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The Dark Alley Club - Sad, seedy loners welcome.

Gentlemancorpse said:
@Agent Trent Hauser so I'm not a big marvel fan and had to pop over to the price guide, but @primaledges aint wrong... a few of those Xmen books are at least $50 each now
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Cool. Thanks, gents. They were bought to read, and were read plenty, so I never figured they'd be worth anything. You always hear about collectibles losing all their value as soon as they aren't mint, so I just figured they were more of a curiosity than anything.

@primaledges , did you notice the U.N.C.L.E one with the 15 cent cover price? IIRC, that's from the 60's some time.


Anyway, they've been safely tucked back into their shopping bag. :snoop:
 
Agent Trent Hauser said:
Cool. Thanks, gents. They were bought to read, and were read plenty, so I never figured they'd be worth anything. You always hear about collectibles losing all their value as soon as they aren't mint, so I just figured they were more of a curiosity than anything.

@primaledges , did you notice the U.N.C.L.E one with the 15 cent cover price? IIRC, that's from the 60's some time.


Anyway, they've been safely tucked back into their shopping bag. :snoop:
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What really makes collectibles valuable is scarcity. The reason old comic books are valuable is because people DIDNT take care of them. As time progresses, fewer and fewer mint copies are available, or they simply become unaffordable, so people become more willing to buy lower quality books/cards whatever to complete their collection. A lot of the 80s books are rising in value precisely because everyone thought they never would be valuable so they didn't preserve them. Same with the aforementioned magic cards... I used to use them to make my bike sound cool. But if we hadn't done shit like that, there would still be hundreds of thousands of copies and they wouldn't be worth anything. That's why finding value in modern comics is so hard, the print runs are huge and everyone boards and bags them immediately so there an endless supply. The only modern comics that end up becoming truly valuable are low print surprise successes, like the Walking Dead, or Saga. Or variants (wooo manufactured scarcity!)

Ive been predicting the rise in value of things like older Pokémon cards for years now for this exact reason. Kids were buying them and not taking care of them. But eventually those kids are adults with jobs and nostalgia and they want that card they used to have, or never found, and they can afford to pay for it, and because most of them are stuck together with bubblegum or in someones bike spokes, they become valuable.
 
Gentlemancorpse said:
What really makes collectibles valuable is scarcity. The reason old comic books are valuable is because people DIDNT take care of them. As time progresses, fewer and fewer mint copies are available, or they simply become unaffordable, so people become more willing to buy lower quality books/cards whatever to complete their collection. A lot of the 80s books are rising in value precisely because everyone thought they never would be valuable so they didn't preserve them. Same with the aforementioned magic cards... I used to use them to make my bike sound cool. But if we hadn't done shit like that, there would still be hundreds of thousands of copies and they wouldn't be worth anything. That's why finding value in modern comics is so hard, the print runs are huge and everyone boards and bags them immediately so there an endless supply. The only modern comics that end up becoming truly valuable are low print surprise successes, like the Walking Dead, or Saga. Or variants (wooo manufactured scarcity!)

Ive been predicting the rise in value of things like older Pokémon cards for years now for this exact reason. Kids were buying them and not taking care of them. But eventually those kids are adults with jobs and nostalgia and they want that card they used to have, or never found, and they can afford to pay for it, and because most of them are stuck together with bubblegum or in someones bike spokes, they become valuable.
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Ummmm dealers knew about magic. We called it “Crack N Ah Box” when the starter decks came out for 4th edition..... Just Saying.....??
 
primaledges said:
Ummmm dealers knew about magic. We called it “Crack N Ah Box” when the starter decks came out for 4th edition..... Just Saying.....??
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That's when they figured it out...I remember reading an internal memo from the Alpha release where the creators estimated people would spend no more than $50 a year each on magic cards after their initial investment in building a deck... my goodness were they wrong about that
 
Thank you, for the education, GC. I know that life is too short to be truly knowledgeable on all subjects, but I like to at least be able to ask reasonably intelligent questions when I meet someone who is an aficionado of a hobby.

You taking the time to type that helps push me in that direction.

Not sure how much will stick, but I've learned a lot of new stuff here today from you two uber-nerds. ;-P

Agent Trent Hauser said:
Mainly because I want to picture you guys cringing at these lovely old comic books that have been owned by a neanderthal and that have not been cared for or properly stored, here ya go . (sorry ;) )
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primaledges said:
But the condition ???...
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mission accomplished :ROFLMAO::LOL::ROFLMAO::LOL::ROFLMAO:
 
Gentlemancorpse said:
That's when they figured it out...I remember reading an internal memo from the Alpha release where the creators estimated people would spend no more than $50 a year each on magic cards after their initial investment in building a deck... my goodness were they wrong about that
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We knew when “The Dark” hit and we sold out the release day and had people asking for wax packs and willing to pay 20.00 per pack and the things were still CURRENT.
 
@Agent Trent Hauser anytime! Obviously I enjoy talking about this stuff. I could write a thesis on the economics of collecting.

It's so fascinating to me, because it's the one area of my life where I'm completely impractical. Otherwise I'm logical to a fault, but when it comes to nerd stuff, I'll drop a hundred bucks on a book that's gonna sit in a box without thinking twice about it
 
Gentlemancorpse said:
You may be the only person I know who's had more completely different jobs than me...
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Bwahahaha.... ADHD helps. I’m a high school drop out who supported a family of 6 comfortably. I’ve worked 5 different jobs at once. Comic books were my easy gig when everything else fell through. I actually did it from 90-93 almost full time. I only had 1 child and my wife was willing to travel. I’ve actually been working full time since 15 and the first three years I barely made it. I couldn’t keep a job for a week (ADHD) but I always worked. I was pretty much homeless from 16-18.
 
Gentlemancorpse said:
@Agent Trent Hauser anytime! Obviously I enjoy talking about this stuff. I could write a thesis on the economics of collecting.

It's so fascinating to me, because it's the one area of my life where I'm completely impractical. Otherwise I'm logical to a fault, but when it comes to nerd stuff, I'll drop a hundred bucks on a book that's gonna sit in a box without thinking twice about it
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My soul brother!!!!
J/K
 
Gentlemancorpse said:
@Agent Trent Hauser anytime! Obviously I enjoy talking about this stuff. I could write a thesis on the economics of collecting.

It's so fascinating to me, because it's the one area of my life where I'm completely impractical. Otherwise I'm logical to a fault, but when it comes to nerd stuff, I'll drop a hundred bucks on a book that's gonna sit in a box without thinking twice about it
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Good ol' Larry Gowan summed it up: We're a Strange Animal.

Hobbies are so irrational, but so vital. Don't ask me about fishing if you don't want your ear talked off with ridiculous minutiae.


 
@Gentlemancorpse The knife business came about because I was watching “Forged in Fire” and one of the participants made a comment about after being on the show he might get more than 50 bucks for a knife from a popular auction site. That got me to thinking, so I went on to the knife making boards (like this one) and found makers who complained about only getting 50-75 for a 300-400 dollar knife (what they should have gotten). So I proposed that I would be willing to pay what they were getting now (50-75 a knife). BUT, I’d buy 10-20 at a time minimum. Well they JUMPED at that. 9 different makers on board later and we were a hit. Until my middle daughter left and my youngest had no interest. I couldn’t do it alone. So that was that.
 
primaledges said:
I’m gonna be in denial. All my good stuff I’ve sold or my kids claimed as their own. Need commons, lands, etc I have em by the thousands.
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I had a lot of MtG cards, once.
Lots of Beta cards, most of Arabian Nights, full sets of Antiquities, Legends, The Dark, and Fallen Empires to name a few.
I also choose denial.

All I need is a Machine Gun Crab Deck (plus twiddle, maybe?)
 
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