The Argosy Price Guide (before Overstreet!)
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The Argosy Comic Book Price Guide is the first known comic book price guide that was not a dealer’s price list. It predates the well known Overstreet guide by over 5 years! The story of the guide is one which features all the comic book dreams that fans during the sixties loved! Michael Cohen and Tom Horsky, both young teen-age comic fans at the time, were employed by The Argosy Book Store in downtown Hollywood, California to develop the guide! A 38 page digest size saddle stitched booklet was the result. Featuring such prices as Action #1 at $100.00, Detective #27 at $80.00 and Amazing Fantasy #15 at $5.00, the guide is a fairly accurate portrayal of the emerging back issue comic book market at that time. The guide had an original cover price of $5.00, which was quite a lot for a booklet (later reduced to $1.98). Being so expensive, few copies were sold. It is estimated that fewer than 50 copies of the original edition have survived. Quasar Comics and Collectibles is happy to again offer The Argosy Price Guide First Historical Edition for sale (once I find my remaining copies in my boxes that came back from New Zealand, let me know if interested!) This edition was printed in 1997 in a very limited quantity of 800 regular edition copies and 200 signed and numbered premium edition copies. The Historical Edition featured the entire contents of the original 1965 edition; The Origin of the Comic Book Price Guide and The Argosy Adventure by the original authors of the guide, Michael Cohen and Tom Horsky; an introduction which places the The Argosy in its proper historical perspective by noted fandom historian Bill Schelly and a forward by Bruce Edwards. The historical edition also features the original advertisements from The Rocket’s Blast and The Comicollector #42 and #43 as well as other historical information. This expanded edition is a digest size, 52 page saddle stitched publication. A limited number of this publication are available as follows Regular edition $5.00 (only 800 printed) Signed and numbered edition of 200 on premium paper $10.00 (signed by original authors Michael Cohen and Tom Horsky) Quantity mix or match discounts available for 5 or more copies. |
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