Cpt Kirk

Sometimes I think that maybe I'm one of the only collectors of these Mark Jeweler variants. But there must be more fanatics out there. Yesterday at JLA 207 jeweler variant popped up on @mycomicshop and someone snapped it up immediately. Dang it... out of 692 jeweler variants I'm trying to find, that JLA 207 was one of the only 30 remaining for me to find. Bottom line.... if you are a fanatic for these things, you must be constantly on the watch for them or some other guy whose even more fanatical than you will get there first. Yikes!

It just occurred to me that if my neighbor would have waited about 3 weeks, she would have gotten some of the #1 issues of DC's New 52. I think popularity has waned on the newsstand variants of those #1s, but I saw the New 52 Batman #1 and Detective #1 newsstand variants selling easily for more than $50 at one time. Would you agree that the hype over those issues is now calming down now that it has been almost 10 years since they came out?

They appear to be FN+ to VF

My next door neighbor bought these newsstand issues from Barnes and Noble one day in the Summer of 2011 just for the heck of it. Since I'm not familiar with Marvel, I would like to ask my fellow CGC boardies if any of these are hard to find. She also bought a few DC's (Superman 714, GL Corps 60, Superman/Batman 85, JLA 60, DC Universe Online Legends 11, and The All-New Batman The Brave and The Bold 8 at the same time). It is interesting to me that she just happened to pluck these off the newsstand just before newsstand issues started to become more highly pursued by collectors.

No worries. This thread evolved to discuss the other variants that were similar to Batman 457 2nd print newsstand (namely, the Robin #1 and Superman #50)

Good job. If you are obsessive compulsive, you will soon be wanting to get them all.

Interesting. It makes me glad that I made the decision to store all my comics in mylites (that is, thin mylar) back in the early 1990s. That, plus the buffered backing boards, tight packing, and low humidity seems to have left them in really good shape. By now, I would have changed those poly bags about 7 or 8 times now.

Here's one thing you can do if it seems like it is a 2nd print. Check ads on the back cover, inside front cover, and inside back cover. If the ads are different that the 1st print, then try to find those same ads in comic books that were produced at a later date. That technique can help nail down the date of the printing. For example, Batman 430 (originally published Feb 1989) had a second printing. The second printing had the same ads as all the DC comics that were printed in August 1989.

I thought all newsstand issues had to have bar codes, so my guess is that this comic book was produced for direct sales in comic book shops. Have you checked the indicia to see what it says?

Thanks to @onlyweaknesskryptonite, I've been able to amass 12 of the known 15 variants of Adv of Superman 443. Now I wish the owners of the other 3 would decide to sell!

yes, crazy with a capital C.

Great find! So now we have a total of 15 of these mall variants (namely, Florence Mall, Montclair Plaza, Georgetown Park, Eden Prairie Center, Clearview Mall, Cranberry Mall, Willowbrook Mall, Washington Park Mall, Town East Mall, Spring Hill Mall, Rhode Island Mall, North Shore Square, Westgate Mall, Fiesta Mall, and the Parks at Arlington. I am sure there will be many more that will be found. Following is a listing of Homart malls (that existed in 1988) for which we have yet to see a mall variant (I pulled this from the Homart wiki article): Valley View Center Dallas Texas 1973 Metrocenter Phoenix Arizona Joint venture with Westcor[35] 1973 Altamonte Mall Altamonte Springs Florida Jointly developed with Edward J. DeBartolo Corporation[36][37] 1974 Maplewood Mall Maplewood (Minneapolis–Saint Paul area) Minnesota 1974[38] Independence Center Independence (Kansas City area) Missouri 1974 Westminster Mall Westminster (Orange County) California 1974[39] Brea Mall Brea (Orange County) California 1975[40] Northbrook Court Northbrook (Chicago metropolitan area) Illinois 1976 Orland Square Mall Orland Park (Chicago metropolitan area) Illinois 1976 Woodland Hills Mall Tulsa Oklahoma Expansion completed by Homart in 1982 1976 Lakeside Mall Sterling Heights Michigan Joint venture with Alfred Taubman 1976 Burnsville Center Burnsville (Minneapolis–Saint Paul area) Minnesota 1977[38] Louis Joliet Mall Joliet Illinois Renamed in mid 2000s as Westfield Louis Joliet 1977 Twelve Oaks Mall Novi Michigan Joint venture with A. Alfred Taubman and Dayton-Hudson Corporation 1977 Westfield Broward Plantation (Miami Metropolitan Area) Florida Acquired by Westfield Group in 2007 and renamed Westfield Broward 1978 Baybrook Mall Friendswood (Greater Houston) Texas 1978 Town Center Mall Boca Raton (Miami Metropolitan Area) Florida Also known as Town Center at Boca Raton 1980 Greenbrier Mall Chesapeake Virginia 1981 Deerbrook Mall Humble (Greater Houston) Texas 1984 Tysons Galleria Tysons Corner (Washington Metropolitan Area) Virginia Jointly developed with Lerner Enterprises 1988 Lakeland Square Mall Lakeland Florida Jointly developed with Edward J. DeBartolo Corporation[43] 1988

For sure. To me, the most memorable was in the Overstreet Comic Books Price guide. If I recall correctly, I think it came out in #12

I just saw a Blackhawk #5 (August 1989) with the same reader survey show up on ebay today. For the record, starting big was set at $77 with no bites yet.

congrats... you just found one of the really tough ones!

I agree. I think those high prices helped flush them out.

AJ at Recalled Comics wrote an amazingly insightful article about these variants. The link below goes directly to that article. Great job AJ! http://www.recalledcomics.com/Superman443MallVariants.php

If anyone were to find them, I would guess it would be you RMA. You are the master of finding these oddities.

Yup. It was just me and one other guy bidding on it. I put in an insanely high bid at the last minute just for the hell of it. I was the high bidder for about 2 seconds and then the other guy got it. In retrospect, I'm glad the other guy got it because I would still be looking for a better copy. I'm trying to get all my jeweler variants in at least FN or better (which ain't easy!)

Apparently there is some competition for these variants. Tonight I was losing bidder for Justice League of America 107 jeweler variant in vgFN. I had never seen a JLA 107 jeweler variant until the listing in the link below came out a week ago. It went for $91. I put in a last second bid for $90 and was amazed that I was outbid at the last second. I would love to hear from the winner, to see why in the heck someone would pay that much for a comic book that would normally have a hard time selling for $2 if it did not contain the insert. At least I know that this variant exists now. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Justice-League-America-107-DC-1st-app-Freedom-Fighters-Mark-Jewelers-Insert-/283773513830?_trksid=p2385738.m4383.l10137.c10&nordt=true&rt=nc&orig_cvip=true

What immediately pops out to me about the DC Comics Value Pack (item #12 in the catalog) is that every comic book shown in that catalog was reprinted as a 2nd printing (and usually marked as such in the indicia). Some of us suspected those comic books were sold in those 3-packs that were sold in Kay-Bee Toys and Toys R Us. But I've never seen any of those second prints actually contained in a 3-pack. So perhaps they were only made for the Sears value pack. I really appreciate you for posting that photo.

Great find! Given the look of the sticker, I am guessing that one was re-sold at a Sears instead of sold there originally.

I have been looking for these for about 10 years now, and they are indeed rare. @mycomicshop recognizes the value of these, and when they sell a mall variant it almost always goes for more than $100. I would say that even if MyComicShop had 100 Adv of Superman 443's in stock, they would be lucky if one of them was the mall variant. These are sitting around in dealer inventories unnoticed. That's how most of my copies were found. But if you start going from dealer to dealer to check for them, you will talk to a lot of dealers before you find one. Very few of these mall variants have survived. p.s. @onlyweaknesskryptonite sold his Georgetown copy to me, so I now have a spare one. I was thinking about selling it on ebay, but have decided against that. Instead I am going to keep it in hopes that if someone finds another one I don't have, I can use my copy (plus some cash) to convince the owner to trade their newly found mall variant for mine.

For sure... but he really is a good guy. I am sure I will eventually find them somewhere else. It is only a matter of time.

I recall reading these stories as they were made at that time. I enjoyed the stories. If I recall correctly, soap operas and dramatic long-running series were very popular on TV at the time I felt like the stories in Batman and Detective were similar in that they were a long-running soap opera of sorts.