CKB

Was either you or me!! :-) Or maybe x-omatic! There are indeed versions with two and 3 staples, I have owned many of both. There were generally problems off the press with the staple placement and bending, and the two staple versions, on average, are nicer to look at. IMHO. I'm not sure where the story about the added third staple because of the insert came from, but I have assumed it to be true since the early 1990s. Ironically it is possible to have a three staple version and a "loose" coupon, just not nearly as likely as with the two staple version. If you have a hankering for VH1, it might be worth your time to check out the my collection display thread on valiantfans.com. I put it together because I love them, not to show off, but other's should enjoy them as well. Hopefully you don't have to sign up to view these: http://valiantfans.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=29701 http://valiantfans.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=30784

Was either you or me!! :-)

Are you serious?! He appears to have sold everything despite the warning posted in that thread! Shocking proof of the soulless addicted comic collector. I am completely dumbfounded. I can only manage two words: cool books

His first comics were in Japanese and are impossible to find. I am not sure what his first American comic appearance is. Maybe the 2003 series I checked to see if he was ever in the Valiant Captain N series but he was was only on the animated show and not in the comic. You may want to check again! I am almost positive one of the Valiant Nintendo oversized softcover TPBs teases MegaMan on the front cover. Wish I had time right now to refresh my memory. Yep Archie Comics Puts out Mega Man comics Just want to note I corrected myself here: I confused Metroid with MegaMan for Valiant Nintendo.

His first comics were in Japanese and are impossible to find. I am not sure what his first American comic appearance is. Maybe the 2003 series I checked to see if he was ever in the Valiant Captain N series but he was was only on the animated show and not in the comic. You may want to check again! I am almost positive one of the Valiant Nintendo oversized softcover TPBs teases MegaMan on the front cover. Wish I had time right now to refresh my memory. The NIntendo Comic System TPBs do not have him on the cover. I do own the sneak preview but I don't think he is in there either. From what I have learned it looks like they couldn't get the rights to use him in the the Captain N comic but they may have been negotiating his use as he was mentioned in the last issue of the Game Master series. Unfortunately the series never released another issue. I apologize - I was thinking of Metroid. I will take a look at Captain N 5 to see that mention.

His first comics were in Japanese and are impossible to find. I am not sure what his first American comic appearance is. Maybe the 2003 series I checked to see if he was ever in the Valiant Captain N series but he was was only on the animated show and not in the comic. You may want to check again! I am almost positive one of the Valiant Nintendo oversized softcover TPBs teases MegaMan on the front cover. Wish I had time right now to refresh my memory.

Yes... but... - the exact ratios have never been known. - it's not clear if CGC gets the identification correct*. * there are numerous cases where CGC has misidentified various Valiant gold variants which are clearly gold. It's hard to believe they would be good at identifying glossy vs. not-as-glossy but otherwise-identical. The paper stock is different, it feels like sandpaper. I know, I have one that came back 9.8 There's a difference. Whether CGC consistently knows the difference is in question. They often mislabel books where there is a variation... no matter how obvious. For example, this is not a gold edition. It is a literally worthless (9.2 is below average for this $1 book) common version: http://www.ebay.com/itm/131570773359 If anything, it sounds like you have no idea you know the difference cause you never held one in your hand before, and you call yourself a valiantman I don't have any doubt that I can tell the difference (and if you think I never held one you're ridiculous). I'm saying that I'm not confident that CGC will get the labeling correct every time, due to known errors like the worthless Bloodshot #0 that they labeled as "Gold Edition". First and only CGC 10.0 Rai #0. labels can alway be corrected, if you don't have any confidence in thier labeling, how can you be sure your 10.0 is really a 10.0? Might have been mislabeled instead of a 9.8 or 9.9 I'm not sure what the heck you are getting at. The discussion has diverged entirely. Greg (Valiantman) is commenting on whether we can use the CGC census to determine the relative scarcity of the two variants known to exist. It is completely uncontroversial to opine that we cannot, since "glossy" has only been recently appearing on labels. I have subbed dozens (no joke) of Rai 0s of both varieties over the last 10+ years and have never got back a label that stated "glossy". Even now that we see CGC trying to differentiate, the point that this variation is not one anyone would expect CGC get right all the time is also valid. Indeed, it is subtle enough for us to think they could get it wrong rather commonly. He's not saying the variant doesn't exist. He's not saying one is less or more common than the other. He's just saying that the census will not reflect the reality of whatever the situation may be. This is absolutely 100% true. We have always assumed that the glossy run was smaller than the matte run, and I see no reason to doubt that, my experience lines up with it. But I've never seen anything from anyone who might really know to give me an inkling of where the split is. The census is already corrupted enough to also be useless in this regard.

That guy's a tough little bugger. Any increases on Solar #3? 3 copies graded in the past week... 2 are 9.8 and 1 is 9.4. I know for a fact that number changed because I have one of those 9.8s and sold off the extra copy that I had. What number changed? We're just looking at the CGC census from the past week. Other copies could be graded earlier (or next week) which aren't in this one week with 3. Since March 10th (last census before the DMG announcement), there have been 29 copies of Solar #3 graded, and 19 of those got CGC 9.8 grades. The days are long gone from when the only reason the 9.8 numbers moved on the census was because I had books moving through the pipeline! Can I reminisce a bit?

The $149 examples in that list all have "this item has been relisted" on the actual auctions. Crazy. I wish they would make it appear as unsold if they didn't receive the money. Thanks, (thumbs u Well he probably did receive the money. This listing does not say you will get the book pictured and the serial number is not visible. I do this all the time with my listings that use stock images. Greg, are you saying that GPA does not include listings that say they were relisted in their pricing data? If so they have missed the last 50 sales of VEI CGC 9.8 books I have made this year.

Interesting. Do you have pictures? Normally I'd say that a seal is irrelevant but if it's verifiable that it's from the serial number contest, you're very likely to find some interest in them over at valiantfans.com Heck yeah, I would hold off on the slabbing. I didn't even know they actually gave out any prizes from that contest. I don't recall ever seeing any pictures of books given out as prizes like you describe. Please take a few pictures, if only for posterity. Post them here or at the forums on valiantfans.com.

You may have been facetious there, but I'm not sure I disagree. If the first appearance of a character is an imposter of the character, we are still first seeing the character in that first appearance. So I like the "first -real- appearance" designation. Whether that is 8 or 11 I will let you nerds decide. But NM 98 being the first appearance doesn't bother me at all.

I was about to ask how you got advance copies… and then I saw who posted the comment. Yeah, there are guys on this board who want to argue that advertisements are first appearances just because they're earlier... we should get dinesh_s to keep a dream journal. Talk about a true first appearance... beat that! (thumbs u Can I slab that journal??

Well, they should be pre-screen invoices. Then you could send in 100, get 10 9.8s back, send in 90, get 9-10 9.8s back...etc. But I wouldn't want the wall to give out any bad advice... :-) I think sending in the 20 best at a high tier was a great move, sending in the other 80 slow-track, not so much. If it was me trying to plan a course of action from this point forward, which would mostly be correcting the big mistakes that have been made already....the first thing I would do is contact the mods and try to have this thread completely pulled, poofed, pulverized, poo-poo'd, disappeared, forgotten, lost. Because there was no bigger mistake than making it in the first place.

That's the difference between "sold out at the distributor level" and "sold out".

Here is my copy from the "VH1 Master Set" (http://valiantfans.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=29701)

A few from the archives...

The various checklists on the backs of the cardboard are useless. They vary from pin to pin and not a single one of them is complete, even if you do not count the gold pins. My picture above is a much better checklist...