Feb. 25, 2010

HOT TREND -- AND AN EVEN HOTTER ANNOUNCEMENT!

    There is a strange and at first glance seemingly contradictory phenomena occurring in the comics collectibles field right now.  Despite all of the new comic book tie-in movies in recent years, and assorted television series (including the new critically-acclaimed Human Target) new-issue comics sell fewer copies now than at any time in history (in part no thanks to massive price increases by Marvel, DC and the other publishers, and in part certainly to the deep recession we now endure).  Yet, curiously, and in the past few months in particular, certain key collectibles in the comics market have made dramatic price escalations.

     As I write this, an ongoing auction for a high-grade Detective Comics #27 is up to around $500,000 [2/26 update... the final hammer price on this just set another record... $1,075,500].  And the big news this week is, of course, the auction sale of an 8.0 graded copy of Action Comics #1 for $1,000,000 (that's 1 million!).  This shatters the previous comic sale record of $350k by nearly three-fold.  At the same time copies (in nearly all grades) of certain popular key issues (Fantastic Four #1, Avengers #1, Journey Into Mystery #83, and others) are selling consistently above guide at present (sometimes significantly so). 

    So why are comics on one hand seemingly in decline, while on the other are setting new records to an unprecedented degree?  There are a couple of possible explanations.  First, and very importantly, one needs to realize that the highest-grades, the rarest items, the best of the best in any collectible... whether it's books or coins or baseball cards... are rarely influenced by what is going on in more basic collectibles.  The folks who can spend a million dollars on a comic book probably aren't the type who are much affected by recessions.  Yet, that alone would not account for the dramatic price increases.  The wealthy are even more apt to be savvy to investment trends, and if they are spending record prices it is because they at least believe that even at these levels, they are making a sound investment.

    Moreover, there is a growing fear in financial markets that cash is not the safest place to be right now.  With the Fed printing more and more money out of thin air and government spending in runaway mode, there is a very real danger of high inflation.  And since inflation eats away at the value of every dollar you have just sitting around in a bank, many are looking to convert cash into physical assets.  In previous eras much of this money would have been put into real estate.  But with that market still depressed, collectibles of all sorts have throughout history been seen as a hedge against hard times, and may be seen as especially attractive now.

     So does this sudden demand for prime comic books affect the value of your more down-to-earth average collection?

    No.  And yes.  As stated above, premium collectibles are always somewhat of a world unto themselves.  Nevertheless, the move away from cash and into solid assets can well apply to collectibles both valuable and inexpensive.  The rule of course, as always, is to buy what you already enjoy as opposed to trying to guess the next market trend.  Then if your collection also appreciates down the road... that's a bonus.  Also... will these news-making record sales trickle down so that you will begin paying more for your back-issue collectibles?

     We're glad you asked.  Because at Bookery, we like to buck trends... always have... always will.  Just as we took the cliché of the "comic shop" as a dimly lit cramped and disorganized fan operation and turned it on its ear by creating Bookery as a bright, roomy, attractive and expansive megaplex, we are also re-inventing how comics collectibles are typically sold.

     Whenever you travel to shops around the country, or go to large shows, the vast majority of gold, silver and bronze-era books are pretty much priced the same everywhere.  The majority are at strict Overstreet guide (with big-city dealers usually pricing most books above guide) and are often over-graded to boot.  And it makes no difference if you're in New York or LA or the middle of Kansas.  Sure... you may get a "deal"... a discount off an already inflated price that reduces what you pay from "way too much" to just "a bit too much".

    Our grading is impeccable.  We are famous for our tight, consistent grades.  So when we discount a book below guide... it's a real discount.  In the past couple of years, we have been offering volume discounts on all our merchandise... new comics, collectibles, role-playing games, supplies, statues, etc.  These start at a minimum 15% and rise up to 25% or more depending upon volume of purchase.

    However... on older collectibles (1900-1980s), we've decided that isn't enough.  With tens of thousands of collectible back-issues in storage waiting to be processed we're going to need a lot of space.  And as one of the nation's largest buyers of comics and other collectibles, we are acquiring new collections all the time giving us volume flexibility many smaller dealers can't afford.  Couple that with the fact that Ohio is one of the states hardest-hit by the economy at present, and we say it's time our customers got a break even while other dealers' clients are paying record prices!

    For the next month or two Bookery will be re-pricing its older collectibles on a book by book basis.  There will be no need to reach a $100 or $500 plateau in order to get a great deal on a collector's item.  Besides... all collectibles are not created equal.  One should expect a better discount on a slower-demand book than on a hot-selling item.  The vast majority (90+%) or all of our platinum-age (1890s-1932), golden/atomic-age (1933-1955), silver-age (1956-1969) and bronze-age (1970-1989) comics will be priced 20%-60% below guide.  All of our collectibles will be priced with dealers in mind (i.e., so that a dealer can buy our books and turn around and make a profit re-selling them to one of their want-list customers).  But though this is a great deal for dealers and internet-sellers, it's an absolutely fantastic deal for regular collectors and investors.  Imagine if you could buy stock or gold at a discount below the listed value... at Bookery it's as if we've turned all of our customers into elite insider traders (but legal!).  And for even bigger bargains, as always, we have our Discount Warehouse, where currently we have 35,000 back-issue comics priced at only $1.00, thousands of paperbacks and magazines (including collectible editions) at only $2.50, hardback books at $7.50 (or less), and graphic novels at 50% or more off retail.

     Bear with us during the transition (older comics not re-priced with the new red "bargain price" labels will still be available at the previous discount levels), and look forward to Bookery's new Golden-Age of comics bargains... just in time for the current resurgence and interest in older comic books as hot collectibles!

November, 2009:

 THE FORGOTTEN COLLECTIBLE?

             The prices of older comics, of course, seem to keep moving ever-upward, even during recessions.  Interest in pulp maga-zines exploded starting about 10 years ago, and now even pulps that used to be common are getting tough to come by.  Men's Adventure magazines from the 50s and 60s have moved out of the 50-cent bins and, in some cases, are now bringing serious money.  Literary first editions keep setting price records, and original art has skyrocketed.

             And although the rarest paperbacks can fetch record prices in high grade, many of these once-touted collectibles have resisted major interest.  A number of once prized editions are still selling for about the same as they were 10, or even 20 years ago.  And even more oddly, there have been more books about old paperbacks recently than ever before.  Holroyd's expansive price guide came out in 2003.  Lovisi put out a paperback price guide in 2008, and though the prices are highly-inflated (maybe in an attempt to counter the seeming stagflation), it is an attractive edition filled with nice color images.  He followed this up with Dames, Dolls & Delinquents (2009), a large-format pictorial softbound concentrating on the sexy-girl covers for which the paperback format is renown.  Lesser-known (and less-useful) guides have been produced by Jeff Canja in 2005 and 2009.  But that's just the tip of the iceberg... in the past decade there has been a flood of picture-books and paperback histories... The Great American Paperback,  Hardboiled America - Lurid Paperbacks and the Masters of Noir,  Dope Menace -- The Sensational World of Drug Paperbacks 1900-1975,  Strange Sisters - The Art of Lesbian Pulp Fiction 1949-1969,  Over My Dead Body -- Sensational Age of the American Paperback 1945-1955,  Sin-A-Rama -- Sleaze Sex Paperbacks of the Sixties,  books on TV tie-ins, plus large-format editions on popular paperback artists such as Robert McGinnis, Norman Saunders, James Bama, James Avati and Richard Powers.  And when Quentin Tarantino named his movie "Pulp Fiction"-- he wasn't referencing the true pulps of the 1890s - 1950s... he was giving a nod to the hardboiled paperbacks of the '50s and '60s.

    With all of this attention, you'd think paperbacks were actually a hotter collectible than comics!  And yet, judging from our 25-year experience operating a nationally-known collectible comic, pulp and book store, most people have little knowledge about paperbacks, and only a few seem to be actively collecting them. 

    The reasons why are not entirely apparent.  Some have suggested the small format might be a possibility... the artwork simply isn't as large as it is with pulps and comics.  On the other hand, they are easy to store and display (we find about 80 or more fit on a standard 4-foot retailer shelf... about the same number as with DVDs).  They are certainly easier for beginner collectors to obtain than pulps.  Paperback art has numerous artist crossovers with the pulps, and many pulp authors saw thier first book publi-cation in paperback format.  And in terms of price (at least so far) they are an absolute bargain when compared with comic book prices of the same eras.  And while the biggest names in comic book history have always been dominated by artists, paperbacks have an advantage in that they can be collected for famous authors or famous artwork.  And like the earlier pulps, paperbacks generally have more exciting and often more outlandish art than the tamer comics books (even pre-code).  Moreover, unlike pulps whose popularity may eventually wane as new generations may forget about a format that died out in the 1950s, paperbacks continue to be a mainstay of American publishing right to the present, meaning their early history is only enhanced as the publishing tradition grows longer. 

      While the earliest paperbacks tended to be reprints of classic novels, in the 1950s and 1960s, particularly, hundreds of paperback originals began to appear.  In paperback terminology, an "original" is the very first book publication of a title.  A "first edition" often refers to the first paperback printing of a book previously published in hardback.  Both can be collectible, although originals often command the best premiums.  Famous authors whose earliest works often came out first as paperbacks include Louis L'Amour, John D. MacDonald, Philip K. Dick, Harlan Ellison, Jim Thompson, Charles Willeford, Robert Bloch, Richard Matheson and many many more.   

      The first "official" paperback is the first printing of the first Pocket Book in 1939 (a high-grade copy of that rarity might bring you $10,000).  But as with comics (whose "official" first is 1933), in reality there are paperbacks of one sort or another (and comic books) going back to the late 19th-century.  Many of these early volumes have yet to see an authoritative guide or checklist, mean-ing, unlike comics, there are hundreds of titles still waiting to be discovered and catalogued in an accessible manner.  And while most paperback guides tend to run for the most part through the 1960s, those who do seek out offbeat titles are more and more looking to some scarcities from the '70s and into the '80s.   

   Those that have always collected paperbacks, approach it from a number of different ways.  Traditional price guides have emphasized titles by publisher ... and early collectors sought to complete entire runs of a brand such as Gold Medal, or early Dells, or the very rare L.A. Bantams (not to be confused with the mainstream Bantam publisher).  Others seek out "hot" authors such as those listed above (the hardboiled noir authors are especially popular).  Today it is more common to see collectors seek out "good-girl" covers, or those with highly exploitative themes, and as more books are produced about certain artists, they too will have their specialist collectors. 

    But it remains to be seen if paperback collecting will reach the same popular heights of some of those other areas men-tioned in the first paragraph.  Still-- pulps had only a niche collector base until a few years ago... and although that market is still tiny compared to comics, demand has certainly begun to outstrip supply.  And men's adventure magazines were almost totally ignored until several recent books centering on their artwork began to appear.  If the paperback market ever does start to match the explosion of interest in books about paperbacks, then today may be one of the last times when these "forgotten" gems will seem to be truly inexpensive bargains.