How to make money out of comic books

"Collecting comics is not just for kids but making money from them can be child's play," says Oliver Scott in the Daily Mirror. Earlier this year, £20,000 was paid for a first edition of The Dandy not bad, when one considers that it originally cost only 2d.

Malcolm Phillips, founder of Comic Book Postal Auctions, says, "We've been going 14 years and the market has changed enormously in1999, a Beano first edition got thethen world-record price of £6,000, but this had risen to £12,100 by 2004". He tells The Independent that "these are collectables people can enjoy without being knowledgeable about the subject".

Most of the demand is for comics whose original readers are still alive. Ken Harman, a dealer at the Gallery of Illustration in South London, says that demand for some of the very early titles, such as Magnet and Gem, has fallen off. Also, just because a comic book is old doesn't mean that it's valuable, he tells the Daily Mirror.

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Alan Blakeman, a dealer at Elsecar Heritage Centre near Barnsley, South Yorks, says: "People tended to hoardThe Eagle (a British comic active between 1950 and 1994) more than other comics, so there are more of them about". An Eagle from June 1955 goes for just £15-£30, depending on its condition, he says.

Collectors will pay huge prices for first editions, but some comics will always remain unpopular. Phillips says that "any artwork of Dan Dare is pretty valuable, for example, and sells for in excess of £1,000 a page, but I couldn't get more than £30 to £40 for Billy Bunter from the 1930s and 1940s because the character is no longer interesting".

Contact: Comic Book Postal Auctions, www.compalcomics.com