Please use these prices with caution.
Guide prices for comic books with very recent sales activity may be out-of-date.
Guide prices for comic books with no recent sales activity may also be out-of-date.
What are the columns in the price guide?
NM Guide is the expected price if buying a Near Mint (NM, 9.4) condition comic.
It is common for issues priced $5 and under to be purchased at a discount
or in bulk lots of various issues for significantly cheaper than individual pricing.
CGC prices are for CGC graded (encapsulated) books, specifically the grades CGC 9.6 and CGC 9.8.
More detailed sales records are available by selecting an individual comic in the guide. CGC sales records are provided by GPAnalysis.com
Lists available: Most Recent CGC Sales, Most Active CGC Sales and Highest Average CGC Sales.
What are the colors indicating?
Price colors indicate UP, DOWN, or STABLE compared to prior guide information.
The yellow box indicates raw sales are recorded from the past 30 days.
What sales are being used for the NM Guide price?
The completed auction results from ebay® are downloaded from the ebay.com website.
The title of the ebay auction and the selling price are recorded in a database.
Auction results for groups of books (more than a single issue) are removed from the data.
The database attempts to align the description of the book to the individual issue.
When a match occurs, the sales record for the comic is recorded in the database.
If the condition of the comic is listed in the title of the auction, it is also recorded.
How does the price guide database do the auction title matching?
Using the ebay auction title, it is often (but not always) possible to identify the specific
comic book which has been sold and to include the completed sales price in the database.
For example, the title "X-O Manowar #1 1992" is a clear indication of a particular comic book.
However, the title "X-O Manowar #1" is not clear. The comic sold could be the first issue
of the 1992 X-O Manowar series, the 2012 X-O Manowar series, the 2017 X-O Manowar series,
the 2020 X-O Manowar series, or some other X-O #1 issue such as an Annual, Yearbook,
or another title like 4001 A.D.: X-O #1, or even a price reflecting an auction with #1, #2, #3, etc.
Additionally, the number of variants available for Valiant comics 2012 to present increase the problem
of positive identification because the title "X-O Manowar #1 2017" indicates a particular series but
does not indicate which variant of issue #1 was sold. The database does not include auction photos.
Only the ebay auctions which can be positively identified as specific issues are recorded in the
price guide database. Because of ambiguous titles, many ebay auction sales are not recorded.
What causes prices in the guide which are obviously wrong?
There are situations where the auction title indicates a specific comic book
while the auction itself may be for a different comic or other type of collectible.
In the event a comic book which routinely sells for one price is listed in the guide for
a significantly higher guide price, it is possible that the ebay recorded sale of a page
of original art from that issue or a limited edition variant or some other collectible
with a similar name was included in the price calculation. Those types of outliers
are the primary reason that caution should be used with this price guide. Even a
1% error rate represents hundreds of errors in the database of many thousands of sales.
The automation of many parts of the price guide database process allows for more sales
to be included but also increases the number errors and outliers as a result.
How are the NM Guide prices calculated?
Using the sales records in the database, the NM Guide price is calculated as the average
of recent individual sales for each comic when the auction title has specified the comic's condition.
When the auction title does not indicate the condition of the comic, an "average condition" is assumed.
The average condition comic book is not true Near Mint (NM), and is often closer to VF/NM (9.0) for comics
printed from the 1990s to present. When these average condition comics are included in the calculation,
the prices are assumed to be slightly lower than if the comic condition was true Near Mint (NM, about 9.4).
It is understood that many comic book sellers overestimate the condition of their comic books
because they would like to receive higher bids and because accurate grading is time-intensive.
The most recent recorded sales (regardless of condition) are used for the price calculation.
When recent sales are not available, older sales records or an earlier guide price are shown.
What about books without any recorded sales?
In some cases there are no recorded sales and the NM Guide is essentially an educated guess price.
The general assumption is that a comic which originally sold for $4 would be valued at $4 or less,
unless there are sales records which indicate otherwise. If a comic book was a variant requiring
additional purchases by a retailer, the NM Guide price may reflect a portion of the additional costs,
such as a 1:10 variant initially listed for $10 because most retailers sell variants at a premium.
Some trade paperbacks and hardcovers may be listed at their original suggested retail prices,
as high as $100, if there are no recent sales to indicate the back issue market average prices.
Standard comic books (single issues) valued over $20 in NM Guide without recent sales indicate
that there is demand for the comic and potentially a premium could be paid for the next available
copy for auction. In that scenario, it should not be surprising if a NM Guide $20 book sells for $200.
I can't find a Valiant comic from my collection, where is it in the guide?
Many recent Valiant comic books are been published between updates of the database.
If a comic has not yet been added to the database, please refer to other online sources
to determine an approximate current value. Most comic book prices reflect an initial demand
which is decreased as time passes. Comic books which hold significance for collectors will often
see increased back issue prices in the future, however, it is unusual for new comics to experience
no drop in pricing once the initial demand has passed (usually within weeks or months) of release.
Some retailer exclusives are not listed, such as Free Comic Book Day issues or store variants.
Older Valiant comics which are not shown in the price guide may have an alternate title
or may belong to the licensed works which were not part of the Valiant Universe of characters.
Licensed comics include Mario/Nintendo, Wrestling, KFC, Spaghetti-Os, and alternate publishing
lines within Acclaim Entertainment (1990s) such as Windjammer and Armada, which are not included.
Future versions of the guide may expand the listings, but there are no immediate plans to do so.
What is NOT included in the NM Guide price calculations?
The NM Price does not include sales of CGC, CBCS, or other graded (encapsulated) comic books.
The cost of comic book grading and encapsulation is generally $25 or more, and even a $2 comic book
common issue could sell for $30 if it has been graded and encapsulated (also known as "slabbed").
The $30 sale of a "slabbed" $2 comic does not affect the NM Guide price for the comic book.
How are the CGC Guide prices calculated?
CGC sales records for Valiant and Acclaim comic books are provided by GPAnalysis.com.
The average sale price for CGC graded comic books is shown for CGC 9.6 and CGC 9.8 conditions.
These are the prices for universal (blue) labels, indicating that a book is in original condition
without signatures, without alteration such as coupon cutting, adding color, or other repairs.
The most recent sales average is used, which may be as recent as 30 days.
If there are no recent sales, the price guide may show an older average or an educated guess.
Where are other CGC grades like 9.2, 9.4, 9.9, and 10?
With few exceptions, the grades CGC 9.6 and CGC 9.8 represent the active market for comic books
from the 1990s to present. In the event that a comic holds significant value in CGC 9.2 or CGC 9.4,
the NM Guide price combined with the CGC 9.6 price should give a good estimate for pricing grades
such as CGC 9.2 or CGC 9.4. The prices for CGC 9.9 and CGC 10 may be multiples of CGC 9.8.
The multiple usually reflects the number of copies graded CGC 9.9 or CGC 10 for that issue.
In the event that a CGC 9.9 or CGC 10 is the single highest graded copy after hundreds of
submissions to CGC, it is not unusual for the price to be many multiples of CGC 9.8 prices.
When CGC 9.9 or CGC 10 is a relatively common grade for a comic, the price may be only
slightly higher (or equal to) the CGC 9.8 prices for that issue.
Where are CBCS or other encapsulated comics in the guide?
CGC sales records for Valiant and Acclaim comic books are provided by GPAnalysis.com.
GPAnalysis.com does not include sales records for other encapsulation companies.
CBCS prices are generally similar to CGC since both companies have the same founder,
while other encapsulation companies have yet to earn collector confidence in the market.
