Cpt Kirk

That's a tough one to find in high grade. I pulled mine directly off the newsstand. If I recall correctly, it was hard to find that black cover with zero dings on the spine even right after it hit the newsstand. At Barnes & Noble, those newsstand issues got pretty ragged after spending a few weeks on the newsstand. I remember it well, and frankly I'm glad they stopped making them. It was getting to be a pain in the neck to stop by the newsstand weekly to keep up with having all the newsstand variants. And sometimes the local B&N store would get zero stock on some newsstand issues so then you had to go to another B&N a hundred miles away to keep the run going.

Here is a recent discovery of a new variant from the Death and Reign of Superman. It was pointed out to me by @kenaran, who has an uncanny knack for finding the rarest of the rare. The "Eastern News" is not a sticker, the book was printed this way. The only newstand issue that we have seen of this "deluxe" version before now is a stickered copy (the stickered newsstand version is also shown below for reference... it is a newsstand sticker that is placed over the Direct Sales UPC). I believe these can still be found on ebay.

This one is different. It was pointed out to me by @kenaran, who has an uncanny knack for finding the rarest of the rare. The "Eastern News" is not a sticker, the book was printed this way. Before his discovery, the only newstand issue that we have seen of this "deluxe" version is a stickered copy (the stickered newsstand version is also shown below for reference... it is a newsstand sticker that is placed over the Direct Sales UPC). The non-deluxe version of Action 695 exists in both Direct Sales and Newsstand formats.

Those were the days. People thought that all you had to do was buy a bunch of comic books and one day you would be rich. Well, if you hung onto some of those two packs (like the ones that had Batman 513 and the funeral for a friend DCUs), you would have gotten a pretty good rate of return. No so much for just about other every comic book sold in the 90's (with, of course, a few exceptions).

great idea!

Agreed. These types of "properties" usually don't get sold until they get in the hands of grandchildren. When that happens, I've heard that normally they get sold.

That looks like Superman 6 to me.

Not trolling.... just did not know and one of my boys inspired the question. Thanks for clueing me in. It would be interesting to see how much it sells for when it comes up for sale again.

Thanks. It is interesting to me that there are far more jeweler inserts in ASM than a Superman. Mark Jewelers must have believed that Marvel comics were more popular with the military.

If sold today, what do you all think would be the highest priced Mile High comic book? Would it be Action Comics #1? I thought I heard many moons ago that the Action #1 Mile High was not in NM condition.

By the way, @trademarkcomics, how many issues of ASM contain a Mark Jewelers insert?

Thank you @trademarkcomics. That's one of the most interesting posts I have seen this year. MJ's 9.8's are truly hard to find

I agree it would be pretty frustrating to be on the lookout for ones that might exist but have not been found. Superman 95, Superman Man of Steel 49, Adventures of Superman 530 were all thought to exist. I've been watching those three issues on ebay every morning for 12 years and have yet to see a DCU pop up for those issues.

I hear you brother. If you are trying to collect the entire run, then you must accept them in any condition you can get them. I've been doing this for 12+ year with Superman, which is the only complete run I've been able to get (I'm still looking for 7 jeweler variants from the titles of Batman, Detective, Action and Justice League). Of the 158 jeweler variants in the Superman run, my worst one is a solid VG, there's 4 of them that are vg/FN to FN-, and the rest are VF or better. That's thanks mostly to Burning Comics in Belgium. That guy found and re-sold to me a run of approximately 100 VF to NM Superman jeweler variants.

I agree. It would be somewhat embarrassing to have an entire run of ASM Jeweler variants but not have them all be at least VF or better.

No worries... I really appreciate your interest in this topic and for pointing out that ad. I forgot that I've seen several copies of this ad in DC comics. A friend of mine also thought he saw an NDS ad in a DC comic book. Thanks to you, I now believe he was seeing the same ad that you pointed out. I will be very surprised if we ever seen a NDS insert in a DC comic book like the one that @kimik showed in the posting above. If we did, my very first thought would be that it was a doctored up version where someone removed the insert from a Marvel comic book and carefully inserted it into a DC comic book.

It is like finding a one hundred dollar bill laying in the street! Great job.

Thanks for posting that image. I believe all issues of B&B 92 contain that NDS ad. I also have some other DC comics with the same ad in them. I'm looking to see if anyone can produce a copy of a DC comic book with the thicker 4-page NDS ads in the centerfold. I don't believe there any DC comic books were ever produced with the 4-page insert. If someone has an example, I would love to see it.

I would love it if you would post a photo please!

awesome. I am hoping this thread will cause a few more Mark Jeweler variants to see the light of delay. Recall I'm offering a bounty for the ones I'm still missing (namely, Batman 245, 246, 390, Detective 470, 548, Action Comics 579, Justice League 107). Also need to upgrade my Superman 291.

I have observed the same thing. When I'm closer to military bases I see more of them. Especially in the south, where most of the big bases are located.

I love that you found that still in the package from Toys-R-Us. I have never seen it, but I suspect someone would sell it from time to time on ebay. I recall a friend of mine proudly showing me some of his signed Superman comic books from that era (with certs of authenticity). He said he paid on the order of one hundred or more for some of those comic books and viewed those purchases as investments. I recall thinking to myself "Those were probably not might not wise investments". But who knows what they might go for on ebay. And I think if I tried to guess what was a good investment I would be wrong approximately 95% of the time. Out of 10,000 comic books I own (many worth thousands of dollars now and most being pretty worthless), I think I only ever bought one as an investment. It was a CGC 9.6 Mile High copy of Action Comics #76. Sure it gained a few thousand dollars in value when I sold it, but my wife quickly pointed out the rate of return on a S&P Index fund would have been much higher.

What is Comic Book Addiction's ebay user name so I could look up what they have for sale?

OK. So I look at a sample of approximately 10 Superman and 10 Action Comics from 1981. Staples on Direct and Newstand were all close to being in the same spot as each other. Most of the jeweler staples (but not all) were about 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch in a different spot (top staples were higher). When I get time, I will pull some more samples and show some photos. So the staple difference is a thing for sure.

Great point. It is pretty much impossible to marry one. Back when I first started collecting these jeweler variants, I had a jeweler variant that was pretty beat up. I thought I could remove the jeweler insert from the beat up copy and put it into a nicer copy of the same comic book (with no intent to sell it). It was not possible to get a proper alignment. The jeweler variants seemed to be made on a different print run (thus explaining the different staple placement that was pointed out earlier in this thread). Come to think of it, I have 800 jeweler inserts among the titles of Batman, Superman, Detective Comics, Action Comics and Justice League of America. I made a point to have high grade copies of the all the regular newsstand versions. the direct sales versions, and the jeweler variants. I could line them up and examine whether or not staple placement is different among these three different versions. I may do that soon, and I will report the results. I'm sure at least 8 or 9 people on this planet will care to know....