Is it just me or are prices for current collectibles/toys getting out of control

[spooky]

Sideshow has  raised their prices quite a bit.Busts are almost double the price compared to a couple years ago.

As far as comics go I buy everything in tpb form nowadays.You can get em from Amazon sellers dirt cheap.I bought a couple of those huge Marvel Essentials books for a buck a piece recently.

[CreepysFan]

  I buy very little newer stuff, as it's the vintage items that catch my eye.  I'd rather pay a high price for something from my time period, than the same price for something new.  I think prices are up in all categories.  I've had to cut back and be more selective.

[BaronLatos35]

I have definitely thinned out my comic list. I haven't been to the shop in 3 weeks, so this $3.99 a issue is news to me, which means less buying.

I do love going to the Baltimore Comic Con and picking up $1.00 issues and $5.00 GN's.

[Paul L]

I only buy something these days if I really, really want it. I maintain my Scary Monsters subscription, & basically keep my eyes open for something that I truly can't live w/out. And like many of you, I prefer a vintage or a retro item in most cases.

Right now I'm saving my $$ for a few movies that have yet to see a DVD release, & Deb Painter's FJA biography.

[Gillman-Fan]

I see a couple different issues here:

Modern/current monster collectible prices are indeed quite high (and a weak Dollar compounds the issue) but sales outside the US are still pretty brisk.

Comics are an entirely different matter. In relation to new titles, the print industry is basically dead and publishers profit margins are razor thin even with bloated cover prices. Vintage comics ceased to be just "collectibles" several years back when (non-comic fan) investor/speculator-type started treating them like a commodity . . . essentially f*cking the market for everyone. The days of picking up a copy of something like X-Men #94 off the rack for 25 cents and having it mature into a major nest egg are over IMO.

I'm not a big monster collector but I fear that the ongoing world economic problems could result in a market flooded with previously "rare" items. Values can go down.

[NekroDave]

Wow. A full dollar increase? Across the board? I hadn't heard anything about it since I haven't been buying comics since, oh, about January or so, I think. But with a new job potentially soon, I was thinking of getting back into it. But not now. I'll keep buying Walking Dead and maybe a couple others, but it'll be severely limited compared to before... and before I was only dropping about $50 a month.

As for the toys, etc... I'm in the same boat as most of you guys. I typically won't spend more than $100 on any new item anymore, unless it's a set like the Amok Gort/Klaatu since you get 2 for the price of, well, 2. But in general I'm fed up with paying the "otaku tax".

[Barlow]

Here is an analysis of comic prices vs. minimum wage I did some time ago. I gotta update it. It compares the price of comics and the number of comics a kid could get in any given year in exchange for one hour of work, based on minimum wage at that time. Notice how it changes drastically in the early 80's, just when all the great runs were, well..running out!  Years with two prices shown are followed with the month/year of the price change in parentheses. Thus  1961: .10/.12 (12/61)  means that prices for comics were .10 until December of 1961, when they went up to .12 each.

Comic Book Prices By Year:

1960:  .10
1961:  .10/.12 (12/61)
1962:  .12
1963:  .12
1964:  .12
1965:  .12
1966:  .12
1967:  .12
1968:  .12
1969:  .12/.15  (7/69)
1970:  .15
1971:  .15/.20/.25* (11/71,12/71*)
1972:  .20
1973:  .20
1974:  .20
1975:  .20/.25 (7/75)
1976:  .25/.30 (9/76)
1977:  .30/.35 (11/77)
1978:  .35
1979:  .35/.40 (5/79)
1980:  .40/.50 (9/80)
1981:  .50
1982:  .60 (1/82)
1983:  .60
1984:  .60
1985:  .60/.65 (4/85)
1986:  .65/.75 (2/86)
1987:  .75
1988:  .75
1989:  .75/1.00 (9/89)
1990:  1.00
1991:  1.00
1992:  1.00
1993:  1.00
1994:  1.25 (1/94)
1995:  1.25
1996:  1.25/1.50 (7/96)
1997:  1.50
1998:  1.50

* November 1971 saw both Marvel and DC increase prices from 15¢ to 25¢ with the number of pages in the title increasing from 36 to 52. One month later, in December, Marvel returned to 36 pages and lowered its price to 20¢. DC would keep the 52 page/25¢ format for another
year.

Comic Price vs. Minimum  Wage By Year:

1960 - Comics 10¢, wage $1.00, get 10/hr.
1961 - Comics 10¢, wage $1.15, get 11/hr.
1965 - Comics 12¢, wage $1.25, get 10 /hr.
1970 - Comics 15¢, wage $1.60, get 10 /hr.
1974 - Comics 20¢, wage $2.00, get 10 /hr.
1976 - Comics 25¢, wage $2.10, get 8 /hr.
1977 - Comics 30¢, wage $2.30, get 7 /hr.
1978 - Comics 35¢, wage $2.65, get 7 /hr.
1980 - Comics 40¢, wage $3.10, get 7 /hr.
____________________

1981 - Comics 50¢, wage $3.35, get 6 /hr.
1982 - Comics 60¢, wage $3.35, get 5 /hr.
1985 - Comics 65¢, wage $3.35, get 5 /hr.
1986 - Comics 75¢, wage $3.35, get 4 /hr.
____________________

1990 - Comics $1.00, wage $3.80, get 3 /hr.
1994 - Comics $1.25, wage $4.25, get 3 /hr.
1996 - Comics $1.50, wage $4.75, get 3 /hr.
1997 - Comics $1.50, wage $5.15, get 3 /hr.
____________________

1960-1975 = 10 comics/hr
1976 = 8/hr
1977-1980  = 7/hr
1981 = 6/hr
1982-1985 = 5/hr
1986-1989 = 4/hr
1990-1997 = 3/hr


If anyone can supply me with a list of comic book prices by year from 1998 on, I'd be most grateful! 

[Gillman-Fan]

Comic books seemed to get pricier as the median age of the consumer got older IMO. It felt like comics were 10¢-12¢ for an awfully long time before leapfrogging all over the place.

[hammerfan]

DC and Marvel seem to be keeping comics going just to have their brand out there. They are making so much money from the movie industry ( even the bad movies) and merchandising that the comics are very low on the totem pole. They seem to have forgotten the fans who have made them what they are. After all wasn't Marvel in near bankruptcy a decade ago? The Blade movie saved their bacon. I know its all about dollar the cents, but they should keep their products affordable for the fans who support them. 

[hammerfan]

More proof the DC and Marvel have lost interest in the comic book biz is the fact that they both  recently pulled out of the Wizard World Chicago show at the last minute. this is a MAJOR blow to that show and might even cause it to be the last one. That would be bad because it has become a major comic show and the biggest one in the Midwest. If it goes by by we will have to try to get out to NY of san Diego for a major show.

[MDG]

Comic books seemed to get pricier as the median age of the consumer got older IMO. It felt like comics were 10¢-12¢ for an awfully long time before leapfrogging all over the place.

Well, they stayed at a dime for decades, but the page count went down during that time, so there as a hidden price-per-page increase. But in the 90s, you ended up paying 2-3 dollars for what turned out to be a sliver (of a seemingly endless story) that you could read in 10 minutes.

[Bogey]

My major collectible is classical cds, and many of these are coming down because you can buy used ones since most folks are dumping their old due to download capability.  So I am cheering on the downloaders and picking up their scraps.  Classical vinyl is usually cheap as well.  Now, as for my hot-rod vinyl covers, that is a another story.

As for monster stuff, I have all but stopped buying anything new.  In fact, when it comes to old, I have made a new rule that I am only allowed to buy what I actually find.  This keeps my buying in check and makes the hunt (which is my favorite part of collecting old toys) stay alive and well.

[Toy Ranch]

Yes, of course, but shipping for a vintage 3 ounce troll for $10 on top of the $25 for the troll is just outrageous!  $35 for a troll that is really only worth $25?  Well, I skip over those.  The greedy ones miss a perfectly good sale.  I keep my shipping prices reasonable when I sell.

For years, I sold stuff on eBay with fixed price shipping.  I have been in mail order for longer than eBay has been around and can usually look at something and guess pretty well about what it's going to cost to ship.  eBay changed things up and now to take advantage of their search features, you need to offer weight based shipping.  I never thought of it in those terms before, so now I'm having to re-learn my guesstimating skills based on weight.  The thing is, I ship worldwide, so the weight of something in a priority mail box is different than the weight in a box packed for shipment to say...  Australia.  The cardboard is going to be denser, and depending on the item, I may need to give it more packing to keep it safe.  But I can't have 2 shipping weights... one for the US and one for International.  And even if I could, I don't know what box I'm going to find or how much it's going to weigh to send overseas.  Being a couple ounces off can mean dollars, not cents.  I sold a record to someone in Greece the other day for $9.99 and the calculator charged $15 shipping based on weight.  In the US, it would travel Media Mail for $2.77 and the cost goes up a few cents if the weight changes to the next pound.  The record cost me $19.46 to send because the weight was a few ounces more than I had put in the calculator.  Ouch!  After eBay and PayPal fees, I ended up with about $2 for the record.

Meanwhile, I was looking for a digital camera for my wife.  I found what I thought was a good one, but the shipping quote was $18.75  I asked the seller about the shipping rate, and he said he put in a weight and that must be what it said it would cost, but if it cost less he would refund the difference.  Well, it cost $7.10 to ship, so I got $11.65 back.

That troll is "worth" $25 to you, so you shouldn't pay more than that.  To someone else, it might be "worth" more or "worth" less.  The seller charging $35 for it may have paid $50 back in the 80's when troll prices skyrocketed for a while, you never know.

I have items in my eBay store that are for sale at prices most folks aren't willing to pay, yet they sell.  They just sell slowly.  I may not care if they sell at all.  It costs 6¢ a month to have it in my store, so 72¢ a year.  If someone comes along and pays my price, I'll sell it.  Otherwise it still looks great on the shelf.  Frequently it's not "greed" that causes me to price it like that, it's that I paid too much when I bought it!  Anyway, there are all sorts of reasons why people price things as they do, both the item and the shipping. 

Tying the post back to the discussion at hand...  if the total cost is something that's acceptable to you, buy it.  If not, move on.  There's never a shortage of stuff to spend money on.  Right now I'm essentially not spending any money on my collection (except the odd thing on occassion), but I can find ways to acquire things that give me pleasure, by trading, by making things, etc.  I don't miss not buying monster toys because I'm busy with other things, and when I get back to monster toys I'll be happy with that too.

[Bogey]

I will throw in my quick two-cents about Ebay.  In short, I have made over 300+ purchases.  Out of the 300+, every single one was a perfect transaction, save one, where we accidentally bought the item twice.  The seller fixed it up for us and all was right.  I shop a lot there for gifts for others, rare classical cds that I must have before I kick off, and that sometimes hard to find Christmas toy for the kiddos.  Glad she is around and that sellers like you keep using it , Bobby.

[CreepysFan]

But in the 90s, you ended up paying 2-3 dollars for what turned out to be a sliver (of a seemingly endless story) that you could read in 10 minutes.

   

  In the sixties and seventies you got a decent story with a few ads thrown in, now your paying for 50% ads if not slightly more.  Since the companies are making money on this extra ad space, I can't see the price increase for less product.