Let me put it this way.
Qatar Airlines lost my 1TB hard drive with all my images on it. (I know, back up everything.) “Good,” thought I, “now I can give up being a librarian of semi-nude photos and revise my novel.”
But now I find myself rebuilding my collection. But this time I am doing it right. Each photo labeled with meta-data, the key words tying into smart folders …
It is just a silly hobby really.
Coins are doing fine; although more people will call themselves “investors” than collectors today. The State Quarter series helped although as people find out that those quarters are basically just face value there could be a bit of a “cold water” effect.
What I fear more are the various special commems and Presidentials and all of that. I will disagree with Sam slightly and say that from what I saw, it wasn’t prices that hurt stamp collecting so much as the vast proliferation of commemoratives and special editions. When staying current went from $10 a year to $25 or more and everything was “50 this or 25 that”, folks just got tired and felt they were being used. If the US Mint follows the same path the USPS did 30 years back, the future may not be all that bright.
I think thats the key to collecting types of hobbies. If you collect something mainly motivated by its market value you better be rich or at least extremely determined.
If you approach it with the mindset of “hey, I like this one, I think its cool (for whatever reason), I am gonna get one for myself, and I don’t care that its not really worth anything”, then you are good to go IMO.
But, most people probably get sucked into the value aspect of collecting.
This needs to be repeated, because the “Investors” (or the hoarders) make it very difficult for new people to get involved in the hobby because all the affordable stuff is long gone. It’s a big problem in the militaria collecting community… there are people with militaria collections rivalling some countries’ National Military Museums and as a result they push the prices up on even “average” pieces, to the point where newcomers are priced out and can’t get involved.
Hmmm. What sort of semi-nude images? Starlets? Supermodels? Others?
I’ve become a coin collector in the last year or so - I’m 36. There are young people involved in the hobby, but the average age of collectors must be pushing 55. And overwhelmingly male.
Joe
Does anyone make a basic 99-cent (or less???) pack of cards? When I collected cards, maybe… 20 years ago, ISTR that Topps was still reasonably priced for new cards, and Score (I think that was the brand) and Donruss were a bit more. Upper Deck was like double the price, for high-quality cards. Fairly soon, within a few years, you couldn’t buy a pack for under like 3 bucks. Funk dat.
I’d definitely pick up a pack or 5 if I saw 'em for a dollar at the 7-11. Even a lower-cardstock-quality brand like Topps.
Joe
Pretty much all of the major companies make a cheaper set. Things like basic Score, Topps Opening Day, Upper Deck First Edition, etc. are $.99 per pack. Some of them are very large sets and have great photography. The only downside is that it is very rare to get a card with a book value of more than a few dollars. Not that that is a problem for the right collectors. A lot of people sill buy them because they enjoy making sets for a low price.
This is worth emphasizing. Truly serious collecting almost has to be a male-coded activity - to build an impressive collection of anything, you need both a high degree of single-mindedness and a willingness to compete, at least financially. And in our society, those are highly male-coded traits.
I’ve started and stopped several collections over the years. I’m neither single-minded enough nor competitive enough to really get it right; I just look for what gives me pleasure. You really need to do it for itself alone.
I’m 25 and have been a ham since I was 15 (in 1999). There are several other younger-than-30 hams in the local ham club here, and it still seems like a very active club and hobby to me. I also have a small ham radio related side business and the steady stream of customers I receive indicates to me that it’s still in OK shape.
I went through a short stamp collecting phase in my teens, but I never really got very far with it. There was a stamp shop in an out of the way corner of the shopping mall closest to my house. That mall is gone now (as of a couple years ago), but well before the mall went under, I noticed the stamp shop was gone and assumed that it had gone out of business. After all, I had never really seen any one go in there. However, I was surprised to notice just a few weeks ago that it is in fact still in business in a different (also out of the way, but standalone) location.
The comic book industry took a serious hit in the nineties.
It used to be, shops ordered comics and sold them. There were ad campaigns and rumors of what lay ahead and some customers would order ahead. Then, Advance Comics and Previews came on the scene. Now, you could pre-order from detailed information. Advance and Previews went to war. Previews won. It became the norm for all comics, and other comic store merchandise, to be pre-ordered through Previews. You had to get your product listed in Previews if you wanted to get sold in any shops.
The general public was told that collectibles were hot. This resulted in polybagged issues, hologram covers, chrome covers, acetate overlay covers, die-cut covers, and more. Knowing deep down that these issues would have no special value, but fearing that they would, comics fans bought two or three of each. The average public, convinced that these issues would be worth a fortune, bought more.
Superman died. This resulted in a consumer frenzy. There was a brief artificial market, non-comic readers desperately wanting the death issue.
All of this had a negative impact on stores. There used to be a dozen comic shops in the Philly area. Now there are four or five.
In the past two years, I’ve become too broke to keep buying comics. I think, and I’m not alone, the whole industry is in danger of dying out.
My criticisms of the comic book industry (as a layperson) are the convoluted, ancient storylines (They’re like a Soap Opera that’s been running since the 1930s and that you’ve got no chance of understanding in any meaningful sense unless you start at the start and go from there. That’s a lot of backstory to wade through) and the fact that many of the genre’s fans seem to take it all a little too seriously, as well as the high price of comics in general.
When I was a kid, you could still occasionally get Disney comics featuring Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Scrooge, et al (Many of which were, I believe, illustrated by Carl Barks). They were cheap, the stories were fun and generally “stand-alone”, and- let’s be honest here- nearly everyone likes the traditional Disney characters.
The last time I was in a newsagent I saw a Futurama comic and thought “I like Futurama! Perhaps I will get this comic.” But it wasn’t very big and the comic cost something insane like $8 or $9, so I put it back.
There’s also a lot of stigma attached to comics here as being “for kids”. I know they aren’t, but that’s the perception for a lot of people.
You remind me of another problem I forgot to mention.
Not enough comics for kids.
There was a time when all comics were kids’ stuff. Then, some underground artists began exploring adult themes- everything from subtle nuances of characters to ourtright pornography. Then, the mainstream companies began exploring comics for adults- things like Watchmen, V For Vendetta, The Dark Knight Returns etc. DC launched its Vertigo imprint. Marvel began publishing darker heroes and storylines (though they didn’t start their mature audiences MAX imprint until a few years ago). The Punisher, with all his grit and guns and knives was all over the place. Sure, other villians also wanted to kill Spidey. But, Venom wanted to eat his brain! Ghost Rider and the Midnight Sons were dark and gritty. What was left for little kids?
In the past few years, some comic companies have attempted to go back to the old days- stories no longer than one issue, no blood, grit, swearing or death. OTTOMH This trend is best exemplified by Big Bang comics. I bought an issue of Knight Watchman out of curiosity. It reminds me more than a bit of the Adam West Bat Man series. Knight Watchman is significantly less goofy. But that innocent wholseomeness is there.
Disney and Archie still publish a few monthly titles. Indeed, while the rest of the comic companies are facing uncertain futures, Jughead and Mickey Mouse are sitting pretty.
Re Cost
Up until the late eighties, comics were printed on newsprint using a three-color process. Any color was achieved by a mix of magenta, indigo and yellow dots. Then, comics switched to glossy magazine stock and computerized color separators. The result was comics that looked better, were more durable, and cost more. Add in comic artists and writers wanting more money (in many cases justifiably. The creators of Superman were underpaid, screwed out of rights, and died poor) and the price goes up further.