Hi there my fellow comic enthusiast.

I know some of us have had this discussion in the past on other boards but I wanted to start it back up again.

What do you think caused the Comic/Collectible Bubble to burst?

Was it an over flow of new wood be collectors trying to make a quick buck?
Or was it eBay? Was the New York post responsible for some of the explosion and then the burst?

Just what caused the bubble to grow in the first place? And just what is this bubble I am speaking of?

The Bubble is the rate in witch the comic and collectible world grew by leaps and bounds, almost over night.

Well I say that the breaking point was the NYT..Once they published that article about comics and toy collecting being the next big stock the so called collectors mobbed the comic and toy shops looking to buy up what ever was the hot Item at the time.

And while this was gong on the wonder full world of eBay just started and people were making a killing on pez, lunch boxes,Toys and comics, and as eBay grew so did all the people trying to make a quick buck...

The out come was an over flooded market driving down the prices.
As the prices began to fall people began to sell off what they had in a panic, causing more flooding..Then POP!

What exactly went POP and Fizzle? The word "RARE" that's what.

One word brought your prices way up, and the killing of the same word brought your prices crashing down.

Now just what do I mean by that. Well think about the word Rare and what it means. Rare means hard to find or one of a kind or limited run.

Now with eBay you can find almost anything any in the world for sale..So what does that do to the word Rare? Makes it go away..
So now things that were Rare before the net/eBay are now common cause they are easier to find and purchase and sell.

So there is truly nothing Rare..You can now find it for sale somewhere on the net.. Unless it truly is a Rare one of a kind piece or extremely limited amounts or low production numbers made and even then there is no guarantee.

So all the things I have listed IMO are responsible for the bubble bursting.

So what do you all think? What do you think killed the comic/collecting world?

Well things can still be rare, but there are more people using the word than there should be. People slap "RARE" into an eBay title nowadays just because they know more people will look.

Yes the word itself is over used in auctions..But the true meaning of Rare is lost cause nothing is truly rare anymore, Unless it's a one of a kind, unique.

Take Star Wars for example. Most of the 1978-79 toys were worth a fortune cause there weren't as many collectors of the toy. Sure we all had them but few of us collected them.

Then in the late 80's the toys started to command a hefty prices in Comic collectible shops and shows. (cause that's the only place to go to get them)

Then in late 96 the collectible world was turned on it's end by this new Internet site called eBay.
Slowly the collectors came and bought. As the home PC became easier to have in ones home people started to sell more and more stuff from their attics and storage units. Slowly building up speed until the late 90's to 01 Then BOOM!

Now all the people who bought them up as good investments are finding the market flooded with the same Rare stuff they have and they can't even get what they originally paid for them..Thus driving the market way down and putting off future collectors or resellers.

The only reason the old stuff is worth anything is because it's old and none realy thought of collecting them back then. (Only a hand full)

So it's going to be a while before the term "Rare" will really mean just that rare (hard to find).

So in part ebay is responsible for the comic/collecting bubble to burst. IMO

I think eBay should just ban the use of the word "rare" in auctions. It doesn't mean anything there now.

As for the bubble... I wouldn't place the blame for that on eBay so much. It wouldn't matter if people were selling on eBay, to a comic shop, or at a flea market. The real reason behind the pop was overproduction when the bubble was growing.

People looked at comics and collectibles as an investment because of news stories of old comics like Batman #1 selling for $25,000 or similar prices. That's why people started buying comics as an investment - they thought that in a few years, their shiny #1's would be worth $25,000, too. They didn't stop to think comics used to be printed in smaller quantities or that it took Batman #1 60 years to reach that price.

The comic companies took advantage of the investment buyers to make a lot of money by producing tons of books to meet the demand. Books like X-Men #1 in the 90's were printed with five covers or flashy holograms or foil. Gimmicks designed to increase demand that worked at the time.

The bubble popped because when people tried to sell off the things they had bought for a return on the investment, they did so way too early. Everyone else had already bought the same things and still had them. Then people decided the investment was worthless and stopped buying. By then, the comic companies were still producing in higher volume, so they were left with a lot of unsold product and hit some hard times.

In fifty years, those X-Men #1's may be worth something because a lot of them will have been destroyed by people thinking they're worthless. But it'll take a long time for that value to rise.