500Club

I respect your opinion, but it is actually a specialty site and resource tool for variant hunters and the like. And for my money I put far more weight on the educated estimates of a guy with no skin in the game, who has run a FREE site for the better part of a decade, dedicated to analyzing and calculating the exact type of data at issue here, solely for the service of other fans and out of love for the hobby, than on the carnival barks of a couple of guys with books to sell. (thumbs u -J. I hope that point comes across to many here because its a very important distinction. Here's an even clearer distinction: rather than using the 'educated estimates' of a fan website, use the actual statements of the sites posting the data from Diamond, Comichron and IcV2, as posted by carcrawfordfan and bababooey earlier in the thread. You can ONLY make educated estimates because DIAMOND DOES NOT DISCLOSE THE PRINT RUNS OF VARIANTS. Nothing you or anyone else has linked to says what you say it does. In fact, the main link your buddy who says there's only 500 copies of this thing around (300 of which have evidently been offered for sale in the last month) actually proves the OPPOSITE point. And here you go again, still attempting to con the readers of these boards with your specious nonsense. -J. Diamond does disclose total sales, though. Those sales include variants. Your repeated point that Diamond doesn't disclose the print runs of variants is correct. You don't need to repeat it; we'll take it as fact. They do, however, give a total number that includes the various different covers. I will contact John Jackson Miller at Comichron, and see if he will post here.

I respect your opinion, but it is actually a specialty site and resource tool for variant hunters and the like. And for my money I put far more weight on the educated estimates of a guy with no skin in the game, who has run a FREE site for the better part of a decade, dedicated to analyzing and calculating the exact type of data at issue here, solely for the service of other fans and out of love for the hobby, than on the carnival barks of a couple of guys with books to sell. (thumbs u -J. I hope that point comes across to many here because its a very important distinction. Here's an even clearer distinction: rather than using the 'educated estimates' of a fan website, use the actual statements of the sites posting the data from Diamond, Comichron and IcV2, as posted by carcrawfordfan and bababooey earlier in the thread.

Cue famous Journey song. Cue famous Pink Floyd song.

I don't know how much of it is relevant to Spider Gwen.. but I don't care about that character too much. There was some variant/print run discussion with good info earlier...I learned something from it so I'm continuing on. (thumbs u In that vein, what information do we have as far as international sales go? Is there any data whatsoever to go on?

Not really. In the age of ratio dispensed variants, it's almost certain the question of ballparking a variant's print run will come up again.

I approve two out of three of this message. -J. So you disagree on the sold variants being included in the totals sold? I do. That only applies to Loot Crate sales. This is why comichron goes out of its way to parse out Loot Crate orders from regular distribution books (which S G #1 was). -J. I think the Loot Crate thing was due to the impact of the high numbers - there's nothing that has been posted or linked anywhere that says other variants aren't reported in the numbers - you're the only one reading it that way...heck, one of the quotes from that JJM guy says "variants AND Loot Crate" Also, how do you think they report market data, revenue, etc...from this same data if they aren't reporting (counting) items that are being sold? That doesn't make any sense - a retailer buys 50 regular covers, 20 Scottie Youngs & 10 blanks - ICV/Comichon mark him down for 50? To you with failing hands the torch is passed...

I approve two out of three of this message. -J. So you disagree on the sold variants being included in the totals sold? He does. With you, me, carcrawfordfan, Larry and John Jackson Miller. Your horns are starting to show again.... -J.

I approve two out of three of this message. -J. So you disagree on the sold variants being included in the totals sold? He does. With you, me, carcrawfordfan, Larry and John Jackson Miller.

You've come to the same conclusion as 99.9% of this thread's readers. ...or not. That doesn't say what you want it to either. It says the variants helped the book to sell "over 200,000 copes". How much "over"? We don't know. Why? DIAMOND DOES NOT DISCLOSE THE PRINT RUNS OF VARIANTS. And who are you kidding? Obviously- and I mean obviously- the easiest, best, and most efficient way of ballparking a variant print run is to reference comichron's domestic sales figures. Whatever shortages you would like to glean from this or that or whatever are handily off-set by the *additional* sales figures from international. I'm not so sure why you get your knickers in such a twist over the 2500 estimated print run of this Hughes variant, when that is, in fact, the only *reasonable* figure that can be estimated based on the print run figures before us. Frankly your insistence on trying to perpetrate this con job on these boards that the book is somehow "rare" is disconcerting, to say the least. -J. Shine on, crazy diamond!

(thumbs u

You've come to the same conclusion as 99.9% of this thread's readers.

Sorry, I know it's boring as hell, but it'd be nice to ballpark the long ratio variants numbers a bit better.

...except he didn't say that, and there is nowhere in that article where you can quote him saying that. I CAN quote him: 'Star Wars #1 from Marvel was the chart-topper: the comic book is reported by its publisher to have sales over a million copies, helped by an unprecedented number of variant covers and boosted by special editions for Loot Crate and other channels'. How did they get sales of over a million copies? An unprecedented number of variant covers AND the Loot Crate and other special editions. And, yeah, SG isn't a Loot Crate book, but that's irrelevant. All we want to know is that Comichron includes 'unprecedented numbers of variant covers' and 'special editions' of 'other channels'. ( ie store variants) in their totals.

It's all over for me. If JJ Miller says Comichron is including variants in their numbers, that's good enough for me. I think we can move on to trying to calculate the 1:100 SG population.

Your reasoning is clear. It's also wrong. You are right: no variant figures are disclosed by Diamond. But even though they don't release them individually, they release them in toto to Comichron. That much is VERY CLEAR in the Comichron narrative above. No it isn't. And it doesn't say that. That article is about loot crate books and it's effect on Comichron's numbers and why it gets asterisked out from the other books and sales figues Apples and oranges my friend. Apples and oranges. -J. Yes. Apples and oranges. The original discussion was how to calculate population numbers for variants, and how to use the Comichron numbers. That's the point I'll focus on.

It's pretty clear from this that Diamond's sales figures released to Comichron include variants. Are these text pieces direct from Comichron? Yes, they are. Game over. Right from the horse's mouth, John Jackson Miller and Comichron are using Diamond totals that include variants and ordering incentive books. Therefore to calculate the population of 1:100 books, you need to ballpark the regular covers shipped. That means subtracting incentives and store/specialty variants. ...except that's not what is said in the article, and your interpretation is incorrect. Plus, oh yeah, Spider Gwen #1 wasn't a loot crate book. -J. Let's run through interpretation. Look above, at the bolded text after 2). Read this part: Star Wars 1 from Marvel was the chart topper... helped by an unprecedented number of variant covers... In basic English, 'helped by an unprecedented number of variant covers', means that those unprecedented numbers were included in the sales figures. Therefore, the glaringly obvious conclusion is that Comichron is including variants in its sales totals.

Your reasoning is clear. It's also wrong. You are right: no variant figures are disclosed by Diamond. But even though they don't release them individually, they release them in toto to Comichron. That much is VERY CLEAR in the Comichron narrative above.

It's pretty clear from this that Diamond's sales figures released to Comichron include variants. Are these text pieces direct from Comichron? Yes, they are. Game over. Right from the horse's mouth, John Jackson Miller and Comichron are using Diamond totals that include variants and ordering incentive books. Therefore to calculate the population of 1:100 books, you need to ballpark the regular covers shipped. That means subtracting incentives and store/specialty variants.

That's a bit off. JayDog is saying the 254K reported sales for SG 1 is just regular covers, so use the 1:100 ratio to arrive at 2500 copies. The overwhelming view is that the 254K includes regular covers, blanks, Young's, and shop and specialty variant covers. Thus, the 1:100 is applied to a much smaller actual number of regular covers.

No, you are incorrect here. Diamond does not report print runs for variants. So this is the crux of the discussion, then. Is the 254K regular covers only, or is it all copies shipped through Diamond? If it's regular covers only, I suspect Jay's number is near correct, and indeed international numbers and small store orders are a wash. If it's all covers, there's a huge chunk of books in the 254K that don't qualify for the 1:100s, and carcrawford's number is likely close. It is the regular covers only. Diamond *does not* report print runs for variants. You can't absolutely infer the first fact from the second, though. Diamond could still include these books in the total, and yet still have a policy of not reporting individual variant print runs. Except, they don't. And you can speak to this, how? After all, 'you're not a Diamond insider'. And, if you can, why can you answer this, and not the Loot Crate question above?

It's pretty clear from this that Diamond's sales figures released to Comichron include variants. Are these text pieces direct from Comichron?

No, you are incorrect here. Diamond does not report print runs for variants. So this is the crux of the discussion, then. Is the 254K regular covers only, or is it all copies shipped through Diamond? If it's regular covers only, I suspect Jay's number is near correct, and indeed international numbers and small store orders are a wash. If it's all covers, there's a huge chunk of books in the 254K that don't qualify for the 1:100s, and carcrawford's number is likely close. It is the regular covers only. Diamond *does not* report print runs for variants. You can't absolutely infer the first fact from the second, though. Diamond could still include these books in the total, and yet still have a policy of not reporting individual variant print runs.

No, you are incorrect here. Diamond does not report print runs for variants. So this is the crux of the discussion, then. Is the 254K regular covers only, or is it all copies shipped through Diamond? If it's regular covers only, I suspect Jay's number is near correct, and indeed international numbers and small store orders are a wash. If it's all covers, there's a huge chunk of books in the 254K that don't qualify for the 1:100s, and carcrawford's number is likely close.

No, there's no offsetting. Let's look at some hypothetical math/orders: Store A: 50 Store B: 160 Store C: 40 Store D: 300 Store E: 1000 Store F: 250 Store G: 70 Store H: 140 Store I: 20 That should capture a reasonable profile of store sizes. Total copies: 2030. Total 1:100 covers based on orders: 17. You can see how the 1:100 ratio disconnects due to the smaller orders, and, no, the larger orders are not getting 3 extra copies to offset that. Right. In your plausible scenario, the count would only be off by 3. That's why I stated that there are *approximately* 2500 copies of the variant, after also factoring in international orders, there are perhaps more. Also, this book was very clearly over ordered so there is a very reasonable chance that many smaller stores ordered more than their usual numbers because of the hype. No. Not 3. Fifteen percent. So, right there, you can trim the overall number down from the 1:100 ratio by 15%. And, yes, I tried to skew the numbers to larger, to account for the hype. There are many #1s where smaller operations are probably only ordering 5-20 copies. I figured 20 was probably a rock bottom guess for this book, but I'll check with my LCS, who is in fact a smaller store volume wise. No you cannot necessarily do that. And even if you did, international sales would *more* than make up for the difference. Which is why I have said (and continue to say) that 2500 is a reasonable estimate for the book's print run and possibly as high as 3000 if you factored in all international sales. You can necessarily do it. And I did. What you can't necessarily do is say the number is exactly 15%. It may be 10%; it may be 20%. What is irrefutable is the fact that there is a significant change in the true ratio. 100K copies do not translate to 1000 copies of a 1:100 variant. Is Diamond not involved in International orders? Are international orders not included in the 254K print number?

I can answer for Larry. No (and also thanks for looking at this with logic). How about the incentive variants? Blanks and Young's? Do they qualify as orders that get the 1:100 variants? Say a store orders: Regular SG 1: 100 SG 1 Young: 50 SG 1 Blank: 50 Do they get 1 1:100 copy or two? Also, how many store variants were there? 20? And another 10 B+W?