Cpt Kirk

I will amend my note about to say that I was able to find confirmation that the last newsstand issues in the Rebirth titles mentioned above were Batman 29, TEC 962, Superman 29 and Action 985

I found a Superman 50 2nd print newsstand in the wild today. It is in FN- condition and is a spare for me. If anyone needs this, feel free to send me a PM. I'm always interested in trading.

BM 457 error newsstand is hard to find (it is the one with 000 in the indicia and bar code on front cover), but the really rare and expensive one is the 457 2nd print newsstand. You can google "Batman 457 2nd print newsstand" to get the whole story and see some prices. BM 457 error newsstand can usually be found after a long search... and I think $20 to $50 is a reasonable price for that one.

I concur.... the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc printing of DC Comics that were cover dated from July 1986 through June 1992 can usually be found without paying a premium if you don't mind waiting a couple years to get them (but some are hard to find, especially since many of them have identical front covers). Some examples of ones that were hard for me to find were as follows: Action 654 & 660, Adv of Superman 463 & 467, Justice League America 36, 37, & 45, Superman (2nd series) 44, 51 & 52. I thought it was relatively easy to find all the Batman ones after a couple years of looking (maybe they made more due to the popularity of Batman... but that's just a guess). p.s. I recall when these came out that most of us collectors were adamant that we had to have first printings; and additional printings were something to avoid because they would not be worth as much. Funny how these things turn out sometimes. Now some of those rarer 2nd and 3rd printings from the Funeral for a Friend series (i.e., the ones with the DC Universe symbol in the UPC box) are worth more than a hundred bucks in nice condition, whereas the first printings would be hard to sell at their original cover price. And the newsstand version of the second printing of Batman 457 sells for more than one thousand dollars if in really nice condition.

This is just an educated guess... but here it is. From about 2000 thru 2003, the newsstand issues are pretty easily found if you work hard at it for a few years. I'm going to guess that there is usually 1 newsstand issue to be found for every 10 to 40 direct sales issues during that time frame. There are exceptions, but Waldenbooks and newsstands were still selling a lot of newsstand issues up until about that time. Then Waldenbooks started folding, and a lot of newsstands stopped carrying comic books. From about 2004 through about 2012 the newsstand issues are hard to find. More like 1 newsstand issues for every 50 to 100 direct sales issues. I've got friends who have been looking for some newsstand issues in this time frame for years and still not found them. Around 2012, newsstand awareness really came of age, and I think a lot of people started buying and keeping newsstand issues for speculative purposes. For example, someone from Mile High Comics told me they had an arrangement with a couple of their customers, who would buy them from Barnes and Nobles and then bring them to Mile High for re-sale. So newsstands from this time frame are usually easily found (in spite of the fact that ratio is still more like 1 in 50 to 1 in 100) but those speculators seem to want a lot of money for them. However, there are a few cases from this time frame where distribution was limited. I recall a few newsstand issues toward the end of their run that could not be found except in a few Barnes and Nobles stores. So I had to send friends to those Barnes and Nobles stores that had them in hand, because my local Barnes and Noble in Columbus GA did not. Those newsies are really hard to find.

I believe I can help solve this mystery. I recently traded my spare copy of the Washington Park Mall variant for a variant I wanted really bad, and the person I traded it with must have sold it. Funny that @mycomicshop listed it as an "Ordway Mall variant". "Ordway" is listed at the top of the cover and he was the author of the story (good story in there, by the way). It is showing as sold on MyComicShop's website when you look at their new arrivals listing. From the outside looking in, it appears as if someone snatched it up right away at $150. For whatever it is worth, if it was a mall variant that I needed, I would gladly pay that much for it even in vg condition. With those mall variants, you can't be picky about condition. As I said earlier, 10 of the 14 known mall variants have only one known copy. And only a few of the 11 copies I have are better than FN condition.

Does anyone know who owns a copy of the Westlake Mall variant of Adv of SM 443? I know where all the others are, but never found the owner of that one.

I recommend you buy it if it is in nice condition. I would buy it for $20 more than you paid, plus shipping if in nice condition. It is handy to have these rare ones for trades.

Cranberry = Maryland (I think) Westlake = Boston Georgetown = Wash DC Clearview = Pennsylvania Rhode Island = Providence Spring Hill = Chicago suburbs Eden Prairie = Minneapolis The Parks = Dallas suburbs Town East = Dallas suburbs Washington Park = Oklahoma Montclair = Los Angeles suburbs Fiesta = Phoenix Willowbrook = Houston North Shore Square = New Orleans suburbs Many, but not all of these, are tied to malls developed and owned by Homart.

Action 686 is hard to find, but I think I've seen or found 10 of them in the last 19 years. Probably half of that for Superman 77, SM MOS 20, and Adv of Superman 499.

Those prices seem reasonable to me, especially the Superman 77. That one is really hard to find.

No. That's just me posting in the wrong area, I suppose. Dumb question... what age is 1988? Modern?

No. I believe all (or almost all) the issues within are first prints. In my opinion, the pack is worth more intact than broken apart. I've seen at least 3 of these packs sell in the past, and typical price was $25 to $50 for the entire pack. But if broken apart, I believe the comic books within are practically worthless.

Newly discovered DCU's are definitely few and far between, then!

I was just wondering the same thing myself. I can't recall the last time we saw a new DC Universe variant show up. I still look for them but not as much as I used to. About twice per year I check my local 2nd and Charles for these, plus I normally do a quick scan for DCUs if I travel into a city and go to shops that I have never visited before. It makes me wonder.... are a lot of people still actively looking for these?

This was posted by @kpaqu1 back in Feb 2015 on one of my earlier posts about these mall variants: Westgate Mall is Brockton, MA. My childhood mall which I'm amazed is still operating. Here's a pic of Spider-Man at the mall in the early 1980s. Perhaps the owner at the time was a comic fan.  Edited February 27, 2015 by kpaqu1

I love the additional info that you posted... thanks! It just occurred to me that the mall symbols in the UPC boxes of these Adv of SM 443 variants may be the only remaining thing (except photos) from these dead malls after they get demolished.

p.s. It is amazing to me how few of these mall variants have surfaced. I have a feeling that many of them are still buried in collections (because it seems that most people stopped throwing away comic books in the late 1970s). I have offered bounties for these variants and written about them just to see if I could bring them out of the closet, so to speak. This has worked to some extent (seven of the ones now in my collection came from fellow boardies). Of the 14 known mall variants, I know of only one single copy for the following: Montclair Plaza, Georgetown Park, Eden Prairie, Cranberry, Willowbrook, Town East, North Shore Square, Fiesta, Westgate, and The Parks at Arlington. If anyone has any of those on hand, I would love to hear about it.

Great thought RMA. Jerome scoured for 20+ years before variants became a big thing, and may have had one of the best promo collections. I was lucky enough to see it in person and it was amazing.

Thanks to @JoshWilk, the Town East Mall variant of Adventures of Superman has been joined with other mall variants of Adventures of Superman 443. The count of mall variants is now up to 14, and I have been able to put 11 of them together. If you add the direct sales, newsstand, and Canadian issues, the total becomes 17 variations of this comic book. Shown below (from top left to right are Montclair Plaza, Georgetown Park, Eden Prairie Center, Clearview Mall, Cranberry Mall, Direct Sales issue, Newsstand Issue; bottom left to right are Willowbrook Mall, Washington Park Mall, Town East Mall, Spring Hill Mall, Rhode Island Mall, North Shore Square, and the Canadian Price variant. The other three known mall variants that I don't have in my collection are the Westlake Mall, Fiesta Mall and The Parks at Arlington. They are shown and described in more detail below. Here’s what I know about the mall variants and the malls that these variants are associated with: 1. Midland Mall opened in 1967 by Homart (a mall developer) in Warwick RI which became Rhode Island Mall in 1985 (closed in 2012). My copy came from a seller in Pennsylvania. 2. Montclair Plaza opened in 1968 in Montclair CA but was owned and remodeled by Homart in 1985 according to the following article: http://articles.latimes.com/1985-10-27/realestate/re-12523_1_montclair-plaza. My copy came from a guy who found it in San Francisco. 3. Town East Mall opened by Homart in 1971 in Mesquite TX (in the Dallas metro area); My copy came from @JoshWilk on this CGC site and he says he found his copy in Tulsa OK. 4. Eden Prairie Center opened by Homart in 1976 in Minneapolis MN; My copy came from a @BGriffeyJr on this CGC site and I think he found it in a shop in Minneapolis 5. Fiesta Mall opened by Homart in 1979 in Mesa AZ; The owner of this variant has a shop in the Phoenix area and I believe he found it in that area. 6. Spring Hill Mall opened by Homart in West Dundee IL (Chicago suburb) in 1980; I got my copy from Jerome Wenker, who got it from an ebay seller in Illinois for just a few bucks before people started realizing the rarity of these mall variants; one of my spare copies was found in a shop on Kolmar Ave by a fellow CGC collector in downtown Chicago. A CGC-graded 9.2 copy was originally listed on ebay for something like $15K but eventually sold at auction by MyComicShop for approximately $150 according to MyComicShop's website (I wish I would have seen that auction... I would have gladly paid more than $150); 7. Willowbrook Mall was opened in 1981 by Homart in Houston TX; I got my copy from @mysterio on this CGC site and I believe he told me he found it somewhere in the Kansas City metro area. We 8. Washington Park Mall is in Bartlesville OK; this mall was opened 1984 by Homart according this article: http://www.examiner-enterprise.com/business/20170607/bartlesville-mall-listed-for-134m; my copy came from Jerome Wenker and I had a spare that I got from a seller in Australia. 9. North Shore Square Mall is in Slidell LA; this mall was opened 1985 by Homart according to this article: http://www.nola.com/northshore/index.ssf/2017/06/slidell_mall_owners_hope_to_re.html; my copy came from Jerome Wenker 10. The Parks at Arlington is a mall in the Dallas TX suburbs and was opened by Homart in 1988; I don’t have this one but a fellow collector on this CGC site has it 11. Clearview Mall (probably from Metairie LA or Butler PA… but I’m not sure); I found mine at a 2nd and Charles store in Naperville IL for $1. 12. Westgate Mall (I think this is located in Brockton MA, but it is hard to say… there are a lot of Westgate Malls and I can’t find an image of the Westgate logo on Superman 443 that ties to the mall in Brockton; the closest logo match I can find is this one, which does belong to the Brockton MA mall): https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHWA_enUS617US617&biw=1600&bih=720&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=fxX3WuKCGcKz5gLazauIDQ&q=westgate+mall+sign&oq=westgate+mall+sign&gs_l=img.3...4895.6715.0.7032.11.11.0.0.0.0.168.940.9j2.11.0....0...1c.1.64.img..0.9.803...0j0i24k1j0i10i24k1j0i67k1j0i5i30k1.0.FD8JIYkYBRY#imgrc=AboUZX2VoyHKaM: This is the only mall variant that I for which I have not been able to track down the owner. 13. Georgetown Park is a mall located in Washington DC; The logo that can be seen on the cover of Adv of SM 443 can clearly be seen in the doors to the mall in the 1994 movie True Lies, which is where that movie was filmed. I got my copy by doing a trade with a fellow collector on CGC who says he found it in Redmond WA. 14. Cranberry Mall (not sure where this mall was located; I am guessing Cranberry PA or more likely the mall opened in 1987 by ShopCo in Westminster MD and now known as Westminster Mall). I found my copy at Comics and Cards Inc in Albany GA (which I believe is now closed). It is interesting to me how many of the mall variants found to date have been found very far from where I’m guessing they originated. I have never found an original owner yet, but I assume these all were originally sold or given away at the mall for which they were named. If anyone can find other mall variants or add information about these variants, I would love to hear about it. I personally believe there are far more of these than what has already been found. These were only described on the old @Stl Comics-migration website about 15 years ago, and only one or two new ones surface each year. I’m not aware of any other single DC comic book that had more variations produced until the explosion of new variants that started occurring at the time of the New 52 launch. What I love about these variants is that they were produced long before anyone really started to pay serious attention to variants, so they are really hard to find. For the record, following are the scans of the mall variants that I don’t have. And following are closer images of the ones I have so that you can see a sharper image of each logo. And to round things out, the direct, newsstand, and Canadian issues:

Thanks for the thoughtful post. For me, the pursuit of these variants has always been an academic pursuit and never for profit. For instance, Mark Jeweler variants. There is very little documentation out there about them, so I wanted to find them all and record it for posterity. Of the 692 jeweler variants that I'm looking for in Batman, Detective, Superman, Action and JLA, I've been able to find all but 25 of them. And I believe over time I will be able to say that some of those issues never received the insert. It feels like an Easter egg hunt whenever I walk into a shop in some city that I've never been to before. And you will usually see parts of the city that you would not otherwise see if you go looking for comic books in a new city. Here's the jeweler article I wrote, if you want to learn more.

I concur. I have noticed those differences among the stickers I've seen.

A 9.8 jeweler variant is really hard to find, especially in DC. I have almost 1,000 DC jeweler variants, and maybe 2 or 3 are 9.8. This makes sense to me because they had to make it all the way overseas, sit on a newsstand in a PX, and then survive 40+ years in 9.8 condition.

Update: Thanks to some recent additions from billbrown7080 I've been above to find all but 25 of the 692 possible jeweler variants of Batman, Detective, Superman, Action and JLA. If anyone has a listing of these variants in those titles, I would love to hear about it.