Brock

Think we could fool anyone?

I think this is all of them, but I could be wrong:

Anyone else remember these?

My guess (and this is pure speculation) is that it was printed as part of the larger run, but with the intention of capturing additional sales through discount stores. My OO copies were purchased c. 1980 at a Canadian discount retailer called "Bargain Harold's" (maybe somewhat akin to Five Below in the US today). As far as I know, only the Star Trek books were part of this - I've never seen such editions of the other Golden Press books. Interestingly enough, Bargain Harold's also carried Modern Comics 2-packs, and discounted editions of Dynabrite comics. As an aside, I recall $1.95 being the going price for new paperbacks at the time... Hardcover books were an astronomical $4.95.

There are some very rare variants of these with a black bar printed over the price. You pictured the Lassie book as well, but there are a few other of these, including (IIRC) Questar, Mickey Mouse Club, Walt Disney Christmas, Ripley’s, and 3 different UFO books.

I’m in, please.

Check out the toxic thread in Comis General… it’s approaching 20 pages worth of your life you’ll never get back.

I remember ancient history, back in the olden days before 2021, when we always cautioned each other not to sell in the stagnant, quiet market bracketed by the Christmas shopping season and the the last few days before the arrival of tax refunds.

I remember as a kid growing up in southern Ontario in the mid 1970s that I had a few books that were MJ variants… I would have bought them locally - maybe used bookstores? - but at 7 or 8, I was not hanging out in American PX shops. they were also common enough that I didn’t find it weird that they were in my books…

I think they might have been… when you follow the points of origin for eBay sales of the ultra-rare Whitmans, some do seem to come from Europe. Uncle Scrooge 179 is a good example, as some copies seem to emerge in Scandinavia.

Marvel Preview 11 has two versions - one with a cover reference to Robert A. Heinlein, and one without.

In the past two weeks, I've sold a few Marvel Spotlight 28 & 29s I've been stockpiling, but also issues from the 1980, 2006 and 2011 Moon Knight runs, and from the Marc Spector: Moon Knight Platt run. Some of the stuff I expected to sell quickly (WWBN 37, Marc Spector 35) hasn't sold yet, but the Spotlight books and any variants are going in a day or two. I've got a high grade run of MK appearances in the Hulk magazines that I'm going to try next. TRIGGER WARNING: Some of these books are not modern, which may cause some boardies to melt down when they are mentioned in this thread.

Moon Knight heating up again for me…

I guess I question the 5,000 print run figure. I feel like I see these fairly often, and I have duplicates of some. They’re definitely not common, but I’m not sure they’re scarce. They are the kind of thing that is more frequently found in antique malls or used bookstores than in back issue bins, though. I will say that high grade copies seem to be pretty scarce…

Also interesting to note that the bag contains a direct edition Marvel, rather than a fat diamond Marvel.

I would say it’s hard to compare generic rarity on these books (I.e. Mark Jewellers vs. DC Whitmans), because there’s too much variation. It would be more productive to ask “Which is rarer, a Dazzler 10 Mark Jeweller variant, or a Batman 308 Whitman variant?”

Sort by date, and the trend's clearer... No copies sell in the last week of February, then the cheap copies get wiped off eBay on March1, and the BINs on March 2. From March 3 to 5 there are fewer copies sold, but the prices are getting higher. I assume someone released a YouTube spec video or something on March 1 and the lemmings started sky diving.

I had a great little antique mall find this week of early Bronze stuff, mostly 5.0-8.0 and at about $2 each, an easy buy.

It doesn’t have prices, but CBSI has a list of Star Wars first appearances that they update regularly.

Strangely, I have Blip issues 1, 3, 5 and 7. Apparently I have an aversion to even numbered issues. To keep my record going, I also have the first issue of the 1998 Bardic Press Blip series. Now I just need to find a copy of Blip! 1 from Candlewick Press in 2016, and I'll have every odd-numbered issue of Blip ever published.

To add to the list of data points, of the last 5 DCCP 22s that were sold on eBay: 2 came out of Canada (one from Edmonton and one from Toronto) 2 came out of Freeport, Maine, where it wouldn't totally surprise me to find that some retail distribution actually came from Canada, rather than from the US 1 came out of Madison, Wisconsin - I have bought a fair number of Whitmans from Wisconsin over the past year or two

I was mostly kidding, but I will be in Edmonton in May, so I'll have to check it. I usually cruise the antique malls on Gateway Boulevard for good finds, but I'll have to expand my search. I have to say, you make much better Whitman finds in central Alberta than I do in southern Ontario.

Quick, where's your buddy's shop?

kid_kintaro Made an offer, which I accepted, then made no payment for 8 days and ignored all invoices and messages. Order cancelled this morning, item relisted.