I recently came across some comics I saved from my college days in the late 80’s - several limited edition sets of 4-12 issues. They’re in pretty good shape - they were certainly read, but have been in poly bags since I originally bought them, no stains or tears, corners are still sharp. I tried googling their value, and I’m finding wildly varying numbers for the same comic. There’s about 50 all told. I have no real attachment to them and would like to get rid of them - what’s a relatively painless way but which will get me a reasonable return on the ones that have some value? Do I have to get them graded? Is there a good way to tell which ones are worth paying to get graded and which ones aren’t worth the effort?
I sold a bunch on ebay. I didn’t get them graded but I did take photos of the spines, corners and covers, and gave a best guess at what they’d be rated at. I was also fine with taking more photos or answering questions on request. I didn’t make as much as I would have had they been CGC-rated, but buying at $0.95 and selling at $150 is a pretty good ROI.
This. I’ve sold some stuff on eBay from my closet that I figured I would throw away if nobody wanted it. I had some baseball cards, phonograph records, and coins worth something, but they weren’t worth getting graded and not selling.
I don’t know where you live, but some large cities have comic book stores. They may be willing to give you something for them in bulk, but eBay is your best chance of getting a decent price. As P.T. Barnum supposedly said…
What titles do you have. Marvel and DC comics from that era usually aren’t very valuable because there are plenty of untouched copies of every comic printed in warehouses. Independent comics were emerging in that time frame and some of those can be highly valued because of their rarity.
Considering your investment getting a few bucks for each mag is a good deal and you could make more from impatient people looking to fill out a collection.
As with any collectibles, educate yourself first as to what grades there are and how those grades are arrived at. Then try to estimate what grade your comics are (it will usually be less than you think it is). Then buy a guide book (if there is such a thing) like there is for coins, which shows the value of each grade for each item, or go on eBay and look for the same comics in the same grade in the “sold” category.
If you have Wolverine 1-4 thats worth a pretty penny. Same with Secret Wars.
I tried selling some comics back to my dealer a while back, and he said he no longer buys back issues. People were buying graphic novels and collected editions, so the market for back issues dried up.
I had about 1000 from the mid-80s through mid-90s. I contacted a couple online buyers and they were not interested in the majority of them. I decided to pare it down by dropping a half dozen at a time in the many of the little libraries we would come upon out on long walks. Over a couple years I dropped down to about 200 I am keeping including all of Wolverine 1 - 85.
I was always hoping it was youngsters grabbing these comics, but my guess it was guys in their 40s and 50s 
My nephew is a collectibles broker which means he sells comics, etc. He has an eBay store and does very well as in he was able to quit his corporate job.
Thank you all. Turns out there’s a comic shop not too far that does free appraisals on Thursdays, so I’ll bring them there. Checking what these are selling for at online shops, the only thing probably worth bringing are the Watchmen & Dark Knight Returns sets.
Make sure you ask what the comics can be sold for, not what they are worth. In my experience, a comic worth $10 will be bought by a comic store for $3 or so. Why not just ask them to buy the whole lot? Easy.
As others have noted, most comics from those years aren’t worth all that much – you can check online at various comic book value sites to see the actual value. Don’t be blinded by the high prices you see for comics graded 9.0 and above. Even if you have comics in what appears to you truly wonderful shape, it’s probably not above a 7.0 (that especially applies to comics that are visibly “certainly read”. And it’s the ones that are in that stratospheric range of 9.0 and higher that are selling for those phenomenal prices.
You’ll find that a lot of 70s, 80s, and later comics don’t even have prices listed – they’re too common to be worth it.
There are a few comics that do bring in attractive prices, even if you couldn’t retire on them – the Secret Wars comic where Spidey gets the organic symbiotic suit that gives rise to Venom, for instance.
If you do have something that really is valuable (which you’ll know by checking it on websites, and taking a good, serious estimate of its condition), your best bet is to go through an auction house. I just did this with a series of comics that I had. Be warned – it takes a long time for the whole process, and the auction house will take their cut. But they’ll get you a better price than you would probably get going directly to a comic book dealer.
I had one 1960s comic that was actually graded at 8.5 (the highest any of my comics have ever been appraised at). And it was an issue that introduced a major character. It went for a couple of thousand dollars. That’s not typical. The other comics in that lot were rated lower and brought in less money, often a lot less. I only got $150 for one that I thought ought to have gone for much more (It was, to my eye, a pretty high grade and was part of a limited run).
Moral: They’re probably not worth as much as you think they are, even when you think you’re being brutally honest.
I’m definitely not thinking I’m getting any sort of big money for these. But they’re going in the trash anyway, so if I’m just trying to see if I can pick up a few bucks for them for limited effort.
I have a good handful of old Fantastic Four, X-Men, the usual…kind of grubby and beat up. I was a HUGE Marvel fan back in the 60’s. We do have a comic book store here, someday I might bring them over for inspection. Not hoping for much, there is nothing noteworthy about them, not ‘first issues’.
Fantastic Four comics don’t necessarily have to be “first issues” to be valuable.
You’re probably aware of the “Galactus trilogy” – 48, 49, and 50. Even at grade 6, #48 sells for over $4000. 49 goes for $3000-$4000 and 50 for about $100.
Issue 52, with the first appearance of the Black Panther, goes for about $1500 in grade 6
Issue 67, with the first appearance of Him/Adam Warlock (soon to be big in the MCU) , goes for $500-700
Early X-men are also potentially valuable. I’ve seen abysmal-looking copies of, say, FF$5 (first appearance of Dr. Doom) selling for high prices.
FWIW, I took the comics to a local store, and he bought the lot for $200. Which might mean I may have been able to get 2x that if I sold them piecemeal online, but I’m perfectly happy to get rid of them with no effort.
I would have done the same thing.
I wish i could see these books that are occasionally talked about.
$200 for fifty books at a comic-shop leads me to believe there was some quality or key issues in there.
Yeah really, not a bad haul for books otherwise destined for the trash heap. My boyfriend was selling original The Amazing Spiderman books for a while (issues 1-400) and he rarely got that much for a stack.