10 years ago

[Polyphemus]

I was cleaning out the closet and stumbled across an issue of the Overstreet Price Guide Update (I think that's what it was called)-- you know the Quarterly.

 

The market reports were fascinating as to what back issues were hot and the price guide was great too to see what has stayed hot and what has not.

 

Couple things of interest:

 

1) Seemed to be the height of Punisher's popularity as anything Punisher was hot

2) Every market report mentioned New Mutants 87 as the hottest back issue

3) Marvel outsold DC in new and back issue 8 to 1. Many reports mentioned that Valiant and Dark Horse outsold DC.

4) Dark Horse Star Wars titles were hot hot hot.

 

Can anyone give us 20 years ago?

[supapimp]

i have one of the first overstreet updates from the early 80's but it's at my parents house. i used to love reading the market reports, i wish they would still do that. but you can know gauge the market form eBay sales.

[greggy]

Yeah, Keith Contarino had the best ever market reports. He gave such great advice back in the day. He should be in print again as opposed to some of the yokels you see in the CBM!

[Mister_Comics]

Anyone remember the ABLESOFT OVERSTREET COMIC DATA software from '94 - '95. That was pretty cool.

 

I have a couple of those updates somewhere here. I'll have to look for them.

[The_Man_Of_Steel]

No, but tell me more about it, sounds interesting...

[ArnoldTBlumberg]

Somebody was just asking about that software over on eBay. I did some checking and it seems that company is long defunct, and although I certainly wasn't around way back when, I never heard of any time when the Overstreet data was officially licensed to anyone for such use. My first inclination would be to think that the pricing was used in violation of copyright, BUT it's very possible Bob had allowed it back then. Somehow I don't think so though, but I guess I could just ask for my own peace of mind...it's an interesting question.

[aardvark88]

Around Dec/84 the publications were screaming about how hot the entire mkt was:

Perez NTT, Byrne & Cockrum X-men, all of Byrne's work (Marvel, Charlton, etc), M Fanfare. Speculate on Byrne FF 236 & make GUARANTEED huge profits.

[Darthdiesel]

i used to love reading the market reports, i wish they would still do that. but you can know gauge the market form eBay sales.

 

Or just read the Wizard monthly Top 10 list - there is no substitute!

[Mister_Comics]

I still have to look for those updates.

 

But I did find my old ABLESOFT OVERSTREET DATE among some old computer games tucked away in a box. Haven't looked at this in a long time. Acording to the box it says OVERSTREET right on the front cover. If I remember right, I seen adds in comics for this when it first came out. It may of been adds in the CBG though. The one thing I did like about it was that the first upgrade was free. So when the following year came around I got the upgrade. It was like getting the PRICE GUIDE for the following year free. Pretty cool. But I think after that year the software was discontinued. Maybe they felt this wasn't doing the book sales any good. Heck! I didn't buy any guides during those years. The software had its good points and bad. Bad, you couldn't take it with ya. Good, you could print any of it. Good you could sort stuf by character, artists, company, title, etc. It was really great from that. I really miss using that part of it. One big headache was entering all your comics collection. Since they weren't updating this software and I got a newer computer, I quit using it. But now that I found the original program again, I think I try using it again for reference. The box has a cool picture of DC superheroes on it. And it was kind of fun to use.

[hogations]

Can anyone give us 20 years ago?

 

I think I still have the first Overstreet updated kicking around somewhere (it had a yellow cover) and I remember the 'Investing in wholesale comic books" article it had. Quite interesting as it examined the returns of a few books (Miller Daredevils, Byrne X-Men). It didn't have much with regards to market reports (I think there was a general market report by Robert Overstreet). What was mentioned as hot were Miller Daredevils, Byrne X-Men (no suprise) - other books that were also hot were New Teen Titans 1-10, Omega Men (!!!!), Thor 337 and Marvel Fanfare. Later Silver Age books were in a serious rut and Bronze Age books were dead - interestingly, I remember prices for books like Defenders 1, Tomb of Dracula 1, Green Lantern 76 actually going down in price! Many of the 60's art books took a serious hit with deluxe reprinting by Marvel and DC. Neal Adams Avengers, Green Lanterns, X-Men and Strange Adventures took a nosedive during this time period. I guess people were to busy buying Byrne FF's and Dazzler #1's

[ArnoldTBlumberg]

Well it probably was licensed then - how about that.

[aardvark88]

Comics always go in cycles. For a while silver Marvel keys were stable or dropped in Overstreet value 3 yrs in a row. We went thru a huge upswing in golden age & Timely prices. Last 2 yrs, there has been a large upswing in bronze due to these bks hitting 28-30 yrs old & the avg age group of online bidders wanting to reclaim their SWEET hi-grade memories of YOUTH.