There’s a general rule in collecting: older is better. Age and value don’t perfectly correlate, but older items have a higher likelihood of being sought after. Mainly because the oldest items predate a robust collector’s market and high-quality specimens are rare. In terms of comic books, the “Modern Age” (around 1986 to Present, depending on…
Comic books have been around for a long time. That means the industry has had to change continuously evolve, adapting to new social trends and emerging technologies decade after decade. Today, we’re going to examine how a technological change created some of the first cover variants. This is the tale of how Newsstand Edition variants…
For the most part, 90s era collectibles in general and toys in particular haven’t appreciated in value the way that older items have. There are a lot of reasons for that, but it boils down to stuff from the 90s not becoming rare the way stuff from the 60s to the 80s did. But that’s…
In the last decade, record collecting has made a major comeback! As music fans and collectors, we absolutely couldn’t be happier about that – we love that warm sound vinyl brings to music and nothing beats a 12” in terms of collectible music. That renewed interest has driven up prices on vintage releases, but not…
Graded cards are considered to be the gold standard in trading card collector circles. Grading your cards is the only way to ensure best market value. Why? Let your pals at Back to the Past explain! Trading Cards Are Fragile, Graded Cards Are Not Trading cards, particularly older ones, are not printed on the highest…
For decades, basically everybody who could read read the newspaper. It was the best way to stay up to date and informed-in-detail about events of the day – politics, sports, movie reviews, etc. Most of these ended up in the trash (or later recycling), but some folks curated a collection. Usually, these were for major…
Autograph collecting is the one of the oldest and most common forms of collecting. In fact, the auctioning of autographs dates back about two hundred years! But the market on autographs can be quite fickle, even compared to other major collectibles. Here are some things to consider when building, handling, or selling an autograph collection.…
We here at Back to the Past are collectibles experts. That’s why you come to us! And that expertise means we through around collectibles terms that are commonplace to us, but maybe not to the average person trying to figure out what to do with their collection. This article is gonna serve as a glossary…
We talk to people everyday about selling their collection (it’s what we do). Sometimes we hear, “I’ve already sold some of it, so here’s what’s left.” This makes us sad, not because we didn’t get to help with the whole deal, but because we know they’ve left money on the table! Why? Let us explain:…