Finding treasure in old comic books is a labor of love.

Old comic books have been the pot of gold at the end of my rainbow.

I spent the whole day trying to finish this summer’s project.

Since June, I’ve been diving into two huge plastic bins filled with literally hundreds of comic books from the 1960s through the 1980s, with the intent of finding ones that may be valuable on the comic book trading market and cashing in in them.

 I’ve already sent three boxes filled with about 80 old superhero books to a comic book emporium in Texas that has been giving me good prices for the books in my possession that they are seeking to buy. Today, I put the finishing touches on the last box I intend to send for a while — 63 DC and Marvel books that will bring the summer’s total to around $1,000.

Most of the books cost me only 12 to 25 cents when I bought them at Stearns News Store or Cuneo’s in Mansfield, and even adjusted for inflation, I’m doing quite well in return. But sadly, many of the later books have no value because that’s when the whole phenomenon of comic book collecting began, and speculators cleared the newsstands of books they thought would increase in value. As it turned out, they didn’t.

One thing I’ve noticed is that the books I’ve turned in, from both Marvel and DC, have formed the foundation of today’s cinematic universes.

The characters and plots are those of the stories from the 1960s and 1970s, and not those of more recent vintage. The Avengers you see on the screen were mostly the characters as they were first introduced to the public by Stan Lee and his talented cohorts at Marvel, even if necessarily updated a little due to the passage of time. 

Indeed, to get his new DC movie universe kick-started, “Superman” writer/director James Gunn drew heavily from what’s called the Silver Age to forge the characters in his most recent movie -- and likely the ones he’s already formulating as his future projects.

For instance, the Green Lantern comic from the late 1960s in which bowl-cut anti-hero Guy Gardner was introduced to the DC Universe netted me almost $100 even though it had sat in a musty garage for almost 50 years — and even though the character didn’t adopt his current cinematic persona for almost 10 years after his debut.

Had that comic book been pristine, and not subjected to the seasonal extremes of temperature that characterize New England, my return for that book could have been four figures.

It’s been a demanding and allergic, but nostalgic, walk down memory lane. But hundreds remain, and so all that I can’t sell have been wrapped up, returned to the cleaned-out bin, and they will henceforth be stored in the basement, where the temperature is more constant and a dehumidifier will help preserve them for the day when I might revisit this treasure hunt.

Still, I owe thanks to my folks, Tony and Jeanne, for not just throwing those comic books out when I went to college — as they did all the old Playboy magazines I rescued from the big trailer when I helped my pals in the Boy Scouts on their Troop 17 paper drives.

And I thought they’d never find those.