GUEST: These are comics that I collected as a young lad in the late, uh, mid-to-late 1960s. The interesting thing is that I bought all these at a secondhand store for five cents apiece.
APPRAISER: Whoa! Really?
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER: On the cover, they're all 12-cent books.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: And what we have here in front of us are all books published by Marvel.
APPRAISER: And they're from what we call the Silver Age of Comics, which spans from 1956 to 1970. But for Marvel, it didn't technically start until November 1961, with the first appearance of the Fantastic Four. Fantastic Four, issue one. Prior to that, Marvel had gone by Atlas Comics, and prior to Atlas, the original title of the publication house was Timely Comics.
GUEST: Hm.
APPRAISER: Your comic books here range from 1963 to about 1968. When it comes to determining a comic's value today, we have three different components. It's A, why is the book important? Why is it a key issue? And what a key issue means is historical significance. First character appearance, maybe there's a costume change. Uh, maybe it's the number one issue, a change in the title, something that makes that particular book important. The second factor is the age. The modern-day superhero was invented in 1938, Superman, Action Comics one. It's the book that lit the world on fire. So when you get to 1968, you know, that's 30 years of comic books being published in the United States, which brings me to my third factor in how we determine if a book is worth money, the condition. If you have a book that's really historically significant, it can be very forgiving in the condition. So the first book, all the way next to you, that is "X-Men" 12, 1965. It's the 12th issue in the series. It's an early X-Men book. Now, looking at that book, it is in really rough condition. When we grade comic books today, we grade them on a numerical scale that's between 0.5 and ten. Now, ten is theoretically possible, but it's so hard to get a ten. The pinnacle is 9.8. Now, when we look at the Juggernaut book here, it's approximately at about a 2.5...
GUEST: Hm.
APPRAISER: ...to 3.0 condition, but still, on today's market, that's a $500 to $800 book on its own.
GUEST: (wheezing)
APPRAISER: Yeah, that's pretty exciting, right?
GUEST: Yeah, I did not expect that.
APPRAISER: And I'm starting...
GUEST: (laughs)
APPRAISER: I'm happy you didn't expect it. And here's the exciting part, I'm starting from the bottom and working my way up. The second book here in front of us, Amazing Spider-Man 20, is the first appearance of the Scorpion. It is slightly better than the group. It's 3.0 to 3.5 condition. It's a $600 to $900 comic book today. For collectors who can't obtain or can't afford such high-grade copies but want to have the first appearance...
GUEST: Hm.
APPRAISER: ...low-grade key issue books, it grants collectors a lot of accessibility. Which leads me to my favorite of the whole batch. And I don't even know... Do you know why Strange Tales 110 is on the board?
GUEST: That was the one I thought might have some value, because it's the first appearance of Doctor Strange.
APPRAISER: Bingo! Yes, it is first appearance of Doctor Strange. You look at the front, you go, "Man, this book presents really nice." However, we turn it to the back side... ...where we could see there is a loss to the back cover. The back cover is forgiving, but the loss also goes to the last and the second-to-the-last page. We would say this book grades to about a 2.0 to a 2.5, because that beautiful front cover is the saving grace. This book is worth $2,500 to $3,500 at auction today.
GUEST: Oh, my gosh.
APPRAISER: If you were to have this book in 9.2 condition today which would be very, very high grade, looking like it almost just came off the newsstand, that would be a $50,000 to $80,000 comic today. Outside of the three key issues, you have some really great Fantastic Four, I mean, early Daredevil, some other Amazing Spider-Man books. When we look at the whole package, your collection today at auction would be $6,000 to $9,000.
GUEST: Very nice!
APPRAISER: Any one of these books, if they're in absolutely mint shape, they're worth tens of thousands of dollars.
