New to the comic book thing...

I have some comic books that have fallen in my lap. Most contained within a plastic sheath. I know nothing about comic books like what is the issue number and so on. Can someone give me a brief tutorial so I can display/ offer them up for sale if they are worth anything? Also what's the difference between a comic book and commic magazine?

thanks!

Hi chelly - there are three important things you need to identify to sell these:
1. the title
2. the issue number
3. the grade

1 and 2 you can find in the "indicia". This is the small print at the bottom of the first page.
3 you can find by using the Nostomania grading guide. Just Google "comic book grading guide", the Nostomania page is at the top!

Yeah, I kind of just started too. With the Iron Man movie. I loved that movie so much I had to read more. Now I buy three titles. Green Lantern, Iron Man and I'm gonna start on Flash. I love to read the stories but frankly I'm deathly afraid of the "collector" I don't a pig's nose from an elbow. What's the best way to learn about this stuff.

Thank you

Jason - depends on what you want to learn about. Throw out some specific topics and we will help you.

I can't figure out how to grade my comics even looking at some examples. I see some examples that look really beat up and they get high grades and others are in good shape and get low grades. It seems rather arbitrary. And I'm concerned about buying and selling on ebay. Seems risky.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 05-13-2010 14:02:54

Also, Iw ouldn't mind some tips on the cheapest ways to increase the value of your collectio. i.e mylar and slabbing and whatnot. I live in Eastern Canada and there don't seem to be many options around here.

JasonNewcomb wrote:Also, Iw ouldn't mind some tips on the cheapest ways to increase the value of your collectio. i.e mylar and slabbing and whatnot. I live in Eastern Canada and there don't seem to be many options around here.

Jason - Good question on the slabbing. If you enter your comics into Nosto's My Lists - there is an option in "Print My Lists" which shows you which items would benefit from slabbing if you were going to sell. Nice little feature. As for grading - the Nosto grading guide has descriptions and images for every grade. If you Google "comic book grading guide" the Nostomania page is the Number 1 result.

JasonNewcomb wrote:I can't figure out how to grade my comics even looking at some examples. I see some examples that look really beat up and they get high grades and others are in good shape and get low grades. It seems rather arbitrary. And I'm concerned about buying and selling on ebay. Seems risky.

Regarding the buying and selling on eBay - what you need to do is find a few solid sellers. Ones that are trustworthy, can grade, and have a decent volume of stuff available at reasonable prices. There are tons of what I call EBay Museums out there. Big shot dealers who put their inventory in eBay stores at ridiculous prices, and the stuff just sits there collecting dust because these sellers won't let anything go for market price. The best kept secrets are guys like this: http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewListedItems&include=0&since=0&rdir=0&rows=200&userid=cclonborisnbela, who start everything at a penny, and never use a reserve. Everything sells, and if you check frequently there are some great deals to be had. This must really piss the old-school dealers off, but hey, if a comic sells for a quarter, then I guess that's the true current value!

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 05-20-2010 16:21:26

This is very helpful. Can I upload my excel spreadsheet collection to nostomania? And if I upload scans to here would you guys help me grade a few comics? Not officially of course but you know say two or three issues just to walk me through the process. I learn by doing and having others teach me first hand... If it's not too much to ask...

Hmmm, I have been going through my comics and checking your list of grading and reading many articles on the site and learned a whole lot!

This is a very cool website indeed!