The closer to mint a comic is, the more collectors squabble over it like hens over seed. We can consult several sources. Every year, Comics Buyer's Guide and the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide release new pricing handbooks to the bookstores, while the hobby magazine Wizard keeps atop the trends by updating its comics value listings each month. Archivists would have you treat each issue like an expensive bottle of wine, kept away from heat and light and moisture. Custom bags made of Mylar and acid-free storage boxes can be purchased at any comics store you're able to find in your local yellow pages.
Comics are far more than an investment.
They're full of chills, thrills, laughs and adventure, and if you're not willing to touch them with human hands, you might as well be collecting stamps or coins. As I said before, I've been at this for over thirty years, and I'm here to tell you that a comic read brings far more enjoyment than a comic bagged. Mark Waid has been reading comics all his life, writing a few award-winning ones for the last half of it, has published five books on the subject, has had his expertise tapped more than once by no less than Time Magazine and the Library of Congress, and knows more about Krypton than he does about his own home state. That last part, he's not particularly proud of. These are the opinions of the author, not the opinions of eBay, and therefore eBay does not validate the accuracy of or endorse these opinions.