Dropped into a back issue bin at a thrift store last weekend...

Found a stack of 80s X-Men comics that some kid had clearly owned. Crayon scribbles on two pages and a pizza stain on the cover. Made me miss when comics actually got passed around and beat up instead of locked in plastic bags.

2 comments

2 Comments

maxm631mo ago

Seventy five cents each for that whole stack? Not bad, even with the crayon scribbles. Those 80s X-Men issues especially the Claremont/Byrne run were meant to be read and reread until the staples gave out. My question is when did collecting turn into this museum culture where a fingerprint on the cover drops the value by fifty bucks? Was it the early 90s speculation boom or the rise of eBay that convinced everyone they were sitting on retirement funds instead of just fun comic books?

the_sean1mo ago

Remember finding a copy of Amazing Spider-Man #300 in a garage sale box with half the cover ripped off and someone's notes in the margins about which fights were the coolest. That copy's probably worth next to nothing now but I bet it meant the world to whoever was doodling in it at the time. Makes you wonder if the pristine graded copies sitting in storage will ever get that kind of love.