Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.

If you notice, I do not always place a value on a comic that I blog about, mostly because I do not know the value and do not want to put in the time to figure out the value.  A glance at eBay prices shows that valuation can vary wildly on many comics.  I have put a value on several Star Wars comics in my blog postings but that is because I can see what they sell for easily; these comics usually have a low number of sales from month to month so I do not have to spend too much time figuring out an average price or a price range.  In the case of a CGC encapsulated comic, those are also easy to assign a value to even if many of them are sold because prices do not vary as wildly.

Most collectors want to believe the comics they have are highly valued, using prices realized for CGC sales and prices being asked on sites such as eBay.  Our collecting interests are peaked when we see a comic sell for a high price or see a high price being asked for the comic, so it is only natural we want to believe that our comic is also worth that price.  But there are many factors to consider when valuing a comic.  Just because a CGC 9.8 Star Wars #1 sold for $1800 or more does not mean your Star Wars #1 is valued at $1800.  Chances are, the value of your Star Wars #1 is worth much, much less unless you are lucky enough to be sitting on a perfect issue 38 years after they originally were published.  Likewise, just because someone is asking for $1100 for a Marvel Illustrated Books Star Wars (there is an auction going on right now in eBay asking that much money for this paperback) does not mean your copy is worth that much.  The copy listed on eBay will not sell for anywhere close to that price; this paperback usually sells for $10 - 20.

Another thing to consider is timing.  A comic is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it at the time the comic is available.  If a collector willing to spend more for the final issue of a comic for his collection just happens to be looking when your comic is being sold, that is terrific, you will probably realize top dollar.  But, unless your comic has a strong demand, chances are it will sit for a long time requiring a price adjustment down to move.  That Star Wars #1 Alex Ross variant cover sold for $75 in January, but today sellers are hard pressed to realize $40 for the very same issue.  So, while we like to brag about the value of our comic collections to our friends or maybe want to obfuscate the value to make our significant others more appreciative of our smart investments, we should not be kidding ourselves about the true value of our collections.