The SK Market.

[TheCollector]

A copy and past from today's upcoming newsletter. I'd be interested to know what you guys think, and what you're seeing.

I wanted to touch on the SK Collectibles market a little bit. I am only one data point but I wanted to share a little bit of what I've been seeing lately. With all the economic turmoil and high unemployment I've been keeping an eye out for signs of weakness in the SK collectibles market. What I've been seeing in the last couple months however, is just the opposite. Sales seem stronger then ever, with books set at the lower end of the price range being scooped up quickly, driving average prices on many books higher than usual, or in some cases just making them completely unavailable. Certainly not with every book but enough to say there's an overall upward pressure of prices right now.

So how is it that with an unemployment rate in the USA of almost 15% the SK market is going strong, while back in 2008 with the unemployment rate at around 10% SK prices were tumbling? There are two main factors at play as I see it. The Great Recession's effects were felt for years with job cuts affecting a broad range of well paying jobs. The COVID-19 crisis (so far) has been shorter and affected mainly service type jobs, which tend to be lower wage jobs. So even with a higher unemployment rate overall, the folks that are collecting SK are, by and large, still employed. These employed folks have been stuck at home and not spending as much on things they're usually doing (dining out, going to shows, sporting events, vacations, etc). That means this subset of folks are spending more time bored, and shopping online, so they're taking the disposable income that would otherwise be going to other entertainment and using it to add to their SK collections.

What does this mean for the short and medium SK market? With many states and countries easing their restrictions, I think there may be a little less frenzy for SK items as people slowly switch back to doing some things outside and in small groups. But I expect demand to be stable. For the fall though, we'll have to see if there are more virus spikes and lockdowns again, how long that lasts, and how business that so far have been OK can weather another wave of economic downturn...if it goes that way at all.