Like most kids back in the day, I spent quite a bit of my allowance on comics featuring my favorite superheroes. At that time, I never thought the comics would actually be worth more than the 50 cents or dollar I paid for it, so I didn't bother trying to keep them in pristine condition. I would routinely roll them up and stuff them in my back pockets, trade them with friends, or simply throw them away. Needless to say, I'm kicking myself for not saving a handful of old Spiderman comic books out of all the ones I bought back then!
If I had saved some of my Spiderman comic books, I would no doubt be able to sell them for a nice profit. There are lots of collectors out there who are willing to pay top dollar to get their hands on rare issues. I never had the first issue, which was released in 1963, but if I did, I'd be able to get somewhere in the neighborhood of $40,000 for it! Wow! Checking the values of Spiderman comic books that I know were once in my possession, I see that I probably would have been able to get close to $1,000 for the whole lot -- provided the issues were in mint condition. That's not exactly a windfall, but it's still an amazing profit over the list price.
For serious collectors out there looking to purchase more Spiderman comic books, several options exist. You can go to various conventions and shows where dealers and other collectors congregate to buy, sell, and trade. This is the best way to make purchases of rare issues because you can actually see the condition for yourself before determining whether or not to pay the asking price. If you don't feel like heading out to a convention, then you can simply buy whichever Spiderman comic books you want over the Internet from auction sites or collector sites. You'll have to perform your own due diligence regarding potential sellers to make sure nobody else has had any major problems with them, but otherwise this option should be a perfectly safe way to add to your collection.
Thinking about all this stuff again makes me feel like getting into collecting Spiderman comic books! It would be cool to revisit some of my favorite issues from when I was a kid, and at least this time around I'd appreciate their value. I would know how to take care of them and keep them in mint condition so that I can pass my collection on to my children or else sell it in the future. Obviously I'd have to start off small, but maybe someday I'll end up with a couple of rare Spiderman comic books that I can be really proud of!