History & Price Guides

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. more...

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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, the Comics Buyer's Guide Standard Catalog of Comic Books, and Human Computing’s ComicBase, an inventory/databasing software program.

Although many price guides come and go, long–standing publications such as Overstreet (which has been running for over 35 years) or the Standard Catalog of Comics, 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 the largest online resource comicspriceguide.com are the premier resources for collectors and enthusiasts seeking information on anything from storylines to writers and artists to the original cover price of a comic. The latter two, 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, however, price guides such as The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide and Wizard Magazine have since seen dramatic decline in their sales because their price listings were not reflective of the actual sale prices of comics. Comics Buyer's Guide magazine and the CBG Standard Catalog of Comic Books, by contrast, both report 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.

A recent, independent service, Comics Guaranty, LLC (CGC), has revolutionized comic book collecting and investing by providing an expert third party grading service for comics. Comic books can be sent to CGC for independent, impartial certification, including grading, restoration check and encapsulation within a tamper-evident protective holder. The CGC holder is made of state-of-the-art materials and is designed to meet the needs and demands of comic book collectors.

With the advent of certification, collectors are now able to track real-world sales of comic books and better value their collection. Revolutionary new tools like GPAnalysis for CGC Comics offer 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.

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