rakehell

Nitpicking alert! I used to have issues with this myself until I looked a bit more closely. The two examples you show above, while overpriced, are variants in the classic, technical, dictionary definition sense. They are from the same print run as the regular US cents copies, only the price point has changed. They even have the same indicia as the regular US cents copies, with the price in US cents. This is how they vary. My favorite example of this (& I use this a lot, so skip this bit if you've seen it before) is Star Wars #2. The first 'edition' was printed with three different prices: 30 cents, 35 cents & 12 pence. The important thing to consider with these comics is that they all, irrespective of their cover price, have a 30c indicia. The inside pages of these are all identical because they all came from the same print run, or 'edition'. Only the 35c & 12p covers vary, which is why they are variants. Calling the 12p cover a UK edition is misleading because it causes confusion with the actual UK edition of Star Wars #2, which was published in the UK 6 months after the original & looks like this: The other point to remember is that these variants are scarce when compared to the regular editions. No one knows exactly how many of the 12p cover were printed; I've seen estimates of anywhere between 2 & 10%. I think 2 is way too low, but I also think 10 is high. Finding these in any condition is not as easy as it used to be & I live in the UK. The 35c cover is even more rare. To be honest, I dislike the price gouging as much as anyone. It prevents me buying nice books without selling a kidney. Also, IMHO, the flood of new variants we're seeing now is what bothers me. The vast majority are just a corporate version of price gouging, anyway. The price experiment, UK, Australian & Canadian variants are the genuine article, ticking away quietly for over fifty years, minding their own business...

Posty just dropped some goodies - All really nice copies bar a few rusty staples.

I thought I was the only one doing that...

6/ It's a UK pence price variant!

Makes me think they may have been an even smaller proportion of the overall run. Either that, or the yoof read them to death.

Grabbed this last week. A close-up on the important bit - Boris looks so suave with his pence bubble.

Nabbed this last week. Bit of a rag, really, but it fills a gap.

Thirded? Sounds dirty.

Except that I believe it, Ferdinand. Next you'll find a stack of the buggers in a charity shop.

Don't try to tell me you don't need two copies.

Unless, of course, they started with yellow and ran out, so had to switch to orange at the end of the run...

Snagged this off ebay UK for pocket change. Didn't know I wanted it until I saw it. Now, of course, I need the rest of the series.

Similar to the Mark Jewelers inserts that seem to fetch a premium for some strange reason? Plus also, do all of the cents copies of BK 58 have the insert/corner blurb? This rabbit hole has many dark and winding passages...

There's a used book store in Reykjavik that sells comics. It's about halfway down Laugavegur in an alley. I think it's about opposite the Lebowski Bar, but I could be remembering that wrong. I went in when I was there last year, but didn't have time to look properly. They're Icelandic. A lot of these are really rare. The print runs for some of them are less than 10000. Not sure about the Finnish market except that they love Uncle Scrooge.

Yeah, that was the only pence copy in the lot. There were only a couple of stamps, too. Bronze age horror issues are hard to find in any kind of reasonable condition over here, even harder without distribution stamps.

Cheers tvh. Long time lurker, first time poster. In this thread anyway.

Yeah, just started to grab these again. I do love a clean black cover.

Just posted these over in the Karloff, etc. thread. Some highlights from a recent ebay UK score: These three are the best of the lot:

Some highlights of a recent ebay UK score: These three are the best of the lot:

It's not a variant, because the stamp was added several weeks, or even months after printing. The whole point about the pence variants being variants is that they are part of the initial print run of the books. Here's one from my collection: Value wise, I think they mostly consider it a distribution stamp, similar to date stamps on some US distributed comics. Some folks seek them out, but I doubt they'd pay a premium for them.

Jinkies!

Interesting? On a Friday? I think you're thinking of the wrong Daphne, Velma.

Is that like a fondant fancy that someone dropped on the floor?

Been doing some research on the Greek Marvels I got a while back. Turns out the Hulk 18 reprints the first Guardians of the Galaxy from MSH 18. Also, the Spider-Man 17 borrows the cover from ASM 131... but inside it has the first Green Goblin from ASM 14 (or a chunk of it anyway)... and a reprint of AF 15. Plus, also, the story from ASM 131 is in the Greek Spider-Man 21, which borrows the cover of ASM 134, but there's no Tarantula anywhere inside... Sleepy now.

Busted roller skates...