The first question a lot of us undoubtedly asked when stay-at-home orders prompted us to pull out the old collection. How much are my comics worth? That may never really have been an easy answer, but where to turn to get an idea of my collection's worth has changed quite a bit since I slide my last book into its protective bag.
Continuing our journey into re-submerging ourselves into our once favorite past time, this week we take a look at valuing our precious collections. In my last blog, I talked about how preserving our books has changed over the years, in this blog, we'll figure out which books need preserving...at least we'll talk about the best way to price our books.
Overstreet, obviously. Right?
Since the moment I picked up my first comic (Tales of Asgard #1(1984), well maybe not that exact moment, but soon thereafter I knew that THE place to go to find out how much a comic book was worth was the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide. It was a little pricey for me at the time. So, I'd usually just thumb through it at the book store to see what my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #4 first printing was worth whenever I saw a new guide had come out. Incidentally, it took many many years before it got even close to what I paid that shop for it. That guy saw my 13-year-old pumpkin pie face coming from a mile away...but I digress.
I count two problems with Overstreet in that last paragraph I wrote. One, it was an expensive book. Two, it came out once a year. It really only represented what a comic was worth when the guide went to print. Actually, it showed what that comic was worthwhile that particular book was being entered into that year's draft of the guide. I don't know the process, but I'm guessing plenty of those prices were dated on the day the guide came out. So, maybe the answer never was Overstreet and maybe I should've tried to talk that guy at the comic book store down a few bucks for my TMNT #4.
All hail the Wizard! (Guide to Comics)
When Wizard Magazine popped on the scene in the early 90s, I was hooked immediately. Clearly, a lot of us were. It was slick looking, it legitimized comic collecting by putting it right there on the shelf next to Newsweek and it had comic prices right there in the back of the magazine. A monthly price guide that was also pretty slick looking. The dated price quote problem had been mostly solved. One month is better than twelve months, right?
So, as I began thumbing through my boxes and pulling out comics that I thought might have gone up in value, I discovered that not only was X-Force #1, not a collector's issue as was clearly stated on the cheap bag it came in but also there was no Wizard Magazine! There wasn't even a website! Wizard Magazine was gone. I had to come to terms with the facts that I wasn't going to get to re-enjoy one of my favorite magazines from childhood and I was officially never going to win the Wizard scavenger hunt. Anyone remember those? I loved them.
Everything's online nowadays
Well, sort of. There are plenty of online price guides. Some free, some for a price, but how do you know which one to use? Anyone can make a website. Trust me, I had my own website for a while and I have no idea what I'm doing. Also, I am fully aware that I'm writing this blog on GoCollect's website... where you can find great information on just about any comic book, including fair market value. BUT, the prices you'll see when you search for a book are for issues that have been graded and slabbed (see my last blog). We just got back into this hobby. We don't have any graded books. Our books are raw. We just learned about that by reading this blog. For the love of Oden, we just found out what grading was!
Settle down, settle down. First off, GoCollect has a lot of useful info you can glean after you search for a book. A lot of info that will help you along the way when you start trying to sell your books or buy that book you've always wanted (Your "grail." That's a blog post in itself). You can see when the last sale was, what the book sold for, how many variants there are of that issue (again, another blog post), how many graded copies there are out there...and that's without even paying for a subscription. So, GoCollect is a great place to start learning about the books you already own. It's where I've learned A LOT since I got back in. Also, they'll link you to eBay sales.
eBay
Remember when you bought that new flat screen or set of tires or whatever? Unless you're sitting on some level of financial stability that I have yet to obtain, you probably shopped around. The TV was $400 on Amazon with free shipping. Maybe it was $550 at Best Buy, but you could get it that day. You found a low price and you found a high price, so you learned the range that that particular model sells for. That's where eBay comes in.
The price range of what sellers will ask for the exact same product is wide on eBay. Don't forget, there was a time when I assumed X-Force #1 would actually be a collector's item. If I hadn't at least stayed a little current on what was happening in the comic world, I might still have thought that. Then, when I went to eBay to sell my copy (of course I actually have like 15), I might have had the audacity to list it for, say, $300. Woo hoo! I have 15 copies. I just paid for my next vacation! Except I didn't because we all realize it's not worth $300. No one is going to pay $300 for X-Force #1. That's just what I'm asking. So, how do you know what a fair price is?
Going once, going twice, SOLD!
It doesn't hurt to search for your issue to see what people are asking for it. It's the first thing you'll see when you search anyway, might as well take a look. But, what you actually want to know is how much that particular issue is selling for and in what condition. Since we're assuming none of us have any graded comics, then we're looking for raw sales. We can talk about amateur grading another time.
It'll be different on a phone than on a desktop, but you want to set the filter to show you only listings where the item was sold. Once you do that, you can see that the guy asking $300 for an X-Force #1, actually took the Best Offer of $12 and that most people sold it for around $4. Now, when you see a raw copy of a book you have in a similar condition is selling for $80, you can make the decision whether you'd like to send it off for grading, in which case you can use GoCollect to learn all about what your newly encased and preserved book is selling for.
I swear, bloggers are not paid extra for plugging GoCollect.
