to be still profitable at Hibbs threshold. So yeah, Westfield may have a virtual dollar bin because they have different variables altering the math, but how many brick and mortar shops or con dealers are going to have a supply of books to keep stocking dollar bins when that's the math in play moving forward? -M
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jun 12, 2021 10:49:30 GMT -5
YOu're probably right most smaller shops mostly have stuff they overordered for incentives... but I'm sure there are others that are multi-shop accounts that still do it... like New England Comics around here.. they have 6 stores, and definitely maintain a $1 bin.
There there's places like Newbury comics, that do grab bags of 10 comics for 7-10 each with the stuff they don't sell. They're more a record store that sells comics, so they're not great at ordering, and also have lots of stores.
I'm sure other areas of the country have similar things.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 12, 2021 11:32:50 GMT -5
YOu're probably right most smaller shops mostly have stuff they overordered for incentives... but I'm sure there are others that are multi-shop accounts that still do it... like New England Comics around here.. they have 6 stores, and definitely maintain a $1 bin. There there's places like Newbury comics, that do grab bags of 10 comics for 7-10 each with the stuff they don't sell. They're more a record store that sells comics, so they're not great at ordering, and also have lots of stores. I'm sure other areas of the country have similar things. Don't get me wrong. I love dollar bins, and I love dollar bin diving, but looking at things realistically, I have to wonder at the long-term viability and longevity of a practice that is dependent on people being bad at their jobs and yet somehow remaining in business in the long term for it to exist. Smaller shops that continue to over-order are going to run into cash flow liquidity problems as their operating capital is tied up in unsold stock, and selling it at a t loss isn't going to do much for their long-term viability (a $4 cover price book costs them approximately $2, so selling it in a dollar bins constitutes a loss). I'm sure a good chuck of dollar bins comes from dealers who buy a large collection and a bulk rate for it, then cherry pick out the keys and valuable books and sell the rest in dollar bins, but as prices rise on a lot of books and awareness of the value of those types of books, and the ease of access of things like ebay and facebook to sell them, or lonestar to consign them at for more than the seller would get selling the collection in bulk (and with the advent of things like the travelling comic book road show thing that was just here in the Dayton area on their tour buying keys and other books from people who just showed up with their books), there's going to be less of those books in those collections for dealers to make their money off of to have the bulk supply to sell off in bargain books, so they won't be buying as many bulk collections because there's not as much money to be made in them, which will also restrict the supply of books to make dollar bins viable. So for dollar bins to continue, comic dealers need to continue to be bad at their jobs and yet stay in business and people need to continue to be unaware of the value of their comics they want to sell and have no other convenient access to sell those books for better money than comic retailers will give them. And I just don't see both of those things continuing to be true in the current market. -M
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Post by Icctrombone on Jun 12, 2021 11:41:22 GMT -5
There will always be dollar bins.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 12, 2021 12:29:07 GMT -5
There will always be dollar bins. I guess I am old enough to remember a time before dollar bins, when a dollar was more than what Overstreet listed for the bulk of Avengers issues I bought in the early-mid-80s from my lcs when I was first putting a run of a title together, and the idea of a dollar bin for "not in demand" comics would have been laughable. Bargain bins for overstock or "junk" books were a dime or a quarter. Then bargain disappeared for a while in most of the shops I went to. Those books were just put in storage and the space given to actual in demand comics they thought would sell because there wasn't enough space in shops to make those bargain books worthwhile and not enough table space at shows to make having those worthwhile for dealers at cons. Then in the late 90s bargain books began to reappear as dollar bins as stores and dealers that survived the bursting of the speculator bubble tried to move the backlog of Image, Ultraverse, Valiant and the like they had overordered and and couldn't sell when the demand bubble popped, and then started adding in other backstock like the bulk of 90s Marvel books and 80s indy books, fringe DC boos etc. Then in the early 00s lots of bulk 80s Marvel and DC books and low grade Bronze started appearing in them as stores and dealers cleaned out those storage spaces to try to reduce operating costs. Better to sell that stuff at a buck and move it than to keep paying rent on storage facilities. Then in the last decade, those dollar bins began to be dominated by unsold recent backstock, and less of the other stuff was present as retailers sold through their inventory form those storage facilities, basements, and such. In the last couple of years I've seen a handful of shops change their dollar bins to $2 bins, and fewer dealers having bargain bins at shows. The point is, the dollar bin is not a monolithic idea. It has been always changing, but it hasn't always been a part of the comic collecting landscape. There was a time before dollar bins. There were times they were ubiquitous, and times they were scarce. However a lot of current collectors have come to take them for granted, as a given, and that's just not the case. They came into existence because of certain factors, and then those factors change or disappear, the bargain bin will change or disappear. They haven't always been there. They won't always be there. -M
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Post by Deleted on Jun 12, 2021 12:38:08 GMT -5
And as an addendum, just to be clear, I don't think dollar bins are going to disappear tomorrow, or even 5 years from now. Ten years, however, I don't think dollar bins as we know them now will be all that common, with the price for bargain books being higher and what's in them being different again, and that they will be far less common. 15-20 years down the line, I think they will be just a memory for the most part.
-M
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