Back in late '30s, I think, I was still a kid but I remember buying the first few Superman comic books. The concept appealed to me as in the beginning he only had much greater strength because of the lower gravity of Earth vs Krypton. He could lift huge weights, jump vast distances, etc, but he did not fly nor was he bullet proof, etc. He came in a spaceship as an infant and was adopted by a kindly couple. It was very logical, well-drawn and even amusing before it got so hokey.
Sometime later I bought the first Batman comic books. I think back then they were ten cents, not all that easy to come by, so I treasured them. I kept my collection for years until I turned 18 and went into the Army at the tail end of WWII.
As I was clearing up all my junk to prepare to leave, my mother insisted in throwing out the comic book collection. I tried every conceivable arguement to prevent this, except of course the absured one that these might be valuable someday. Who woulda thunk?
What do you suppose those first few Superman and Batman books would be worth today? Wait, I don’t want to know!
The superpriced sales of early issues are for the extremely rare, virtually unfindable mint or near-mint copies. These are the ones that go to auctions and make headlines.
Ordinary, heavily-read, creased, coverless, torn, pages-missing copies are worth some money just because any surviving issues are rare but won’t buy a house, or even pay a month’s rent on one.
Without knowing what their condition would be like after 60 years there is no way in the world to put a price on your no-longer-extant comics even to the right number of significant digits.
I still have my X-Men #1 but except for the people who absolutely have to say they own a copy, it’s essentially worthless in the shape it’s in.
Well, I don’t go back as far as the first Superman comic, but I still remember the day I picked up a copy of Fantastic Four #1. It cost 10 cents which was my entire weekly allowance at the time. The cover caught my attention and I read that book innumerable times. Like everyone else’s story, when I came home from college, that box of comics hidden under my bed was nowhere to be found! And since the new Fantastic Four movie is coming out soon, I’m just reminded again at what I lost. :rolleyes:
I know it was a different era for comics, but my first comic as a collector was the second issue of “The Amazing Spider Man” to feature the black suit. I remember the cover price being about seventy-five cents, but the guy who I purchased it from said he’d give it to me “for a bill”.
The reason I bring this up was because one day, many years after this and many thousands of dollars spent on comics I stumbled upon the very first comic with Iron Man in it. Holy crap, I thought, I gotta have it. Fortunately it was in the “Anything for a quarter” bin. Why, you may ask? Because it didn’t have a cover, other than that I would say it was in good condition.
Well, I stopped collecting individual comics years ago (I now buy the graphic novels and reprinted collections) but I can still say, with pride in my voive, that “I have the first appearance of Iron Man, but it has no cover.”
A proud moment indeed.
Are you sure? Look around the border of the splash page. There might be a small box that says “Originally presented in TALES OF SUSPENSE #39 (Mar. 1963)”. In other words, you have a reprint. In the small print at the bottom of that page, a copyright date of 1980 or so would also be a tip-off.
Not quite all of them. I just pulled out one of my piles of issues that I bouught in the '50’s for 10 or 15 cents at the variety store my mom and dad owned for 25 years.
Let’s see,
Atomic War! #4
Batman #s 68, 69, 80
Battlefront #s 2,7,8Bobby Benson’s B-Bar-B Riders 4-11Crazy #2
Boy Illustories #60,79,87,89
Detective Comics #180
Classics Illustrated (precursers of Cliff’s Notes) #23,26,40,42, 53, 80. 85,& more
Combat #9
Dennis The manace #1
Dick Tracy Comics Monthly sev’l from # 49 to 89
Detective
Donald Duck 29, 33
and that’s just A thru D.
still inventorying, including several early issues of MAD Comics, EC (Tales From the Crypt, etc.)
Who woulda thunk?