Define999

These are cool! Very cool! I especially like that 1st Iron man! (thumbs u

My words exactly in what regards the Portuguese market... plus something else I don´t know if its common elsewhere, specially Silver and Bronze age material. Many of the books we were imported from Brazil, and the distributor in Portugal had a contract with the newsstands so that they could return the ones they did not sell. So the smart way that the distributor found to separate old stock returned from the newsstands from new material coming in was to cut one of the corners from the returned books. So the ones not sold, that would have a better chance to be in better condition ended up with a whole corner cut off. Here´s a good example I own. And this is an example of a "good" cut. Sometimes they cut out a huge chunk of the book What a freakin drag! For the most part I am seeing corroboration about the fact that foreign books just don’t exist in high grades by American standards! By the early 70’s my assumtion is that tons of American books were hoarded and kept in good condition by bags, boards or just careful stacking in dry dark environments. I actually think even with the high quality production of some foreigns like the Italians maybe even books in true CGC quality near mint could be hard to find…. at least what Americans would consider ”hard to find”! Not having it available pretty much instantly! Without a bag and board I would think corner blunting/scuffing would be pretty common even on otherwise great looking books….. All you need is a couple of bad corners and some minor scuffing and a otherwise 9.2 could turn into a VF+ pretty easily…. I purchased a Italian Spidey 300 variant and I was stoked! I was giddy about the fact that I might have a CGC worthy book to beat my buddy’s Chesperito’s Italian 300. When I scanned the book and posted it here in the grading forum I started to have doubts… http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Board=50&Number=5400086&Searchpage=4&Main=246756&Words=Define999&topic=0&Search=true#Post5400086 The Brazilian Ebal books like Barbarian has shown above were considered the best quality manufactured books in all of South America. Horrible disfiguring acts like what he shows above are just one part of the equation. The lack of bag and boards in South America really hurt these Latin books. A look at Brazils climate stats shows it’s a tough place for paper to live! http://www.brcactaceae.org/climate.html Needless to say white pages on EBAL books are probably a pipe dream? Hopefully some eccentric Brazilian collectors hoarded EBALS. There is one I have heard of…. A little bird once told me a story about a crazy Brazilian collector that was a hoarder of all things Spiderman! Who knows though…. If anyone could find high grade Brazilian books my money is on Barbarian!

I just leave a reply for this now, later on I will be glad to reply to any other questions concerning the italian editions. Maybe it’s better to keep one or a few for each post. Now, spaeking of the first, "original" Editoriale Corno runs, there are no true "rare" issues in the whole runs. The most costly – and sought after – are the first issues. As for the Punisher first appearance, it's a "non issue": 90% of italians care little to nothing about the Punisher. Probably, the titles which are more difficult to find in high-grade are "Gli Albi dei Super-eroi" (or "A.S.E.") which was an antologic title publishing, in rotation, Warlock, the Defenders, Werewolf by Night, Dracula, Conan and Luke Cage (the famous "Avengers vs. Defenders" storyline came out here first, and not in the pages of "Thor" where the Avengers were published). Now, a general consideration about the italian Corno editions: I assure you that, while it may be not so easy to find "perfect conditions" as an american intends them, it’s relatively easy to find NM copies of various degrees, because the paper and the overall production process was qualitatively superior to newsstand original comic books. There is a drawback, however: early issues alternate color pages to b/w pages (for saving money), and often the image quality is not good, as they did not work from film, but Marvel Comics provided them paper printouts, from where the black & white was sourced, then lettered and recolored. Coloring is often pretty good, since it generally follows faithfully the original color scheme, but translations and line art are often lousy. I can go more in detail, for those interested. The more rare items are the second series of Spider-Man, since it came out as the publisher was losing ground, and he decided to close all titles, concentrating all the Marvel Universe in a single title "Il Settimanale dell’Uomo Ragno" (Spider-Man's weekly). That’s where I read many stories which I hold dear, including the Skrulls aging-ray one, which endangers the lives of Reed, Sue and Ben, and Johnny believes them dead. Or the Carrion storyline, from Spier-Man. This run is 43 issues, pocket size, 48 pages, and is very difficult to find in its entirety and in high-grade (I have mine, bought back then when I was 13). The rarest, however, is the third Spider-Man series (titled "L’Uomo Ragno" as the first, commonly referred to as "Uomo Ragno seconda serie" (you can Google that). The series is, once again, an anthology, always featuring Spidey as the main character, with all the others in rotation, and it ran for 58 issues (rumours of a mythical 59th issue used to spread, but I suspect they aren’t founded at all). Of course, here, the rarest issues are the last ones: 50 to 58, as the publisher was about to go bankrupt. Some of these have also stickers, so it’s even more difficult to find them in high-grade and with stickers. An example is this classified ad: http://annunci.ebay.it/annunci/collezionismo/asti-annunci-canelli/uomo-ragno-corno-ii-seconda-serie-n-56/11148004 where two of them are listed, 50 and 56, respectively at 100 and 300 Euro. However, I strongly recommend you not to buy anything costly on eBay: for the average italian seller, especially if amateur/collector, there is no true difference between a VG and a VF+. Plus, I think I have somewhere two copies of either #57 or #58, and I will be more than glad to sell them at a reasonable price, since they are so difficult to obtain for you americans. Generally speaking, it’s better to have someone in Italy buying them for you. In May there will be a convention which we may say it’s the "Golden Age" specialized event in Italy, but there is any kind of comic. It’s very close to my city, and I always attend, so if anyone of you is looking for certain issues in higher grades, I will be glad to look on your behalf,. All the best again for your family, God bless, Claudio Great Italian info sir! Trust me vaillant I lust after the Gli Albi dei Super-eroi run.... So many great books with amazing keys and stories built into it! I have these 2 coming to me now! PM sent!

Cool, thanks for the clarification! (thumbs u

Here´s 1 not on that list. Found out about it recently I had a feeling somebody would do that ... I could only pick from 16 blocks or 25 blocks on photobucket; I left one out, but it wasn't the one you posted...Nice!!! I hadnt seen this one? Sweet find.....

, Matteo, this sounds funny said by a fellow italian… BTW, you know surely a lot more than me about the current comics market. I agree, you know your stuff!

Also speaking of my wife I must mention we had a trajedy very close to my family happen and my wife isn't sleeping and is pretty torn up about it and out of commision. I am doing my best to keep my family running smoothly but I am not doing so well.... My son has fallen out of his crib and hit his head, my daughter is super pissed cuz of some tweenager thing, and I just sent my wife to bed to get some rest for lack of sleep. I am having a hard time finding time to use the restroom much less get on the internet. Please do not take my sluggishness to respond to you guys as me being dismissive or negative.... I just cant keep up! Thanks for understanding! Please keep the thread going even without me at times! (thumbs u

I´d take the CGC 9.6 ASM 129 and sell it for a ridiculous amount of money. Then I would take that money to travel through Italy for a couple of months, drink wine, eat pizza and learn Italian from my new super hot Italian girlfriend. I would then proceed in buying the Italian CGC 9.6 L´uomo Ragno 149, crack it open and then read it (thumbs u This sounds fun Barbarian! Could this pay for a plane ticket so I could join ya? Too many hypothetical’s in this story: 1 - That someone would give me a CGC 9.6 ASM 129 as a present 2- That I would score a super hot Italian girlfriend 3- That your wife would let you go to Italy Your probably right dude..... we have this Fiat comercial running in America right now with the hottest Italian gal! Oh my, it seems they have some hotties over there in Italy:cloud9: My wife wouldn't....

This makes sense but if there is a foreign variant that you could argue not being called a reprint its these... they were according to what I have read printed the very same day and the printers just swaped out the black plates with the UK pricing and then went on to print these Uk editions in much smaller quantaties... Your logic makes sense to me though.... Interesting... So your saying the average Italian collector would prefer the Italian edition. Thats def different and hadn't heard that before with some other countries..... What a wonderful local angle, thanks! Maybe I need to figure out a way to write it so its not so definitive, somthing like "in many cases" or "in some countries".... thanks again! (thumbs u

Tomato...tomatoe.... I just like how books look next to each other..... NOTE: Saved images, not all my books Who can argue the beauty of all of these lined up together like a family! Great job Ches! (thumbs u

I´d take the CGC 9.6 ASM 129 and sell it for a ridiculous amount of money. Then I would take that money to travel through Italy for a couple of months, drink wine, eat pizza and learn Italian from my new super hot Italian girlfriend. I would then proceed in buying the Italian CGC 9.6 L´uomo Ragno 149, crack it open and then read it (thumbs u This sounds fun Barbarian! Could this pay for a plane ticket so I could join ya?

Nice! Yea one of the big draws of collecting foreigns is just what you stated. A large collection with foreigns would be very difficult to reprduce maybe even impossible depending on how rare some of the books you have are? And that isnt even talking about the sigs.... Great books!

I actually had an old editor friend edit the main body copy. Not the image text though… I am not really a writer. I am a graphic designer by trade… English class wasn’t my best subject… Is it the grammar that you take issue with or the actual structure of the writing. Grammar can be fixed the structure would mean a re-write. I would hope its 12th grade level at least? I don’t expect it to be a master’s thesis or anything but if it’s the structure that’s poor maybe I need to re-think this whole article thing? Of course there is some bias, this foreign thing is something I have dedicated huge swaths of time and research to… my intention wasn’t AP style complete objectivity but maybe I need to include more negatives and pitfalls to this specific collecting type? Also I think my ego is about average sized but not that large! I am not talking about myself in that paragraph….The two forward thinking collectors are boardies that I met here that mentored me in this type of collecting. I learned a great deal from them and I respect them a lot. When I got it in my head about writing this article I did a lot of research into the "key based type" of foreign collecting and I did not find many people doing this "type" before these two, in fact I didn’t find any? Now I could be wrong but I think forward thinking is a good adjective that describes these guys…. It takes forward thinking to buck the normal trends and tread in places no one really has gone before. These guys took the obsession with specific keys and pushed it to a whole new level! You know you are right though it would be very easy to just remove “forward thinking” from the article to make it more subjective. I agree this is the general case, I don’t think I am making a case otherwise though… I talk about bias and irony but the fact still remains the American books will always be more valuable. My argument isn’t necessarily that this shouldn’t be, in fact I state in the article that most foreign variant collectors prefer this price discrepancy…. Value is up to individual collectors to decide. For instance above in my answer to vaillant I state I would take a Arabic 227 raw over a traditional Adams 227 in 9.2. I think the rarity and novelty of the Arabic book overtakes the value of the 9.2 227 for me. This is my personal belief….Is this forward thinking? I bet many here would call me bat-sheet crazy! Personally I think there is a fine line between forward thinking and crazy…. Many called the Wright brothers crazy… but in the end passion and balls rewarded the Wright brothers. So in the end I would hope the same “passion and balls” combo rewards the collectors willing to take this leap of faith with their collections. Thanks! I appreciate the help! (thumbs u

I really need to read your great article in full, but I try to explain my collecting reasoning for now. I thought it was clear from my post that it’s out of a question to me: the original edition is not only the most important (for whatever reason corroborating the choice) but it is – the word says it all – "original". When I started picking up comic books in original edition I found difficulties in reading them because my english skills were still immature, but I found the edition "as it should be". As marmat ("ehilà, chissà se ci conosciamo!" ) explained, Editoriale Corno (the publisher which printed most of the Marvel silver age, for the US collectors, here) made the choice of having fortnight (instead of montlhy) publications, with two/three stories for issues. Finding the original, I saw how the publication was conceived in its original form. With all the correct indicia, original lettering, choice of number of pages, kind of paper, et al. And this meant the most to me, although, for various reasons, one can be highly affectioned to a translated local edition (I am speaking 360° here, I mean this also for – say – a Tintin album in english, or a McKay's "Future Comics" issue with a "Saturno contro la Terra" episode). So, to cut a long story short: as I started collecting original comic books, I stopped collecting italian editions, and as a result all my collections aren’t complete (except for "I Fantastici Quattro" which I had almost completed before switching). Of course, I occasionally buy some italian old issue, but I think most of this comes from the affection you have for it, because it‘s part of your own personal story, but as the original edition can be properly read and understood, and it’s affordable and reachable, I see little point in choosing it over a translation. If it’s an issue I am affectioned with, I would probably keep both, but having to choose, I’d surely choose the original. Awesome! Thanks for comments! Sorry, I must have misunderstood your answer… I completely respect the decision that most collectors would choose the American 129. In fact 90% percent of the collector in me would take the American original. I own the raw book myself and I love it! Let me explain a little bit about the 10% of me that wouldn’t however… About a year ago I decided I wanted to seek out the Italian 129.. Sure enough I found one on Italian ebay, it was beat up pretty bad! It had chunks taken out of the cover and was generally in a very poor state. I decided to pass… I think it was like 4 euros…. Cheap and the guy would even ship to America! I thought about it and decided against it. Much of the L' UOMO RAGNO run is on Italian ebay….. key books too. So I decided to wait figuring another one would pop up soon. Guess what? I have a spent the past year actively seeking this book in any grade. No dice….. Can’t find one for sale anywhere. Maybe if I could trawl the comic shops of Italy daily it wouldn’t be a problem? But, for me an American collector…. Its just not available to me…. Some of these foreigns seem to be soooo freakin rare in the marketplace. Now I state in the article rarity doesn’t necessarily mean valuable, but for the foreign variant collector not choosing to pull the trigger on a book means possible not having one for your collection now or possibly even ever! speaking of that! If you could help me source one I would be unbelievably greateful! Expect a PM from me soon….. (thumbs u The American 129 in 9.6 though is a different story. I haven’t seen the census lately but I am assuming it would pop up in a auction on the web probably pretty regularly? I don’t know for sure…. I could be talking out of my ... but I am thinking all I would need is money. I don’t have it right now but I bet with the right amount of money I could scare up a spidey 129 in 9.6 very easily. Probably right here on the boards I could find one in a week. This book is available, it will be available tomorrow and in the far future. How are the bronze age Italian books being stored? Will there still be large amounts in the future to purchase? I just don’t know if they will? I hope so, what do you think? Are Italian collectors storing there bronze age books with love? Now, even with an endless amount of money and time I question whether I could find a Italian 129 variant/foreign reprint whatever its classification in 9.6? maybe not even in 9.2 or up? That 9.6 Italian book could possibly be the only one in existence. That 10% of me that would grab the Italian book starts to argue with the other 90% that wants the American book. Let me tell you another story… I am currently actively seeking out the Arabic Batman 227 variant. I know that many books from the Batman/tec run exist in the Arabic language variants printed in Lebanon…. I have spent countless hours researching, searching, and contemplating this damn 227 variant book! This book is my white buffalo, it is the Yeti, or bigfoot…. Could even be a chupacabra ? This drive is the gist of this type of collecting…. I will ask myself another hypothetical question? If a Batman 227 in 9.2 was sitting in front of me and a Arabic 227 variant in raw fine+? I can tell you with certainty I would run out of that room with my Arabic 227 cackling like a crazy person! I can’t speak for all foreign variant collectors but at least for me and foreigns I don’t chase specific grades, price guide value, or mainstream popularity. I do sometimes chase mythical beasts…. Only rumored to exist, and after a long “hunt” when you find this beast you capture it or slay it whichever metaphore suits your fancy! The “hunt”, rarity and novelty speak to foreign variant collecting I think… In saying all of that I still can’t argue for or against the choice about which 129 book any individual collector wouldchoose? I can only explain why that 10% of my collecting being would want the Italian version. I think the Italians ability to combine multiple issues makes them very interesting indeed… the French did a lot of combining as well. In the long run it ends up creating a lot of variants that do not have the corresponding American cover art. This makes the Italian variants with the desired cover art all the more impressive to me as a collector. As a example you had a 1 in three chance the cover you wanted on your variant was there. How cool from a american perspective.... Much of what was written in this article is generalization coming from my experience and by no means am I stating everything as fact. Just a culmination of my research so far and subject to evolution, though I will say I am itching to move onto my next project. It is awesome foreign collectors are corroborating or proving false some of the statements made by the article! Thanks vaillant! (thumbs u

Thanks Barbarian! I also think that the reading tendency here in the states seems to be heading towards the TPB similar to Portugal. I find the differing views of the foreign "collector" versus the foreign "reader" to be fascinating. Great stuff! Man you are right the layers of depth this hobby has is mind blowing! Is there a large market for back issue's in Portugal? Can you just walk into a local LCS and pick up Portuguese back issues? Or is it mostly new material?

Thanks for the comments! Of course I would love foreign collector imput as well! I actually ran this by some foreign collectors to make sure the tone of the article wasn't negative in thier view. Much of what is written is generalizations that I have gleaned from being in this game for a little while..... I do have a intersting hypothetical question for you though.... Let's say you are told you have a gift coming.... You as a Italian collector are sat down and put in front of you are two comics.....one is a Spiderman 129 in cgc 9.6 the other is the Italian equivilant the L' uomo ragno 149/1976 in cgc 9.6 You can only have one? Which one do you take?

Your empecable eye for design is absolutely correct! Will change it on Monday when I have access to my Quark file Dr. (thumbs u

Despite a few proofreading points, the content is outstanding and well-thought. It's great to see your passion for such a personal niche in the collecting community. I have picked up a few comics from outside the US, but never got into the re-published American works in different languages. It's really refreshing to see your perspective as a collector driven by this interest. Thanks! (thumbs u

noted... Thanks! will change it monday when I have acess to my file... (thumbs u

Wow, thanks for the feedback guys! Ok…. Lets discuss away! The article is basically finished mainly because I want to move ontu my next foreign variant article. That doesn’t mean it can’t evolve though…. Please, I would love to hear your imput! I have two active “hunts” that have been going on concurrently… I am going to write another article about one of them. The trials and tribulations, the history of the variants I am finding and searching for… The interesting histories of the foreign publishers that printed them etc…. a journalistic type piece is what I am thinking? And your right, I do mean to be altruistic with this…. I think I used that right? But get back to me in a year or two and we will see if further awareness has made my “hunts” more difficult. I might regret bringing more awareness to this little niche…. The last thing many of us(foreign variant collectors) want is to drive up prices…. This game isn’t monetary for most of us….. Many of these variants are difficult to find but expensive? Not really…. That might change once foreign sellers catch on….. Hint hint…. We don’t want that…..

Thanks Hector! (thumbs u I think it could still use some polish.... but I think its close....

Ok guys, I have spent the last 6 months researching and working on this article.... tell me what ya think? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think part of the reason people chase high grades is the "time machine" factor. When a book looks as fresh as the day it came off the rack there is somthing about how it transports the collector back a few decades in his mind.... I chase the highest grade I can, but I am fine with a lower grade as long as it presents well....

Damn it Whett! I should have picked up a few copies back when they were between 300-400 bucks! Imagine there are some happy flippers right now!

I just figured he has Billy in the basement on a bicycle powering up the farm using a pedal generator. Actually some kind of hand cranked power/radio would be cool in this world! I also think someone must be tasked with recording everything that has happened to them since the Zombie apoc! At one point in human history sapiens were dwindled down to a group of about 300 geneticly unique individuals according to geneticists.... We almost went extinct thousands of years ago... human kind has alwasy needed thier scribes to record history! The groups history is important.... find a competant writer and get started. Many might think this is unimportant, but it must be done! my