What's it worth and what should I pay? Some thought on condition versus Value and other things

Let's set up a few rules of thumb here and talk about value vs condition. You can pretty much assume that a near mint (9.4) comic will set the standard for everything else so let's call that our base line value of 1. One being a multiplier of what you might be willing to pay for a Near Mint (9.4) first issue of Imaginary Comic #1 (a totally made up comic book that doesn't exist except for in the context of this blog). It's current Market Value is BB100 (BB=Big Bucks)

So the next grade down is Very Fine (8.0), Now to me a VF copy of Imaginary Comics #1 should easily sell for BB50, as it is a rare comic, so we will assign the Very Fine Value of a comic at 0.50. So in general I think a fair price for you to consider to pay for a Very Fine copy of any comic is one half what you would pay for a Near Mint one.

So would you Pay BB25 for a Fine (6.0) copy? I think that 25% of the Near Mint value for a comic in Fine condition is not at all unreasonable and an easy calculation that you can do in your head. Nm/2=VF/2=FN Shall we extrapulate this down?

Mint (10.) = 2.0+ 
Near Mint (9.4) = 1.0
Very Fine (8.0) = 0.50
Fine (6.0) = 0.25
Very Good (4.0) = 0.12
Good (2.0) = 0.06
Fair (1.0) = 0.03
Poor (0.5) = 0.015

With the Exception of the poor value I rounded down to the second decimal place. So what could you expect to pay for a good copy of our Imaginary Comics #1 if you had to have a copy and it was the only one available? about BB6.00. Would you pay $60 for a good copy of Amazing Spider-Man 129 (first appearance of the punisher)? You might not, but I gaurantee that you would think about it. How about a good copy of Incredible Hulk 181, would you consider spending $120 for that? Now before you say no take a look at what an ungraded Near Mint copy goes for these day.

So let's use a bit of creative math to fill in the rest of the chart, shall we?
Gem Mint (10.0)               = 2.0+
Mint (9.9)                         = 1.87+
Mint minus (9.8)               = 1.75+           
Near Mint plus (9.6)          = 1.37+   
Near Mint (9.4)                 = 1.0        
Near Mint minus (9.2)       = 0.87
Very Fine/Near Mint (9.0)  = 0.75   
Very Fine plus (8.5)          = 0.62       
Very Fine (8.0)                 = 0.50       
Very Fine minus (7.5)       = 0.43   
Fine/Very Fine (7.0)         = 0.37   
Fine plus (6.5)                 = 0.31   
Fine (6.0)                        = 0.25           
Fine minus (5.5)              = 0.21       
Very Good/Fine (5.0)       = 0.18
Very Good plus (4.5)       = 0.15
Very Good (4.0)              = 0.12
Very Good minus (3.5)    = 0.10
Good/Very Good (3.0)     = 0.09
Good plus (2.5)               = 0.07
Good (2.0)                     = 0.06   
Good minus (1.8)            = 0.05
Fair/Good (1.4)               = 0.04
Fair (1.0)                       = 0.03
Poor (0.5)                     = 0.15

As Collectors we want copies of our favorite books and condition while being somewaht important will often take a back seat when looking at the price of key issues. So what is an acceptable condition for us as collectors? My bench mark is based on years, so that 1949 back anything above Fair is acceptable, with my preferred range being above Very Good. For 1950 to 1965 Good is acceptable with the preferred range being above Fine. Looking at books from 1966 to 1975 Very Good is an acceptable copy (although I have settled for less on particularly difficult issues to find) with Very Fine and above being preferred. 1975 to 1985 Fine copies are ok for me, but I would prefer them in Very Fine/Near Mint or better. anything after 1985 to me must be at the very least Very Fine for Key Issues, with Near mint being Preferred and required in the more common issues. Finding a truly mint comic is the holy grail of collectors and I have no qualms about paying above the Near Mint (9.4) price to get one.

So what should you pay for a given book, this depends on a lot of factors, the first being condition, but condition may often be over ridden by rarity. As an example, Back when Sword of the Atom was going for about cover price in Near Mint, I paid $10 for a Very Fine copy, it had been on my want list by then for about 5 years and I had asked at every show and convention that I went to about it during that time, I finally found someone who thought they had one but didn't want to waste time looking for a book that sold for under a dollar, it was at that point that I offered him $10 to find it. Of course the next show everyone had copies of it and everyone wanted $10 for them, but that didn't last long and I was able to pick up a second copy in Near Mint a few shows later for Under a buck. So did I feel ripped off at having to pay over ten times what the comic was worth, of course not, for me at that time it was worth $10. I wanted to read the story and had been waiting over five years to do so! At the end of the day a comic is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. So if everyone suddenly decided that paying over $300 for an encapsulated Amazing Spider-man 300 was silly and refused to buy it at that price, the price would start to come down.

Every Comic has a price and every collector will sell any given comic if the price is high enough. So who decides when a comic needs to go up in value?

Sometimes it's dealers who see that someone has paid X amount of dollars for a comic so they price theirs a little higher in the hopes that they will get it. I used to know a store owner that would put five copies of a comic on his racks, when those sold out he would raise the price by 50% and put another five out. I had a different strategy when I had my store, I would put out the new comics at cover price and they would stay at that price until the next issue came out. I would then raise the price of the back issue to account for the cost of my bag and board. Usually about five cents, but if someone wanted it with out the bag and board I would charge them cover price.

I think if I had a store now, I would adopt a diffrent model, and put them at cover whne I first get them and once the next issue was released drop the price by 10% a week until they were all gone. Perhaps if I had done that I would not have had a few hundred boxes of comics when I closed my shop.

Occasionally things happen in the market that drastically affect prices, things like warehouse finds that flood the market with a particular key issue will make prices drop quickly, a series of comics that loses it's popularity for what ever reason will make the price drop. This later will more often happen with newer comics then older ones, as the supply out weighs the demand prices fall. With the older comics, (pre 1980) the supply is usually lower than the demand and that will drive the prices and values ever higher. When Jack Kirby died there was speculation that all of his works owuld increase in value and for a very short time it was hard to find Kirby comics, the prices didn't go up as expected and the comics started to surface again without a huge market fluctuation. Right now Antman comics are starting to move upwards in value as the movie draws closer.

Another good example of this is a near mint Direct Market Copy of most any comic published after 1985 is fairly easy to find, but a Near Mint News stand copy is much harder to find as most were placed on some sort of rack at convenience stores and thumbed through, the fact is most news stand comics are in Very Fine or lower condition. Finding one in Near Mint is just not going to happen unless someone was there when the comics arrived and selected the best copy. Yet News stand copies are generally priced the same as Direct Market ones. Comics that were included in three packs with the whitman imprint have become more valuable recently despite being re-releases of comics that didn't sell to well the first time around. They are considered early variant issues and don't seem to be available in higher grades as often, probably because these went to kids that read the comics multiple times (OMG) and enjoyed them without placing them in bags and boards!

When collecting comics set yourself goals, let's say you want a complete collection of Amazing Spider-Man, set goals for when you can reasonably afford to purchase the key issues, but always keep an eye open for that special deal that is just to hard to resist. Sure everyone that collects ASM will want a near mint copy of #1, but is that a realistic goal for you or would a Fine copy be more in your budget? You may decide that any copy pre 1970 is acceptable in any condition and that is a realistic goal if you are a collector on a budget.

As a collector you may be concentrating on a single run or character, but don't put blinders on, if you see a good deal on another older comic consider buying it for the trade value. You can often get a higher priced comic you need if you have something they want even if their is a value differential.

There is no right or wrong way to collect comics, if all you want is first issues, that's great, if you just want certain key books or first appearances that's great too. Don't like old comics, there are hundreds published every year if you want to only collect new ones or maybe you don't want to collect new comics because you want that feeling of wonder you had as a youth. Are trade paperbacks waht you like, then a nice set of them would look good on any book shelf, so be proud of them, sure they may never have a high value, but they are yours and you like them and that my friends is really what collecting is all about.