Expert: J. Spyder Isaacson - 3/30/2008

Question
Hello Mr. Isaacson- I was born in 1957 at the height of the horror movement with Boris karloff and Bela Lugosi etc etc. I have a nice size collection of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine along with Castle of Frankenstein magazines and The Monster Times and a few other offshoots of that time period. I loved them then- but I do not know if there is a demand for those mags now-- do you know- I mean- my son is going to college this year and a nice windfall sale would be nice....I also have e huge collection of comics but they are not cataloged AT ALL. I have them in acid free boxes with plastic-- but there are just so many it would take me years to separate them into genres and characters ---where does one begin--- I mean I have Superman, Spiderman, Iron Man, Hulk,and Batman ,all the offshoots of Spiderman, all the Team up issues  and the mini series Like The Watchmen(never never even opened).. what do I do?????

Answer
Hmmm . . . sounds like you have a real project ahead of you!

As far as the magazines go, there *are* quite a number of collectors, especially of famous titles like Famous Monsters of Filmland.  However, this goes just a bit beyond my expertise, as magazines of this type are in kind of a gray area in the comics field (even more so if they are comic-type magazines like Tomb of Dracula, Vampira, Heavy Metal, and the like).

Your best bet for the magazines is to check out collector web sites, and see what type of demand they might have.  Other than that, I'm afraid I would be at a bit of a loss to advise you further.

As to the comics, it sounds like they've been protected, which is a BIG plus.  Your best bet is first to sort them by title and issue number (in other words, Action Comics and Superman are both about the same character, but are evaluated separately).  Second, get yourself a copy of the Overstreet Official Comic Book Price Guide.  Not only is this the most trusted price guide on the market (not to mention it's the granddaddy of all comics price guides), but it also has a comprehensive guide for evaluating the condition of the comics.  This will give you a very good idea what value the entire collection has.

Now comes the hard part: selling them.  There are a wide variety of opinions as to your approach.  My advice would be to take the very valuable books and sell those separately, preferably through an outlet such as e-Bay or a comic book collector web site.  Then you can take any strings of books (say, Green Lantern #215-283, for instance) and sell those as a batch.

Be aware that you will not likely get full value out of the sale unless (and this is quite rare) a particular collector is DESPERATE to get a certain title and issue.  If you are dealing with a collector, they will probably be willing to pay 80-90% of value for a particularly valuable issue, less for less valuable issues.  (And my best advice is to STAY AWAY FROM COMICS DEALERS - if you're lucky, they'll offer you 10% of the actual value!)

(By the way, I can tell you *RIGHT NOW* that you can probably get nearly full value off the Watchmen issues - that's an INCREDIBLY hot property right now, especially as they are looking at possibly making a Watchmen movie!)

Lastly, if you want to get the best value, be patient.  Sometimes it can take a while to find collectors willing to pay the best.

Good luck, and let me know how you do!

-- Spyder