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Rich,
A great comprehensive analysis. You've covered all the bases and,
unfortunately, it's pretty easy to see where this is all headed. Since you're
right that last night's $12,000 poster sold by Bruce is still worth about
$4,000 unless you happen to be Bruce with the best customer base in the world --
but doesn't that mean that as a matter of practicality, anyone who really wants
to realize the best price for their posters is simply going to consign them
to Bruce from now on? Or Heritage? Even with the consigner paying 20-odd percent
in fees, if you can get two or three or even four times as much for your poster
as you can anywhere else, then it's still the way to go, isn't it? Even if
you're an established dealer like yourself, isn't it going to make more sense to
simply send the better items in your inventory to Bruce?
-- JR
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, December 20, 2004
0:52
Subject: re:Why are super-high prices
good and slabbed collectibles.
JR has made one of the most salient comparisons he could have
when he
compared high prices in comics to be a death knell for the
ordinary
collector. While comic dealers and others may trumpet how good
high prices
are, anyone must realize the dangers they pose to any
hobby.For
instance, in an economy where 50% of the population makes
less than
$25,000 a year, you would have to wonder how that half could
possibly
afford to collect anything, and you have to go all the way up to
the top 5%
of the american population to get to $50,000 a year. You must
also remember
that the average cost of living in any good sized city in
America is
$48,000 it doesn't leave very much for spending money without
sacrificing
something else and while most collectors would happily
sacrifice eating to
get that comic book or poster, if that goes on too
long.. one more
collector gone!
Back in the middle 80's I was on
the way to becoming the top dealer of
original comic art & pulp
illustration in the world. Only Russ Cochran was
on my level. Well as time
went by, I only began selling more & more
expensive items. So in 1986
I took in $20,000 at San Diego Comicon (SDC
from here on ) with about 400
customers. at SDC in 1990 I took in $35K, but
with only 150 customers. In
1992 I did $40K with less than 100 and in 1995
I took in over $50K, but
with only 40 buyers as they were the only ones who
could afford my stuff.
Not only that, I was finding I could not afford to
buy collections anymore
as the prices had become so high & the margin was
getting so low that
I was going to have to start taking in almost
$1,000,000 a year to make
the same profits I made in 1989 one $350K. In
other words I would have to
work 3times as hard to make no extra. But wait
there's more, at the same
time several bigtime collector's had either
stopped collecting, or
personal issues (like divorce, loss of good job etc)
removed these top
customers from the field resulting in difficulty
achieving the same high
price were getting for things like Flash Gordon
sunday pages by Alex
Raymond (up to $50K in 1991, same pages sold in 1996
for $15) and taking
losses on those items to move them out, or be forced to
hold them for 10
years to sell which is a negative.
Today comics & comic book art
are in my own opinion the most overpriced
hobbies there are and anything
good is beyond the average collector in
price. If you want to complete a
collection of Spiderman in fine condition
(which is the minimum condition
for investment) it would cost you soemthing
in the range of $150,000. A
near mint, slabbed collection in 9.0 or better
could get to $1,000,000.
How many of you wish to be at the mercy of such a
market where it's
possible the only collector for that item at that price
actually dictates
the market price instead of you as the seller and he is
very simply the
ONLY collector at that level??
To me it's a simple calculation, at an
auction when something sells for
$50,000, but only 2 players are over
$25K. When the $50K buyer wishes to
sell..... the item is not worth $50K
but the $25K that was forced by the
presence of the $24,500 bidder and
anyone who bought another copy of that
poster at $50K because he thought
it was worth it because of the auction
price realized is in for a rude
awakening... and that is as bad for the
hobby as Enron stock raping a Wall
Street investor.
Of course teh fact that now everyone with a Cat People
poster is going to
ask $12K will bring an end to the sale. That poster is
worth the same $4000
today it was yesterday.. unless you are Bruce H and
have very simply the
best customer base there is.
About slabbing
collectibles... No one mentioned the reason comics are
slabbed. One
reason.. investors !!
When you go to SDC and every dealer has a Spider
Man #1, the only
difference between them is how each individual dealer
grades the same copy
of the book and grading the same copy differently can
mean $1000's to the
dealer who grades it at very fine instead of the guy
who honestly grades it
at fine-very fine. So in comes a third party who
will be recognized as
the independent arbiter (Comics Guaranty
Company or CGC) and places a
grade that is recognized by all dealers
without dispute, so now a collector
- or more specifically an investor -
can come in & know with a reasonable
certainty that no dealer can try
to cheapen his copy when he goes to sell
it and therefore his investment
is protected. What has resulted of course
is that a "census" of number of
issues of that title has also been able to
be manufactured so everyone can
see that comics in 9.8 are rare and
investors value them at as much as 20x
value. A Spawn #1 in 10.0 (only
known copy in that grade) sold for over
$2000 in 2003 which was something
like 100x the listed guide
value.
Another way to look at it.. the comics hobby cooked up the
perfect scam to
be able to reap profits they would not have otherwise been
able to get. But
they also froze out anyone making under $100,000 a year
from becoming a
serious collector. That is very bad for the
hobby.
There has to be massive collectors at the bottom levels who
become the
bottom of the pyramid & work their way up so that years
from now thety
become the top collectors. With Heritage and others, the
only thing that
exists is the top of the pyramid today and there is no
bottom, so will
there be collectors moving up the pyramid becomes the
question for the
future and that's when the pyramid crumbles to
dust.
this was just my way of saying that prices of collectibles
increasing at a
pace that is faster than the populace's increasing
fortunes is dangerous
for any hobby.... including movie
posters..
Rich===========================
At 06:51
PM 12/19/04, J R wrote:
>If you're a seller, don't bother to answer that
question. But if you're in
>the majority -- someone who buys for their
own collection with no real
>intention of selling anytime soon, if ever
-- then how can this sudden,
>recent rash of ultra-high pricing (for
even some of the more common stuff)
>possibly be considered "good" for
you? Or for the hobby?
>
>I've been wondering out loud about this
for some time... about the absurd
>prices the "better" posters
now seem to be going for on a regular basis.
>Back in the 1980's this
effect swept through comic book collecting. It
>continued and got to
the point where by now you simply must be a rich
>person -- not doing
well, but actually *rich* -- to buy and collect the
>"really nice
comics". A person of average means just can't buy them
>anymore, even
if they only eat rice and beans for dinner all year.
>
>Now I
suppose some will trot out the worn old maxim about "something is
>only
worth what someone wants to pay for it" (as if that explained or
>justified anything when there are so many millionaires in the world).
And
>there will be others who say, well so what? That's just the way
the
>capitalist cookie crumbles and trickles down on the rest of the
world. But
>I say it's a damn shame nonetheless. Anyway, it looks like
this elitist
>shut-out is now happening to all the "really nice movie
posters" -- even
>the lobby cards!
>
>What can be done
about it? Nothing. But let's not all of us pretend that
>this trend is
good for everybody, shall we?
>
>-- JR
>
>Visit the
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