More than a handful of people who’ve known me have joked that I’d sell anything. While I don’t believe that’s true I will admit to looking for margin in just about everything I buy because you never know, one day you might want to move it. Shoot, I’m looking for wholesale prices on dinner even, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be looking to flip it later.
When it comes to collecting and collectibles I’m much more cutthroat than I am in other areas of life. The years have taught me that today’s collection is tomorrow’s profits, a jaded sentiment though I suspect it’s often the case. I’d remarked in my last article about poorly conceived investment portfolios which usually produce either a loss or another new dealer at the end of the rainbow. While I do admit to the existence of a much purer type collector who collects solely for pleasure with no immediate thoughts of cold hard cash, experience arouses in me a suspicion that they will very likely hit a wall at some point and look to cash out. I could list the reasons, but I’d rather point you to Worthpoint where Harry Rinker is currently in the middle of an excellent series about Why People Stop Collecting.
Despite all of that there is one area of collecting in which I’ve never succumbed to the dealer’s lure, it’s what I consider the purest of any of my hobbiest’s pursuits, and as you might imagine by the title of this piece it’s comic books.
I am the sporadic comic book collector, blissfully ignorant of hobby terms and practices and participating only through my purchase power which over the years has unleashed itself at drug stores, newsstands, hobby shops, and eBay, until finally I found a great online resource that I’ve already cemented as my future point of purchase by finding my way back after one of my regular collecting sabbaticals.
Collecting sabbaticals? Yes, because while I do have a comic book collection and it does include comics which date back to my formative years in the 1970’s it’s a hobby which has never been able to demand my attention for more than 6-8 months at any one time. By then I’ve moved on, either towards other interests or in the interest of choking off my bleeding wallet. But by this point I’m sure that I shall one day return for another 6 months or so of deep immersion inside those ever more vibrant pages which seemingly cost just a wee bit more each time I’m sucked in. Could be after I log out of here, might not be til 2015. I don’t know, all I know is it’s coming again … sometime.
My father collected comic books and while his collection was liquidated just prior to my memory bank kicking in there are a handful of comics that survived his sell off to form the nucleus of my own collection. Dad collected from the 60’s into the mid-1970’s, and as with other collecting interests I’ve seen him bite into over more recent years he did so both methodically and somewhat obsessively. He collected exclusively DC titles and somehow passed that interest down to me. He collected as I do, when I am, and that’s by purchasing all of the current issues of collected titles as they’re released and then allotting any spare funds to back issues. His collection consisted of complete runs of the main DC titles: Batman, Detective, Superman, Action, etc., down to the early 1950’s. He sold them all in bulk to a local magazine shop for 10 cents per book.
I had to take a deep breathe after typing that last line.
But hey, it was the 70’s and I suppose at the time he was probably pretty lucky to get much of anything for them. Well, still, a dime apiece seems light even in retrospect, and you can bet I still get to hear about it every time I mention the bug biting me again.
My collecting usually gets sparked up when I catch wind of something big going on in the DC Universe. I believe most recently it was the return of Silver Age Flash that got me going. While I like my comics to look nice I really don’t dwell too much on condition–I’m in this game for the stories. So if a Very Fine copy isn’t in stock I’m happy to settle for a VG. Shoot, if it’s an issue missing from a run I’d take it with the covers off, though I’ve never had too!
Each time I dip my feet into this world I find something new to obsess over. I can recall that it was Green Arrow during my early 90’s foray, Jonah Hex mid-decade, and a couple of years ago it was Adam Strange. Usually what happens is that initial interest is somehow stirred and then I’ll pull my existing collection out of storage and just start reading. Maybe I’ll catch a reference to a character or even a cross-over appearance and then curiosity is aroused and I’ve got to pursue that heroes past exploits as far back as my budget allows.
I’d mentioned earlier that my comic book collecting had never sparked the dealer in me, but I do however have one recollection of selling out. It was just a single issue that had come from a small stack leftover inside my grandparent’s house. It wasn’t from Dad’s collecting days as an adult, but a leftover from his youth. It was beat and beat bad. I mean it did have covers, but they were more or less hanging onto the binding by a thread. The comic was Fantastic Four #2 and it made me curious enough to peek inside a comic book price guide for the only time I can recall. I’m operating solely on memory here and this was nearly 20 years ago, but I want to say it booked about $1,800 at the time. I happily pocketed $75 from a local shop where I was a walk-in who’d never visited before.
Why’d I sell? Fantastic Four is a Marvel book, wasn’t interested!
As the unicorn of which you speak (the “much purer type collector who collects solely for pleasure with no immediate thoughts of cold hard cash”) I will admit that everyone has a price. 😉
I don’t think of it when buying, or admiring, but I know it’s true. In fact, we play a game ’round here called, Keep Or Sell?
The game is played during American Picker, Pawn Stars, Roadshow, etc. Whenever one of us sucks air in through our teeth (similar to mating calls, a collector’s signal that this object is to be “theirs, theirs all theirs”) the other waits until the price or value is given then asks the dreamily in love collector, “Keep or sell?”
Sooner or later, one will admit to “sell” — because everyone has a price. And if one of my items, no matter how riddled with “priceless” qualities, could, say, buy me a house, I’m darn sure I’d take the cash. And then hunt for another one. Because that’s what I do. Only then I’d operate out of and store things in a better house 😉