ASM 226-341 vs. Uncanny 141-270

[backtomarvel]

I'm looking at a new (to us) massive Sony Triniton XBR TV ... a serious upgrade to our puny won-at-a-raffle TV we've been using for years.

 

The sucker is 168 pounds, or my buddy told me when we hauled it out of his house and I brought it into mine yesterday afternoon. Why did he give it to us, you ask?

 

Beyond his new massive Sony flat screen he gave it to me to sell his comic collection, mostly copper with a sprinkling of some bronze and silver.

 

Just started going through it and in the thousands of books are complete runs of ASM from 226-341 and Uncanny 141-270. All the books are in solid condition, VF and up. A scan of the guide tells me the ASM are worth more, but that the Uncanny run has plenty of key, semi-key books.

 

My question is if you were to sell one run and buy the other -- with an eye on resale in 10-15 years which one would you choose? Has the ASM run plateaued with inflationary increases only while the Uncanny continues to ramp up?

[Rodey]

I think ASM overall. There are only a few UXM books that have high value in that run.

[RockMyAmadeus]

X-Men from that era was the highest selling (and thus, printed) Marvel book for most of the run. ASM, on the other hand, didn't reach astronomical numbers until the late 320's.

 

You have a handful of large keys in the ASM run (#238, possibly #252, 300), plenty of good potential books down the long run (#239, 289, 298, 299, 312, 316) and a complete run of the most popular Spiderman artist of all time (sorry, Steve and Johnny...Toddy's got you beat. )

 

In the X-Men run, you certainly have some keys, but nothing near Spidey #238 and #300 in terms of value. 141, 142, and 266 are the only books that come close. After that, everything plummets drastically. Of the other "keys", you have #162, 171, 201, 205, 210-213, 222, 244, 248, and 268. None of those books currently brings much more than $5-$7 each, maybe sometimes $10, but not often. Yes, you're bookended by Byrne on one side and Lee on the other, but those books are frightfully common.

 

Add to that, a NM Spidey #300, even raw, is a $50-ish book.

 

So, I'd go with the ASM lot.

[joe_collector]

Why are you even asking this question when your "friend" (and I use the term loosely in your case) gave you a free TV in exchange for selling his comics.

 

Just fulfill your part of the agreement, and sell the darn things and get the guy market value.

[COI]

[PEP]

I'd say ASM would get you more moolah but UXM had the better storyline.

[Jumpmaster]

Sell the spideys, they have peaked. The X-Books have nowhere to go but up. My 2 cents!

[druss84]

I don't know if the X-Men would go up in value much except maybe the Jim Lee issues and a few prior to 200. Both are great runs and would be worth good money in high CGC grades.

[RockMyAmadeus]

The X-Men issues were, for the majority of that run, the highest printed comic published, with some years topping 500,000+ copies. Granted, X-Men is, without a doubt, still the most popular team in comics. But you cannot have that many copies in existence and have any sort of real investment potential.