To the Comic Geeks Who read my Lj...

[asdr83]

A member of my parents'square dance club (and from what I can tell maybe the club itself) has accidently come into possesion of a couple hundred comics. They need to know what to do with them ie. are the worth anything, how/whom to sell to et cetra. My parents came to me for advice on how to go about getting the comics assessed and getting them gone appropriately. Not being a comic geek myself (I'm not sure I've ever read even one comic book completely) I come to you all for assistance.

Comments

[aeshnor.livejournal.com]

i'll call jessica tommorrow. ahren, her husband, is gomic-god.

[hfcougar.livejournal.com]

I think Alexx Kay knows a lot about them. And Jon, but he's leaving for Canada tomorrow. Um... and probably some other people I am not thinking of right away.

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

I think Alexx Kay knows a lot about them.

Understatement of the year...

[firewolfalpha.livejournal.com]

there is a Comic book industry magazine caleld Wizard. they publish a quarterly or yearly catalogoue of comics and their relative value,. the Stores such as million year picnic, New England Comics (whom i have worked for in the past) and others will SCALP him senseless.
anything X-men before the 90's is practilly gold tho.
same with Superman, Batman, Hal Jordan's version of the Green lantern and the various Avengers comics ('cept for West coast Avengers that was ATROCIOUS....icky...)
~Jimmy AKA Amber's Dad.

[jducoeur]

The Book on the subject of comic valuation is Overstreet -- you can get a copy at most comic-book shops. It's a pretty thick tome, costing $15 or so in paperback, with prices of all major comic books. If someone wants to go to the effort of properly pricing the things, they should get a copy of Overstreet.

In general, whether it's worth the effort depends immensely upon the age of the comics. If the box has a lot of older stuff (60's and earlier), then it's worth going through it in detail; if it has *really* old stuff (50's and earlier) it may be worth having a professional appraiser look it over.

OTOH, if it's modern (70's and later), then the odds are good that the box isn't worth a great deal. *Most* modern comics are worth a buck or less, in average condition. (Indeed, the majority really are only worth a quarter or so, and are hard to sell.) There are some exceptions, and they might want to have someone knowledgeable glance through it to see if any valuable books are in there, but they shouldn't get their hopes up.

If someone is inspired to inventory the box, and send along the titles and issue numbers, I could give it a quick skim and a ballpark guess of what sort of money they're looking at, and whether it's plausible that they can actually sell it. Or they could show it to a dealer, who might actually be interested in buying...