paqart

Totally understand that. I wouldn't buy a signed comic for myself or to resell unless it was part of a package deal. If somehow I got one, I'd unload it at the first opportunity. The market does pay more for these, so I would expect a commensurate price, but wouldn't pay it myself, even to flip for a profit unless I absolutely had a customer sitting right there to pay for it.

What this looks like to me, with no insider knowledge of the situation at all, is this: Marvel and DC had existing agreements or relationships with newsstand customers that they didn't want to violate by cutting all of them off without warning. Instead, they phased out newsstand distribution by steadily reducing the number of newsstand editions distributed. Alternatively, it could be there were diehard fans of newsstand distribution at the publishers who insisted that newsstand distribution continue. To placate them, or because they had too much influence to be ignored, newsstand editions continued despite the perception or the reality that they lost money on them. Either way, your logic argument can be countered with other logical arguments. Absent any direct knowledge of what happened, these arguments are effectively equal. I've definitely seen CEOs and executive committees commit to decisions that in retrospect harmed their companies financially, so it wouldn't be the first time in history that ever happened. The same goes for company in-fighting causing a split decision. A funny thing about all of this is that I have always felt that direct distribution effectively ruined American comics. I have always resented direct distribution, and now that I know how to distinguish between direct and newsstand comics, am uninterested in buying any direct editions again, and will be selling all the ones I have to get them out of my house. The reason I don't like the direct distribution method is that it focused the publishers on the collector market to the detriment of the non-collector casual reader market. As distribution leaned more and more heavily toward the collector market, we saw comics that were aimed at a general audience disappear. Before long, everything published was designed specifically for the customers of comic book stores, which for a long time had the stigma of being on about the same level as head shops. When I was a kid, many parents I knew didn't want their kids to visit comic shops, nor would they bring them to one. Things are different now that comics can't be found anywhere else, particularly now that comic shops often sell other things like toys and games, but the damage has been done. My favorite genres of comic books effectively ceased to exist, or in only severely altered form, after direct distribution completely dominated the industry. Humor comics are especially missed by me, but also anthologies, westerns, romance, and others. In Japan, where manga sales dwarf American comic book sales, the number of genres extends well beyond superheroes. I also miss comics that are designed to be read and thrown away. They are cheap but can be enjoyed more easily because readers don't have to worry about damaging a five dollar magazine. Because of the changes wrought by direct distribution, actual sales overall have gone down. Television, video games, and movies have undoubtedly taken their cut out of the comic book market but they might have happened later without direct distribution. In the world of video games, I used to get marketing reports every month. One thing I always found interesting was that the audience for video games at the time was identical to the majority of the comic book-buying audience. At the time, it was thought that it couldn't expand beyond those customers, so more product had to be sold to the same people, much as Marvel and DC did in the early nineties. Then, Myst was released. It outsold everything else, and most of the customers were non-traditional. They skewed heavily toward senior citizens, who found the game interesting, inoffensive, and nice to look at. They liked the slow pace of the game, in contrast to younger players who preferred fast-paced games. There was a wonderful lesson there, that the market could be much bigger, but it was largely ignored. Later, Nintendo started making games that went after non-traditional audiences and did well with them. The comic book industry might want to try the same thing sometime, but part of that would involve going back to some form of newsstand distribution, so that comics are more readily available to casual readers.

It was on my want list until I discovered how much more difficult it is to find the later issues. Now I’m looking for ASMs from 500 and up. For the most part though, I’ve bought as many as I feel like buying for the time being, after spending too much time and a couple thousand dollars on these things over the last month or so. My favorite comics are all by Carl Barks, that is what I actually collect. These newsstand variants I’m getting because it’s fun to track them down, not because of their intrinsic interest as comics. Also, I remember the 30/35 cent price variant issue from the mid/late seventies, don’t want to miss the boat on buying some inexpensive comics now that could be traded for high quality Barks later. i also just noticed your comic is signed. I hate signatures and don’t care whose signature it is. They deface the comic, lower the condition (in my opinion, don’t care what CGC says on this) and lower the value. To me, your 9.8 should be priced as a 5.0 or so, like any other comic that a kid wrote their name on. The thing that bugs me about signatures, apart from the effect on condition, is how artificial the process of getting a signature is. You go to a con, pay an artist fifty dollars each to sign a stack of comics, and suddenly they are worth more. Doesn’t make sense to me.

I’ve read this several times and it looks like you wrote that McClure told Overstreet about the price variant but McClure didn’t call Overstreet to tell him of the variant. Did you type in the wrong name? Anyway, this piece of obscure history doesn’t look like a sound basis to claim that Nobel is somehow suspect.

More than double the Mile High newsstand price! Well done! Looks like about 10:1 rarity of newsstand issue on this one but I didn't count them all.

To summarize: 1) Stop trying to figure out rarity by using calculations that include print run estimates 2) How many ways do I have to say this before you figure it out? My answer: 1) I'm not trying to figure out rarity by using print run estimates. I am including print run estimates to get an idea how well a statistical test run on observed copies in the wild generalizes to the specific comic in question. In other words, not to determine rarity, but whether the sample size is adequate. Because the calculation needed to ascertain the right sample size yields exactly the same number even when the print run estimate is off by 200,000 copies, the kind of errors you point out have no effect on the result. Actually, I am running another comparison, and that is to use the "observed in the wild" ratio to check the chart Nobel prints all over his page for reliability. My observations show that it is far from a straight linear progression, with many spikes and dips, but the general trend appears correct. 2) Not sure but I think I get your drift.

So, for fun, is there any consensus any what kind of premium is appropriate for newsstand editions? Personally, it looks like scarcity is issue-dependent up until around 2005, after which everything is scarce. to me, that indicates that at a minimum, the scarcity premium should be applied to all NS copies from 2005 on. Before that, there are many examples of newsstand comics that are harder to find than direct counterparts. For pricing, I think it would be quite messy to try and assign individual premiums to these based on the circumstances of each comic, but also think it wouldn't be right to charge a premium for something like ASM 252, which isn't scarce at all in NS form, just because ASM 238 is hard to find as an NS comic. The premium charged for post 2005 copies would have to accommodate rarity and demand. If we knew the actual rarity of a comic because we had exact information about print run, copies destroyed, copies in attics, etc, and that rarity figure was something like 100:1, should the premium be the value of the direct edition multiplied by the rarity? That would yield prices so high that in most cases no collector would pay them. Should it be actual rarity divided by 10? So, a comic that is found in a 100:1 ratio would be valued at ten times its base direct value? Does that make sense in the context of Star Wars 1, 35 cent variation? It seems to me that the prices should initially be doubled, then again, and again, until collectors stop buying them. That said, as a collector, I have no intention of selling that I think has a 100:1 rarity, meaning that many fewer to sell in the market, regardless of price. Personally, I think it would be cool to have several boxes of unobtanium at home. How many other people would treat these comics that way? The reason is that I don't have any pressing need to sell the comics if they are worth only twenty, forty, or even a hundred dollars a copy. If they did hit 100x prices, I would be tempted to sell, but only then. If others did the same thing, it would have the effect of driving prices up, possibly to the 50x level, or maybe even SW1 levels. Right now though, most of these comics are worth only 3-10 dollars a copy in direct versions, so a 10x multiplier doesn't make any dent in my interest in selling. Collectors would have to sell to keep the prices low. If they just get sucked up into private collections, there to stay, prices would naturally go up.

I see a few issues from 1992 that indicate approximately equal numbers of copies surviving but not many. I'm focusing on Spider-man because it is a long run that is highly collectible, so I'll just point out that the three Carnage issues: 361, 362, 363 don't appear to be rare at all, possibly more common than direct copies. Issues on either side however, are much harder to find but not impossible. Issue 316 is quite tough in high grade, and #410, though not exceedingly rare, shows up 5 times in direct for every newsstand copy found on ebay (checked just now). So, not 100:1, but 5:1 doesn't support the breakdown you just gave, and that issue was published in 1996. By the time you get to 2005, you are at ASM 525. That issue shows up once in newsstand edition for every 16 direct copies on eBay. Not only does this make it look more scarce than you suggest, but it shows that it is more scarce than 410, in a downward trend that is nearly linear between the two.

In that case, okay, they should be added in, which is what Nobel was saying now that I think of it. I remember him adding 10% to his numbers for other copies and think these were in that group. I was thinking of the UK editions with pence prices and Canadian price variants. Didn't know there were identical versions going to other countries.

You are correct about that. The point about Heritage and CGC self-selecting certain types of comics is a persuasive argument that other sources for comics that only rarely appear in those venues are better. This is why I look at Heritage for comics before around 2000, ebay after that.

Looks like you got me on the ASM 300 print run. I'll correct my database now. However, my interest is in the "distributed" number, not the "print run" number. I would be interested in the print run number if it was the only number available but the distributed number is, I think, more pertinent to rarity of comics in circulation. Therefore, I will amend it to 275,000 (rounded up to account for averaging over the year). As for the English-language foreign editions, I'm not counting those because I don't look at those as having equivalent collector interest to American collectors. EDIT: Just checked my database and see it has the correct number. Makes me think I was looking at the wrong column when I wrote my previous reply.

You could, however, pay attention to the census after the date they started listing these separately. If the other poster is correct, that means there are 509 direct/2 newsstand copies for the period when they were keeping track. That is enough to approximate the actual rarity using statistical tools.

Aha! For some reason I thought that was from the Overstreet site, not Nobel's. Okay, fine, but to me that doesn't look like anything more than Nobel trying to write the entry as concisely as possible. Every reporter who has ever talked to me for a story has managed to get some part of it wrong but it is clear it is not intentional. In this case, it looks like he is trying to sum up what he has written elsewhere on the blog, which clearly agrees with everything you said on this subject, but in condensing the message has also inexpertly captured the essence of that information. Another way to write it simply might be, "drew widespread attention to 30 and 35 cent price variants". I don't see this as a serious error, in the sense that Overstreet himself likely didn't discover it either, and for all we know, McClure, who is a "senior Overstreet advisor" is the one who told him about it twenty years earlier. Now it is your turn to find out if it happened that way or not.

Okay, well I don't see what you're talking about as far as Nobel is concerned. I saw two items mentioning McClure, neither one used the word "discovered" and one explicitly pointed out that Overstreet printed information about the price variants twenty years before McClure wrote about it. Maybe he makes the claim you are talking about somewhere else but not in the posts I saw. Regardless, it sounds like we agree on rarity so I no longer see any point in discussing Nobel. That's it for me on that subject.

Okay, then I have no idea what you are getting at here. I don't see anything inaccurate about what I've seen Nobel write on this subject, so I simply don't believe that your characterization is accurate. Maybe he made the claim elsewhere but then you wrote in an earlier post that he was made aware of this issue and he didn't correct it. Maybe what I found is the correction. If so, it also doesn't support your contention that his site can't be trusted on the basis of these items you describe as errors. Besides, you can completely ignore Nobel and ComiChron and see for yourself what the rarity is of these newsstand comics. This thread is about comics that are hard to find in the wild, and these late newsstand variants certainly are hard to find, regardless which explanation you accept as the reason. Just today, I went to a comic book store, searched every box for any ASM newsstand variant between issues 500-700 and found a total of zero. Although I wasn't looking for lower issue numbers, I don't think I saw anything until the 300's or so.

One of many examples of what? This doesn't look like an error to me. It looks like Nobel accurately identified his source for some information on this type of variant. He then accurately points out that the information was made available in an Overstreet price guide 20 years earlier, and presumably every other guide since then. Describing Nobel's site as "disreputable" for completely accurate reporting seems like a stretch to me. It appears that you want Overstreet to get credit for the fact that Noble learned something about these variants from an article written by McClure, because the article likely drew on information published originally by Overstreet. This isn't a stolen valor issue, as you seem to be portraying it. I've learned that Jerry Seinfeld is a comedian from reading an article about him in the New York Times back in the late eighties. That is not a claim that either I or the writer of the article "discovered" Seinfeld. Most likely, his mother is the best person to make that claim, or his writing partner Larry David, or the producers at NBC that got the show made. Sorry, I don't see this as an example that supports your position that Nobel's site is somehow dishonest, or to use your word, "disreputable."

I hate to say it but your infatuation with this subject has intrigued me. For that reason I decided to try and find the Nobel/McClure reference you are talking about. I found one, and this is it, from Nobel's WordPress page "In a previous post, I had mentioned finding out that a January 1998 article by Jon McClure in issue #55 of Comic Book Marketplace magazine is widely credited by collectors as the “catalyst” for widespread awareness of 35¢ price variants." Is that what you are referring to? If it is, then he is not claiming that McClure discovered this. He is pointing out that he (Nobel) learned of it from someone who mentioned McClure's article. He also mentions that McClure is "widely credited", which means "by others, not myself". Also notice what he is reported to have been widely credited with: for being the "catalyst", not the "discoverer" for widespread awareness, not simply "awareness." I don't see here any justification for the umbrage you seem to have taken by the fact that Overstreet apparently published notification of the existence of these variants years before Nobel learned of them through an article written by someone else. This is very much how I could be described as the person who "discovered" Korea my Home, but Philip Levine gets credit (or Overstreet) for "widespread awareness" of it. I just found another post by Nobel on this. In it, he credits Overstreet with publishing a notice about the price variant twenty years before McClure wrote about it, but does credit McClure with widening the audience for information on the subject. Again, this is unlike what you have claimed.

You have my answer.

Not sure. It would have been some time around 1986-1988

Aha, well, I've already answered that then so you can consider the matter closed. You know that I looked at rarecomics to learn about the comparative rarity of newsstand vs direct edition comics after around 1990, ComiChron for print run estimates, and my own original research, conducted by deep-diving into auction sales. Everything else is what I know from my own history or what I was told by other comic book industry pros. That's it, question answered.

Actually, you're wrong there. We are taught that Columbus discovered America, but the native Americans pre-dated their discovery by a minimum of hundreds of years. They, however, migrated from Asia and displaced other people, who arguably also "discovered" the place. Marvel execs certainly knew of the price variants before Overstreet but did they "discover" it, not according to you. As for this other guy, and btw, I know nothing about this and couldn't care less either, but it is easy for me to picture a situation where Overstreet notices it in his price guide but it doesn't get any traction. Then, some twenty years later, someone else "discovers" it and suddenly the price skyrockets. This reminds me of my one personal encounter with Bob Overstreet. I had found an anti-communist giveaway from the fifties or sixties titled "Korea my Home." At the time, it was not mentioned in the guide. Similar comic book format propaganda was listed for prices in the $900-$2700 range. I brought it to Overstreet at a convention in NYC. He said that until it sold, it had no value, then suggested I sell it to his friend, Phil Levine. Levine bought it from me for $45, primarily because I had no idea how to sell something not listed in the guide. At the end of the year, the new guide came out, the comic was listed there as extremely rare and with a high price (I think it was over $1k, but not sure). The point is that in that situation, Levine "discovered" it, though I'm the guy who found it in the back of a filing cabinet. Regardless, for pricing, Levine did discover it at the $1k price level because that's what he sold it for.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you but my impression is that you wanted documentation for the creative costs associated with making a comic. If that is all you want, there are other ways to estimate this, like, for instance, calling up some pros and asking what their rates are. I did that recently at a local convention and two well-known solid inkers told me they charge $100 and $150/pg, respectively. My rates in 1994, or those of the people I knew then could be found somewhere else in some kind of document, but the document would be based on someone like me answering a question, not providing pay stubs.

Okay, again this is something that strikes me as not relevant and also like something that might have some debate surrounding it, kind of like the question of who created Spider-Man? With those kinds of questions, I am not inclined to describe something as an error. Instead, it is a difference of opinion. On this specific issue, without knowing any more than what you wrote, I doubt anyone could say with certainty who "discovered" to variants you are talking about, since many people could have noticed it simultaneously. You could add qualifiers, like, "the first to bring it to the attention of collectors," but even then there could be some debate.

Do you have any idea the effort it takes to go rooting through piles of papers from almost thirty years ago just to find something that will convince a total stranger what a normal page rate was back in 1994? Do you realize how many other ways there are to get similar data? As for other rates, no, there is no documentation of that because the information was all conveyed verbally. That happens sometimes, particularly before the Internet age. True, the most recent salary data was given to me last week by someone at NYCC but I doubt he'd appreciate my mentioning his name here in connection with it.

Here's another, similar story. When I was around twelve myself (in 1977), a kid broke into my bedroom and stole some comics. He was caught but not before he'd sold most of them. Thanks to my carefully kept inventory, his parent's insurance company paid me around $400 as compensation for the missing comics. I took that money and hopped on a bus to Palo Alto to a store called (I think) Comics and Comix. Inside, they had a copy of Frazetta's first comic, Thun'Da #1. I bought it for $375. Not a very good buy in retrospect but I was very proud of it at the time. If I recall, the condition wasn't great, VF at best, more likely F.