Are comics from the 70's/80's worth anything?

I have a small box in a closet of mostly Marvel comics from the mid 70's to early 80's. Probably a hundred or so
I'm inclined to trash them. I don't know if there are any dealers near me anymore. and of course there are signs on Telephone poles "I Buy Comics".
I remember I brought a handful of ones form the 60's to a dealer and he wouldn't take them, but he freaked out when he saw me trash them in a container outside his store (??)
I don't want my wife (retired) schlepping these to some place and the guy telling her the box is worth is worth $5. It's just not worth the effort for her.

 

What's some of the titles?

 

Some of them are, some of them aren't.

There are definitely some "keepers" in that timeframe, e.g. first appearance of Wolverine, Frank Miller's first work on Daredevil, etc. Whether they're in your collection is a different story of course.

You can check https://comicspriceguide.com/ for values, but like discogs, you'll have to look up each one individually. For a hundred comics, that might not be too bad.

 

Almost all Spiderman, some FF, and those pairings they would do where Spidey would team up with Torchie or an X Man innnnn

 

Off the top of my head, there probably aren't any goldmines in there, unless there's a first appearance of some character who later became popular.

As with records, the condition is important in determining value:

https://comicspriceguide.com/comic-book-grading

Here's what I'd do:

Check google and see if there are any comic book stores in the area.

Call them up. It's usually easier to describe a comic collection over the phone than it would for a record collection, because there's less issue-to-issue variation (in $$ value) in a dozen comics from the same year value than there would be for, say, a dozen random records released in the same year.

So if you can tell them some representative titles, the years they were published (as you already did here) and an idea of what sort of condition they're in, they should be able to tell you over the phone whether they're interested in seeing them. The important thing is to be realistic about the condition they're in, especially if you're trying to avoid a fruitless trip out to their store.

 

Thanks a lot!! I'm going to have a look

 

Small fortune if you ask me.

 

Of course bear in mind that if you want to sell them for prices comparable to what's listed in a price guide, you'd have to sell them yourself on eBay or somewhere. If you sell to a dealer or comic book store they're going to offer substantially less than that.

 

Yeah, good point. Expect a dealer to offer maybe 1/4 or 1/5 of the "guidebook" price.

 

I also have maybe a 150 DC comics, all from the early 80's, iirc -- which I've paired down to about 30 titles I'd like to keep for sentimental reasons -- and have no idea what to do with all the rest. And it's actually the more obscure titles I'm wanting to keep.

I figured I'd eventually list them on the DC subreddit, and see if anyone had any interest. Or maybe just sell them as a single 'lot' on eBay.

 

Trashing them would have to be a last resort.

I have a much larger collection with some value but I'd only realise their value if I sold them individually myself. The trouble is that I don't have much spare time and I can earn more by working for an hour than I can by working on selling my comics for an hour.

If you can't sell them then consider giving them away since it would be worse for them to be lost forever.

A charity shop should take them.

Just don't go back there to see what they sell them for.....

 

This is the same boat I am in. I thought about offering someone 1/2 of the selling price if they would list it and sell it for me (individual titles) on ebay.
Otherwise for me it takes too much time for me to do it.

 

I have decades’ worth of Marvel and DC stuff going back to the mid-60s to the mid-80s. Thousands of mags, all saved in the loft, all in plastic bags to preserve them. All worthless, I was told by a dealer, as because they’re U.K mags, with U.K prices printed on, they’re classed as ‘reprints’. Infuriating really.

 

That sounds a little sketchy, although I'm not actually familiar with the market for UK reprints. I would think that there would be *some* value to stuff from the 60s and early 70s even if it was reprints. But obviously you can't force someone to buy something if he doesn't want it.

 

Condition, condition, condition.

Are they piss yellow?

Have they been munched by Lepisma saccharina?

 

They would probably be worth more in Australia.

 

They are certainly not worthless. They were printed at the same time as the US versions, just a different price put on.

 

Went through a similar effort with a stack of Heavy Metal comic books; many were in vg condition from year 1 thru 5.

I called every comic book store around in San Diego - unless it was the first issue (which I missed), none were interested.

I even contacted a couple of the on-line dealers; no interest. And I didn't have the energy to sell them one at a time on fleabay.

I ended up donating them to a graphic illustration/comic book art class workshop in San Diego called Small Fish Comics that was crazy interested in my collection - so at least they didn't end up in the dumpster.

Good luck on your journey.

 

This is a minefield to be honest. Most comics sold in big numbers from that time so they are not by definition rare, but there are many valuable comics from this time for various reasons:

1) a classic run/story, like the Frank Miller Daredevil run
2) First appearance of a now well-known character - often people miss this, but these are usually where the money is. Hulk 179 = $25, Hulk 181 = $35,000.
Likewise Venom, Deadpool etc.
3) First art by someone who went on to be famous. Marvel Team-Up 53 for example features John Byrnes first ever X-Men art and is worth, depending on condition, $30 to $40.

You just need to see a price guide that lists all the issue and values.

I'd also add that with the huge interest in Comic book movies now, and them picking some quite obscure people to use, some comics that would be worth very little can take off if they are used in a film.

 

A couple of people have mentioned Ebay, so here's my ebay spiel. Note that I'm not a professional seller or anything but my avatar dates from a few years ago when I was cleaning out my comic collection on Ebay.

For desirable items (Comics, DVDs, board games, records, etc.) you can't beat Ebay if you're willing to do the work. The fact that it's a global market means that if there are two or three people out there anywhere who want what you're selling, you'll probably get something like "market price". Doing the work means:
* List items individually.
* Provide good, close-up photos/scans and helpful, informative descriptions so people know what they're buying
* Pack the items properly.

The flip side of this is that lots of not-so-desirable items (e.g. comics) are not likely to sell for "big bucks".

To start with, a lot of the comics described by Rooster and Panda aren't necessarily that desirable. As I've said before, from the 70s and 80s, that's the period when "comic collecting" was really starting to take off, and you would read letters in the comics from fans who had bought extra copies of every new #1 issue to put away as collectible items. It was becoming "a thing".

So, unlike the 60s (or earlier), comics from the 70s and 80s are generally available and relatively plentiful. Unless (as I've said before) there's a popular character being introduced (e.g. Wolverine, Punisher, Elektra), these comics are unlikely to have a "book value" of more than a buck or two. Selling them individually on Ebay, you might get that "book value" but it's going to be eaten up by fees (not to mention the time spent). Selling them as a lot, you're going to get pennies on the dollar, especially if you don't have any complete runs.

One other thing, and this is big, is that many comic collectors are seriously fanatical about the condition of the comics. Like, record collectors can get obsessive about finding specific pressings or super-clean copies because it makes a difference in what we hear. For comic collectors, they're often 10x worse, and in many cases, they're only interested in how perfect the front cover is. Again, most of these comics are easy to find if you just want to read them. So collectors are looking for the best-quality version of a given issue. Go read the grading guide I linked to... any visible imperfection in the cover automatically knocks a grade or two off the comic's value.

This means that, first, if your comics haven't been stored in bags with stiff backing boards since day 1, you're probably not going to be realizing any "Near Mint" or "Very Fine" prices. Secondly, it means that packaging is extremely important (and a huge pain in the ass). My typical method, if I was selling 5-10 comics, was to put each of them in a bag with a backing board, put that whole stack of comics between two stiff pieces of corrugated cardboard (so they couldn't flex or bend in any way) and then wrapping that whole "block" in packing tape to keep it secure. From there, it could just go in a regular manila envelope... no bubble mailer needed because of all the cardboard, but it takes a lot more time (and supplies) than just sticking a CD in a padded mailer. I got bitched at by one Ebay seller because I returned a comic to him in a cardboard photo mailer that wasn't stiff enough, so this is seriously a big deal if you're selling comics in very good condition.

It doesn't sound like that's probably the case with most of y'all posting in this thread, but I just wanted to lay the whole thing out to let you know what to expect if you do decide to go the Ebay route.

Again, for "Just a bunch of comics from the closet" like we're talking about here, finding a local dealer who wants to buy them is probably still your best bet. Otherwise, maybe priced at ~25c/comic (i.e. what Panda probably paid for these comics in the first place) as an "as-is" lot on Ebay, you might get lucky.

 

PS: Excelsior!

 

Did you ever slab anything?

 

No, I never had anything worth slabbing. Most of the comics I was selling were modern (2000's). Most of my collection ranges from the 70s to 80s but nothing particularly valuable. In the 2000's I was grabbing complete runs of semi-obscure 80s and 70s stuff for low money (e.g. Steve Gerber's Foolkiller miniseries or Jack Kirby's 2001: A Space Odyssey/Machine Man series from the late 70s).

 

What annoys me is they are not reprints. Hit the market here at the same release time as the originals, just maybe a week or so behind due to ships (60s) and planes (70s). Just ours had a U.K. price on. However, the dealer I spoke to in the 9os said that market value had them classed as reprints. The British price-print detracted from them being ‘real’. Utter bollocks as far as I’m concerned. Anyway, they’re going to my kids and grandkids. Hopefully it’ll all be sorted out by then. Or it’ll be the best Bonfire Night ever....

 

You should look them up on that ComicsPriceGuide site if you're curious. They're probably on there.