I think that antique stores are very bad at paper in general. And I think a lot of it is that they tend to be the classic "Jack of all trades, master of none." They tend to know a little about a lot of things but not a lot about any one thing. And the one thing they know the least about is comics, and more broadly paper...magazines, paperback books, etc. They know just enough to think that some are worth something, but not enough to know which ones are not worth anything.

It also is probably that not a lot of people go into antique stores actually looking for comic books. If you're looking for comics you're going to go to a comic book shop. What they are hoping when they price those comics at such an outrageous price is that the person looking at the antique stereo or the depression glass will see the comic and have a nostalgia reaction and drop $5 on a comic that's worth a quarter without knowing they are getting less than their moneys worth.

I agree with the comments here about antique stores selling comics.

The only time I have bought comics at an antique store was when I was on vacation. I guess I justified overpaying because I would never be in that store again. Maybe that's what antique stores count on. But this was before you could buy comics on the internet.

As DE said, antique malls are often better than antique stores, because you have multiple vendors. This means more chances at comics, and more chances that those people won't know what they're doing with the prices - either positively or negatively. I've gotten plenty of good deals at antique stores over the years, though I just as often see overpriced stuff or pure junk. But just as one example, I have a nice mid-grade Marvel Premiere #15 - 1st Iron Fist in about a 6.5 - that I paid $2 for last year at an antique store, along with a couple mid-high grade 100 page Batman issues that were the same price. It just depends on luck.

Sounds like a statistical effect. Antique stores do not know the price of comics. So comics are priced randomly. When comics are priced too cheap, the first comic fan who walks in buys every single copy. So the only ones we see are over priced.

On a tangent, old computer stuff is often vastly overpriced at second hand shops. The managers are usually retired volunteers, see the enormous price labels (e.g. a 1990s game for £50), and charge maybe £5. But are unaware that the media may not even play, and better stuff is usually online now for free. 

See I found that a lot of Antique store owners will take the time to look up prices-whatever the mint price in whatever year of Overstreet they happen to have is the price they slap on the book no matter what grade it is. When you ask about the price, they will even tell you proudly they checked the price in Overstreet. Which means all that dollar bin fodder is priced at the minimum Overstreet price for any book (which was $4 last I checked but is set at whatever the cover price is for current books now) and evertything is priced at what a high grade copy will go for without any regard for the fac tit is a reading copy at best. I don't see random prices, I see misguided attempts to price books at "Guide" without understanding the nuances of comic grading. In general, they use paper product grading standards on comics, not the much more finicky comic book grading/pricing scale.

A couple of the Antique malls around here have a reference library for vendors consisting of various price guides for different areas of stuff (Disney price guides, Star Wars price guides, antiques price guides, coin price guides, etc. and there is always a semi-current (within the last year or so) edition of Overstreet among the stuff that the dealers use to price up their stuff.

The other thing is they don't like to update prices-if something is priced out and sits for a while and the market on a book changes, often the prices won't reflect those changes either up or down-so a Death of Superman might still be priced at $25 but some book that just took off because of movie speculation might still be out there at dirt cheap prices (like say some early Suicide Squad or Legends issue sitting in a long box for a few years at a dealer's stall).

It's a crapshoot, but that's part of the thrill of the hunt if you enjoy that sort of thing.

Of course the question is-what is a more accurate real price for stuff-something determined by collectors or the price something will get with a general consumer. The market sets the price, not a small contingent of the market, so if people buy comics at whatever the price they are marked at, that is the true market price not what a guide or a collector's segment thinks the price should be. If people are willing to pay $5 for that beat up Dell Tarzan issue, then it's worth $5 even if a guide says it should be $2 or $20 or it sells for something different at a con or on ebay. With any non-necessity, the buyers determine the value and decides if the marked price is acceptable (unfortunately a lot of consumers don't have the discretion or the patience to say no to prices set by sellers that do not reflect value on a lot of luxury goods, so prices paid may not reflect value, but that's still the consumer's choice setting the market prices).

-M

A firend and I saw this in an antique shop window when we were about 12 or 13. It must have been about 1966-67. Comic is from 1940. Only comic there. An old lady owned it. It was in G/Vg condition.
We both wanted it, so we flipped a coin for it. He won and bought it.

For a quarter.

I completely echo the sentiments here about antique shops. At this point, I don't even bother stopping and looking, for all of the reasons listed above. Flea markets are getting tougher, especially with folks who are there week after week, because their stock has already been picked over and all they have left are old Gold Key books and a handful of beat-up Archies.

Antique malls are a different story, as some of those folks actually know what they are putting out. One that is by my house used to have a guy who had a booth that was just comic books. He would come in every Monday, box up the books that were still there and swap them out with all new stuff. His pricing was more than fair, as he knew how to grade and was pricing things to sell, not to get rich. I grabbed a Daredevil #63 in at least Fine condition for $3.25, an Amazing Spider-Man #65 of similar grade for $13, and a higher-grade Spectacular Spider-Man #1 for $8.25 on one trip. Sadly, he lost interest in doing the weekly thing, so his stock grew stale, and within three months, he'd shut down the booth entirely.