I have been using the Overstreet Price Guide for over 15 years and have found it to be a well constructed and accurate resource. The articles are always well researched and informative. However, I do believe that the pricing is no longer as accurate as it once was. I believe that the reason for this is the advent of online auction services such as Ebay. My feeling was that books that change hands online typically sell for less than those sold in specialty shops or at conventions. This would not overly effect the average value of a given book except for the fact that online trading has reached millions of books a year. On any one day Ebay alone offers 100K + comics for auction. I see an average of 10K Golden age offered per day and nearly three times that many Silver Age. Lets look at two books Superman 149 and X-Men 137.
In the case of Superman #149 I tracked sales of ten copies over several months in FINE condition. The OS Guide prices this book at $72 in FINE but the average sale price on Ebay in that condition was $30.69 which is a 66% difference.
In the case of X-Men #137 I tracked 10 copies in VF/NM condition. The OS guide prices the book at $44 in that condition but the average sale on Ebay in that condition was $25.03 which is a 43% difference.
I conducted this exercise for nearly 100 random comics and have found the same trend on EACH one.
I could understand a variance of say, 20% between Overstreet and what we see on Ebay but variances of over 40% suggest a real disconnect. I would tend to discount this sort of variance in stores or conventions where the condition can be dickered over in person but that is not the case with an online auction. I would suggest that Online auctions, as they grow are having a definite effect on the real world value of collectible comics.
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