Bloomberg Business week ran an article that was picked up by Yahoo Finance on Halloween titled “Those Comics in Your Basement?  Probably Worthless”  There was a lot of buzz among comic book collectors and on the Internet forums so I thought I’d weigh in on the story.

The unfortunate truth for many is the article is correct.  The vast majority of millions upon millions of comic books printed over the years are almost worthless.  This is especially true for comic books printed since the 1980’s.  The vast majority of e-mail I receive asking about the value of readers’ comic books are about comics from the 80’s or 90’s that sell in bulk for pennies, if they sell at all.  It’s an unfortunate truth.

But what about older comic books?

Unfortunately here, too, the media has misrepresented the value of comic books by only highlighting the issues selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars to well over $1 million.  That is a very, very small group of comic books.  The vast majority of even “old” comics are not worth anywhere near what the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide says.  The truth is most of them are common issues with no real importance highlighted by keys, important issues such as #1’s and major character introductions.  The commons typically sell for a small percentage of “guide” while the keys can bring a higher percentage and in some cases even surpass the guide price.

This is why it’s so important to research the value of your comic books correctly, a process I describe quickly in the free post Comic Book Value and Price Guide Finder, and more in-depth in the comic book selling book “Quick Cash for Your Comic Books” on this website and another version available on Amazon.

Be careful! The Bloomberg article could lure you into selling your comics for far less than you could possibly sell them for. I brokered a collection last year with many common issues from the 1970’s, but we were still able to get several thousand dollars for the comics by packaging and marketing the entire collection, keys and all, in the correct way and to the right people.

I agree with the Bloomberg article overall, because there is a definite tendency to think that your comic books are worth far more than they are based on a number in a guide, something I see all the time. What is important is you do your research correctly, come up with a realistic price expectation and sales game plan.