Customer Reviews

The Official Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, 32nd Edition

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It goes without saying that Overstreet is the best of the reference guides for pricing comics. Perhaps I have too much time on my hands, but it is also good for a little browsing in your spare time with its articles, cover reproductions, and odd facts. I would also say that it is completely comprehensive, except that I noticed that the 1967 copy of Captain Johner and the Aliens published by Gold Key seems to be missing from some editions....

One important thing to keep in mind is that the guides themselves become collectibles. I always used to discard my old "obsolete" copy when I got a more recent one- now I see that some of the older editions that I threw out are worth big bucks. ARRRRRGH!

This book is the definitive source for comic book prices for the hobbyist to the professional dealer. You will be able to find a price for every comic in your collection, from the Platinum Age (1900-1938) on up through the Modern Age (1980 to present).

My only wish is that Overstreet would present more examples (photos especially) of what to look for when grading a comic. That would go a long way in helping collectors accurately grade their comics.

I've had an interest in comics for quite a while now and decided to find out the value on my own comic books. Not only has this book given me the guide value of these comics it has allowed me to find new comic series to buy as well.

The book gives you market values for all comic books so that when you go to purchase comics to add to your collection you will not be [cheated]! After browsing through this book you will find out which comics can become real investments.

I highly recommend this book and will continue to buy each new addition as it becomes available.

Getting this book is no longer important anymore. With the technology of the internet, the comic book collector can now surf the internet and check out comic book sites for current prices of old comics. With the latest of the stupid CDGing where you have to put comics into a sealable plastic shell so you can't take it out to read..............

The Overstreet Price Guide has always been an unbeatable reference/entertainment bargain. In this edition, boasting nearly a thousand pages, you get feature articles (this time out on Superman, Spider-Man and Archie), a market report, the exhaustive price guide listings (erudite essays by leading experts preface each "age" of comics) and everything you need to know about the care and feeding of comics: grading, collecting, preservation and storage, buying and selling, and so on. The guide's famous cover gallery - thirty-six sumptuous pages of four-color masterpieces - by itself justifies the purchase price.

My collecting years well behind me, I picked up this edition of the OPG for the express purpose of appraising a few duplicate comics I wanted to sell on eBay. Soon, however, my on again, off again love affair with comics was passionately rekindled, and I was deep in the throes of browsing mania. The OPG is insidiously addictive, whether your interest in comics is based on collecting, investing, pop culture or just plain old nostalgia. My modest collection of mainly Silver Age Marvels has priceless sentimental value, and only utter financial ruin could induce me to sell it. Still, it's fun to check values periodically and to enjoy the purely masochistic thrill of looking up key issues I wish I had been savvy enough to buy way back when. (Such as the Holy Grail of Spidey-philes like me, "Amazing Fantasy" #15, whose sinfully high current value in near mint condition assures that I will never own it now!)

The OPG is like a politically incorrect clubhouse for boys of all ages and a "no girls allowed" sign is not so subtly implied. The book is pre-occupied with and gleefully celebrates the stuff that boys and men love: action and more action, gore and more gore, and girls, girls, girls. Archaic references to "headlights" and "Good Girl Art" abound in the price listings. In the cover gallery, feminine pulchritude rules. The hobby has female fans and the OPG does acknowledge them, but it's safe to say comicdom will forever remain a mighty bastion of manly ideals. (Yeah, baby!)

The book's market report points up some disturbing trends. Once a boys club admitting anyone with a pocketful of change, comic book fandom is looking more like a very exclusive Rich Boys Club these days. According to the report, somebody paid $350,000 in 2001 for a high grade copy of the legendary Golden Age "Marvel Comics" #1 - the most ever paid for a single comic. Likewise, key Silver Age comics are fetching house mortgage-sized figures. Investors with very deep pockets dominate the ad pages of the OPG, offering vast amounts of cash for key books or whole collections. Such high-rolling doesn't bode well for a hobby that should be all about fun, not trophies and greed.

It's also chic these days for a collector to have his valuable comic graded by a company of super-experts, who proceed to encase the book in an archival plastic holder with a score on the front. The result is a comic book preserved for eternity, but nobody can enjoy it ever again. You can have your trophies - I'm fine with my stained, spine-rolled, subscription-creased Spideys with my name scrawled all over the covers. Poor, but fine.