Hi again, I thought it would be good to introduce the new collector to what a comic price guide is all about, hey the veteran collector may glean something from this as well.  There are a number of comic price guides around but there are probably three main ones and these are the Overstreet, CBG and Wizard, over the years they have switched around on which one is used as the pre-eminent one which  is a point of interest to start at.  The veteran collector and retailer will sometimes refer to these as the bibles but don't read to much into it as they operate on Archimedes principle of leverage.  What I mean by this is that it is used to the advantage of the seller and sometimes the veteran buyer who may be quite unscrupulous in their dealings with others.  Now what these guides are meant for is exactly contained in the name, it is a guide or estimate of what a books value may be in the marketplace or a starting point for a negotiation on the price of a book.  Many a retailer has built a solid reputation by using these as guides only and always being open to offers and these same retailers are still in business after decades, not to say that the bad dealer isn't still in business but this is what you will have to decide on when you start collecting, and that is who you deal with and why.  Now another consideration is there will be five or six different prices for the book and that is because of grading which is also a point of contention that I have written about before, but to touch lightly on it again you will only have the retailer or sellers word that it is a certain grade unless you see it in person and know how to grade.  Grading isn't incredibly hard to learn as there are many books and websites out there that can instruct you mostly with color examples of page coloration, wear and tear and damages that can determine how much grade value is dropped.  An example would be a book that is much sought after and there is no wear on the corners of the book, the staples on the spine are perfectly solid and not rusted or discolored and finally the pages are slightly discolored to a light cream as opposed to white.  This book sounds like it is somewhere around very fine or VF as it will be listed in a guide but upon closer inspection, inside the back cover a book store that had the book once has put its stamp on it.  This, depending on the purist could severly lower the grade and the price but this will depend also on who is selling, who is buying and why the book is wanted.  Probably the easiest way to grade a book in the beginning is to take a modern day brand new book with you and hold the book you want to buy against it but, and here is the tricky part, only use it to check the corners, spine and coloration of the pages, now this is not foolproof and it should only be a guide for a plethora of reasons, mainly the printers are always switching their techniques as to quality of paper, type of ink, metallurgy of the staples etc.  None the less you could start with this as a guideline when starting out but please be flexible as not all retailers and sellers are bad people as a matter of fact they are probably some of the most honest people you will meet on the whole but one bad apple will try to spoil the barrel.

Each guide will have its own value of a book but the confusing part is quite often character appearances, as in when they first appeared in a comic.  An example I recently came across was the character Chase, in Batman, in one guide the Batman number 550 is listed as her first appearance and in another it is listed as her second.  Here you will need to do the research to find out when the two books in contention were published and which ever was first should be the first appearance, however this will also depend on the guides in question also as sometimes the very first appearance will be a one panel shot at the very end of a book.  The one panel shot at the end is usually referred to as a cameo and a classic example would be Wolverine.  The character has a cameo in The Incredible Hulk number 180 and full story in number 181 and the 181 is generally accepted as his first appearance.  The lines are a lot more gray than black and white now on what a first appearance will consist of as is the case with the character in Batman, Renee Montoya who some guides list as her first appearance was in Batman the Animated series which is true she was created for the animated series.  Now here is the kicker, her first comic appearance was in Batman number 475 which is what would be the collectible as it is not very hard to get a DVD of the Batman animated series as there are probably millions out there making that highly uncollectible.  What makes a character collectible is usually how they are ingrained into the story line for example the now much talked about Renee Montoya whom D.C. has now decided will be a lesbian as well as the new Batwoman they will introduce soon.  This sudden push toward a persons sexual orientation has piqued interest in the comic community and why, I'm not sure but the bottom line is they hope it will sell comics and here I thought good writing did that.

Well until next time, I hope this was helpful and informative not to preachy either also thanks for reading as it means a lot to me to help someone out especially if your new to this genre.