Comic book price guide

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Comic book price guides are generally monthly or yearly publications which detail the changes in the resale value of a comic over a period of time. Each collector will have his or her own preference regarding which authority to follow, but popular and respected guides currently include The Official Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, Comics Buyer's Guide magazine, Wizard Magazine, the Comics Buyer's Guide Standard Catalog of Comic Books, and Human Computing’s ComicBase, an inventory/databasing software program. Popular online price guides include comicspriceguide.com (free and paid services), mycomicpile.com (free), and nostomania.com (free).

Although many price guides come and go, long–standing publications such as Overstreet (which has been running for over 35 years) or the more recent Standard Catalog of Comic Books, have long since become inextricable elements of comic collection history. These guides, in addition to software databases such as ComicBase, the online, non–profit Grand Comics Database, or online resources comicspriceguide.com, mycomicpile.com, and nostomania.com are popular resources for collectors and enthusiasts seeking information on anything from storylines to writers and artists to the original cover price of a comic. Grand Comics Database and comicspriceguide.com, in particular, offer users the ability to quickly search for characters by appearances and deaths. The Big Comic Book DataBase combines a searchable database of per issue character and creator information and a linked price guide.

Price guides are also important tools for collectors looking to sell their collection or determine their collection’s worth for insurance purposes. With the advent of online auctioning services like eBay, price guides such as The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide and Wizard Magazine have seen dramatic declines in sales because their price listings were not reflective of the actual sale prices of comics. Nostomania.com was the first online site to present a price guide generated completely from sales data captured from online sources [1], and currently provides access to two years worth of online sales. Shortly thereafter, Comics Buyer's Guide magazine and the CBG Standard Catalog of Comic Books started reporting actual completed auction results from eBay, covering periods longer than eBay's results are online. The 2005 edition of the Standard Catalog is 1,624 pages long and reports results back to 2002.

Recently established independent companies, such as Comic Guaranty LLC (CGC) and Professional Grading eXperts LLC (PGX) provide expert third party grading services for comics. Comic books can be sent to these companies for independent, impartial certification, including grading, restoration check and encapsulation within a tamper-evident protective holder.

The advent of certification enabled increased liquidity of comic books by removing disputes over grading and by disclosing restoration, and accelerated sales of comic books through online auction sites such as eBay or Heritage Auction Galleries. Certification was also a boon to comic price guide providers, as certification removes the uncertainty about the actual grade of the comic book being sold. Individual and/or aggregated reports of certified comic book sales are available through nostomania.com, the Comics Buyer's Guide and the CBG Standard Catalog of Comic Books. In addition, GPAnalysis for CGC Comics specializes in CGC certified comics and offers collectors an online database of all CGC sales recorded from major auction houses around the world. GPAnalysis tracks, records and offers analysis tools which can assist in determining values of certified comic books. The information is updated daily and often represents thousands of comic book sales in the millions of dollars.

[edit] Terminology

Title is the name of a comic book series. Action Comics is a title. Within this title, there have been over 800 issues.

Issue is a single installment of a title, usually with its own number. Examples are Action Comics #23 or The Amazing Spider-Man #42.

Grading is the term used to indicate the process of evaluating the condition and consequent value of a comic book. A detailed explanation of how to determine a comic book’s condition based on the established grades [2] is generally included in a comic book pricing guide. A copy that falls between grades may be noted with a + or a − symbol. These terms are as follows:

Grade Abbreviation
Mint MT or M
Near Mint NM
Very Fine VF
Fine FN
Very Good VG
Good GD or G
Fair FR
Poor PR

[edit] External links

Authenticators
Online Price Guides
Online Databases & Collection Software
Print Price Guides
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