Question of modern comics value in the future....

[thewiseguy]

I'm pretty curious about this, with digital comics being made available for mobile devices, along with people pirating copies of comics, will comic books be as rare and valuable as older comics are to us now, in the future? What about volumes, would they hold the same significance as single issue books?

Not sure if it's a discussion thats been had here before, but I'm new, you can tell by my post count.... anywhos whats your opinions?

Personally I'm not too sure about their values, I've always been a fan of superheroes in mainstream media, but only recently really dug into the world of comic books mostly starting with the new 52, now from time to time I'll read some marvel stuff. I recently Picked up an issue of the all new captain america, sealed it during the purchase, never looked through it or anything since I read it through the marvel app.

[Dark-Flux]

Imo, nope.
For starters the market is smaller to begin with, so theres less demand. Then if you look at the most valuable comics they tend to be first appearences of the characters we still read today. Since the market doesnt take too kindly to new characters these days that doesnt leave much potential tor valuable issues in the future.
Then theres the fact that everbody saves and takes care of their comics these days, whereas early first appearence stuff are rare to find which jacks up the price.
The only real potential for valuable modern comics is to have a first issue of a more obscure indie book which later becomes huge i.e The Walking Dead.

Collections can become valuable if theyre rare and OOP. But thatll probably never exceed a couple of hundred dollars in value.

[DrGregatron]

I'd also say "nope", too. Older books that have retained their value have done so because there's still an audience for them. Mostly people who grew up with the characters, but the audience is shrinking steadily and hence demand. In the future, the comics being published today will be worth very little as the supply will far outstrip demand--people barely care enough right now to pay $4 for a mere sixth of a story.

[MRP]

I tend to agree that modern books will not hold value, but one caveat is that print runs now are much smaller than they were in the past. Digital and trades ameliorate that for reading demand, but there are actually fewer copies of modern books out there than any other comics from the Silver Age forward. Silver Age books are not scarce, even keys, but it is demand (not supply) that drives their value, though, and I don't see the demand being there long term for stuff currently being published to bring the lower supply into play to drive up or sustain values. If however, something were to fuel demand for a particular modern comics, that shorter supply would come into play and affect values.

Pretty much anything from the 70s onwards can be had cheaply unless it is high grade and a key. Movie and television speculation has driven up demand for certain first/early appearances from the 1970s-now, but those prices will sustain only as long as demand does, because there in not a scarcity of supply. Books that were dollar and quarter bin fodder for years, that everyone had written off as worthless have suddenly come into vogue and gained value because of movie and tv appearances (hello Rocket Raccoon in Hulk 271 or Nebula in Avengers 257 for example), but they were never scarce or rare, just not in demand, and now they are in demand, and thus have risen in value.

Comic pricing post-golden Age is not driven by supply, but by demand. The only way current/modern books will gain/maintain value is if there is a constant demand for them or an unexpected spike in demand for particular issues because of outside influences. My crystal ball is a little fuzzy in that regard, because no one ever expected Star Lord or Rocket Raccoon appearances to suddenly be in demand or have value either, so there may be current books that surprise people down the road by having value, but for every issue that does catch fire, there are hundreds if not thousands published the same years that do not, and inhabit the discount bins in perpetuity.

So no, I don't think modern stuff will gain/sustain value as a whole, except for the stuff that surprises us and does for whatever reason. Just like all comics from the 1970s to now. There are some that gain value for whatever reason, but the vast bulk of issues, and even lower grade copies of the ones that do gain value, that are essentially worthless. If we could predict which ones would gain and sustain, it would be one thing, but there is no formula for doing so.

-M