Cpt Kirk

I continue to hunt for these Mark Jeweler variants in the titles of Batman, Detective, Superman, Action and JLA on ebay. I just ask the seller if the comic book contains the insert, and I also give the seller my jeweler want list. After combing through more than 100 stores and asking more than 900 sellers on ebay, I now have found 677 of the possible 692 jeweler variants for those five titles (which means there are still 15 out there that I have not yet found). I'm starting to think that I might eventually find all 692 jeweler variants within the next several years, or come darn close. In the last few months, I found a few (namely JLA 195 and Action 580) that I thought might not have ever received the insert. I created a graph (see below) that shows how many of the jeweler variants I've been able to find since I started looking for them 8 years ago. The straight horizontal line at the top of the graph represents the total theoretically possible 692 jeweler variants for Batman, Detective, Superman, Action and JLA titles. The "x" axis is the number of years I've been trying to find these. You can see the curve approaches 692 jeweler variants as the years go by (I'm currently sitting at 8 years), but then the curve starts to flatten out toward the end if we use regression analysis. So will the curve ever reach all the way up to 692?... only time will tell. (you can probably tell that I'm an engineer)

I think this the Batman 457 2nd print news and Superman 50 2nd print news are the only DC Batman and Superman variants for which I do not know the origin. Would love to find out someday.

I would agree. The exception is that they can be pretty easily found from about 2012 until the last year they were made. That is when people started collecting and speculating with them when many people became aware of the topic. Of course, they can be expensive after 2012 for that reason. The other exception is that toward the last year of DC newsstands, (that is, 2017) some can be really hard to find because of spotty and low distribution.

wow... what a great first-hand story. I recall seeing CGC story thread where there was another guy who worked at Barnes & Noble. But instead of throwing them all in the trash, he took some home (in other words, stole them). There were some high value newsstand issues in there (some of the first issues of New 52, plus some of the last issues of the original iines of DC comics). He then sold them to a guy, who in turn sold a Superman New 52 #8 newsstand to me from that stash. It was the last newsstand issue that I had not yet found.

Nothing special about the year 2000, except that it was roughly the time that newsstands and bookstores started going out of business (maybe due to the internet). But newsstand issues from the year 2000 still aren't too hard to find in my opinion. But after the big run of closures of Waldenbooks around 2002/2003, some of those newsstand issues start to get hard to find. I've managed to find them all in the titles I collect (Batman, Detective, Superman and Action), but the ones that came into the collection last were from roughly 2002 thru 2011. I have a friend who has been looking for years and has not found some issues of Detective Comics from 2003 thru 2011 (Detective tends to be a little tougher than Batman because the newsstands usually didn't order as many Detectives as Batman comics -- I've seen that data with my own eyeballs, and also experienced it first hand at the newsstands).

Yes, I believe that almost every single one of them was slabbed before being given away. From what I understand, the total population of those variants is 200 or less.

They come up for sale every once in awhile on ebay, so I recommend you just create a "saved" search on ebay and it will come up eventually. Plan on spending somewhere around $1K (if I recall correctly, they sold on ebay from $500 to $1000 in the past). They were never for sale and were given away by DC Comics to a select few clients and employees (that's why I heard, second hand). Here's a link: https://www.comicsvalue.com/DC-NEW-52-BATMAN-1-CGC-98-SIGNATURE-SERIES-DC-ENTERTAINMENT-PREMIER-EDITION-NM/321669550236.html

p.s. I've seen several JLA #1 Millennium edition comic books with newsstand stickers (placed over the direct sales labels). See photo below for example. But I have never seen a JLA #1 Millennium edition with the newsstand bar code printed directly onto the comic book. That makes me think that some of these Millennium editions like Action 252, Justice League #1, and JLA #1 were never printed in the newsstand format (or had a very limited print run in newsstand format).

I hope you can find some more, my friend. These mall variants are tough to find. If I had to guess, a few hundred might have been made for each mall. A short 8 years ago, only 5 or 6 of them were known. Now after 8 more years of searching and getting the word out, we have found 16 of them. I suspect more will surface over the next several years. I've got a saved search on ebay for Adv of Superman 443 and so far in the last 8 years, I've seen many copies of Adv of SM 443. Only one uninformed seller listed a mall variant for sale, and my mentor Jerome Wenker snapped it up before I could do that. So he bought it for about $2 and I bought it from him for approx $100 when he retired from collecting 2 years ago.

Forgive me, but I will continue to stay off topic with the following post, but I thought it might interest the readers. The 1991 reprint (as some call it) of Action 1 is hard to find. I scanned through several hundred Action 1 reprints and did not see a single copy of the 1991 version. I'm lucky to have a copy, but I have no idea where it originated, just in case you haven't seen one before. The following link provides some additional info: https://comics.www.collectors-society.com/wcm/ComicCustomSetGallery.aspx?s=19251 Shown below are photos of front cover, inside front cover, last two pages, inside back cover, and back cover.

Thanks to @converseba, one of the two known copies of the Deerbrook Mall variant has been rejoined with its relatives. Now I’m able to show a photo of 13 of the 16 known variants together, plus the direct sales and newsstand versions. So I suppose a person could do an archival research of local newspapers for each of the cities that has a Homart mall to see if you could find an advertisement similar to the one shown below (found by AJ at RecalledComics.com). If you found that advertisement, then you could assume that there a mall variant exists for that mall, and start doing a search in that area to find the mall variant. But I think finding a missing mall variant would be harder than the dickens to do. First of all, it seems reasonable to assume that a good portion of these free giveaways were stashed away or even thrown away (especially since this issue of Adventures of Superman would otherwise have little to no value). To add to the problem, most of the mall variants in my possession ended up being found a long distance from the originating mall. For example, my spare copy of the Georgetown Park mall variant (which originated from the Georgetown Mall in Wash DC) was later found on the opposite side of the United States in Redmond Washington. I’ve been chasing these mall variants down for 8+ years. @converseba is the first person I’ve met who has direct recollection of picking up these comic books at a mall. In his own words (and with his permission) is his story: “We moved to Conroe, Texas, which was, at the time, a small town far enough outside of Houston to feel like a really small town. Which brings us to 1988, Superman's 50th anniversary. Suddenly, my relatively low-public-interest hobby was everywhere. Since we lived in a small town, the only malls were about 20-30 minutes away, but since it was the 80s, you were going to go to the mall, regardless. That meant either Willowbrook or Deerbrook (there was one other mall, but people were regularly shot there). Given my overall excitement over the 50th anniversary at the time, I would guess I had seen something regarding the giveaway and pleaded with my mother to go. I do not have any memories to back that up, so it's possible this was just happenstance. Either way, a stack of these free books was just sitting on a table in the mall waiting to be taken. I imagine I tried to take the whole stack, but I'm sure my mother most likely limited me so others wouldn't be left out (the right thing to do, but saddening in retrospect with regard to these books). I don't recall any other 50th anniversary activities going on, but again, my memories of that specific mall visit are a little fuzzy 32 years on.”

@onlyweaknesskryptonite, I love that you found that Waldenbooks pack, and that you were the original owner. I've often wondered if those 2nd, 3rd, and 4th printings really went to the newsstand, or were sold through some other venue. My experience with newsstands has been to pay a premium to friends and dealers just to compensate them for taking the extra time to look out for the ones on my want list and send them to me. It is interesting to me that some of the Millennium newsstand issues were harder to find, especially when the newsstand bar code is hiding on the back cover, as is the case with Superman 1. Those Millennium editions were produced in the summer of 2000, which is around the time when newsstand issues start getting harder to find. I've looked for 8+ years and never yet found newsstand variants of the Millennium versions Action Comics 252 and Justice League 1 (to give you some idea of the premium for the newsstand variant of these issues, I would gladly pay $50 to anyone who could find and sell me a copy). Following is an image of the direct sales version of the Action 252 Millennium variant.

Nice find. And yes, the 4th printing has newsstand variants (one with newsstand sticker, and one with bar code similar to the one you showed above. 1st and 2nd printings also have newsstand variants (the 2nd printing newsstand has only been found with the sticker)

Great point. I wonder if some of those hard-to-find ones you are talking about did not come in those 16- and 20-back bricks. There were actually three of those packs (two 20-packs and one 16-pack). I suspect the rare ones came from a pack that had lower distribution.

The ones with the small round DC logo are not too hard to find. They originally came from the 20-pack "bricks". I think you will see some photos of a typical 20-pack earlier in this thread. Interesting to me that it has been a long time now since we have seen a previously unknown DCU variant show up. I'm still looking for Adv of Superman 530, Superman MOS 49, and Superman 95 DCUs (I've been looking for more than 8 years). One of the kings of variants, Jerome Wenker (now retired from collecting), thought those existed but he admits himself that his database had been known to contain errors.

After 8 years of looking, the only newsstand issue that I have not been able to find in VF or better in the titles of Batman, Detective, Superman or Action Comics is Detective 813. I had to find my FN copy by enlisting the help of a friend in Venezuela, who sent me a newsstand copy with a Venezuelan price sticker on the front cover. A person would normally be happy to sell the direct sales copy of Detective 813 for a few bucks, if even that much. On the other hand, I would gladly pay $25 or more for a VF newsstand copy of TEC 813. So is there a premium for some newsstand issues?.... yes, and that premium can be substantial if it is hard to find and someone like me wants it enough. Note that this TEC 813 was dated Jan 2006. I feel that the hardest ones to find were approximately in the years of 2002 through 2012. Around the year 2002 and later, a lot of book stores like Waldenbooks closed and only a few newsstands sold comics. Sometime around 2012, many collectors realized scarcity of newsstand issues and started saving them (so in general those newer ones are not hard to find if you are willing to pay the premium). I did not hesitate to pay a premium of 5 to 10 times price guide values for other newsstand issues that I needed from this same time period. I remember competing for a few Batman newsstand issues from that time period on eBay, and it was not uncommon that I won them after bidding up to the $20 to $30 range (with one ending somewhere around $60). I gladly paid those prices because I’m a nutty completionist variant collector, and I knew if I passed on the purchase of a rare one, it might be years before I saw another.

Well, that is when things came un-glued for me about 10 years ago. I went through all my comic books to make sure I had each and every issue with the Direct Sales logo (to me those bar codes were ugly). The early direct sales issues were a slight challenge to find. But after I got all the Direct Sales issues in hand, I decided for completeness I also needed to have every newsstand issue in hand, especially when I started noticing some difference. Following is an article I wrote about it many moons ago.

I know it does seem hard to believe. I would think that they would also have been sold in military stores here in the United States, but many experts claim that did not happen. And yes, I had to resort to find several of my copies in Europe and Asia... especially in Germany and Japan.

You know this COVID -19 crisis is bad when people start having time on their hands to start looking for Mark Jeweler variants... lol.

If you look around on the internet, you will see a lot of information that states these were only sold in U.S. military stores overseas. I don't have any personal experience in those stores, but I have been in touch with people who said that they recall getting jeweler variants from those stores.

Definitely not accurate. There was a time when @mycomicshop only reported jeweler variants that they had in stock or had previously sold. But sometime around 2015 or so they listed the jeweler variant for every single issue during a certain date range. We know for sure that some of those issues don't contain jeweler inserts because they are square bound giants, which have never been known to contain the insert. For example, @mycomicshop lists jeweler variants for Batman 254 through 260, even though those issues are 100-page giants for which no jeweler variant has ever been known to exist. It appears that the insert has only be added to saddle stitched comics. Interesting tidbit: for DC comics, I have seen thousands of jeweler variants but I have never seen one accidentally added to a Direct Sales copy. They are only found in newsstand issues for DC comics. I wonder if the Canadian variant with the jeweler insert found above was an error... I could see where that could happen. I think it was an error because I don't know of any US Military bases with PX's in Canada (the jeweler variant was only known to be sold on US Military bases overseas).

Following is my want list. I have quite a few of these, but also looking for upgrades. I would gladly make it worth your while to find them. I will send you a PM with my cell number so that if you find one, you can check with me first before buying it. Action 418, 447, 448, 452, 516, 524, 525, 533, 543, 549, 571, 579, 580, 581 Batman 243, 245, 246, 247, 251, 253, 264, 265, 273, 278, 288, 291, 301, 324, 326, 332, 340, 366, 390 Detective 453, 454, 464, 470, 497, 548, 564 Superman 255, 258, 259, 261, 263, 266, 267, 269, 273, 277, 279, 287, 289, 291, 292, 294, 297, 298, 353, 358, 359, 361, 369, 370, 373, 375, 376, 378, 387, 393, 413, 419 Justice League of America 100, 101, 103, 106, 107, 108, 122, 161, 195, 207

Thank you. And yes, I have a ton of jewelers available for trade for anyone who can find the jeweler variants that I am missing (that is why I keep them).

Yes, they are hard to find in high grade. I've been chasing them for 12+ years. I have always upgraded when I had a copy in vgFN or less. Over the years, I would say at least half of my 700+ jewelers are in VF or better. My minimum acceptable grade is FN. I probably have 11 that are vg or less, and 30 or so that are vgFN.