To keep anything running smoothly – whether it’s a relationship, a home, a car, or a comic book collection – you need to invest time, money, and tender loving care. You do, there’s just no way around it.

I’ve bought a lot of comics over the years, from individuals as well as auction houses and I can tell you I still groan when I see a lovely Silver Age comic in a dirty old bag, with sellotape half broken off. Sadly, I see a lot of this. I see a lot of old, yellowing, boards that people haven’t bothered changing. Horrid, grimy bags, reeking…decomposing.

I shake my head and wonder ‘how can anyone treat their books like this?’

It’s easy to do. You buy a comic, stick it in the long box, and forget about it. Just sits there for years and years. That’s why you hear collectors exclaim that they totally forgot they had a certain valuable key in their collection! It naturally happens if you’ve been collecting a long time.

I remember telling myself that it really is time to change the bags and boards. Several times I said this. But until I got serious about comics, I never did.

Why? Because it takes a certain amount of time and commitment, to go through hundreds of comics, changing bags and boards and reorganising things – time that you never seem to find. But by taking the time, and investing the money, you become fully aware of what you have, what condition it’s in, and begin to create and work towards collecting or investing goals – such as completing a run in a particular grade.

That copy you had sitting there in an old bag, now that you’ve properly handled it again you realise it’s not the grade you aspire to have. It’s more of a reading copy than an investment grade and maybe it’s time to upgrade.

Honestly, a lot of things start to happen when you take good care of your comics collection. And I don’t mean having to put everything in mylar. I’ve seen that as well – £5 books in mylar is a bit overkill in my opinion. If you want to do it, all power to you, the books look great, but start off with brand new bags and boards and go from there.

Once you’ve changed the bags and boards, you might want to look at updating your boxes/storage as well. Could you invest in cabinets? Start to look into different storage options. You might even get to a stage where you look at optimum airing options for the room/s in which you keep your collection. Is a vault on the cards?

The crucial part of all this is that you’ve taken that first step. You’ve decided to treat your collection with the respect it deserves and you’ve given it the best chance to be preserved well while creating numerous, exciting opportunities in your collecting and investing journey.