Michael Browning

Found today in the wild for a buck apiece:

Actually, Comic Defense System was a brand of comic protectors that were hard sleeves with flaps that tucked into a band on the back. If you bought a box of them, you got a copy of the Hard Corps comic. You can get 144 copies in one lot of eBay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Valiant-HARD-CORPS-5-144pc-Count-Comic-Defense-System-No-Cover-Price-Variant/361506208192?hash=item542b72f9c0:g:oSUAAOSwWTRW0JgI

All these caught my eye. I know high-number issues of The Maxx sell well, so I grabbed the 35. I know ANYTHING with Harley Quinn on it from that period is worth buying for a dollar. I knew the two Hardware issues were probably scarce just like the Static last issue, so I grabbed them. I hardly ever see Justice League 113, Justice League Unlimited 46 and Spectre 62, which is why I picked all those up. I don't collect any of these, but they were cool and rare so I figured I'd buy them.

I just found 20 copies of Bloodshot 6 in a longbox of quarter books. All were gradable copies. I don't think any of those that you found are rare (some of those had VERY high print runs ... well, ALL of them had VERY high print runs), but, I will be honest, the Legionaires is one I have only found once - last Friday in a dollar box. All of the Valiants from that time had extremely high print runs. The problem was, very few people were actually reading them. When they did start to read the Valiants from that time period, they realized just how bad they were and they realized that the print runs were so high that they weren't rare anymore and that it was no longer a safe bet to speculate on them and the dumping began. I like to call that period "The Fool's Gold Age".

Found these in dollar boxes: Maxx 35 - last issue Hardware 50 - last issue Hardware 49 - Moebius cover, next to last issue Justice League America (International) 113 - last issue Spectre 62 - last issue Justice League Unlimited 46 - last issue Batman: Gotham Adventures 10 - Harley Quinn appearance

My thoughts are that for three decades, the comics direct-sale market has been in decline. We don't have any YOUNG readers coming into the hobby and it's very hard for most kids to get to a comic shop. Spinner racks were the bread and butter of comic companies and kids' parents bought them comics at the grocery store, the drug store, the convenience store ... wherever there was a spinner rack that usually read "Hey, Kids! Comics!" Let's face it, comics aren't geared at kids these days, but when they were AVAILABLE to kids, they bought them and comics were selling pretty well. My LCS owner was telling me recently that back in the late 1980s, when the newsstand was still the main vehicle for new comics, the shop was selling around 300 copies of Uncanny X-Men a month. Now, the shop sells 17 copies of Uncanny X-Men. I don't think Walmart selling comics in this new format is anything that is going to take away from the comic shops; in fact, I think it helps foster a new generation of comic book readers, if it is successful. Walmart has tried selling comics before and it hasn't worked. The graphic novel sales at my LCS didn't go up or down from Walmart and Target selling trade paperbacks and hardcovers and I don't think this will hurt the local comic shops at all. Also, don't think these LCS owners won't go out and buy these comics from Walmart, hoping to resell them at a higher price point when they become "collectors' items". They definitely will.

Amazing Spider-Man #4s with the first appearance of Silk? Are they tough to find these days? Right after they came out, I bought out a whole bunch of deadbeat boxes at my local comic shop at a quarter a book and got around 20 of these. I just picked up one last week for a couple of bucks in NM.

I didn't get a single copy of that fourth printing until just a few years ago when I saw it in a longbox at a show. It was a long time after that that I started seeing them pop up in dollar boxes in the Ashland, Ky., area, where a couple shops there have had probably 20-25 copies between them. Maybe my shop just didn't order any. It was cool to find it and a mystery as to why I didn't get those. In my area, shops ordered so heavily on Superman 75 the first time around that when I ended up buying them out as they closed, there were numerous copies still stuck back in boxes that they had loaded with premium issues and books that were supposed to go on their walls. From one shop buyout, I got a bunch of nice copies that I've kept, including two of the Platinum Death of Superman trade paperbacks, a platinum Superman 75 and a platinum Adventures of Superman 500. There was also a Superman 75 signed by the writer and artists, but without a certificate. I think it was a gift to the shop from DC. I know there was also a Spawn #1 in that collection that was signed and sketched on by Todd McFarlane, thanking the store owner for buying so many copies. (Unfortunately, I let that one go many years ago for $50, not thinking it was worth much at all.)

I find Superman 75 fourth prints all the time and had wondered why I never got one from my LCS, so that explains it. Thank you!

Out of the last group I posted, the one that really baffles me is the Justice League 70 fourth print. I was buying ALL of these when they came out and never found one of these, nor did my shop ever tell me that it was released. Knowing the differences in the other prints, I spotted this one immediately in the dollar box.

I've only ever seen this copy and another at a show. I've only ever seen one copy of the DC Comics Presents 47 reprint at a show and never in a shop.

The figure two packs cost quite a bit these days. I'm not sure if that's because of their rarity (they were a Toys R Us exclusive) or because they pitted DCU characters against Masters of the Universe characters and older collectors thought they were cool and bought them all up. I know they didn't last long at the stores. Usually, as soon as they opened a case of them and put the packs out on the shelves, they were bought very quickly. I'm sure that most of these were never - and will never be - taken out of their packages and put up for sale, which adds to the scarcity of the preview comic reprints.

That is actually the Toys R Us reprint that was found in the two packs of DC vs. Masters of the Universe action figures. It is a reprint of the insert that ran in DC Comics right after the Masters of the Universe's first appearance in DC Comics Presents 47. They sell really high on eBay and a guy at a show had one recently and he was asking around $100 for it, which I told him was crazy. They don't sell THAT high, but some have sold for right around $50 at shows and online. The DCP 47 reprint, which was also found in the TRU two-packs, also sells pretty high and I have only ever seen one of those at a show and none at comic shops.

In the box was 2-5. The first issue was missing. I'd never seen any of these at all so I bought the last issue, which is something I buy.

Here are a few more I found this week that I've never seen before or that I've never found in the wild, until this week: X-Men 2099 #35, a final issue which I had never found in any collection or store. Spider-Man Unlimited #5 - I didn't know this series even existed and I've never seen any of the issues from it until yesterday. Steel #52, the last issue that I've never been able to find. Encyclopaedia Deadpoolica. I've seen a couple of these on the walls of comic dealers at conventions, but never in a longbox. Justice League International #70 FOURTH printing. Super rare and the first I've found. Masters of teh Universe Preview, reprinting the comic preview insert from the 1980s, which came in the Toys R Us two-pack of DC vs. the Masters of the Universe. I've only ever seen one other copy of this.

I missed the PG27 and a Moon Knight 55 in a dollar box at a convention in Huntington, WV, this month. Two guys pulled them out as I looked at boxes on down the way. Made me rethink which boxes to start with at booths at a show.

I agree that the variants should go to their own thread. Maybe an Image newsstands thread. Maybe a "Variants found in dollar boxes or cheaper" thread. I've found four or five Silver Surfer 146s in dollar boxes here locally. I have also found 12 Guardians of the Galaxy 62s, which are supposed to be pretty rare. Ghost Rider 93 - 10 copies (the hardest for me to find from that run is GR 90, to which I also owned the cover and sold, but I sold my GR 90 comic around the same time). I was actually surprised when I saw people saying on here that NTT 130 was hard to find because I'd found so many of them. I was a regular buyer of that title at my local shop and have always bought last issues ever since I started searching for my Flash 104 back in the 1980s. NTT 130 is a book I pick up whenever I see them, because I used to get $12-$15 per copy when I'd find one. I think the price has dropped considerably now and I haven't tried to sell either of the two I have left in a long time. The rare Punisher Armory 10s is a comic I've found two copies of lately in dollar boxes. That, along with a stack of Punisher 102-104, Punisher War Journal 79 and 80 and Punisher War Zone 37-41. I think I still have five copies of Punisher War Journal 80 that I've not sold. Punisher 102, with the white Bullseye cover, is one that I've had numerous times, finding those in the dollar boxes and selling for around $25 a copy. I've got one of those left. I have gone through longbox after longbox to find the one, single copy of Web of Spider-Man 119 with the Marvel Milestone bagged with it, and in all my years of looking, only just found the copy I posted a week ago and it was in a shop's dollar box. I went back and went through everything again and all the multiple copies the store has are the unbagged versions. I also recently found a copy of the Lost In Space Strangers Among Strangers (Innovation) reprint edition, which is super rare. So far, it's the only copy I've ever seen in the wild. I talked with Innovation Publisher David Campiti a few weeks back and some of those later Innovation titles had tiny print runs and are extremely hard to find, not that most collectors would even care, unless it was a Nightmares on Elm Street #6, which David said he doesn't even own a copy of.

Is eBay "the wild"? I can find rare comics all day on eBay because when you have a global comic shop, these things become less and less "rare". However, finding these in the wild is what this thread is supposed to be about. So, it's either being taken over by Image newsstand editions or the old pros on here are complaining about how its a played-out thread. There's not a lot of actual discussion going on on here - on any of these threads. Just someone posting something and then someone else making a snarky remark. I would love to see some good discussion on here, but it just seems to be the same old guys barking at newer members and causing them to lose their enthusiasm and you get what we have here. I have found about 10 New Teen Titans 130s in the wild. It doesn't seem to be a hard book at all to find. I recall early on that was one that some said was hard to find. I've got a couple copies left in my long boxes. Everything I post is stuff I have dug out of collections I go through each week. If I was seeing these on a regular basis, I wouldn't post them at all. I do not think I have ever seen a longbox with a divider card in it for Cowboys of Moo Mesa, so, yes, that is one that doesn't pop up often in the wild. No, those later GI Joes don't show up at shops much anymore because all of those had very low print runs. And, like I said earlier, that GI Joe 3D #8 is one I never knew existed and I was on Blackthorne's mailing list in the 1980s and still have all my catalogs and correspondence from them and there was never anything that I can find in there about that book. I haven't seen a Sentry #1 in the wild in years. Those were either sold in quarter boxes long ago or someone is hoarding them in my area if they are that easy to find. I do want to keep the good discussions going, but it's kind of hard when there's only a few of us looking for, buying and posting stuff that's hard to find in the wild. Everyone else just chimes in and tells the newbies that they're wrong and who wants to post on a thread where everytime you do post something, you get criticized for it?

Like I said before, contribute something of substance to this thread - especially if you think it's played out (I mean, why even come to this thread at all then?). That's what the rest of us are doing. While some of you may find these books in large supplies at your local comic shops, I do not. Isn't that what this thread is all about?

Do you ever even contribute anything to this thread? So, we're only supposed to post stuff YOU care about? What, we're only allowed to post the last issue of Static on here? All of these are very hard to find IN THE WILD. I frequent comic shops in four states on a monthly basis and have for more than 25 years and some of these NEVER show up in back issue boxes in stores -- or at shows. These all came from stores that had been in business in the 1990s and early 2000s that had closed down and sold off their stocks. The Web of Spider-Man 119 that is bagged with the Marvel Milestones issue is almost impossible to find in the wild. Those last issues of GI Joe are very hard to find. GI Joe 3D #8 is a book I'd never seen until I found it this week (and Blackthorne used to send me their catalogs of upcoming comics and I never knew it existed). Powdered Toast Man is also one I didn't know existed. The X-Force 115 is a newsstand edition and I haven't seen one of those since it was on the shelf at Books-A-Million when it first opened where I live. I owned the original cover art to the Original Ghost Rider 20 and had never seen a copy of the comic until a month after I sold the art. The last issues of The Nam are extremely hard to find. The later Malibu Suns never turn up. Book of Fate 12 is another book that I never found in any shop. The Robin Annual 5 is the DC Universe logo variant that is tough to find. And I'm so sure you find Pink Panther #1s in the wild so very often. Again, It would be nice if you contributed anything of substance to the thread.

How many have you found in the wild?

Some recent dollar box finds:

Some recent dollar box finds:

Here are some recent sales of omnibuses (the correct usage of the word; not omnibi): https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=marvel+omnibus&_sacat=3954&LH_Sold=1&LH_Complete=1&_sop=16

How are trades and omnibuses NOT moderns that are heating up on eBay? For all the knowledge that is shared on here, I am shocked at how people disregard another part of the same hobby.