Collect Old Comic Books for Love… Not Money!

I had the advantage of growing up at a time when the comic book market was not dominated by speculators and “collectors” whose only reason for buying old books was to store them in plastic shells and store them in a vault until their “value” went up. Sadly, this is what has the market has devolved into. Comic books are valued not for the quality of the workmanship or the artistry involved in their creation but for the dollar values they rack up in “price guides” and online auctions.

In the late ‘60s when I was young boy an old comic book generally sold for half the price of a new one (new ones were usually 10 to 12 cents… or 25 cents for a “giant” issue). After you were tired of reading them you could take your old comic books to a used magazine, trade them in 2 for 1 and take home a pile of old comics that you hadn’t read yet. Turnover was very high in those days, long before the majority of readers had latched onto the concept of “hoarding”.

There were a few individuals popping up in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s who saw what the future of comic book collecting could be… and by buying up all the old books they could and hiding them away… they knew the demand for them by nostalgia buffs would drive the prices up. So, while it was possible to buy old issues of “Spider-Man” or “Fantastic Four” for 10 cents in 1967, by 1972 choice issues were selling for $5 or $10… and the prices kept on rising.

Most of these speculators were able to open up their own high end specialty shops that catered to the ever-growing mania for collecting. They continued buying up old comics for a nickel or a dime apiece and putting them in plastic backs and cardboard backing so that they could turn around and sell them for outrageous prices. At first they were laughed at. “Who is going to pay five dollars for an old comic book?” As time went on it became apparent that, when a lot of people want a specific book, no amount of money is too high.