GeeksAreMyPeeps

The funny part here is I'm making no claims about print runs.

If I'm in the market for a book, I want the best information available to determine what I'm willing to pay for it. How many might be available is a factor in that determination.

Maybe try reading everything I wrote rather than selectively responding to a single line of it. Because some of what you mention was directly addressed. One thing I do want to address though; if a retailer is big enough to order 500 copies of a book, I would think it's possible they're going to have at least 2 customers in the bunch that are willing to pony up for high-end variants that would make it worth their while to up the order to qualify for another. Either way, I point out in the one comment you chose to address that it's a starting point. Apply a little critical reasoning and you can adjust the estimate. Pay attention to chatter about giveaways and you can adjust it again. The point is arriving at a *best* guess.

Yeah, I get it. I thought laying out all of disclaimers ahead of time might help avoid this, but I was mistaken.

Explain to me why you think it's fair to criticize my use of "huge" or "flooding" when you're using "bunch" to back up your claim. Note that you made your claim before mine. And you're trying to substantiate your claim that "thousands" of books were available in the variant dump by making another unsubstantiated claim, that the books were produced in the thousands?

My answer was a perfectly reasonable answer. But I guess not accepting it is a good way to not have to back up your own claim.

Since you're choosing to ignore it, I've already pointed out that there is a lot of room for error here. The bottom line is using what is available to make a *best* guess. Maybe there are 10 copies of a book. Maybe the print run is the same as X-Force 1. Or, maybe we can use what we know to narrow the range down somewhere between there using the information available. No, we don't have access to all information. But you can make a better-informed collecting decision by using what information *is* available than by just throwing your hands up in the air and saying "WE'LL NEVER KNOW!"

I would consider "huge" to be a number in many multiples of the numbers normally produced as overages to replace damages for an average issue. I think that would have been fairly obvious based on the context on the conversation, or at least that a reasonable person could come to that conclusion. So, question answered. Your turn. Do you have any support for your claim that "thousands" of copies were available?

I'll note again that I'm looking for a way to best determine the number of copies that might be out there based on the information available. I think the Comichron numbers are a good starting point, and since you have already acknowledged that you don't have a better way to determine that, I consider that question answered. But I'd still like to know why you're claiming there were "thousands" of Miracleman variants available. Where's your support for that claim?

It's called a joke. Please point out where you believe I've mischaracterized statements.

Where's your support for that figure? The range encompasses less that a year's worth of books; note that I mentioned earlier that if I'm looking to roughly determine the number of copies that might be available out there, I'd allow for some time to pass to see if there's any news of them becoming available through other means. I thought estimating print runs was verboten. Where's your support that the variants have little effect on the number of regular copies? What do you suppose is being incentivized by the availability of incentive variants? If demand for those goes down, then there's less incentive to order the regular edition to qualify for them. Apples and oranges. As you note, those weren't incentives for a single month's sales. Those were rewards, to be given out over time, for support. It's possible they vastly overestimated the number that would be needed.

Nothing in the Bleeding Cool link suggests a huge volume available. And yes, publishers *could* print some to sell at a later date, but just Diamond wants to keep retailers in business, publishers want to keep customers buying comics, so if they regularly over-published and flooded the market with variants, that would eventually have a negative effect on sales, so I'm skeptical that that happens.

Agreed, no one knows for sure how many are printed. But you didn't answer the question; do you have a better way of making a best guess as to how many copies might be available? Obviously you can update your guesstimate as new information becomes available (e.g. news of a giveaway at a summit, or personal research of what's actually available for sale from a variety of outlets). Also, the cost is not *all* in the regular book. The bulk of the cost, perhaps. But any business that wants to be successful is going to be aware of the costs and plan as necessary to reduce waste.

The difference is that the giveaways may be planned prior to the printing, so they would be printing with that in mind. If the quantities available for the sales aren't that large, that may be them liquidating ant overage to allow for damages, etc. Chuck illustrated a scenario where applying the ratio to the Comichron numbers results in less than the expected number to be necessary to fill orders for the incentives. If it's a relatively small number being sold, it's possible that the print run may not be all that more than what is needed to fulfill orders.

It seems to me that a greater proportion of Valiant fans than fans of other publishers seem to be "one of everything" collectors (perhaps because it might actually be doable). I wonder if the recent glossy prices are collectors trying to lock up that variant before the movie makes it unmanageable. Ultimately I'd like one of everything, but I don't see the necessity for print variations or errors.

I wasn't referring to the retailer summits, but the variant sales. Those are being sold in those quantities? I realize that there's nothing to prevent publishers from printing as many copies of a variant as they want, but it doesn't make financial sense to overprint a ton of copies that they're not going to sell or use as promotional material. With that in mind, after a year or two has passed and a variant isn't given away in large quantities in such a way, I think it's reasonable to use the Comichron numbers to get a sense of roughly how many copies might be available to the market. If, as a collector, I'm on the hunt for a variant I don't have, and I'm trying to establish a value that I'm willing to pay for the book, I want to factor in supply into the equation. For the record, I do think it's disingenuous or dishonest to promote those numbers as the print runs, if you're selling, because you don't know that that's the case. So, question for everyone: keeping in mind what's mentioned above, can anyone suggest a *better* method of making that determination. (And since RMA has made this comment before, I understand that it may be an method with inaccurate results, or even wildly inaccurate results, but do you have a *better* way to inform yourself as much as possible, using the knowledge available to the average collector?)

Yeah, but it's not smart enough to ignore only the argument

Can anyone verify the highest number of copies that have been available for a variant in any of these variant cover dumps?

I've had that happen a few times. Don't remember whether the conditions were affected (but then, how would you know for sure, unless everything was a 9.8?); I emailed them and they sent the supplies in the next shipment

Marvel Age isn't a comic either. It's a news magazine.

That's pretty much every bubble ever

I have a few of each, which I am happy to sell if they go high enough. Just making the point that it's not a "first appearance"

I'm surprised the last few issues of Marvel Fanfare don't seem to get the attention that some other covers get.

Question for those that accept that first appearances can be in previews: why does Marvel Age 97 seem to be the item to have, rather than Marvel Requirer 11, which came out the month before?

Yeah, but just wait for the Battletide movie.