Slim Pickins

http://comicbookinvest.com/2016/05/09/foreign-editions-401/ http://comicbookinvest.com/2016/05/18/foreign-editions-key-sets/ Couple of recent articles from Comicbookinvest.com

This sales data is for your amusement. Take it as you wish. I believe these books are sleepers but that is my own insane opinion. With Google having the ability to translate webpages, it has made it easier for collectors to navigate and find these foreign editions. Our world is getting smaller. How much longer will these go unnoticed?

These books are rare. Actually RARE. Many collectors love to be "know it all's," (we all do it) and make general assumptions about value, but the fact is; there is not much sales data collected on foreign editions. It is almost a completely ignored genre in a hobby where people pride themselves on being experts. It's strange that these have been ignored for so long because there are great international variants out there to still be found. We still don't even know what all exists because they have not been properly documented. I have been following the market for some time now. Here are some sales that may interest you guys.

No one did the Wonder Woman book? I thought that was the best one!

Meaning the true Harley keys.... Batman Adventures 12 Batman Harley Quinn nn Are safe. What about some of the other early Harley stuff like Mad Love, and Batman: Harley and Ivy. Not keys in the same way, by were key in establishing the character outside of her relationship with Joker. I would say a lot of the early Harley appearances are undervalued like that Batman Gallery book that predates the Batman Harley Quinn nn. In a lot of ways she is like Deadpool in that her early appearances are now being gobbled up probably because she didn't suffer from overexposure early on. she didn't suffer from overexposure early on Hilarious. She had roughly 20 appearances from her creation to 2000 as an animated character in comics and around 6 appearances in the DC universe from her intro in the Batman Harley Quinn to 2000. She may have been popular for a multitude of reasons but as I said she did not suffer from overexposure early on. Good to know. Thank you. It means most of those early appearances (before 2000) should maintain solid value, 20 appearances in 6 or 7 years is next to nothing. Title characters are in books every month (and if you are Batman multiple books), and nobody complains. For now she is an A list character. BA 12 was also reprinted via trade in 1994 and I believe the trade also has a 2nd printing. These two books are super rare and with the prices of the comicbox BA 12 reprint being what they are I wonder why these trades aren't more valuable. Maybe collectors just don't know I see them on the bay/amazon all the time around 20-30 bucks.. The never get much "heat".. Theres a cool spanish/mexican edition with the cover of BA12 on it, but the problem with that book is that the content is NOT from BA12, just the cover.. the next issue has BA12 but a diff cover.. Weirdness There are at least 6 more editions not shown here including three of the rarest being Argentina, Croatia and South Africa. As we all know, this book was not popular at it's release, so it's strange to have so many international variants, all published within a year or two of the American edition. As a foreign collector, I can tell you that this is a unusual amount of international variants for ANY book.

Very nice collection. Thanks for sharing. That Brazillian copy of Batman has been a tough one to find, here in the US. After 1232 pages of bronze horror, it's a nice treat to see new books that no one has posted yet.

It is also worth mentioning that at the same time La Prensa Spiderman stories seem to veer off canon, is the same exact time MACC Division began publishing Spiderman. Is it possible La Prensa lost the rights to either the new material or Spiderman altogether and just went ahead and published anyway? It also seems to me that the non canon books seem a bit tougher to find. I don't know if this is true or just my experience. Possibly the non canon books are not being sold due to a perceived lack of interest. I'm working on a set at the moment but still have a long way to go. I would love to see these collected and translated. One of my long term goals is to make a complete digital collection of this series to share with our community.

All of your opinions have been interesting to read. However it is possible that the amount of new 9.8's added to the market will not matter at all. Has anyone considered the fact that one of the largest Chinese entertainment companies bought the rights to Valiant? These characters are about to be introduced to billions of new potential fans. It's possible, that even though these books were over produced to death, it still may not be enough to sustain a whole new Chinese demand. They could easily devour every vintage valiant book left in existence, overnight. It's also possible that it could totally flop and no one will care. That is something Valiant has done here once already. It's an exciting moment and completely unprecedented. I can't wait to see how this plays out.

Maybe "micro print run" was overstating it. I only meant in comparison with how many american copies are published. Do you have any kind of estimate of the print run on these early 70's Italian editions?

This is a good question and it's one I struggle with myself. The Italian books have a stable market demand and price for books without stickers and posters. You wouldn't be buying something you would not be able to resell. The books themselves had a micro print run compared to the two books mentioned above, so that's a big difference to keep in mind. I have many Italian books and I do not own any with original inserts. From what I can tell, having the inserts adds a super premium price to a book. Much like a CGC 9.9 would add an amount way over the normal value of the book. At the end of the day, it's one of those things you have to figure out how you feel about it. Is it an incomplete book? yes. Is it a bad investment you won't be able to resell? No. Not like the Superman or Hobgoblin book. I know the stickers came attached, but I dont know about the posters. Anyone here know if those came loose or how they were attached and if a loose poster could be reattached?

It took me a couple years to finally find one in high grade. There is usually 1-2 available in fine condition.