Imagine for a second that it's 1972 and you're up in your aunt's attic and you find a copy of Superman #1 in great condition. Imagine that, perhaps unwisely, you decide to run right out and sell it for quick cash. If you'd held onto it, today it would probably be worth more than your aunt's whole house but back then, you're thinking, "Wow! I might be able to get $200 for this!" and that sounds appealing.
There is no eBay and you're not going to go to a comic book convention — of which there are few — and buy a table to sell one comic book. There is a thing called but The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide which would tell you how much loot you might be able to get for it but in '72, Mr. Overstreet's guide is new and neither well-known nor particularly consulted or trusted yet.
Your most likely option if you want to liquidate your "find" for quick cash? Go to a comic book shop to try and sell it, which means you encounter the big question of "What's this thing worth?"
Many, many years ago, I had some unpleasant encounters with a gent who ran a small shop that sold old comic books. I honestly do not recall his name so I'll call him Mr. Understreet but a better name might have been Mr. Underprincipled or Mr. Underhanded. He was a shark, a liar, a con-man, a cheater, a man not to be trusted…but you probably wouldn't pick up on that upon first meeting. The guy could come across as cheery and sincere and Your Best Friend Forever.
And he loved cheating people. Just loved it. Someone (not me) said of him, "He'd rather make $100 dishonestly than $200 honestly." In a moment, we'll discuss why but let's get to his modus operandi.
Like many comic shops in those pre-eBay days, he had a mail order catalog he put out every so often. But he also had a fake one he printed to show suckers like you. It had very low prices. You'd walk in with your Superman #1 and he'd offer you $50 for it. You'd gulp and say, "I heard these went for hundreds."
He'd tell you, first of all, that's a lot of phony hype in the press. "Don't believe everything you read." That always sounds like sage advice about everything and in fact, some of the early news stories about the rising value of old comic books were bogus…stories planted by folks trying to drive up the prices of their inventories.
He'd also say, "Once in while, one of these goes for $200 but it's got to be in Absolute Mint Condition," and no matter what shape your Superman #1 was in, he'd tell you it was Good (at best!) and show you some flaw — a wrinkle, a smudge, a tiny tear — that indicated that. He'd also remind you that he was an expert in this field and you weren't.
And then Mr. Understreet would haul out his phony list and show you that he sold copies of Superman #1 in Good condition for $75.
He didn't. He never sold anything for the prices on that list. He didn't even have most of the stuff on that list. It was just to deceive guys like you who walked in with rare comics. He apparently got a lot of them back then.
So he'd tell you, "Look, I shouldn't do this but I know a guy who really wants one of these. I can probably get a hundred out of him for this one so I'll give you sixty dollars cash for it, final offer." You'd take it and then he'd sell the comic for $500…or more.
And he'd just love doing this. It was not solely a matter of the profit. It was that feeling of power and how smart he was to make a chump out of you. I know this because a few times, he couldn't resist bragging about how he'd taken advantage of some jerk and I'd see his eyes flash, not about the money but about how damned clever he was.
He felt like he had a super-power. Anyone could buy an old comic for what it actually was worth. He had the ability to buy it for a lot less and put one over on some chump.
So what became of this guy? Beats me. His shop is long gone. I don't think it even made it into the nineties, let alone this century. Before I wrote this, I called a friend who had some dealings with him way back then…and my friend also didn't remember the guy's name. He said, "I always referred to him as 'That Prick,'" which is one of the nicer things I heard the guy called.
My friend added, "I don't know what happened to him either. I kinda hope he got beaten to death in an alley by some of the customers he screwed over."
That's one possible outcome and I'm not saying it didn't happen. But being a nicer person than my friend, I'd like to think Mr. Overpriced is still alive. The punishment I have in mind for him is that at some point, he stopped thinking how smart he was to turn a $440 profit on a copy of Superman #1 or maybe $550 on a Batman #1. If he was really smart, he would have waited until he could have sold them for six or even seven figures.