Comic Books: Comics from Golden Age

Video Transcript

"Let's go to the Golden Age. These are my favorites. These are from the forties, and they usually sold for ten cents, and it doesn't even show 10, it just says ten cents, which is kind of cool, and kind of quaint. This would be one of the most popular comic books of the time. Batman and Superman were probably right up there with the most popular. Here's a Batman comic book. Now this particular Batman comic book; the artwork....that's another thing to mention. A lot of comic book collectors collect comic books for the artists that drew them, so they collect certain artists. There's a wonderful, wonderful event called Comic-Con, in San Diego, and I think it's August or September, and it's in San Diego, and it's just the most phenomenal comic book event, if you ever get a chance to go to it, Google it, and see when it is. It's called Comic-Con, and they have comic book collectors, they have auctioneers that come; I can tell you a little bit about that, but let's look at this particular comic book. It's a ten center, and I almost hate to touch it, because condition is everything; as we say. Here is the DC logo; it says editorial advisory board for Superman DC comic books. So here we have the Superman family, which came out monthly. Here are some of the magazines; action comics, detective, star spangled, and we're opening this comic book, and we do see it's not in the greatest condition. Now that you're experts, you see the spine curl. That's because somebody laid it down wrong; see what happens; you've got the spine curling, but we do have nice gloss on the cover, but we see the damage we have right here; a lot of curling. Now, these comic books; the highly valuable ones; can be restored, and sometimes it's worth it. This particular comic book is probably; if it was in mint condition; it could be worth; I'm guessing, I haven't looked lately, but last time I looked, I think it was something like four hundred dollars; maybe; in mint condition. This particular comic book; since it's not going to be close to mint condition, because of all the damage on the front, the curling. Some little devil. Don't you just hate it when that happens? Somebody colored the back of that comic book, and I hope he's fretting over it right now, because it's ruining the value of my comic book. These are mine; personally. Here you have this comic book which this is, and I think I said when it was; 1946, I think it was. As we turn through it we will see; let's check again for completeness. Yes, it is complete. The Baby Ruth ad; very cool. Then I have this other comic book I will quickly mention. This one is even older yet. This one is number twenty seven. Now, let's say you were going to Google a comic book, and you went onto eBay, and you Googled Batman 27. Well, you're going to get a lot of Batman 27's that were re-releases, and later editions of Batman, so there's not going to be a bunch of original 27's on eBay. If there are, and you do want to look on eBay, make sure that the person fully represents all the flaws by scanning it in so you see all the flaws. This one has quite a few flaws, but it's older. This one is from 45'. So you see, we've got some tearing, we've got a chunkette missing here. This is bringing this baby down to; probably, poor condition, so we're going to be lucky if this comic book; for instance, is worth four hundred, which I'm not sure, because I haven't looked lately. If this particular comic book is worth about four hundred dollars. I'd be lucky to get; maybe a hundred; a hundred and twenty five, or more. I'd have to check for sure. It's just indicative of the fact that these comic books really are based on condition, and as you know, Expert Villagers, condition, condition, condition, and there you have it."