Golden age Comics vs Vintage Cards....

akuracy503

So i've been reading a lot of content regarding the two hobbies and it's value as a collectible.
I'm focusing my topic on vintage 1950's and earlier key cards and golden age key comics.

From the basic auction houses and ebay I see fewer comics being traded vs cards, makes it difficult to guage which is traded more frequently.

Each guy seems to argue the solid investment in fine-very fine grade golden age comics.
I've been around cards enough to know that the demand is there for basically all grades of key vintage cards, instant liquidity is not an issue.

In the right forum is demand for comics as high?

For some odd reason I see comics doing better than cards in the long term future.
I believe comics/characters/movies bring a larger group of people together in a global sense and for future generations.

I don't know how it is in your neck of the woods but the major comic shops in the NW seem to be fairing better than the sportscards shops.

Interested in your thoughts on the topic whether it be investment potential, mainstream hobby longevity, demand/popularity, whatever you think...

VintageCardLover

i like to read my old comics hard to do when they are slabbed in plastic. Thats why i like raw cards for the most part.

artistlost

<< <i>I don't know how it is in your neck of the woods but the major comic shops in the NW seem to be fairing better than the sportscards shops. >>




The same is true here. We have 5 full sized comic shops and 1 sports card store in a city with a population of just under 500,000.

mathew

VintageCardLover

locally we have one comic shop (they also sell dvds posters etc, toys) they are quite busy. With all the success of the comic book movies (batman, wathmen, iron man, etc) they have a lot of gen x'ers coming in and spending money on graphic novels, toys etc.

the local card store is an overpriced mess.

Reljac

Sounds like both pop culture and business plan coming together here.

As some noted the popularity of modern comic book movies has drawn a lot of interest to the genre. I'd say by the same token strikes, steroids, disinterest in the world series, is causing a wain in interest.

If you took the same sample in 1990 you'd find the SportsCards stores were springing up all over and busy.


I'll tell you what the problem here simply is... I took a 9 year old to a baseball card shop this past week. He was all excited, because he had $4. After spending 30 minutes looking around the shop he was going to buy a few packs of 1988 donruss and 1989 topps... To be honest it really made me sad... he looked at the boxes on the counter from this years sets.... Topps Chrome $3.50, Bowman Chrome $3.50, Upper Deck Series 2 $6.50, Bowman Jumbo $13.50... etc...etc

I worry that many kids don't ever get started into cards with the prices they are at.

akuracy503

This may be obvious but my concern is that you need strong collecting interest in modern to uphold the vintage market in the future, without the modern culture of collecting the interest in vintage items will be significantly hurt by interest/demand.

With that said the state of our vintage card market is only as good as our age, those who GREW up with a strong interest in cards. I hear the statement all the time "kids these days don't collect cards, they play video games".
Once the 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 year old collectors of today passes who will sustain our vintage card market? Our children, grandchildren? We can only speculate...

As for Comics....writers, artists are always evolving and will forever sustain a popularity for "Comic book" characters and movies with a popularity spanning across the globe. Comic books are THE foundation of this culture and will be looked at as pieces of art and history more so than sportscards are to the sportsworld.

Now with that said...when will PSA start slabbing comic books

Morgoth

Kids are no dummies they want a chance at the good cards too. When we all collected there wasn't a large barrier or entry price to get into the hobby like there is today. Basically your telling kids, your too poor to play with the big dogs here collect these soon to be worthless Topps Total and Bazooka cards and go home.

On the comic front. Grading hasn't really taken hold like in cards. Its strong and demands premiums but not everyone can submit just by paying a fee.

The big thing with comics is that basically everyone can collect the same thing all the time. Yeah there are incentive covers and such but in reality if you start a box/subscription with a comic store you get all the issues no matter what.

If Iron Man dies in an issue and sells out in 2 seconds, you get yours 100% guranteed.

Reprints are ok in comics and alot of issues are recollected in trades and softcovers and alot of people like to put them in their home libraries rather than collect the individual issues. Lots of ways to collect the same thing.'

Also there is the real artwork to collect and that is very popular as well.

Going to comic shows, the vintage stuff is RARE and it is much harder to find in good condition. Think about grading a comic where each page can have tears, stains, writing etc. I think overall it is much harder to find 40s Comics than it is T cards in EX shape.

akuracy503

Reljac you made an excellent point which sparked my post above.

TheHun

Comics offer a bit more diversity - it is more cultural and gender friendly.

In addition, collectors have more input in their making - as independent comic pubishers were taking a good part of the comic market (I should know - I worked on a few).

Marvel and DC (the 2 big ones) had to revamp their approach. As one of the above posters stated, writers and artists have a greater influence without the interference of the big companies.

If kids had a greater say in the making of cards - I bet more would be involved. As it is the price of a pack of "useless Topps, UD etc" is outweighed by a comic that can be read again and again and shared.

I agree with the poster who said that slabbing is prohibitive to reading the comic. Even the most die hard collectors, in my experience, still like to read the issues.

Lastly, the cross over marketing is wider for comics - toys, statues, cards, posters ... I've never actually seen kids play with a Starting Lineup sports figure. but give a kids a Spider-Man figure ...

good posts.

storm888

"Golden age Comics vs Vintage Cards...."


"From the basic auction houses and ebay I see fewer comics being traded vs cards, makes it difficult to gauge which is traded more frequently."

Trading frequency and trading volume are not good contrast/compare
indicators of what constitutes a robust market in different collectible
categories.

A collectible category can experience VERY light relative commerce -
compared to another category - and still be robust and profitable.

"In the right forum is demand for comics as high?"

"Lust" for comics, if it could be measured, is likely higher than "lust"
for cards. I base that on traffic at comic expos, AND the number of
comic shops that survive/prosper.

As the comic "lusters" age and their incomes grow, the lust will likely
turn into a sales boom. Just as kids from the 50s and 60s now make
up a substantial part of card buyers, the kids buying cheap comics -
and lusting for expensive comics - today, WILL be back when their
wallets get fatter in 20-years and beyond.

Sports will continue to drive the interest of card buyers for years. But,
there is not much reason to think that driver will grab an increase in
the number of young folks who will become future card collectors.

Comics are character driven and the movies/tv/internet are the vehicles
that carry the product to the market. KIDS are super-vulnerable to those
carriers; AND, when their nostalgia-genes kick in down the road, they
will be chasing comics. (Some non-sports cards will also benefit from
the future chase.)

While I no longer buy green bananas, I fully expect that expensive comics
will outperform expensive cards in at least some out-year cycles.

..............
....................

I still think that the next few years may not reveal the absolute bottom
of the collectibles market. There is prolly no need to rush to buy stuff in
any category, UNLESS you can steal it.

IF times get as hard as I suspect they will, there will be plenty of buying
opportunities around the middle of the next decade.

akuracy503

As always Storm888 you are one of the most insightful contributors to this board.
Thanks for chiming in.

akuracy503

bump for the east coast evening crowd.

brian26

<< <i>IF times get as hard as I suspect they will, there will be plenty of buying
opportunities around the middle of the next decade. >>



I'd love for you to elaborate on this. I've read some of your other ideas on the economy, and I think we share the same gloomy outlook.

tunahead08

<< <i>


I'll tell you what the problem here simply is... I took a 9 year old to a baseball card shop this past week. He was all excited, because he had $4. After spending 30 minutes looking around the shop he was going to buy a few packs of 1988 donruss and 1989 topps... To be honest it really made me sad... he looked at the boxes on the counter from this years sets.... Topps Chrome $3.50, Bowman Chrome $3.50, Upper Deck Series 2 $6.50, Bowman Jumbo $13.50... etc...etc

I worry that many kids don't ever get started into cards with the prices they are at. >>



I wonder if it would almost be a good idea for the card companies to produce a "loss leader" product each year. Basically something that has a cheap pack price but still has good hits in it. Obviously they would probably lose money on this product, but the kids could actually afford it and might generate more interest for them. Not saying the product has to be the quality that UD Exquisite is, but something that still offers good auto's, etc...

Morgoth

I personally don't know why they don't do wrapper redemptions. You buy 10 packs of Topps and you can send them in and get your choice of 1 GU card, 20 a auto, etc. That would keep kids interested and give them a reason to bust packs. Also give them a reward for completing a set, such as registering a code for each card on the Topps site and when you get all the cards you get a prize.

vladguerrero

i think a lot of the money in comics that we are talking is modern stuff as opposed to golden age (people reading books, buying chararcter stuff they enjoy even though value may be low), which is the bread and butter for comic shops. i also think that long term potential is probably higher for comics, but really anything 1980 and later is pretty much worthless (in general) where as in cards there's crazy money in modern stuff, so based on your parameters (vintage 50's vs golden age) i think golden age will win out. personally, to beat the modern age of worthless comics I got into original comic art... which can unfortunately be a very expensive endeavor.

Morgoth

I agree modern comics are worthless to a point. You still have completists and fans buying them but the trades have really put a damper on back issue sales IMO. Its always the stuff you didn't see coming that breaks through in modern comics like the books Mouseguard or Chew. Everyone is going to buy Civil War or the newest crossover series so how's it every going to be worth anything?

Nobody even knew about them before they hit whereas everyone knows the hottest card sets before they hit its just a matter if you have enough cash to go open it.

I love me some comic art but again it's expensive (based on content and artist) as its always unique and 1 of 1 so it should be pricey.

The point again though is vintage comics are much harder to find and seem to be growing in popularity versus cards.

vladguerrero

I have a Alan Moore comic original cover art I might consider moving for cards if interested, lol...

Dpeck100

Comics video


This was just on CNBC in the past hour. A nice little segment on high end comics.

Morgan Brennan is by far my favorite female on air talent.

PaulMaul

I collect Bronze Age comics, '70s baseball cards and wacky packages. And the wackys are the true labor of love, because unlike the other two, wackys have such a tight demographic of popularity that there's almost no chance they will retain value well going forward. Baseball cards and golden age comics have already broken that barrier with many younger collectors going for material from before they were born.

Unknown

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PaulMaul

<< <i>I like Wacky Packages a lot. I see PSA 8's from 1973 selling for anywhere from $29-$99 on ebay (not the rare ones either).
Baseball cards in PSA 8 do not get that kind of price action, so I feel that the Wacky world does rather well.


>>



It's interesting participating in both of those communities. Early 70s baseball cards are so much more common in high grade, with so much more demand as well. There are multiple wackys from 1973 with no 9s and only a few 8s. The most common wackys have 9 populations of 10 or less.

I can have pretty much every 1973 baseball card in PSA 9 today if I have the money. Completing a single 1973 wacky series of 30 stickers in PSA 9 is a gargantuan task.

Unknown

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MikeyP

I collect both sports cards and comics. I rarely see young people in the shops. Memorabilia cards have helped to keep the sports card hobby afloat, and if it were not for Hollywood, Marvel would have gone out of business. I have no idea what the future will bring to the hobby, but I am sure that it will find a way to survive.

dtkk49a

Hmmm, let's see. I have $5 to spend - do I buy a pack of cards and wind up with 10 cards of people I don't know with names I can't pronounce or do I buy a comic with well known characters that me and my friends see in the movies?? Most packs are duds, kids quickly learn this.

Sketch cards are a good way to tie the two hobbies together. Some of the well known comic artists also produce sketch cards for the card companies. I collect artist proof hand drawn sketch cards, some are truly mini works of art and some command hundreds of dollars.

rtimmer

<< <i>Comics video


This was just on CNBC in the past hour. A nice little segment on high end comics.

Morgan Brennan is by far my favorite female on air talent. >>



I saw the segment too and thought it was very interesting. We will see if the Cage Superman record does fall but it should give us an idea of the comic market. I predict the record gets set.

As for the original post it seems both categories have performed very well since 2009 who knows what the future holds but I do see a lot more TV coverage for Comicon versus the baseball national and stories like the CNBC one so maybe it's time to sell the unopened collection and move into comics??

I miss Erin Burnett personally as my favorite on air female.

rtimmer

<< <i>

<< <i>Comics video


This was just on CNBC in the past hour. A nice little segment on high end comics.

Morgan Brennan is by far my favorite female on air talent. >>



I saw the segment too and thought it was very interesting. We will see if the Cage Superman record does fall but it should give us an idea of the comic market. I predict the record gets set. >>



My prediction is looking good so far it's at $1,750,000 with over 6 days left. High end comics are really looking strong.

Dpeck100

<< <i>

<< <i>

<< <i>Comics video


This was just on CNBC in the past hour. A nice little segment on high end comics.

Morgan Brennan is by far my favorite female on air talent. >>



I saw the segment too and thought it was very interesting. We will see if the Cage Superman record does fall but it should give us an idea of the comic market. I predict the record gets set. >>



My prediction is looking good so far it's at $1,750,000 with over 6 days left. High end comics are really looking strong. >>





Fantastic!

With what has transpired in many other high end collectibles I have got to think this will shatter records.