Calling on long time collectors. How did you price in the '80s & 90s? 2 2

[lizards2]

On 6/6/2023 at 4:14 PM, Dr. Balls said:

FN is such a gigantic catch all grade, I think it's easy to throw a lot of stuff into there. When I got back into comics last year (and after not grading or looking at books for about 7 years), I really had to scrutinize more, because I was finding myself putting VGs into that FN category. Thankfully, I was buying a lot of cheap beaters and got some good practice in. 

What I remember is that FN used to mean a fine, nice book, and VG was never a nice book.

[bc]

Still have my copy of the Overstreet Comic Book Grading Guide First Edition from '92 where they expanded the grading categories and introduced the 100 point scale (plus had the OWL card for PQ).

• 98-100 Mint
• 90-97 Near Mint
• 75-89 Very Fine
• 55-74 Fine
• 35-54 Very Good
• 15-34 Good
• 5-14 Fair
• 1-4 Poor
• 0 Incomplete/NG

Divide those by 10 and it pretty much is the CGC grading tiers.

-bc

[Gatsby77]

On 6/6/2023 at 8:16 PM, bc said:

Still have my copy of the Overstreet Comic Book Grading Guide First Edition from '92 where they expanded the grading categories and introduced the 100 point scale (plus had the OWL card for PQ).

• 98-100 Mint
• 90-97 Near Mint
• 75-89 Very Fine
• 55-74 Fine
• 35-54 Very Good
• 15-34 Good
• 5-14 Fair
• 1-4 Poor
• 0 Incomplete/NG

Divide those by 10 and it pretty much is the CGC grading tiers.

-bc

Yes - I remember getting this early on as well, and how much more strict it was than the general standards at the time. But it was really good with photographs of the various grades - and also cataloging what specific defects did to grades of otherwise pretty books.

Also that the book went hard on miswraps (what it called "bindery defects") - that they basically knocked a book down to VF.

Which CGC notably does *not* do.

I remember looking through my collection and having to mentally downgrade books with miswraps - like New Mutants # 94 & X-Men 269.

Edited June 7, 2023 by Gatsby77

[KCOComics]

On 6/6/2023 at 4:51 PM, bc said:

It really was about the "hunt" back then. A lot of times you where just happy to find a book let alone worry about the NM factor. Mail order was a wait and pray game, no internet back then. Lived out in the country, didn't have any LCS options within an hour+ drive. Had to hit the convenience stores regularly to grab my new books, started a direct account sometime in the mid-80's which was like getting a Christmas present every month.

My OSPGs were nearly falling apart by the time the next years came out. Had a lot of paper notes jammed into them that I used at cons as a want list.

As others have mentioned, there was basically 3 or 4 grade tiers, some people used the "+" or "-" as an added note. The pricing multiplier between tiers was much less significant than with slabbed books. As lizards2 mentioned, it was close to a 1:2:3 pricing multiplier between grades.

-bc

 

The hunt is key.  I was in high school in the 90s and I never remember seeing big SA keys, let alone golden age keys at the local shops I visited regularly. Lots of SA run fillers, but the wall books werent anything of note. 

When I got a little older, I started going to shows with multiple small comic shops.  And that is where I saw books like Avengers 57 and ASM 6 for the first time.  (Although I learned after the fact, some dealers didn't put out the good stuff unless you showed them the cash. I didn't know this and had little cash). 

Pricing was really all about comfort in those days. You couldn't pull out your phone and look up the last 6 sales on a VG Avengers 57. Instead if the shop owner asked $40 it was a question of what it's worth to you and if you had $40. 

Edited June 7, 2023 by KCOComics

[Tec-Tac-Toe]

As others have noted, during the 1980s and to a lesser extent, in my experience, up to the mid-1990s every LCS and comic book convention I frequented and mail order dealers I purchased from graded almost every back issue comic book and magazine, with some difference between dealers, from roughly VF (very often, F/VF) up the "all-encompassing" NM. Having said that, I, like others that have replied, was a NM purchaser but for the expensive issues I had to settle for the highest grading copies that I could afford and, thankfully, I was able to very often place them on "lay-away."

As concerns the prices I wanted to pay, I had a list, hand written, that I always carried with me listing the back issues I wanted, including, of course, grade and OPG value. I likely updated that list 500 plus times over many years. I often paid more than what I wanted to because, well, the dealer wanted more $. In hindsight, I'm very glad I paid more than my list "said."

[Badger]

On 6/6/2023 at 4:55 PM, valiantman said:

CGC has identified restoration on about 1-in-every-7 comic books from 1945 or earlier.

When it comes to keys, such as Action #1 or Detective #27, restoration is 40% to 50% of the CGC graded copies.

Amazing Fantasy #15 (1962) has restoration on 40% of the CGC graded copies.

How many buyers were aware of what they were getting back in the 'good old days'?

Wow, I had no idea the percentage of restored AF 15s was that high!  I guess not surprising as it has been one of the most expensive silver age books and that cover shows damage easily. Even the less expensive keys were being sold with undisclosed color touch back then so AF 15 would have been a tasty target for restorers.

The very first silver age #1 I bought, Avengers #1 in about fn+, had undisclosed color touch on the spine that I had not noticed. That would have been around 1989 or so. Comic Warehouse in Albuquerque sold it to me. After a dealer at another shop pointed the color touch out to me I went back to Comic Warehouse and demanded my money back. They had a sign behind the counter that said "no refunds" but I refused to leave until I was made whole.  Told them to call the cops and we could all be in the newspaper together.   They still would not give me my money back but they did let pick out an equal, undiscounted, amount of silver age to take in its place. Got a VF+ Journey into Mystery #86 so not a complete loss.

I think my anger wasn't so much that they had sold me a book with color touch but that I had missed it in my excitement to actually own a copy. Someone had taken a magic marker and filled in black areas on the front cover. It was not subtle with lots of bleedthrough. I flipped through the entire book and counted pages before buying. I was really embarrassed that I had missed that. Embarrassment fed my 21 year old self's anger.  

[valiantman]

On 6/7/2023 at 10:00 AM, Badger said:

On 6/6/2023 at 4:55 PM, valiantman said:

CGC has identified restoration on about 1-in-every-7 comic books from 1945 or earlier.

When it comes to keys, such as Action #1 or Detective #27, restoration is 40% to 50% of the CGC graded copies.

Amazing Fantasy #15 (1962) has restoration on 40% of the CGC graded copies.

How many buyers were aware of what they were getting back in the 'good old days'?

Wow, I had no idea the percentage of restored AF 15s was that high!  I guess not surprising as it has been one of the most expensive silver age books and that cover shows damage easily. Even the less expensive keys were being sold with undisclosed color touch back then so AF 15 would have been a tasty target for restorers.

The very first silver age #1 I bought, Avengers #1 in about fn+, had undisclosed color touch on the spine that I had not noticed. That would have been around 1989 or so. Comic Warehouse in Albuquerque sold it to me. After a dealer at another shop pointed the color touch out to me I went back to Comic Warehouse and demanded my money back. They had a sign behind the counter that said "no refunds" but I refused to leave until I was made whole.  Told them to call the cops and we could all be in the newspaper together.   They still would not give me my money back but they did let pick out an equal, undiscounted, amount of silver age to take in its place. Got a VF+ Journey into Mystery #86 so not a complete loss.

I think my anger wasn't so much that they had sold me a book with color touch but that I had missed it in my excitement to actually own a copy. Someone had taken a magic marker and filled in black areas on the front cover. It was not subtle with lots of bleedthrough. I flipped through the entire book and counted pages before buying. I was really embarrassed that I had missed that. Embarrassment fed my 21 year old self's anger.  

I believe that the statistics that I posted and your story are the main reason that comic books have seen a significant increase in sales prices since CGC started.

Collectors were always willing to pay for confidence (no restoration, third-party opinion on grading), but there was no way to get confidence of no restoration and third-party grading opinions.  Instead, you had dealers restoring books, overgrading, refusing refunds on books you could inspect before buying, or you had the same thing by mail order for books you couldn't inspect before buying, or on the internet pre-CGC, not many sellers had high quality scanning.

That was a lose-lose-lose situation for most collectors. CGC really solved three different problems for collectors like me (restoration check, third-party grading not decided by the seller, and better understanding of relative supply in the CGC Census).

[marvelmaniac]

I have been collecting since 1979, before I found my 1st LCS in 81/82 it was mail order, which was hit or miss, then came the LCS, which made life a lot easier, although you did not know what they may have until you got there.

I always collected on a budget and wanted to complete my Silver Age runs, for Christmas in the 80's I would make a list of the books I was looking for, along with a secondary list if the others could not be found. To complete the secondary list I looked through The Overstreet Price Guide and picked out newer books (Bronze Age mostly) that were increasing in value much more than the books around them, mostly because I wanted to see what the hype/higher price was all about, that is how I got my IH 181 (they paid $25.00 in 82/83).

Other than that I made monthly trips to the 5/6 LCS's that were in my area, I only had so much money, so cost, not grade was the biggest concern. Back then if you saw a book that you needed/wanted you had to decide then and there if you were going to purchase it or it may not be there if/when you returned (I hemmed and hawed about spending $20.00 for a JIM 84 in 98/99), my goal was as many books as possible for said amount of $$$. I also went to smaller, local shows with my list and Overstreet in hand, every dealer/buyer had their copy handy, the thrill of the hunt, as nerve racking as it may have been was part of the enjoyment of collecting, never knowing what you may find and the excitement you felt when you did find it, the internet pretty much ruined that.

To me, comic books are comic books, I grew up in the 60's when comics were "cheap, disposable" entertainment, you read them, colored in them, drew on them, took out the pinups, folded them and put them in your back pocket while you rode your bike (with your baseball cards flipping through your bicycle spokes), and, if you left them lying around they became coasters, fly swatters, note pads or thrown out. Even though I now know the value of my comics and no longer treat them that way, I still look at them through the eyes of 10 year old me in 1965, they are comic books, the stories/characters are fictional, I read, enjoy and never question "how did he do that" or "that's not possible", because anything is possible in your imagination, to me, folks who view comic books through the eyes of an adult and look for logic and reality are not getting the same enjoyment as a kid. I still do not care about high grade, or any type of restoration, I only care about having the book.

[Ken Aldred]

Possibly the worst I’ve ever encountered here in the U.K. was during the 90s.

He had a two-tier system, ‘Fine’ and ‘Near Mint’, where he’d take the Fine or Near Mint price for the book from the British Price Guide and half it.

Except…

’Fine’ condition was anything that looked a bit like a rag, VG, G or even less, (I got sent some really crappy-looking Marvel horror mags) and ‘Near Mint’ was anything which superficially looked in nice shape, possibly what we’d call Fine to Very Fine or better.

So, the pricing wasn’t quite as generous as it sounded.  
 

Compounding this was a lot of clearly superficial cover grading going on. I bought a Son of Satan 1 which looked really nice externally, but, the usual amateur mistake, no Marvel Value Stamp inside. I wrote back, possibly returned the copy, can’t remember as it’s 3 decades ago, and never heard anything more.

As I said, incompetent amateur hour grading, to be polite, with all the finesse of a scrap metal dealer, which I believe was one of his other interests.

Edited June 7, 2023 by Ken Aldred

[Gonzimodo]

I think my general idea of what things were worth mostly came from the sales ads in the comics, themselves (Mile High, New England Comics, Lone Star, etc.).  I had a couple Overstreet guides at some point, but they were mostly just fun to look through and dream about things I could never have.  ($50 for a Hulk 181?!  $100 for Giant-Size X-Men 1?!  Preposterous!)  Say what you will about it, but Wizard was an absolute godsend when it appeared.

[Gatsby77]

And never forget the double-page ads by Mile High Comics, where the grade promised was Fine/Mint.

[Ride the Tiger]

My friend had a comic shop late 80s. He graded everything NM, FN or Good. That's it. Don't even remember hearing about restoration tbh.

[Ken Aldred]

On 6/7/2023 at 8:53 PM, Gonzimodo said:

Say what you will about it, but Wizard was an absolute godsend when it appeared.

In some cases I’ve seen it lead to egregious overcharging with books that were commonplace and still cheap at the time in the UK, talking 1994.

As has been an all-too-frequent experience for me, the slightest, most casual mention or perusal of a book or series has led to a dealer, shop assistant or owner aggressively trying to pressurise me into buying and even going for the entire run, when I’d never indicated any actual real interest in a purchase at all.

So, at a comic mart I’d very casually mentioned to a weekend trader that I liked Tomb of Dracula, and the next week I got a phone call saying that someone wanted to sell (offload) their run, £40 for issue 1 and £7 each for the other issues, all in ‘Very Fine’, as dictated by the price in Wizard, and with a tone of voice suggesting that the magazine was the definitive be-all and end-all in pricing. Most of those issues were still cheap over here, a £1 or two, and, it was very unlikely that every issue in a 70 + issue run would all be in exactly the same condition. So, I interpreted Very Fine as copies with a range of noticeable defects which kept them out of ultra high grade, and likely lower than claimed.
 

I delivered the sad news that I couldn’t afford them all anyway.

Edited June 8, 2023 by Ken Aldred

[Dr Zen]

Like others have said, Overstreet and Wizard. But also it was about what you could find. Without the internet, your options were limited. In the late 80s I really got into Kirby's DC stuff at a time when absolutely nobody else cared about it. I could never find a copy of Jimmy Olsen 134, first Darkseid. I finally found a copy at a convention where they were asking VF price for a beat to heck water damaged copy. I bought it because I had never even seen one and didn't know when I would ever see another one.

I think I paid $8   

[Ken Aldred]

On 6/8/2023 at 1:57 AM, Dr Zen said:

Like others have said, Overstreet and Wizard. But also it was about what you could find. Without the internet, your options were limited. In the late 80s I really got into Kirby's DC stuff at a time when absolutely nobody else cared about it. I could never find a copy of Jimmy Olsen 134, first Darkseid. I finally found a copy at a convention where they were asking VF price for a beat to heck water damaged copy. I bought it because I had never even seen one and didn't know when I would ever see another one.

I think I paid $8   

Kirby DC, especially Fourth World material, was dirt cheap in really sharp, high grade warehouse copies in the London shops during that period.

If I’d been up in the northern provinces back then it would’ve been so much more difficult, including your key book there.

Edited June 8, 2023 by Ken Aldred

[Dr Zen]

On 6/7/2023 at 8:04 PM, Ken Aldred said:

Kirby DC, especially Fourth World material, was dirt cheap in really sharp, high grade warehouse copies in the London shops during that period.

If I’d then been back up in the northern provinces it would’ve been so much more difficult, including your key book there.

Same here. I could buy Kamandi, New Gods, Forever People, Mister Miracle all day long for $1 each. I could just never find JO 134 for whatever reason.

[ttfitz]

On 6/7/2023 at 3:53 PM, Gonzimodo said:

I think my general idea of what things were worth mostly came from the sales ads in the comics, themselves (Mile High, New England Comics, Lone Star, etc.). 

I just about posted erroneously about what I did before I saw this and was reminded of what I actually did back then.

I had decided that VG was about what I wanted to have as I was generally happy with the condition and I could have 2 or 3 (or more) of them instead of one NM book, so my "target" price was for a given issue in that condition. I remember my first computer generated "want list" using a database program I'd written had a column for "dealer", where I indicated where I had gotten the price I had listed, usually from a mail order company. I can remember having things marked "MH" for Mile High, "PR" for Penny Ranch (a coin shop in Chico, CA that also sold comics), and "OV" for Overstreet when none of my other sources had a price listed.

[2Sunny]

On 6/7/2023 at 11:00 AM, Badger said:

Wow, I had no idea the percentage of restored AF 15s was that high!  I guess not surprising as it has been one of the most expensive silver age books and that cover shows damage easily. Even the less expensive keys were being sold with undisclosed color touch back then so AF 15 would have been a tasty target for restorers.

The very first silver age #1 I bought, Avengers #1 in about fn+, had undisclosed color touch on the spine that I had not noticed. That would have been around 1989 or so. Comic Warehouse in Albuquerque sold it to me. After a dealer at another shop pointed the color touch out to me I went back to Comic Warehouse and demanded my money back. They had a sign behind the counter that said "no refunds" but I refused to leave until I was made whole.  Told them to call the cops and we could all be in the newspaper together.   They still would not give me my money back but they did let pick out an equal, undiscounted, amount of silver age to take in its place. Got a VF+ Journey into Mystery #86 so not a complete loss.

I think my anger wasn't so much that they had sold me a book with color touch but that I had missed it in my excitement to actually own a copy. Someone had taken a magic marker and filled in black areas on the front cover. It was not subtle with lots of bleedthrough. I flipped through the entire book and counted pages before buying. I was really embarrassed that I had missed that. Embarrassment fed my 21 year old self's anger.  

That's a great story showing the value of CGC, but what a bummer that a large shop would pull a stunt like that and not immediately offer a refund.  Guess like everything else in life it's "buyer beware"!

[SeniorSurfer]

If you go just a decade before in the 70s, grades weren't even used to price the books - just their age, numbering and relative scarcity for a seller to obtain.  You knew Avengers #1 was going to be more than #7, and it was probably going to be harder to find, but prices were fairly stable across back-issue sellers no matter what the condition.  Human nature and logic being what it is, I'd hazard a guess that they might keep some of the "nicer looking" books and sell their lesser duplicates, but it was not unusual to see Avengers #1 for $15.00 and DD #1 for #12.00 and not know the condition you were going to get (at least with the mail-in guys like Bell or Rogofsky).  Same thing applied with the other issues, with generic prices (seemingly) arbitrarily assigned in bulk, like 6-10 at $3.00 each, etc.  My original Avengers #1 arrived in about vg/vg+ condition and my DD #1 was in FN/FN+ at first fast glance of the front, but tape on the spine indicated a different, later-issue back cover had been added.  Still, these were really exceptions as the bulk of all of those early SA were very sharp FN and better - at least in my experience.  As the 70s progressed the advent of OPG (with its specific grade categories and pricing) and conventions (and much later the solely dedicated LCS) helped to structure the ground rules for future sales.  

[lizards2]

On 6/8/2023 at 6:11 AM, SeniorSurfer said:

If you go just a decade before in the 70s, grades weren't even used to price the books - just their age, numbering and relative scarcity for a seller to obtain.  You knew Avengers #1 was going to be more than #7, and it was probably going to be harder to find, but prices were fairly stable across back-issue sellers no matter what the condition.  Human nature and logic being what it is, I'd hazard a guess that they might keep some of the "nicer looking" books and sell their lesser duplicates, but it was not unusual to see Avengers #1 for $15.00 and DD #1 for #12.00 and not know the condition you were going to get (at least with the mail-in guys like Bell or Rogofsky).  Same thing applied with the other issues, with generic prices (seemingly) arbitrarily assigned in bulk, like 6-10 at $3.00 each, etc.  My original Avengers #1 arrived in about vg/vg+ condition and my DD #1 was in FN/FN+ at first fast glance of the front, but tape on the spine indicated a different, later-issue back cover had been added.  Still, these were really exceptions as the bulk of all of those early SA were very sharp FN and better - at least in my experience.  As the 70s progressed the advent of OPG (with its specific grade categories and pricing) and conventions (and much later the solely dedicated LCS) helped to structure the ground rules for future sales.  

Interesting point that value was baked into the issue # initially, with #1, then #2, then issues #3-5, 6-10, 11-20 being lumped together. And OSPG still does this. Usually a big difference in price between issues #5 and #6, #10 and #11 regardless of what was going on in the series.