Interesting and shows only worth collecting the super rare, in pristine condition. Always been this way and will continue like this in the future.

Comics may be somewhat different than pinball machines. We don't really know yet, but we'll find out.

Wow. The comments, at least the first few are interesting read as well.

It was nice to see them mention the climbing worth of X-Men #94 (first regular run X-Men comic with Wolverine and the rest of the "new" X-Men team) in the article.

Signed,

DugFreez (owner of X-Men LE (Wolverine) #94)

PS: I can also say most of these collectors in there 40's had collections of comic from the 90's. This era of comics is broadly the most worthless comics that have ever existed. The comic biz was booming in the early to mid 90's and that led to large print runs on most titles.

When they mention the guy having hundreds of early issues of the X-Men, I'm sure they are talking about the second series that started in 1991. If he had sever hundred of the original run (1964) he would probably have been sitting on several thousands of dollars worth.

Comics are nothing different. I buy them to read, not to store them in a sealed environment to make a fortune out of it. Of course I take care of them, don't want them to get dog-eared rags, but they're printed for reading.
And as a collector I'd like to read complete series, so reprints are great.

same thing happen to my old Topps hockey cards. Reprinted 3x. All my Steve Yzerman rookie cards are worth crap. Except for maybe the signed one. And they printed them in a way that you couldn't tell which was the reprint and which was the original.

I understand the companies wanting to capitalize, but change something up slightly so that you can tell which is a copy. Then maybe the originals would hold their value.

Brian

I would say it's good to look at comparisons but that you shouldn't read too much into it.

One thing that I think does carry over in the comparison is that when you start marketing an item as a "collector's item" it is less likely to be valuable. The true collectors items are usually things that nobody thought to collect, so they were destroyed, and it's hard to find original ones in good shape. Fabricated rarity never seems to have quite the same appeal.

The biggest difference is that pinball machines have an underlying revenue generating capacity. That provides a theoretical minimum value that frequently coincides with the popularity of the machine. Even classic cars have an underlying value in that they can perform their original function (moving people and items around) nearly as well as newly produced cars if they're in good shape.

The barrier to reprinting old comics is far lower than reproducing old pinball machines. So 99% of pinball machines will never even be considered for reproduction, and thus they will remain a permanently rare item.

The thing that would drive prices down most (which as someone who only has two, I say bring it on) is if the pinball's popularity exploded, leading to much larger factory demand, leading to many new, better and likely cheaper machines than before. That would cause downward pressure on prices old machines, but again probably not too much. That, or if the country/world suffered another major economic downturn, causing some major collectors to be forced to liquidate their collection at fire-sale prices. After all, it seems no one is willing to sell below perceived "market value" anyway, so only death or economic devastation will ever force them to.

Well, that sounds like a happy note to end on.

I bought full sets of topps cards from 1988-1992 thinking they'd be valuable in 20 years, was I wrong. Effectively anything printed after about 1980 barely has the original value of the card (maybe even 1/3). I think I sold the sets, the other various Sox cards from the early 80's, I looked up the value of each (which was pennies) and decided it wasn't even worth attempting to sell, so I tossed them.

I'm not sure you can completely compare the comic book or sports cards to pinball. One is simply printed material, somewhat easily reproduce able. Then you have pinball. Yes it can be reproduced, but you are talking hundreds of man hours to reproduce playfield art, hundreds of hours to reproduce backglass art, hundreds of hours and lots of capital to reproduce any plastics or metal ramps. The $8k MM might be pre-designed, but I think it's still a lot of work to recreate it depending on how much data was saved before williams pinball division closed down. Planetary pinball might have the rights, but you just don't know how much work they had to do.

Ask the Dutch about tulip bulbs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania

I am the guy with $15000 in comics in his basement. Ya, I got a few rare ones that are hermetically sealed but for the most part, my collection is worthless in comparison to what I paid. The fact that I lost money on them doesn't make the stories any worse and I still have my favs i enjoy reading from time to time. I would rather my kid take interest in them and start reading them rather then they go up in value(I wouldn't sell them anyway). I thoroughly enjoyed collecting and reading every one of them. I have a similar story about hockey/baseball cards but you get the idea. I think when people mistake a hobby for an opportunity for investment is kinda like a pyramid scheme. Sure, if you get in early you may make it the top but most lose money when it becomes a bust. I passed on a MB a few years ago that was 5k in mint condition because I thought it to high. Now they are 8-10K? I would rather pay 10 bucks for the Ultimate Spiderman graphic novel that contains issues 1 thru 100 rather then buy the originals for 2-3 bucks each. Long live the remakes! The pinball market needs a correction, IMHO

Not everything is worth a lot of money. Some people think that just because it is a number 1 or whatever it should be worth some coin. The fact is what makes it worth money is how desirable it is. Of course all those stupid reality shows don't help the situation where someone sells a paper cup for $100k, now people think that all paper cups are worth that - hey, extreme example.

But speaking of comics, I have a reprint of the Superman #1 (actually Action Comics) - but I seriously doubt that the release of this affected the price of the original at all.

Hockey cards are another, some cards are worth more than others, take say an original Wayne Gretzky rookie card vs a reprint...

Could go one about knowing people that have massive collections of items, of which is mostly worthless except for a few 'gems' in it....

The exact same analogy applies. Those who just want to have the game to play will have it and those who are collecting the originals will have theirs as well.

Same with comics, those who just want to read the material get the reprints and those who collect the originals can have the originals.

Yeah, the baseball cards and comics in the 80s and 90s, did some of the same things the pins are doing now. They were marketed as "collectors items", limited editions, mulitiple covers ("buy them all!"), etc. etc. My theory on it is that fabricated rarity doesn't create long term value. The problem with fabricated rarity is that the end consumer is almost always a collector that's going to treat the item with great care. So, as opposed to the pre-collector era where 5% of a run may retain near mint condition, now you have 95% of the run retaining near mint condition. In the short term it seems like the fabricated rarity drives up the price but in the long term the fabricated rarity almost never pans out the same as true rarity.

I sold 5000 comic books about 7 years ago for $500. I think the guide value at the time was about $20,000, but I couldn't find anyone to buy them for more than $500. I could have probably sold the good ones for more and gave away the rest, but it wasn't really worth the effort at the time. I was trying to clear out space for arcade games, and the space was more important than the money. Oddly enough, I have sold arcade games for way less than they are worth to reclaim space as well. lol

I always thought that I would be able to sell the comics and games for what I paid or more, but it wasn't really what drove me to collect them. I just enjoyed it. If anything, I used the investment argument to satisfy people who said I was wasting money. I really don't have a problem spending my money on things that I enjoy.

I also have a huge comic collection. I inherited it from my dad who bought it all for a thousand bucks from a buddy of his who was in dire straits around 1980. Now it sits in my closet taking up space. I like the cover art of the books but can't get into the stories anymore. I've thought about selling them, but it seems like a lot of work for not much money. Will trade for pinball machine? Heh.

I was in 3rd/4th grade during the era of "fabricated rarity" baseball cards that many of you are describing. I got sets for Christmas and my birthday. It was fun to have something "of value." Remember that 1986 Donruss Canseco? Years later I tossed all those cards when I moved. Not even worth the cardboard they're printed on. Maybe everyone throwing them out will create true scarcity in the future, who knows.

I'll buy all your comic collections. I'll even trade for pinball machines.

Comics are a bad comparison to pinball market. A better analogy would be the vintage/muscle car market.

Yes, I had pretty much everything....complete runs of Fantastic Four, Amazing Fantasy, Spider Man, Hulk, Iron Man, X-Men, etc. (1960's) At the time, Marvel was in NY and I knew people there. I was able to buy Jack Kirby FF pages for $50! If I only kept everything, my collection would be worth many millions today. I thought I was doing great when I sold my EC collection and bought a car. I then sold what was left of my comic collection (and some movie posters, to buy my first house)
...I had 2 copies of Amazing Fantasy (first Spider-Man issue). Bought them for $5 each and later sold them for $100 each! I thought I made a bloody fortune! Sold my Kirby pages for $500 each! (insert screaming face here) But, at the time, this was a HUGE profit.
...so recently I just checked and found about 6 long boxes of comics! Not sure what's there, but it's gonna be fun!

Interesting article. As someone who is completely removed from the comic book world, I always assumed that the market was thriving. You always read stuff in the paper or online about a certain comic that sold for an insane amount. I realize now that this only accounts for a tiny percentage of the comics out there.

I'm gonna start using this.

"Boy, I've spent a small fortune on black market antibiotics these year. They are gonna be worth a fortune when the apocalypse hits."

"Yeah, well, ask the Dutch about tulip bulbs."

I feel the same way.. about my comic collection as well as my pins.. unfortunately its not sticking.

I still have my small collection of comics from the early 80's. I know most of what I bought to read is worthless. Still keeping them though.

Day job is working a comic shop. I see it all the time. What the article doesn't tell you is there are collectors. Comic store are having a resurgence. But prices are down. I have multiple long boxes of comics for 50 cents. And they move. Almost 100 long boxes of $1 comics. People will buy enjoy and collect. At a price. Its just now what it used to be. I blame internet/ economy

How are silver age and bronze age DC comics doing?

Seems to me like the comic resurgence is with newer titles though, right? I've been reading Walking Dead, Fables, Kick Ass, Planetary, stuff like that. I like to buy the volumes instead of the single issues. I almost feel like its reverted back to people buying them to read them insead of a buch of hard core "collectors" who buy a copy to read, a copy to hold, all the different covers, etc. That menatilty of pushing "limited" versions to collectors always bothered me. It's just a marketing ploy. I don't like it with pins either. Jersey Jack sort of went that route by making the LE differences pretty much negligable.

yeah, the investor / speculator side of comics collapsed. comics as an enjoyable thing to read seems to be doing fine. I pray the same thing happens to pinball.

The reprints have nothing to do with it (imo). This are the lines that sums it up:

He’s not surprised by the lack of interest. “A lot of people my age, who grew up collecting comics, are trying to sell their collections now,” says Maroney, who works in IT support for Piper Jaffray. “But there just aren’t any buyers anymore.”

“More and more of these types of collections are showing up for sale,” he says. “And they’re becoming more and more devalued. The prices are dropping.”

This is 100% related to anything 'collectable' - cards, books, toys, yes even pinball machines. Anyone who is amassing this crap with the intent of making money has to find a BUYER someday. What the internet or a book will tell you about the value of an item is irrelevant if you cant find someone to exchange money for it, and if you now find tons of people selling because "prices are up" it becomes even tougher to find a premium buyer.

A few years back, it was apparently comics. Years before that, i remember all sorts of trading cards being huge, right now i see it as pinball. These are all hobbies that ebb and flow like fads - if you time it right theres cash to be made. Time it wrong, there's loss. None of it has anything to do with reprints though, much like I dont see remakes causing this decline in 'value'.

Comics, cards, pinball machines, aren't built or printed to make the end purchaser money - sometimes it happens, but it's usually because of an oversight or some random happening where people realize a value where there was none before, not because these items appreciate. No, the reason these items were made was for the end user to enjoy them (for whatever reason) and to make the manufacturer the money.

Once comics "took off" they just started printing sooooo many copies that there are STILL warehouses filled with unsold copies.

I get what you meant, but LOL!

I have a huge collection of 1st apperances and its value is worth more than what I bought them 8 years ago specially with all the marvel movies coming out makes them more desirable .....I bought a Xmen 1 for 1.5k excellent shape and now that comic got autograph by Stan lee and its priceless for me , but for other people might be worth 3k to 4k and if we're to be an perfect shape it would be worth waaaaaay more .....first apperances comic prices are not down , if it not a first apperance they are not worth a lot ....

I still collect comics... I know they are worthless the moment I buy them. I have no delusions of their rockbottom monetary value, but it's not about that. I buy them to read the stories and admire the art.

I better hurry up and sell my vintage movie poster collection.

Silver age stuff is still solid. Bronze is starting to come around. But just like pins. Condition is everything. It seams like high price / end comics sell faster than cheap comics. Which is weird when people don't have much money. I suppose its the same in pins. a fair priced mm or cc sells faster than a fair priced high speed, or pinbot.

That being said I sold a amazing spiderman 44 the other day for only $12. It was rough but still I can't believe how cheap that was.

With the new thing of having graded comics as the standard. There is a new type of customer. Where they are only looking for high grade comics they can press (sort of like ironing out winkles) and send in to get professionally graded. Then they flip on eBay. Its ugly but any comic store owner has seen em in their store and knows of this. As if comic store owners weren't getting the raw end before. Haha

This is the key. Don't buy pins, comics, whatever, because they are/will be worth $X.00 to someone else. Pay what the entertainment and hobby value is to YOU.

That's the best part!

Er, what do you have? I want stuff from 50's & 60's sci-fi/horror......got any??

That is mostly what I have. Spent too much time and $ on it before pins. I want to sell most of it, but the auction houses and sites take so much. That leading auction site takes up to 30% of the selling price!

What may hit pinballs is when the economy slows again (it will) and you have a group of people trying to sell the $8000 pinballs they bought to get their money out to live. If you have no takers locally then what?

The one thing people seem to be forgetting when comparing the pinball market to beanie babies or comics is that pinballs inherently have intrinsic value in parts alone. Real wood, plenty of metal & copper wire e.t.c. Even if nobody wanted your pinball machine to actually restore or play there is still materials to be had from it (unlike comics, stamps, beanie babies, & keychains)

This is what killed me. Put the comic in plastic and PAY someone to put a grade on it and only then does it have value. Shows just how far down the rabbit hole you have to go...

That's cool but getting it signed did not change it's value by more than $50 (or 3%) tops. The guy signs EVERYTHING and has for many, many decades. He may have signed more stuff than anyone else ever.

I think it's a mistake to think pinball is immune from the bubble cycle that hits virtually every collectible hobby on earth. look at comics -- the speculators and investors lost their ass, but the elements of that scene who simply like the content for its own sake are more or less thriving.

I would rather not have my comics signed unless I have doubles. Most serious buyers want proof of authenticity when purchasing signed comics/cards. How many bogus signatures are floating around out there?

Dang it Chip, you beat me to this thread...

Fortunately, you can't download an actual pinball game

More importantly, pinball machines are expensive to manufacture. Unlike baseball cards, comic books or beanie babies, they'll never be overproduced. Overproduction is what killed all three of those things. Last year, maybe 10k pins were built worldwide. in 1992, over 100k pins were built. Prices for pins will likely drop, but they won't drop like those other things.

I put all my money in pogs. I've got a sealed box of pogpourri series 3 that's worth $100k!

Could you PM me a list of what you have?

I go to a multi estate auction every month. There are always box fulls of comics, cards, beanies, barbies,trains,stamps, for sale. Some stuff goes for a decent amount, other stuff you can't give away. I've loved comics for 40 years. I learned to read, i think, by reading comics. But I would never invest in comics. Seems like a crime to buy a comic and immediately put it in plastic to "preserve" it. I have to admit I love the art. I can walk through a museum and feel nothing, but a lot of comic art, blows me away, especially Dr Strange early art. How do you make a character all dressed in black, visible in the shadows. How do you represent the character "infinity". How do you show the power and fury of the Hulk. Comic book artists are geniuses in my opinion. They do have digital comics now, you can read thousands of comics on your computer. I don't think reprints are to blame. Everyone knows a reprint is worthless. I've been suckered into buying special editions, holographic editions, number ones, only to see them on ebay for a dollar or 2. I think the economy and ebay are responsible for comics losing value. Something is only worth what someone else will pay for it. Guess what, moneys tight right now. Also, if you wanted a special edition, you were at the mercy of local comic shops. With ebay, you have thousands available of anything you want.
My parents always collected european stamps. Now they are practically worthless. They always said though, don't buy american stamps. America is so large they print millions, which makes them only face value. Thats happened to baseball cards and comics during the 90's, and today. I'd love a first edition spiderman, I'm not paying thousands for a comic book. I would love a MM Pin, but I'm not paying thousands for one.