Ebay and Comics

[babington]

I’m guessing we all agree eBay has changed comic collecting. Before eBay I had never even seen a pre-1950s Beano Book, let alone been able to buy one. Hundreds of old titles are now available that could once only be bought by a discerning collector able to travel around the country. But how has the nature of buying comics on eBay changed since it started? And how will eBay comic-buying change in the future? Perhaps nothing has changed! But have there been trends in the way certain items have sold? Have some items started out ‘hot’ then cooled off over the years, or vice versa? Have new kinds of comic-related items, like pink flyers or different kinds of free gifts, begun to proliferate at certain times, or were they always there? How has eBay’s changing parameters for searching, listing, etc. changed the buying and selling experience? Has eBay reflected broader trends in collecting?

[Phoenix]

Hundreds of old titles are now available that could once only be bought by a discerning collector able to travel around the country.

This is the main point of eBay, possibly the only point. When I think of all the hours spent, petrol purchased, and time wasted over the years to get myself to antique fairs, secondhand bookshops and book fairs within a reasonable radius of Liverpool, (Preston, Lancaster, Kendal, Manchester, Bolton, Blackburn, Leeds, Lincoln, Todmorden and Colwyn Bay, to name but a few), and rail tickets bought to get to Birmingham and London, I almost get annoyed that nobody had thought eBay up years earlier. What a marvellous auction house it is. Abebooks, and sites like it, have also enabled me to buy many a book that I had despaired of ever finding, or in some cases finding again. It's a worldwide market place, and very efficient. I've even bought in again from their Spanish version, iberlibro, most of the literature I studied at university, but had to sell on departure because I was as skint as a flint. I blame Aston Villa and West Bromwich Albion football clubs myself, but friends from those days place the blame squarely on smoking, my penchant for watching films at the Continental cinema, and my frequent, and often unsuccessful, visits to the Perry Barr dog track. No matter. Having stopped smoking twenty years ago, I'm healthier now, despite the sedentary nature of looking at eBay, and writing posts to comicsuk. Long may it stay that way! Now, I wonder if momtix or phil shrimpton have put any new stuff up today.............

[starscape]

It's made a hobby a lot less special. Spent years building up a very good collection of Ghost Rider, for instance. Now, I can buy them all in an instant. It was never about the collecting but about the search.

The only thing I buy now off eBay are cheap collections of comics I never really read overly much, e.g. the new Eagle, and Marvel UK as there's mainly only the less popular left to get now.

[Phoenix]

It was never about the collecting but about the search.

I can understand your approach, starscape, but while it could well be steadily fruitful, you could die before you get anywhere near completing your collection. What is the point of that? One thing that eBay can do for a collector is reveal the whereabouts of the copies he/she is looking for. The kind of travelling I referred to in my previous post was very frustrating because any of the shops or fairs I visited could easily have sold exactly what I had travelled miles to look for ten minutes before I arrived, or bought them in ten minutes after I'd left. Or, of course, they might not even have seen any issues from that particular year for months. I suspect that the older you get, starscape, the less likely you will be to live by the It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive approach. How can you possibly enjoy reading your comics if you haven't yet acquired them?

[Peter Gray]

It is too easy ebay...it like a sweet shop..all too tempting it has made me very broke..

Going to London to see Norman Shaw was a magical experience..with his house full of comics and annuals upstairs...
being first in line at school fetes and running to the books table first when I was young..
searching car boots...junk shops..


I still look in charity shops today and work in Oxfam book shop means I get first look..

ebay has meant I have original comic art work...complete years...number 1 comics..so its been amazing..

[philcom55]

I rarely buy anything from Ebay simply because I can't afford the prices (especially when postage is added on). Most of my acquisitions still tend to be from market stalls, book fairs and boot sales.

- Phil R.

[SID]

Going to London to see Norman Shaw was a magical experience..with his house full of comics and annuals upstairs....

That's a name from the past. I still remember that first time that I visited Norman at the ripe old age of 15 with my dad and buying old Eagle comics with my hard saved fifty quid. It was a magical moment repeated every time we visited. Evidently I was his youngest customer at the time.

eBay doesn't have that effect but thanks to it and other websites, I have been able to collect comics that I would never have had the opportunity to get otherwise. Thanks, WorldWideWeb.

[Phoenix]

Going to London to see Norman Shaw was a magical experience..with his house full of comics and annuals upstairs...

I agree with you, Peter. The first time I went there it was like finding treasure, especially as he had huge numbers of post-war issues of Adventure, The Wizard, The Rover and The Hotspur, which were exactly what I wanted to buy when I first started to put my collection together. Over the following years I spent a fortune with him during personal visits, although sometimes he sent me parcels. On several occasions the local Post Office delivered the parcels to the main office of the school I was teaching in, to save them the bother of trying to deliver them at my house when they knew I wouldn't be there. But I'll tell you this. If Norman were still alive today, being the pragmatic person I knew him to be, he would be advertising his comics and books on eBay.

[Peter Gray]

I was also very young seeing Norman..he didn't let many kids in...But he could see I loved comics..he was right!!

He was a like a Father Christmas to me..also remember the cat that was alway on top of ting you were looking at...also he sasly had a bedridden mother upstairs I never met..

[SID]

It does seem that to everyone here who had the opportunity to visit his house, it was a very magical experience.

Peter, I think his mother had died by the time I became his customer (though he still had the stair-chair) and as you said, Norman didn't let many kids visit his house so we were some of the privileged few.

On my first visit, I just couldn't believe how many comics he had. My dad told me that my eyes just popped out of my head. Of course, I did go on and visited again when finances allowed me and although it wasn't a lot, Norman was always happy to see the both of us.

It is certainly something I will never forget. Thank you, Exchange & Mart for showing the advert that led me to Norman in the first place.

[babington]

Would someone mind explaining who Norman Shaw was, and where his premises were? Is it possible to put up a scan of the ad for his business? Thanks!

Also is it your impression that eBay has reduced the number of comics and annuals available in car boot sales, charity shops, etc?

[felneymike]

Ebay is great for finding what you are looking for, but then again, charity shops and car boots are brilliant for finding what you are not looking for!

I think there's a place in this world for both. Many people are putting stuff on ebay that before they would have either thrown out, or left cluttering up their house, grumbling "we must advertise all that in the paper one day". Said advert probably ending up only in the local Freeads. But then again, a lot of old stuff is being disposed of at charity shops by, or on behalf of (or after the death of) old people who have never heard of Ebay. I don't think Ebay has significantly reduced the number of comics and annuals available in these places just yet (mind you, by the time I started bothering to look, we already lived in an Ebay world, maybe back in the 90's they were more common), but give it 20 years...

[NP]

I got a huge collection of Pow! and Smash! (about 3 years worth in all) from a dealer in Manchester in 1984- I won't give his name but many people will remember him- and it cost me £15. I'd answered his ad in Book and Magazine Collector.

[philcom55]

It seems to me that the cancellation of B&MC was one of the most regrettable consequences of Ebay's march towards world-domination; especially when it put a stop to Wright and Ashford's excellent series of articles on great British comic artists (besides which I still come across plenty of people with old comics to sell who wouldn't know one end of a USB cable from the other!).

In answer to Babington's query here's one of Norman Shaw's distinctive adverts scanned from its pages:



...Why is there never a time machine handy when you want one???

- Phil Rushton

[alanultron5]

E.Bay helped me get so many Sparky's -it has been invaluable! We are not all `able-bodied` able to enjoy the chase of going to Comic Fairs etc- so E.bay is a great way of getting your comic without comprimising your health - only your bank balance!!