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Duane,
You've hit on the solution! It's so simple -- all of you dealers simply
take 99 of the 100 duplicates you have of a title and shred them. This will
kick the price of SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, FIELD OF DREAMS and GIGLI through the
roof.
Short of that, Duane is also right that a whole lot of new collectors are
going to have to enter the hobby to keep the pyramid afloat -- and I have a
feeling that the ultra-high prices on the "really good stuff" will discourage
that, but who knows? Are there more of less "real comic book collectors" now
than there were in, say, 1986?
-- JR
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, December 20, 2004
10:35
Subject: Re: [MOPO] Why are super-high
prices good and slabbed collectibles.
Very well put Rich. This same theory can be applied to
all antiques and
collectibles. I have been on Ebay since 1997 and for
8 years prior to
that I had a store and sold in the Antique Trader.
The average prices
of items have gone down across the board. Except
for rare --- there is
still a line at the door for rare. But keep in
mind - that line at the
door for rare is getting shorter. And note
- rare is now different.
There are lots of items that used to be rare
that aren't rare anymore
because they are found in the closet, basement or
attick and arent
thrown away or sold at a yard sale or sold to "one" dealer
because of an
ad in the back of a magazine etc. Now those items are
broadcast world
wide. Needless to say, some things that were considered
rare really
weren't rare, but no one had the ability to detect them all
without
spending thousands on advertising and travel. Anyway...rare
is being
redefined and what is rare now is truly rare and any one lucky
enough to
find a hoard would be wise to slowly divvy it out or the price of
that
particular item will collapse over night.
So yes.
Collectors are filling their slots and then you have the bad
side of supply
and demand. This is not isolated to high end. But to
low end as
well. They need to have an elective class starting at the
1st Grade
School level on "Collecting as a Hobby and Investment".
Because we need new
collectors to perpetuate this habbit, business,
hobby. A huge
percentage of what we like, be it comics, posters or cast
iron toys used to
go to the landfill, Goodwill, Salvation Army, or would
start its climb up
to the end of the line collector at a yard sale or
auction. This process
fueled a whole economy and several subcultures.
This still happens to a
much smaller percentage. But now a huge
percentage is put up online
for all to see 7 days a week, 24 hours a day
and many middlepeople are
eliminated. One no longer has to start, if
they have the money,with a G-VG
copy of Spiderman #1 and then hunt and
trade and buy their way up.
They can jump right in at the top. In
reality, regarding supply, nothing
has changed - the amount of stuff has
always surpassed the number of
collectors - the internet just turned the
light on.
I am curious
what all of you see for down the road. I have a hard time
seeing the
prices for many things coming back up in years to come
without cultivating
a mass of new collectors. But not only young
collectors. We
need more middle and a bit older age collectors that
identify with what is
for sale. Or we also need to educate and
cultivate an appreciation
for Victorian advertising or 1930s Arcade
Machines into a 12 year old as
his concentration span lapses from his
X-box.
With all of this in
mind- I think I am giving all kids 6 and over old
comic books for
Christmas. If they bite and start wanting more..it will
be good for
selling in the future. If they destroy them with color
crayons and
scissors it will make the duplicate copies that I have
more
rare.
Merry Christmas
everybody.
Duane
-----Original Message-----
From: MoPo List
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
Richard Halegua Comic
Art
Sent: Sunday, December 19, 2004 10:53 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:
Re: [MOPO] 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 MoPo Mailing List Web Site
at www.filmfan.com
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