lou_fine

FF; All of the Gold keys were listed for well below $1,000 in the first OPG back in 1970. The following were the four most valuable GA books: 1) Action Comics #1 - $300.00 2) Detective Comics #1 - $275.00 3) Marvel Mystery #1 - $250.00 4) Superman Comics #1 - $250.00 With respect to your other question regarding pending drops in Golden-Age books. I don't believe we will be seeing any significant drops in the GA keys due simply to the limited number of books out there. There could be drops in the mid-run mid-grade non-key GA books due to a lack of interest over time (but nothing comparable to a 96% drop in value). Personally, I believe that the chance of a drop in value should be even higher for the newer books due simply to the higher number of books out there. Especially when you factor in the number of high-grade copies out there. This would even apply to key books such as Hulk #181. In fact, hearing figures of $50,000 for a 9.9 copy of Hulk #181 seems more ridiculous and provides more room for downside risk than an unrestored 9.4 copy of Action Comics #1 at $1,000,000.

Are both of these books priced right in the latest copy of the Overstreet Guide or is the Exciting #9 overvalued at $12,000 and the Startling #10 undervalued at only $4,500 at top guide? Both of these books are from the same publisher with the Exciting #9 coming out in May 1941 and the Startling #10 coming out in September 1941. The Exciting features the first appearance of the Black Terror while the Startling features the first appearance of the Fighting Yank. The only reason I am asking is that both these books were valued at the same price back in the mid-90's (eg. $800 for each in 1994 and $1100 in 1995) when I picked up VF to VF+ copies of both of them. At the time I had to pay more for the Startling because the dealer said that it was a much tougher book to find. This appears to probably be true since I have seen a few copies of Exciting #9 in the marketplace since then while at the same time I have not seen a single copy of Startling #10 in the marketplace. Since the latter part of the 90's, both of these books have taken rather divergent increases in valuation as evident by the latest Overstreet. Would this be due to the fact that copies of Exciting #9 have appear in the marketplace with good turnover. At the same time, no copies of Startling #10 has shown up in the marketplace which has really ended up holding back the price increases realative to the Exciting #9. If this is the case, I guess this shows why scarce or rare comics do not usually have big price increases in the guide and/or marketplace. Maybe I should look to to purchase copies of overvalued Hulks #181 because there is such a healthy turnover on a daily basis even though dealers are still constantly asking me about my copy of Startling Comics #10!