kimik

Was that ever used as a cover?

Wow. That is a great Dr. Strange cover!

I had a quick chat with a LCS owner yesterday when I popped into his store quickly for some supplies. They had new copies of NM #87 ($80 CDN for a FNish copy due to storage wear) and #98 ($700 for a VF) in the display case and he was commenting on how he was surprised at how well #87 was selling. He mentioned that he found a box of each sitting in storage from back in the day, but unfortunately sold most of the 98s for $30 apiece a couple of years or so ago. He was happy to be doing better with his 87s. I remember when he sold 10,000+ back stock books to another store in the early 00s that he had actually moved close to a long box of NM 98s in the deal. I wonder how many more he has sitting from speculative purchases in the back? When it came out he would have had 3 locations if I recall correctly.

My observation over the past three years has been that grading is loose from May through October due to convention season and then it tightens up from November through March/April. Assuming that the on-site submissions at shows results in a big seasonal volume increase, this makes sense as they will be rushing to push the books through as close to as on time as possible. I have also noticed that you end up with more plastic or other chips/tiny pieces in between the inner holder and outer slab during this time as well. I doubt that they are doing this on purpose re: CBCS. It is likely due more to the volume of books they have to go through than anything.

I know that 10% figure is tossed around a lot, but it is such a rough number as to almost be rendered useless. I'd sure like to get much harder, more realistic numbers out there. I just a couple of minutes searching online, and a couple of quick notes re: potential comic distribution: - in the 1980s there were a over 20,000 book stores in Canada vs. an estimated 220,000 in the USA (roughly 10%) - 7-11 stores - in 2013 there were 484 in Canada vs. 8,144 in the USA (roughly 6%) - the number of gas stations and grocery stores is in the 10% range as well. How many carried comics is unknown, but it looks like 10% is not an unreasonable estimate of Canadian comic sales relative to the US market. This does not include the direct market, which could sway things a point or two either way.

It's become evident that loose grading has led to significant discounts on their books. I know I refrain from buying them unless they are offered well below GPA prices. I know some one who deslabbed a whole bunch of books from one and had them reslabbed by the other, and had the complete opposite outcome. Were they new or older CGC graded books? There have been some fugly CGC graded books the past couple of years as well that I could see CBCS hammering. That being said, the two CBCS books I bought due to their discount to GPA would not grade as high with CGC.

Agreed. I have a New 52 Batman #1 news stand copy I am still sitting on as a result of this.

If the ratios hold on Canadian news stand editions, and the sales volume was only 10% of what was sold in the USA (based on population here), then you can see why the later Canadian editions in 9.4+ condition are so tough to find.

As we have discussed in this thread before, it is a common problem with keys graded over the past couple of years.

The Canadian newsstand editions/price variants will be the least common of the regular editions of books available due to the low print runs. Add in the spinner rack/news stand damage, and they are very tough to snag in 9.6 and above. The 1986-1988 Canadian editions (95cent or $1.00 Canadian cover price) are the hardest to find in high grade. Almost all of the 9.8 Canadian newsstand editions I have slabbed personally have come from one collection I snagged three years ago. The OO would visit several 7-11s for "perfect copies" and just bag and board them.

Looks like the pre-pack version in 9.4 likely sold for a decent premium last year: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Batman-357-CGC-9-4-Pre-Pack-VERY-RARE-1-of-only-2-on-Census-1st-Killer-Croc-/281766843877 Based on past Canadian newsstand variant sales, there should be a premium for this one:

Really? The 8.0 ended up at $19K and the 7.5 at $16K on Heritage. Those were softish prices, but DCs tend to do better on Heritage based on what I have followed the past few years. I like to buy DC SA keys on Clink as I have found more deals there over the years.

They seemed to be a bit below GPA on the CGC slabs, and well below on the other grading company's 4.5 that looks like a 3.5........

So, does this series end after season one or are they looking to keep it going after they plant the new tree?

The B&B #28s did not do very well in the Clink auction last night. I thought that sellers would have figured out by now that Heritage tends to be a better venue for selling DCs?

Final price of $650 is a nice bump from the last GPA sale.

+1 You can also add in the fact that Image continues to put out new #1s which bump up initial sales and see a quick fall off as the quality of most is average at best (with some being unreadable). Image is producing too many sub-standard titles that fall off fast once the #1 speculative hype fades.

WRT WD 150, it depends on what you consider the Ottley, Latour and Moore variants that were announced late to be. Sure, they were print to order, but aren't they still variants?

Two years later, same period of time.... Nov-Dec 2013 + Jan 2014 Black Science #1 40,873 Manifest Destiny #1 17,371 Protectors Inc 16,434 Alex + Ada #1 14,292 Umbral 14,536 Saviors #1 17,894 Dead Body Road #1 16,840 Krampus #1 9,078 A Voice in the Dark #1 10,230 Deadly Class #1 34,572 Minimum Wage #1 7,003 TOTAL: 199,123 Nov-Dec 2015 + Jan 2016 Huck #1 35,299 Goddamned #1 33,809 Monstress #1 30,041 Jupiter’s Circle V2 #1 18,175 Citizen Jack #1 15,075 Ringside #1 14,205 Limbo #1 10,289 Symmetry #1 17,522 Violent #1 11,751 Black Jack Ketchem #1 8,022 Cry Havoc #1 20,677 TOTAL: 214,865 I was thinking more along the lines of 2012 through East of West #1 when the speculative bubble was in full swing. Everyone was chasing Image #1s in the hopes of hitting the next ToT or Saga #1 (or Panzerfaust #1 ). Basically, every Image #1 was speculated on and sold out in the LCSs within a day or two. Now they sit for a while.

Yes. My daughter spotted them this past weekend and was impressed with them. If it was regular Dr. Pepper instead of Diet I would have bought them......

How high will this 9.8 Batman #357 go? http://www.comiclink.com/auctions/item.asp?back=%2FAuctions%2Fsearch%2Easp%3FFocusedOnly%3D1%26where%3Dauctions%26title%3Dbatman%26GO%3DGO%26ItemType%3DCB%26pg%3D2%23Item_1102246&id=1102246

So the take home message from all of this is simply that if you do not do a full out relaunch of #1s your sales will suffer? That is essentially what is happening here. Take out the mass speculative effect of the latest group of #1s and Marvels numbers are not looking as healthy either. You can say the same for Image as well, but add in the fact that their new #1s are selling at lower levels than in the past as the speculators have moved on. It will be interesting to see how the DC "Rebirth" relaunch plays out, but my guess is that it will not work as well as the New 52 relaunch did.

This movie should top $1B easily if the mess/steaming pile that was AoU could do it.

Wow. Still has a couple of days left. NM #98 CGC 9.8 pricing here we come.

Looks like NM #87 in 9.8 is a solid $500+ book now. Wow. Glad I snagged two nice raw copies that came back as 9.8s late last year before the spike.