One subset of comic book collecting that is often overlooked is the collecting of comic book price guides themselves. The other night I was thumbing through my tattered copy of the First Edition of the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide and it is a lot of fun to go “back in time” to the early days of comic book collecting.
The introduction to the price guide written by Robert Overstreet is a big departure from the state of the hobby today. In many ways it is an even more honest assessment of the accuracies and inaccuracies of the guide than you currently read. It was also fun to read his statements about how the condition of a comic book was starting to be important to pricing! The first edition (volume 1) presented prices for each issue in “Mint”,”Fine” and “Good” condition.
Want to see how far comic book values have come since 1970? Well, according to the guide you could pick up a copy of Action Comics #1 in “mint” for the low price of $300! Compare that to the Action Comics 1 sale earlier this year.
Want an X-men #1? How about $6 for a mint copy!
One side note about these old price guides. Just like old comic books, these price guides can be quite expensive and collectible themselves. Click on the link below to see some of the current going prices for the First Edition of the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide. Be careful, there is a first and second printing of Vol. 1.
