Ok, so I've been a collector since as far as I can remember. My mom and dad used to call me a pack rat because I would walk around with about fity matchbox cars in my pockets when I was about five. I would bitch and moan when they'd try to get rid of them. But it didn't stop there. I eventually moved on to other things. In my adolescence, I moved on to comic books, but little did I know that they were a gateway to other things. I soon began gathering trading cards, card games, board games, guitars, hot wheels, and video games. If you walk into my home now, you will see them in every nook and cranny, bulging out from the seams of every pieces of wood and sheet rock.
It's fair to say I've been around the markets of each of the above mentioned things. I've seen the trends. I bought and sold, watched the markets, and studied each from a both a microscopic and macroscopic level. In total, I've probably put forth around thirty to thirty five years. In that time, I've learned to get rid of things out of necessity. But I've also learned that some of this stuff gets sold because, well, a guy's gotta pay the rent occasionally. After all, the age-old wisdom is that there's only two things you can count on: death and taxes; If you don't have bills, then you're dead. After all these years, I've decided it's time to lay out the carpet to some of you folks and explain some simple, yet unapparent truths about collectibles markets. Here. Follow me over the to the couch while we sit, have a beer, and chit-chat. It's time to tackle some common myths about collectibles.
1. Because it's rare it's valuable
First of all, I'm going to be blunt: this notion is horseshit. First of all, if nobody likes it, then nobody is going to buy it. It doesn't matter if there's only one in the world or a billion. Simple supply and demand rules the collectibles cosmos. If nobody wants, it, then it's not worth a whole lot of cash. Secondly, if something was pumped out in huge masses like, say, Mario Brothers for NES or, say, Deathmate Comics from the 90's, then chances are that everybody has a copy already and nobody values it; I wouldn't try to make money off these sort of things. Your brownie-stained copy of Combat for Atari 2600 from 1984 isn't worth 100 dollars. Get over it. EVERYBODY had that, and they got over it years ago. It's worth about a buck. Nobody wants that crap, and for pete's sake, clean that crap up and at least try to make it presentable.
2. It's only worth what someone is willing to pay for it
This is also horseshit. Now, I know, you want to point back to the previous paragraph and say "But! But!" Get a hold of your britches. So, you want to tell me that Action Comics #1 isn't worth anything if nobody shows up or is too chickenshit to bid on it? Again, horseshit. All things have an intrinsic value no matter what from what it stems. First of all, be patient because serious collectors are also patient, and you have to meet them on their own terms. Just because you have something to sell doesn't mean you are entitled to sell it. Get over yourself. Third, all markets follow a trend, a rise and fall between the spikes of the individual sales. This means that your 350 dollar toy may only be selling for 180 bucks next week. Everything that spikes quickly drops sharply, anyways. Finally, every fly-by-night buyer is looking for a deal. Buy low sell high. That's the name of their game. They aren't worried about the preservation or the significance to history or pop-culture your item may represent. If that means something to you, then don't sell it to the pimply thirty-year-old who has no concept of those things. I went into a comic shop in St. Louis. After an hour in there, I struck up a conversation about the Showcase Presents #1 they had on the wall. Turns out, they had about fifty offers but refused to sell each one of them because they were all from young kids with daddy's money. They said that a book like that has too much significance and intrinsic value to leave to the hands of an inexperienced kid who wasn't as serious about collecting as he thought he was. In Europe, you can't even buy a castle unless you properly maintain them; it's mandated by law! Taking these things into account, I hope some of you can see my point now. It doesn't matter if it's worth a million bucks or one dollar. Most things have value that exists outside the market, no matter how great or small that value may be.
3. They are selling for a ton on eBay, so they must be worth a lot of money
Firstly, if you get your prices from the listings on eBay, you are being lazy and perpetuating your own ignorance. You annoy serious buyers and sellers, and anyone who takes collecting whatever-it-is seriously.
When looking at eBay prices, the very first and most important thing you need to know is that whatever it lists for is not necessarily for what it is selling. You can find what your item is selling for (which is a very important distinction) by choosing to search using the advanced function and checking off "Sold Items". If you aren't dong this, then you are doing it wrong. Period. Plain and simple. End of discussion. All day long, you can find plenty of dollar items for sale by eBay opportunists for 1000% markup from what they would ever sell for. Don;t get trapped into the ruse. It doesn't work that way. Secondly, it's fairly well known that in the colelctibles arenas that there are some pretty mischievous accounts on eBay that buy and sell their own things. An example of this would be the strange appearance of a two-dollar copy of Beauty and the Beast on VHS that is occasionally seen to have been sold for a thousand dollars. Don't buy into that. That's likely someone buying their own item or a collaboration by a small group of people to make potential buyers think that it's worth that much, and in return jack the prices up artificially so that they can sell more for an outrageous profit. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of scams running all the time on eBay just like that, and the more you understand that, they better off you will be.
Now, the above paragraph doesn't mean that there are not regional or local markets, and when looking for collectibles then it's probably a good idea to explore those smaller markets. You can always find deals somewhere just like you can always discover outrageous prices most anywhere. But places like eBay represent a larger, overall market that spans several regions and maybe even more than one country. Price guides and professional auction services release data that represent these notions, and it should be taken into account when trying to price your items in general.
4. Graded Items
This is a tricky area to tackle, so I will start slowly. First, it's perfectly fine to want to get your items graded. There's nothing wrong with it. What's wrong is taking something that has been graded and adding a ridiculous value to it way above the market value of the item plus the value of the grade plus more than about 20%. There is value in a professional grade. There is value in the archival methods. Yes, there's even value in the time and effort made to achieve this sort of things. If you are mostly interested in preservation, then I would suggest checking out several different sources for grading items. I don't buy into the idea that one professional grading service is better or worse than another. Sure, there's going to be some differences, but if grading is subjective then there's absolutely no point in arguing that one is better in this regard. Plain and simple. Now, granted, if you happen to get an item graded by two or more professional grading services and there's a distinct, vast difference then you should use your own judgement. But if all you are doing is looking for the greatest monetary value then you discredit not only yourself, but the service, too, because it incentivizes the entire system of grading and those involved in it to raise the grade above what it probably actually is. Moreover, it simply flies in the face of the purpose of grading in the first place which is originally preservation anyways. Furthermore, it doesn't make much sense to take the average price of collectible in a raw state and then not apply that same logic to graded items, whether or it in regards to the grade or the graded market value.
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Ok, I'm just about of beer. This article is my opinion, first and foremost. This article should be taken that way at all costs. If ou agree with me, then great. If you don't agree with me, I don't care. But I hope that this might at the very least get you to think about collectibles markets in a different light. To give you an idea of where I am coming from, I love the history and the significance to pop-culture that these things represent and are apart. I want to preserve that. I want to have a part of history and that phenomenon. There's a personal philosophy that is so simple that guides my hand. Everyone is loking for some beauty in their life. Beauty is akin to some sort of perfection, however they view that perfection. I collect to achieve that perfection, that beauty, and I want to preserve that. Plato said [paraphrasing] that everything is a shadow of its true form, and collecting is a lot like that. I hope that perhaps I can get as close to that true form of whatever it is by taking part, in some way, in whatever it is that catches my fancy.
Enjoy.
Invino Veritas
8/27/18
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