Cpt Kirk

amazing find! I seem to recall that free issues of the Superman: Man of Steel mini series were given away for free at the Smithsonian as part of this event.

Well said @converseba. I remember those times well. There was definitely media attention at the time with Superman becoming "50 years old". Somehow Superman made it to the cover of Time Magazine for his 50th birthday. So in retrospect, I'm guessing DC was trying to use that 50th birthday party was a way of selling more comic books. In addition to the mall variants and the big party they threw in NYC, I recall they did something at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. for Superman's 50th birthday. At that time, DC probably needed everything they could think of to keep comics going. Then the Batman movie and Miller's Dark Knight seemed to change everything.... all of a sudden DC comics became very cool and sought after (that's my memory anyway.... and given my memory, it's probably not entirely accurate... lol).

Thanks to @onlyweaknesskryptonite another mall variant has joined it's brothers and sisters. Pictured below is the NewPark Mall variant of Adv of Superman 443. The group photo shows 14 mall variants in one place (the only known ones I haven't been able to get are Westgate Mall, Fiesta Mall, and the Parks at Arlington). NewPark Mall is in the San Francisco Bay area, in Newark CA. @onlyweaknesskryptonite seems to have a knack for staying on top of new ebay listings, so he spotted it on sale on ebay and snagged it before anyone else could get it. The seller was @SearchlightComics-migratio and the seller apparently was aware of the value due to initial asking price of $250. After having chased these mall variants for almost 9 years, I think the $250 asking price is near the upper end of what people would be willing to pay, but I was glad to get it for that price. The NewPark Mall variant is probably in the condition range of 7.5 to 9.0, which puts it on the high end of the condition of the ones that were already in my collection. If you ever see one of these, I suggest buying it in any condition you can find. Only one copy of each example below has surfaced with the exception of Deerbrook, Rhode Island, Georgetown Park, Washington Park, and Spring Hill. As noted earlier in this thread, @converseba had the only two known Deerbrook copies and he was the original owner (from the time he was a kid, which is awesome.... if not for his mother, he says he would have gotten the whole stack at the mall... lol!) Note that NewPark Mall (along with a few of the others) doesn't appear to have been a Homart Mall, whereas most of the other malls that distributed this variant were Homart malls.

dude.... you just found two of the holy grails in one pack. Great job. I think I know a guy (not me) who would pay big bucks for that pack. If you think you want to sell, send me PM and I will connect you with him. I paid $150 for a VF Adv of SM 521 DCU and found my high grade SM 96 DCU in VF for 50 cents with just dumb luck at the Charlotte Heroes Convention almost 9 years ago.

That's really cool @Graydog Thanks for sharing and welcome to the boards! I will add it to the list. Following is list of known comics with the DC reader survey shown above: Justice League of America 249 released Jan 2nd 1986, Batman 394 released Jan 9th, 1986, Superman 418 also released on Jan 9th 1986, and Who's Who 14 released on Jan 16th, 1986. This makes me think there are many more survey variants than in that month than just these four.

Gary at Frank-N-Freds told me that he remembers getting Jeweler variants at the PX on Lackland Air Force Base in TX when he was a kid. He says he knows a couple other people who also said they got them at military bases in the U.S. So it looks like they were not exclusive to military stores overseas.

Thanks to Gary at Frank-N-Freds Comics in Nevada, I now know that a jeweler variant existed for Action Comics 524 and 533 (but dang it, they were sold before I realized Gary had them). So I now am thinking that 690 jeweler variants exist in the titles of Batman, Detective, Superman, Action and JLA, and I have evidence that all exist except the following 10 issues: Batman 245, 324, 326, 390, JLA 161, Detective 470, 548, Superman 359, 413, and Action Comics 579. If anyone finds any of those, I would love to hear about it.

You could not have said it better. I took am grateful for the post, @cheetah

this needs to be shown again

I bought that Action 76 back in the late 90's from Jay Parrino (remember that guy?.... he was very big on Mile High comics for awhile). I sold it in 2014 to buy half of my Yamaha jet boat. It appreciated quite a bit, but my wife (math professor) quickly pointed out that my overall rate of return was only about 2%.... LOL.

For the record, another copy of the Washington Park Mall variants of Adv of Superman 443 surfaced on ebay this week and sold for $67 in vg to vg- condition. There were 6 different bidders for this comic book. My max bid was $50 so I didn't win it. We believe this comic book came from Washington Park Mall (in Bartlesville OK, which is near Tulsa) and this is the 3rd copy that I have seen (I had two, and traded my undercopy plus some cash to get the Town East mall variant). If the price is reasonable, I try to buy any of these variants for future trade value.

Thanks. Those DC jeweler variants seem to be few and far between.

I've found the sale of DCU's to be highly variable. I'm looking forward to seeing the separate sales of those six 2-packs that were sold by SeattleGoodwill for almost $1900. It is hard to imagine each pack by itself selling for more than $300. I've seen packs with some of rare DCU's sit on ebay for months at prices around $150 and not selling. That said, some of the packs in the SeattleGoodwill lot contained DCU variants that had never been seen before. My thanks again to @revat for starting this thread almost 6 years ago.

Great compilation of record sales, @onlyweaknesskryptonite .... thanks!

awesome.... great find.

I wonder why none of the super-rare June 1980 Whitmans (like Batman 324, DCCP 22, Superman 348, JLA 179 and Action 508) have not been found in a Whitman pack? I also wonder why they tend to surface in Canada more often than anywhere else. Were they perhaps released in Canada in some different way than a pack? Had to believe it has been 40 years since June 1980... makes me wonder if an original owner of one of these comic books could ever be found with direct knowledge of how he or she got one of those rare Whitmans.

Now down to 14 jeweler variants that I've never seen nor heard of someone having. Those are Batman 245, 324, 326, 390, JLA 161, Detective 470, 548, 564, Superman 359, 413, Action Comics 524, 533, 579, 581. If anyone ever finds those issues with jeweler insert, I would sure love to hear about it. Also getting confident that Detective 564 and Action 581 don't exist, which means I've really found all but 12 of the possible 690 variants. At this rate, I may find them all within the next 5 to 6 years.

Feedback rating of 0 is always a big warning sign to me.

Dang it... now there's a another one on my want list. If someone comes across a JL 94 DC Universe variant and wants to sell, I would gladly pay $200 in VF better. I'm also still missing Superman 113 & 117 as well as Superman Man of Steel 39.

You can add this one to your list of high grade comic books with odd inserts. It is Action Comics 484 with the cellophane insert. This one still has an unopened cellophane packed stapled into the comic book. The cello package contains a one of 4 different Superman posters. I would be very surprised to see another one come along in this grade or higher. You can learn more about it by checking out the following post:

9.8 DC Mark Jewelers? Not easy. I have approximately 670 DC Mark Jewelers in the titles of Batman, Detective, Superman, Action and JLA. Plus a few hundred more random DC Mark Jeweler variants. I have made it a goal to get them all in FN or better, and many of them are in really high grade. But 9.8 DC's with a Mark Jeweler insert are super hard to find. They were printed and sent all the way overseas, sat on a rack in a military PX, and then somehow made it back to the United States to get graded. After all of that, it would be hard for the comic book to make a 9.8 grade. Out of approximately 1,000 that I own, I suspect only 1 to 10 of them would grade 9.8. I suspect those super high-grade comic books somehow escaped the normal process of sitting on a rack to be sold. As far as slabbing MJs goes, I have bought slabbed ones just to get them, but I immediately free them from their cage.

Great observations. I would think that trying to chase down all pack variations would drive one a little batty.

I was recently lucky enough to buy this beautiful copy of Batman 9 and I sent a picture of it to a few dear friends. Then one of those dear friends sent me an email with this image and reminded me that my collection would not be complete until I got the DC Universe variant of that comic book. For some reason he likes photo-shopping the DC Universe symbol onto images of random comic books and other stuff. Too dang funny, he is.