valiantman

On 7/25/2023 at 1:45 PM, Lazyboy said:

On 7/25/2023 at 10:34 AM, valiantman said:

Yeah, about 5% of the time. The rest of the time, I'm working on my scams with my fellow criminals for how we're going to sell mountains of newsstand books for major profits. We're still stuck on the first part of the plan... locating the books.

Who's "we" here? If you don't already know that there are multiple people with large hoards of Newsstands, I don't know what could convince you.

You reply in my topics consistently warning about "newsstand scammers" so I assume you think I'm part of some secret cabal of criminals. Unfortunately, I don't know any newsstand hoarders, so I'm stuck on the "locating the books" portion of your presumed nefarious plans.

I think it's safe to say that "direct edition hoards" are infinite, since that was the whole point of the direct market for retailers. Buy enough supply to last until the end of time... so you're constantly warning people about a few "dangerous" salamanders hiding amongst the "friendly" crocodiles.

On 7/25/2023 at 11:40 AM, Gonzimodo said:

Okay, I just watched the video again, and you do kind of go into the survivability of newsstand copies, but it still seems just a little out of place to me.  I guess I was misinterpreting what you were going for there and got hung up on your use of "percentages."  I'm not sure how I would change that, though.  Maybe just get rid of "percentages" and stay with the idea of "more newsstand copies" surviving.

I'm starting to babble now... 

It is tricky because we're talking about an individual issue.  Let's say XYZ #54 was available as both direct editions and newsstand... if XYZ #54 was popular when it was released, then "more newsstand copies" of XYZ #54 probably survived, but we're talking about the number of surviving XYZ #54 that would be newsstand vs. the number of surviving XYZ #54 that would be direct editions.  That's a percentage, not a single value. It's a percentage relative to the two editions of that one issue, and it doesn't have anything to do with the popularity of other issues of XYZ (such as #53 or #55) or the number of newsstand copies of any other book.

The expectation for collectors today when checking information/availability on XYZ #54 today would be that a higher percentage would be newsstand. We wouldn't really have any idea how many copies of each edition survived, only that the percentage of newsstand should be higher due to immediate popularity when it was new.  (Replace XYZ #54 with ASM #252, Thor #337, ASM #361, etc.)

I haven't seen any edits on my posts, so I assume we're still on topic for the most part.

Anyway, Version 1.2 has been posted about a week, which incorporates many of the earlier suggestions.

Are there any typos? Are there problems that still (might) need to be addressed?  Too fast, too slow?

Ray Bradbury's opinion on Roy Lichtenstein is at 5:55 

On 7/24/2023 at 4:27 PM, Lazyboy said:

On 7/24/2023 at 3:18 PM, valiantman said:

No, I got it. The rollout of the direct market to 1,500 stores in 1979 immediately put (Marvel) direct editions into the hands of many serious collectors who would protect them as well as they had been protecting the newsstands at the comic shop the week before. For others, the direct market took longer to come to their geography, but the day it arrived, they would have immediately added more high grade direct editions and fewer high grade newsstands would exist in that geography than the week before. The bolded sentence above addresses those you mention who did not have easy access to comic shops.

Not really, since there have always been those without easy access to comic shops, fluctuating with store openings and closures in some areas and remaining pretty static in others.

No one is arguing that no high grade newsstands exist. There will always be high grade newsstands saved by someone out there.

Let's look at Amazing Spider-Man #194 (1979)... the direct market was barely there in 1979, but:

• 65% of the most recent CGC 9.8 copies recorded on GPA are direct edition
• 65% of the most recent CGC 9.6 copies recorded on GPA are direct edition
• 60% of the most recent CGC 9.4 copies recorded on GPA are direct edition

That's 1979, when plenty of places didn't have access to direct editions yet, but the high grade survivors are already direct editions more often.

Avengers Annual #10 (1981) is over 90% direct editions for CGC 9.4 or higher.  Wolverine #1 (1982) has already been mentioned... overwhelmingly direct editions in CGC high grade.

Yes, high grade newsstands do exist, but even in the early years of the direct market (1979-1982), it's easier to find a CGC high grade direct edition. 

Except for some outlier books (ASM #252, Thor #337, ASM #361), newsstand percentages on high grade CGC 9.8 dive toward 10% by mid-1980s and stay there (or lower) until newsstand ends.

On 7/24/2023 at 2:36 PM, Lazyboy said:

On 7/24/2023 at 9:56 AM, valiantman said:

Yes, and I think that's why we see an almost immediate decline in newsstand conditions once the direct market went "full steam ahead". It wasn't a gradual decline over a decade, it was basically overnight. Serious collectors who had been protecting newsstand issues they purchased at local comic shops were switched into protecting direct editions purchased at local comic shops immediately. The newsstands in that area at grocery stores or wherever they were sold didn't suddenly get damaged more, they had always been damaged at grocery stores, etc., but the local comic shop had been protecting those newsstands in the shop.

It was an "overnight success" for direct editions to show up in local comic shops where the serious collectors doing the protecting were already doing their buying. As more shops went direct, the serious collectors in that area immediately switched to protecting direct editions. It didn't take a decade. Try finding high grade newsstand Wolverine #1 (Limited Series) and you'll be staring at 90%+ direct edition CGC 9.8 and less than 10% CGC 9.8 newsstand for a book from 1982.  Ten years later, serious collectors raided newsstands for ASM #361 and you'll see 25%+ in CGC 9.8 newsstand from 1992.  The age is not as important as the activity when the newsstands were originally on sale.

I think you misread what he wrote there. He was asking about the serious collectors who did not have easy access to comic shops.

No, I got it. The rollout of the direct market to 1,500 stores in 1979 immediately put (Marvel) direct editions into the hands of many serious collectors who would protect them as well as they had been protecting the newsstands at the comic shop the week before. For others, the direct market took longer to come to their geography, but the day it arrived, they would have immediately added more high grade direct editions and fewer high grade newsstands would exist in that geography than the week before. The bolded sentence above addresses those you mention who did not have easy access to comic shops.

On 7/24/2023 at 10:25 AM, shadroch said:

On 7/23/2023 at 7:14 PM, Bosco685 said:

I had a feeling those Mountain Dew Dogs were trouble.

I'm amazed that there is a big enough market for these to be produced. It's certainly not something I'd buy, but I would try one if offered at a BBQ or someplace. 

I have not had a Mountain Dew in forty years or so.

Their target audience is those who haven't had a Mountain Dew in forty minutes. 

On 7/22/2023 at 1:14 PM, jcjames said:

On 7/22/2023 at 7:29 AM, TupennyConan said:

...This literature's chockablock with an entire Webster's Dictionary of technical, academic, nonsense jargon deployed by angry thinkers to cloak their angry thinking in pseudo-intellectual sophistication. Radical social theorists thrive on the confusions they can exploit in both traditional ways of thinking and in competing avant-garde social theories. In this sense, every radical social theorist's efforts at hegemony is doomed to failure by the very nature of their project. This also accounts for the persistence of tradition...

This describes almost all faculty today in almost every academic department in almost every college and university in the country. 

The hard sciences still don't care about social status or politically correct opinions, so you won't find many pseudo-anythings in colleges of math and science.

If anything, the study of the sciences exist for the sole purpose of proving each other wrong with evidence because it's the only way forward (and the only way to fame in science, if someone really is trying to find fame in the sciences). 

To keep us on topic, here's a version of Barbie as a scientist. It is not typical of the appearance of an average scientist today, but Barbie has always been about what could be "tomorrow" for those still growing up today... so who knows.

On 7/23/2023 at 10:40 PM, Aman619 said:

probably!  the longer they sat in the racks or whatever the worse shape they end up in.  Then again, weren't collectors without direct sales LCSs not ALSO showing up every week -- the day they came out -- and therefore picking up "pretty" fresh [newsstand] copies?  They might be lightly damaged from loose handling into and out of the racks, but they didnt sit in the store for the full 3 months with purchases made toward the collection deadline.

Yes, and I think that's why we see an almost immediate decline in newsstand conditions once the direct market went "full steam ahead". It wasn't a gradual decline over a decade, it was basically overnight. Serious collectors who had been protecting newsstand issues they purchased at local comic shops were switched into protecting direct editions purchased at local comic shops immediately. The newsstands in that area at grocery stores or wherever they were sold didn't suddenly get damaged more, they had always been damaged at grocery stores, etc., but the local comic shop had been protecting those newsstands in the shop.

It was an "overnight success" for direct editions to show up in local comic shops where the serious collectors doing the protecting were already doing their buying. As more shops went direct, the serious collectors in that area immediately switched to protecting direct editions. It didn't take a decade. Try finding high grade newsstand Wolverine #1 (Limited Series) and you'll be staring at 90%+ direct edition CGC 9.8 and less than 10% CGC 9.8 newsstand for a book from 1982.  Ten years later, serious collectors raided newsstands for ASM #361 and you'll see 25%+ in CGC 9.8 newsstand from 1992.  The age is not as important as the activity when the newsstands were originally on sale.

On 7/23/2023 at 8:32 PM, Microchip said:

And if there were, people got their copies at the LCS where they could order them as they wished.    Newsstands were simply not on the radar.

I think it's safe to say that any books which went to a second printing were probably hoarded as newsstands with ASM #361-#363 coming to mind immediately.

On 7/23/2023 at 8:23 PM, Aman619 said:

Until we pin down exactly what the print runs %s for direct vs newsstand, and in each year post 1979, we will remain in this guessing game of exactly which are scarcer and scarcest.   That is clearly beginning to happen now.  Let’s see where this goes and then we will have a clearer picture of the harder to find (and in grade) of the newsstands.  And the early direct copies.

I doubt if we'll see "exactly" anything, but we should get a consistent "range" of percentages over time. Amazing Spider-Man #300 (1988) has been tracked for several years and it tends to produce similar results each time it is measured.

GPA has recorded 2,910 sales when there are only 21,000 on the CGC Census at CGC 9.0 or higher. Even with some duplicate sales (same slab sold twice or more in 3 years) this is a significant sample.

On 7/23/2023 at 7:50 AM, Pantodude said:

Hi there.  Maybe you qualified this statement earlier in the thread, and if so, disregard.  But this comment as is appears to be demonstrably incorrect, at least for the later-years newwstands comprising a tiny % of the print run.  The logical analog for this group of buyers of  (i.e., the group that recognizes and prioritizes a rarer version of an issue) would be the price variant collectors who have been paying premiums for decades now, like for the 35-cent price variants of Star Wars 1, Iron Fist 14, etc.  Because there are only 312 SW1 35c in all grades (compared to 15928(!) for the regular version) and 78 IF14 35c in all grades (compared to 6301 for the regular version), there is no question there is a logical (and passionate) group of buyers for even low grades of these variants.  And this is reflected in sales of CGC graded non-high grade books.  A regular SW1 in 3.5 fetched $104 in May after a SW1 35c in 3.5 fetched $4,500 in April (a 45x premium!).  Need to go farther back for Iron Fist 14 due to few sales, but in 2019, a regular IF14 fetched about $200 recently while an IF14 35c in 4.5 fetched $2,300 back in 2019 (so it's likely gone up since then).  

Based on the above, one could expect newsstands from the period during which they were a tiny % of the print run, like 2000s, for example, to enjoy the same (in terms of extreme) premiums across all grades.  I've only looked at Ultimate Fallout 4, a modern book published as late as 2011, and it was as expected. Even in grade 5.0, it fetches about $3K as a newsstand compared to $300 for the direct, at 10x premium!  That's all i got.  Happy Sunday!   

I was replying to a comment that Stefan_W made "Once you drop out of the 9 range people who are into these books stop caring (which I define as "willing to pay a bit more for them"), and the sound of crickets chirping is often deafening if you try to charge a bit extra for newsstand run fillers."

My interpretation of his comment was for common 1980s and probably early 1990s newsstand "filler" (non-key) books, which are numerous. I don't think we'll see anything like 2% newsstand for those (more like 20% or more), so it's not a good analog to 35 cent variants or any of the lowest % newsstands at the end of the 2000s.

On 7/22/2023 at 3:18 PM, Stefan_W said:

This is all true. The one additional thing with newsstands though is a given the way they were initially sold it is often tougher to find them in high grade. I can only speak from personal experience and mileage may vary, but I have found that newsstand only really matters for key books and only if they are in high grade. Once you drop out of the 9 range people who are into these books stop caring (which I define as "willing to pay a bit more for them"), and the sound of crickets chirping is often deafening if you try to charge a bit extra for newsstand run fillers.  

That's true, and it makes a lot of sense when you think about it. Many collectors do not care about whether a book is direct edition or newsstand as long as they have a copy. When it comes to CGC grading, there are many collectors who own very few, if any, CGC graded comics.

As a result, you have a spectrum of collectors that --- on one side --- don't care about which edition they own, don't care about CGC grading, and probably aren't caught up in NM- vs. NM vs. NM+ vs. NM/MT differentiation on their raw books.  At the other end of that spectrum, you'll find collectors who only want the "toughest to find" edition, in the highest grade, already CGC'd. 

It's logical that highest grade CGC newsstand books have buyers, and it's logical that "don't care about CGC", "don't care about newsstand" books have buyers (or they at least have a very stable market without surprises). It would be very strange for someone to care enough about whether they're buying newsstand or direct edition to pay a premium, but not care about the condition or CGC grading. As a result, CGC graded, but not high grade, newsstands are a product without a logical group of buyers.  Who's in the middle and is that group in the middle enough to match the supply in the middle?  Seems like there is a gap there without enough buyers.

Final sentence on the article...

"Any perceived investment advice is that of the freelance blogger and does not represent advice on behalf of GoCollect."

On 7/21/2023 at 7:32 AM, MAR1979 said:

from what i see in threads on this forum as recently as today is folks are getting back books in their submissions that should be noted as newsstands but are not. This means the numbers are wrong makings newsstands from the 80s falsely appear to be rare. The lack of QC favors scamming sellers.

BTW i never sought newsstands but reviewing my inventory spreadsheet last night have found majority of my 2000-2006 slab purchases from auctions were newsstands. Makes me think prior to scammy sellers hyping them is they were at least some degree of plentiful. 

Please note the books in question in my collection range only from 1979-1986

Sellers hyping things will not be able to change the reality of newsstand percentages.

Despite "newsstand" being a selling point (and supposed reason for premium pricing), half of all CGC 9.8 Amazing Spider-Man #252 sold in the past year are newsstand, and more than half of CGC 9.6, 9.4, 9.2, and 9.0.

Books that are harder to find in newsstand will command a premium, and those which aren't won't. The market is efficient in the long term, regardless of how many hype monsters are included.

In other words, "newsstands" which aren't worth a premium in the long run will end up exactly like every single variant that has come out for the past 20 years that was hyped as "the next greatest thing ever" and wasn't worth a premium in the long run. 

If books don't deserve a premium, 99.9% of them won't have one.

On 7/20/2023 at 9:57 AM, Black_Adam said:

Not sure if any Harvey comics have more than 50 copies on the census, especially the Bronze Age stuff. This comic has exactly two graded copies on the census, with mine being the highest. 

33 different books from Harvey have at least 50 copies on the census, but they're mostly 1950s with a few 1990s.

The only Bronze Age is "Richie Rich, Casper, and Wendy National League 1" (1976)

Nearly 5,000 books from Harvey are on the CGC Census with at least 1 universal copy (35,000 slabs).

On 7/18/2023 at 7:54 PM, ADAMANTIUM said:

In short.

What WAS notated by cgc were "price newsstand editions" and some newsstand editions as an exception, but when now every "regular newsstand" is an "edition." It is a bit convoluted and kind of spoils any nuance. Edit to say, unless we are thinking there is no such thing as a "regular newsstand" from the beginning?

In that the direct "editions" word is now being added to the term on the newsstand? 

 The question of, "why is it a newsstand?" Will be here for quite some time.

Not to complicate things, because it is already complicated

The "method" is the source of the madness. Newsstand books were returnable, so the "method" was that they went on sale, sat for a while (maybe two or three months) to potentially get damaged, and then they were (supposed to be) returned and destroyed/recycled/pulped, whatever.

The "method" for direct edition was that they were printed with some different marking to indicate that they weren't returnable, sat as long as needed in comic shops because they couldn't be returned, and if they didn't sell they stayed in comic shops for decades. Some direct editions were printed to be sold in multipacks, but they were not returnable either, so if the multipacks didn't sell, they're still sitting in deteriorating plastic somewhere, or they were ripped out and added to comic shop back issues.

Whether there was a price difference is not important to me. CGC noted it because it was an obvious difference, different price is like a different product... but the "method" was always different for direct editions and there has always been a way to know which is which.

High grade "multipack only" direct editions might be tough books, so it's not all about the newsstand method... they sat in cheap plastic, they were supposed to be hanging on hooks in stores, they could be handled by "casual shoppers" and not serious collectors, etc.

For the period of time prior to the direct market, newsstand books were living two lives. Some were going through all the trials and tribulations of sitting in grocery stores and casual shopper handling, while others were happily sitting in comic shops waiting for a serious collector and his protective handling. It's the rollout of direct editions to comic shops which started the life of direct editions but it also split the life of newsstands. They became almost exclusively handled by casual shoppers, and even though they are the most common version of book printed in the early days of the direct market, they never lived the lives of luxury that direct market books had from day one.

On 7/18/2023 at 7:37 PM, ADAMANTIUM said:

Question ❓ 

Is the Marvel Super Special #16 a mag size lke the Weekly #129?

Making #42 the first "comic appearance?" 

Marvel Super Special #16 is magazine sized, but so is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1. I don't think anyone would say TMNT #1 isn't a comic appearance of TMNT.

The key point about Star Wars #42 is that it is a reprint of a reprint of a reprint of a reprint of a reprint.  When people realize that, I think it will be hard for anyone to say "first" anything without laughter following.

On 7/18/2023 at 5:57 PM, seanlinc said:

I think it is well put together and easy to follow. As a kid I had no clue about the bar code differences and even when I was buying comics in the 90s didn't really know what it was about. When I got back into the hobby in 2021 I saw the difference in values and had to educate myself on the whole thing. Alot of googling and reading ensued your video would have saved Me alot of time.

Thanks. It feels like the right time to get this kind of video done, since CGC announced newsstand labeling last year, but they haven't put them on the CGC Census yet. It was 5 years ago when some generic information was posted on Newsstand101.com (and DirectEdition101.com) but I doubt if it has gotten the kind of viewing that a short video on YouTube could manage. Plus, I've only recently learned how to make videos.

VERSION 1.2

Several changes being made for Version 1.2.

Here's a sneak peek (not a video, just a single screen):

On 7/18/2023 at 4:31 PM, mr_highgrade said:

Just call any comic books post June 1979 "Newsies". 

Especially if they're direct editions, right?