History
Beginning in the early 1960s comics collectors (who often traded and sold to each other) were on the rise, and the number of comics dealers began to increase as well. In 1965, Michael Cohen and Tom Horsky published what is considered the first comics price guide, the one-shot digest The Argosy Price Guide (specifically for Hollywood, California's, Argosy Book Shop).
Comic back-issue prices had stabilized by the end of the 1960s. In 1970, Jerry Bails, who had recently published the Collector’s Guide to the First Heroic Age, was considering creating a comic book price guide. He was contacted by Bob Overstreet, who was doing the same thing. Bails' extensive notes, supplemented by Overstreet's study of dealer listings, "became a backbone to the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide." Overstreet's guide instantly became an invaluable resource tool for comic book collectors.
The Overstreet guide excluded the entire category of underground comix from its listings. This void was first addressed by Jay Kennedy in 1982 with The Official Underground And Newave Comix Price Guide, and while out of print is a valuable resource for information about the artists and publishers. In 2006, Overstreet advisor and contributor Dan Fogel's Hippy Comix, Inc. published Fogel's Underground Comix Price Guide, with 2010 to see a supplement magazine adding minicomics and British undergrounds alongside the latest pricing data.
With the advent of online auctioning services like eBay, price guides have seen dramatic declines in sales because their price listings were not reflective of the actual sale prices of comics. 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. The current online price guide for slabbed comics is GPAnalysis, which collects data of actual verified sales.
An established independent company, such as Comic Guaranty LLC (CGC) provides third party grading services for comics. Comic books can be sent to this company for independent, impartial certification, including grading, restoration check and encapsulation within a tamper-evident protective holder.
Read more about this topic: Comic Book Price Guide
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