Does anyone collect comic books?

[Tearhill]

Originally Posted by Bagwell-1994

I collected as a kid in the 80's and early 90's. I vaguely remember the comic market took a nose dive at some point in the mid 90's and a lot of the values decreased.

Did the market for them ever rebound at all? I used to read Wizard magazine to gauge the value of comics. Is there a new best resource for gauging their value?

Feel free to share any images of your collections, I'd love to see them!

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I've been involved in collecting comics for about 30 years. The market dumped in the mid-90s. My opinion is that this was Marvel's fault. 2 reasons - Icahn and another massive money boy got in a takeover fight, or collusion, and decided the best strategy was to kill Marvel's stock value - it plummeted to basically junk status and all the stockholder's and talent ran for the hills during this 3-5 year period. Also, Marvel began spinning off every character in X-Men as well as putting out variant covers for every issue. So your $20 per month habit suddenly vortexed up to $100-$200 just to hold serve. Lots of folks like me just gave up and stopped buying new stuff.

Overstreet is THE guide for valuing books. However, there isn't a single book they value at less than $2.50-3.00 in NM condition and most of those aren't worth 10 cents.

I was taught comic collecting by an old boy who owned a comic shop in LA and was the first private dealer to hold artist events/signings in his store. Briefly the cut-off for old school books is 1975. Prior to that distributors would give credit for unsold stock if you tore off the top 1/3 of the book and sent it back. After 1975 the distributors said forget it. You bought it you keep it. So there is a shorter supply prior to 1975. Condition is everything as well as the title and characters appearance. That being said, about 4 months ago I sold an Amazing Spider-man 361, a mid-1990s book for $150. Stuff gets hot and first appearances, upcoming movies, etc effect the market. Just sold a 5 piece Suicide Squad collection for $20 - 1 book was the key and others were throw ins. It's a bit of a challenge to learn the market but fun.

Hope this helps.

T.