Worthless Comic Books

[captain_slinky]

Businessweek.com has an article titled "Those Comics In Your Basement Are Probably Worthless" that leaves me feeling both hurt and relieved, kind of like that feeling you have after you throw-up because you're all covered in puke and it hurt so bad but WOW it feels good to have it DONE WITH.

As a former comic shop owner and life-long comics collector, EVERYBODY who has a small stack of comic books and has ever seen a news report about Action Comics #1 selling for millions of dollars wants me to tell them how much their comics are worth. My generic responses (depending on the person) are either "They're worth about the same amount as your Baseball Card collection" and "They're worth several thousand happy memories". Because the people who don't already know but WANT to know what their collection is worth fall in to two categories:

1) Grown-Ups. People who read and collected comics well in to their teen years before they just became too grown-up to buy comics any more, but not so grown-up that they'd throw out their comics. They figure that they'll give them to their kid some day, or if they're worth a lot of money maybe sell them and buy a new house. Whatever the reason, they have a box (or boxes) of comics that moves from apartment to apartment, house to house with them over the years.

2) Investors. They collected Baseball cards, and the owner of the Baseball card shop they went to as a kid told them they should buy some of these comics as an investment. Never read a comic, never even removed it from the bag, just put it in a box and waited for the money to come rolling in. Once every two or three years they look up the "value" of their comics, finds out they're worth less than cover price and list them on Ebay or Craigslist for about $20 over what they paid for them back in the day and wonder why no one bids.

Comments

[snarky-imp.livejournal.com]

All these years I collected comics the wrong way! Clearly I should have been thinking of them as a potential goldmine instead of a gazillion boxes of stories I wanted to read, some with fabulous artwork and some where someone was obviously in league with the devil because whoa, the art, she is painful.

And then I could wail about everyone cashing in their comics at the same time instead of having a closet full of stories I hope to have time to re-read again. Dang it.

[captain-slinky.livejournal.com]

Not just stories, but *Universes*! Being a Comic Collector is like being a GOD, being the observer and curator of THOUSANDS of Worlds and MILLIONS of lives that could otherwise go unnoticed! Isn't that AWESOME?

But yeah, I really should have been investing :(

I think that's another point I'm feeling here, is that it's kind of like... like a bad teen movie? Where here we are, the nerds and the geeks and the outcasts, and then suddenly we were The Popular Kids. I remember the first time a "Popular Kid" walked in to my shop and I felt like "Wow even the Jocks and the Preppies are getting in to it! They all finally see what *I* have always seen in comics!" but then it ends up that, no, all they saw was a way to try and exploit something I love for monetary gain - and it BACKFIRED ON THEM MWA HA HA HA HAAAA!!!

[man-of-snows.livejournal.com]

I have some comics. I like rereading them. I don't know how much they are worth, but I always hope more than $1 each!

[lynna12000.livejournal.com]

The comics do bring hours of reading fun. Plus there is the (hopefully) wonderful artwork. Both have value, even if it isn't monetary.

[aurora77]

Some people are surprised to learn that comic books are like, you know, books. They're bought, read, put on a shelf or in a box, occasionally signed. Usually all you can get is a quarter apiece at a yard sale or maybe a little credit at the used book store. Or maybe you give them away or donate them. You don't usually expect books to be worth much, and not many people invest in them successfully. There's the occasional first edition that ends up worth hundreds or more (like our lovely first edition Game of Thrones that Russell picked up for half off back when it was new which we recently had signed "Winter is Coming" THAT WE WILL NEVER SELL EVER UNLESS WE NEED TO PUT FOOD IN OUR STOMACHS, MY PRECIOUS... ahem), but in general, people don't expect their books to be able to sell for very much. So I really don't get why they think it's so likely their comics are worth very much.

I need to get rid of my baseball card collection. It was fun as a kid, but I haven't thought about it since. I can't imagine much of it is worth bothering with. Know any kids who collect and would want cards from the late 80s-early 90s and a handful of older ones? It's a couple of thick binders and a couple of long boxes.

[captain-slinky.livejournal.com]

It can all be traced back to a series of syndicated newspaper articles from 1968 that ran in pretty much every newspaper as filler during the "Batmania" craze, all about how some of those Comic Books were worth up to A HUNDRED DOLLARS in good condition. A POX UPON THEM ALL!!!

Here's the problem with Baseball Cards - NOBODY wants players that aren't playing any more, and people BARELY want "Hall Of Fame" players either. I'm sure there's SOME KID out there who would be thrilled to find a cache of "old" baseball cards, but I don't know any :/

[lynna12000.livejournal.com]

If nothing else, comic books are a great way to get kids to read. If a kid has a hard time reading, give them a comic. There are words for them to read, just not as many at one time; it is less intimidating. I always loved the bit in the 'Major League' movie when the Tom Berengers' character was reading the 'Illustrated Classics' comic books to try and impress his ex. It was especially great when the team was passing the comics around to read.