Comic Book Price Guide
Comic book price guides are generally monthly, quarterly, or yearly publications which detail the changes in the resale value of a comic over a period of time. Price guides are also important tools for collectors looking to sell their collection or determine their collection’s worth for insurance purposes.
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 comicbookrealm.com (free), ComicsPriceGuide.com (free and paid services), nostomania.com (free), and GPAnalysis.com specifically for CGC (certified) Comics (paid). Online and print price guides will have their own discrepancies, so a combination of several sources is often used by collectors to arrive at an accurate estimated value.
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 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 comicbookrealm.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.
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 online.
Read more about Comic Book Price Guide: History, Comic Book Grading Scale, Terminology
Famous quotes containing the words comic, book, price and/or guide:
“Today’s comedian has a cross to bear that he built himself. A comedian of the older generation did an “act” and he told the audience, “This is my act.” Today’s comic is not doing an act. The audience assumes he’s telling the truth. What is truth today may be a damn lie next week.”
—Lenny Bruce (1925–1966)
“We really learn only from those books that we cannot judge. The author of a book that we were able to judge would have to learn from us.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“Thou blind man’s mark, thou fool’s self-chosen snare,
Fond Fancy’s scum and dregs of scattered thought,
Band of all evils, cradle of causeless care,
Thou web of will whose end is never wrought;
Desire! desire, I have too dearly bought
With price of mangled mind thy worthless ware;”
—Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586)
“Please walk alone and send your love and your kisses to guide me.”
—Sammy Cahn (1913–1993)