So, I've got 20 years of comics in my basement

[semillama]

and I'm starting to consider whether or not it's worth hanging onto them for much longer. I don't know if there's still much of a collector's market out there. I wouldn't mind selling a few boxes worth, but also don't want to get taken too badly if there's any value to them.


So, would folks recommend holding onto the comics and see if they appreciate any more, or is now a good time to get rid of them?


Note: I am not a collector, I am a reader; still, I would say most of my collection is in pretty good shape. I'd say a sizable chunk, if not the majority, of the collection consists of various X-men titles. I do have the full run (or close to it) of Wolverine up to the recent Dark Wolverine split. I'm pretty sure I have close to full runs of some of the X-titles that were introduced in the 90s, such as X-men, X-treme X-men, New X-men.

I've got a lot of other titles, too, but some of those I'd like to hang on to for longer. It's mainly the Marvel stuff that's taking up the most space and has the lowest chance that I'll come back and re-read them.

[Orrex]

1. I was greatly disillusioned in the late 80s...

when I discovered that my comic collection--massing somewhere in the neighborhood of five metric tons--was worth almost enough to pay for gas to transport it to the dump.

Lacking autographs or other distinguishing and value-adding factors, comics are notoriously weak investments, especially once the comic industry figured out that amateur speculators will buy 100 copies of anything labeled "special limited edition" or "chrome hologram cover variant." So the industry mass-produces these "special collector's editions" (I'm talking to you, Todd MacFarlane) and depreciate the market value by virtue of saturation. The myriad X-titles were particularly guilty of this in the 90s IIRC.

If you have full runs of any titles, you might do a little better, but otherwise (in many cases) you'll be lucky to get the original cover price. I used to know a guy who did pretty well @ the comic resale game, but he was a zealot, stalking artists to get autographs and that sort of thing.


Though it would take a lot more of your time, you'd likely do better by sifting through your collection and finding out if anything is of particular value. If you try to sell it en masse, you'll only be able to move it as bulk lots, and you'll miss out on most of the value of what you might have there.


Good luck!