''The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide'' (or ''Official Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide'') is an annually published

comic book price guide Comic book price guides are typically published on a monthly, quarterly, or yearly basis and provide comprehensive information about the fluctuations in the resale value of comics over a specific duration. These guides play a crucial role for colle ...

widely considered the primary authority on the subject of American

comic book A comic book, comic-magazine, or simply comic is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panel (comics), panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are often accompanied by descriptive prose and wri ...

grading and pricing in the hobby/industry. Numerous observers connect the expansion of the

direct market The direct market is the dominant distribution and retail network for American comic books. The concept of the direct market was created in the 1970s by Phil Seuling. The network currently consists of: * three major comic distributors: ** Luna ...

distribution system and the proliferation of comic book specialty shops to the broader recognition and acceptance of Overstreet's annual guide. This guide is considered a standardized inventory and pricing system within the comic book industry. Begun in 1970 by Robert M. Overstreet as a guide for fellow fans of

Golden Age The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology, particularly the ''Works and Days'' of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages of Man, Ages, Gold being the first and the one during wh ...

and

Silver Age The Ages of Man are the historical stages of human existence according to Greek mythology and its subsequent interpretatio romana, Roman interpretation. Both Hesiod and Ovid offered accounts of the successive ages of humanity, which tend to pr ...

comics, the ''Overstreet'' guide has expanded to cover virtually the entire history of the American comics publication as far back as the Victorian Age and Platinum Age. The annual edition also covers promotional comics (giveaways and advertising) and "big little books", while continually updating new publications and market reports that cover the prior year of market activity. Overstreet's annual guide to the comic book collecting hobby has itself become a collectible, and since the 1980s each edition of the ''Price Guide'' includes a page listing collector's values for older editions, with

hardcover A hardcover, hard cover, or hardback (also known as hardbound, and sometimes as casebound (At p. 247.)) book is one bookbinding, bound with rigid protective covers (typically of binder's board or heavy paperboard covered with buckram or other clo ...

editions, in particular, selling for a premium. Currently, the ''Price Guide'' is published in four formats: hardcover,

softcover A paperback (softcover, softback) book is one with a thick paper or paperboard cover, also known as wrappers, and often held together with glue rather than stitches or staples. In contrast, hardback (hardcover) books are bound with cardboar ...

, a larger, ring-bound edition and an electronic edition, often with multiple covers for each version.

History

Robert M. Overstreet grew up as a comic book,

coin A coin is a small object, usually round and flat, used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order to facilitate trade. They are most often issued by ...

, and

Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Associated with India * of or related to India ** Indian people ** Indian diaspora ** Languages of India ** Indian English, a dialect of the English language ** Indian cuisine Associated with indigenous peoples o ...

arrowhead An arrowhead or point is the usually sharpened and hardened tip of an arrow, which contributes a majority of the projectile mass and is responsible for impacting and penetrating a target, or sometimes for special purposes such as signaling. ...

collector. In the 1960s, after abandoning a project to create an arrowhead price guide, Overstreet turned his attention to comics, which had no definitive guide."Who is Robert M. Overstreet?"
Arrowheads.com. Accessed Nov. 3, 2011. Comic back-issue prices had stabilized by the end of the 1960s,Thompson, Maggie
"November 1970: Mint Never Meant So Much Before"
"The 1900s: 10 biggest events from 100 years in comics", ''

Comics Buyer's Guide ''Comics Buyer's Guide'' (''CBG''; ), established in 1971, was the longest-running English-language periodical reporting on the American comic book industry. It awarded its annual Comics Buyer's Guide Fan Awards from 1983 to circa 2010. The publ ...

'' #1365 (Jan. 14, 2000). and,

Jerry Bails Jerry Gwin Bails (June 26, 1933 – November 23, 2006) was an American popular culturist. Known as the "Father of Comic Book Fandom," he was one of the first to approach the comic book field as a subject worthy of academic study, and was a primar ...

, who had recently published the ''Collector's Guide to the First Heroic Age'', was considering creating a comic book price guide. He was contacted by Overstreet, who was doing the same thing. Bails' extensive notes, supplemented by Overstreet's study of dealer listings, "became a backbone to the ''Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide''".Ray Bottorff, Jr., quoted in "With a Little Help From His Friends...", ''Alter Ego'' vol. 3, #25 (June 2003), pp. 14–19. Under the auspices of Overstreet Publications, the first ''Comic Book Price Guide'' was published in November 1970. Priced at $5, saddle-stitched and published in a print run of 1000 (a second edition of 800 was released subsequently), the book included 218 pages of listings. Among other things, Overstreet's guide included inventory lists, and it instantly became an invaluable resource tool for comic book collectors and dealers. By 1976, the guide had achieved national distribution. An early decision was made by author to exclude the niche of

underground comix Underground comix are small press or self-published comic books that are often socially relevant or satirical in nature. They differ from mainstream comics in depicting content forbidden to mainstream publications by the Comics Code Authority, ...

, an adult-oriented expression of the art form that Mr. Overstreet had no interest in documenting, for reasons he has never made public, despite the book being promoted by its publisher as "the most complete listing of comics from the 1500s to the present".

Overstreet periodicals

During the 1980s and 90s, Overstreet Publications also created publications that provided updates on pricing for recently released comics as well as selected titles dating back to the Silver Age. These updates encompassed a guide to both current and valuable comics, along with featuring news related to comic books and collectors, as well as interviews. These publications also included editorial content contributed by publishers and bookstore owners who were polled for their insights. Various incarnations of the publication (which were published quarterly to bi-monthly, and eventually monthly) included ''Overstreet's Comic Book Price Update'', ''Overstreet's Comics Price Bulletin'', ''Overstreet Comic Book Monthly'', and ''Overstreet's Fan'', with this last incarnation showing a great deal of similarity to the successful comics news magazine '' Wizard: The Guide to Comics''. Overstreet also published twenty-one issues of ''Comic Book Marketplace'' between Mar./Apr. 1993 and January 1995. Ultimately, most titles were canceled, including ''Overstreet's Fan'' which ceased publication in 1997.

Sale to Gemstone

In 1994, Overstreet sold his business to

Gemstone Publishing Gemstone Publishing is an American company that publishes comic book price guides. The company was formed by Diamond Comic Distributors President and Chief Executive Officer Steve Geppi in 1994 when he bought Overstreet. Gemstone published lic ...

. Despite this change in ownership, Overstreet continued to serve as the author of the annual guides and related publications. In July 2003, Gemstone Publishing made an attempt at a monthly publication called ''Overstreet's Comic Price Review'', which only ran for nineteen issues. Additionally, Gemstone Publishing released three volumes of the Overstreet Premium Ring Price Guide. These volumes provided values for thousands of collectible toy rings of various types. Among these, the most valuable is the

Supermen of America The Supermen of America is the name of two fictional superhero teams published by DC Comics. The original group first appeared in a special written by Stuart Immonen published in 1999, and a later mini-series written by Fabian Nicieza, which was ...

ring, with a value of around $100,000 depending on its condition. Original artwork for volumes 2 and 3, created by artist A. Kaviraj, is on display at Austin's Ring Museum in Las Cruces, New Mexico. The 52nd edition of the ''Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide'' (2022-2023) was scheduled for release on July 20, 2022.

Facsimile Edition

In commemoration of the publication's 50th anniversary, Gemstone Publishing issued Facsimile Edition reprints of both printings of the original edition from 1970. The Facsimile Edition of the first printing, featuring a white cover, was initially scheduled for release on April 8, 2020. However, due to the coronavirus pandemic, its release was postponed. Each of these editions came in four versions: a softcover edition with a retail price of $16.95, a hardcover edition priced at $25.00 (limited to 400 copies), a signed and numbered hardcover edition costing $50.00 (signed by Robert Overstreet and limited to 100 copies), and a deluxe signed and numbered hardcover edition priced at $75.00 (signed by Robert Overstreet and Steve Geppi, limited to 50 copies).

Also see

Comic book grading a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicate ...

Notes

External links

Publisher's official site
{{Comics information sources Comic book collecting Publications established in 1970