Tintin Forums

Thinking about all the questions about value of Tintin items made me wonder:

Has anyone ever created an official price guide for all things Tintin?

The Phantom comics has one:

http://www.schapter.org/wiki/Johnson%27s_Official_Phantom_Price_Guide_ 3

It would be great if someone could get approval from Moulinsart to create one, it would save many headaches and questions!!

The problem I have with price guides is that they tend to become a speculator's charter: for example, the minute it became suggested somewhere that the Making of books were somehow rare, prices climbed and stuck in the hundred pound plus bracket, when they were changing hands for somewhere nearer the £30 mark a short time before, which might be thought to be a more realistic figure for books which were in print for a considerable period of time, which had fairly wide distribution, and which contain little that isn't available elsewhere.

I'm not sure that it does the fan any good for prices to be fixed upon more or less arbitrarily, as it makes getting a bargain (which you yourself posted about only recently) much less likely.

Just enjoy what you have because it's what you want to have, and not because of what you paid for it, that's my honest opinion; I've things that I paid a fair amount of money for, to add to my collection, but I've also things I paid next to nothing for, and neither dictates how important or unimportant they are to me.

Your example of The Phantom throws up an interesting side-note: he's not a character that could be said to be popular in the U.K., so even with a price guide, you'd be in a poor position to guage the price of an item here.

What might be seen as a desirable collectable to a fan in the States, or India (where he is very popular) might be a bargain-box clearance item in Britain.

Value isn't really something which can be fixed in a market where fandom is involved - it's simply what a given person would pay for something in relation to their desire to have that object, and their ability to afford it.