kenaran

On 3/1/2024 at 3:09 PM, awakeintheashes said:

Yeah, I haven’t seen many. I am amazed at how this survived in the condition it did. It’s going to CGC next week. 

I've noticed about 1-3 a year pop up on ebay the past couple of years.  Mostly either obvious flaws, or poor photography.  I did notice one in a local shop near me at a FCB sale last year, that one was low grade, I left it.

They basically needed a way to differentiate the newsstands from the directs to prevent refund fraud.

The direct market barcodes started at some point in the early nineties (1993?).  My memories are a bit hazy as I was still in grade school in the eighties, may need an assist here.  As I recall it most smaller shops (read as comic shops) didn't have barcode scanners until the late eighties / early nineties.  Just a simple cash register, or even a pocket calculator.

I mostly follow DC, for them it feels like any book that had a newsstand just left the box and filled it with something (text, promo, art) for the direct edition. 

There are a number of websites that get into this.  The basic gist;

The first group of 5 digits is for the publisher

The second group of 5 digits is for the title

Then things diverge for newsstand/direct.

For newsstand there are 2 digits which are unique to the issue for a given calendar year.  (last two of issue number, month number, counting up from first issue in January, that sort of thing)

For direct, once they started having UPC codes, its an extra 5 digits. The general rule is that the first 3 are for the issue #, then 1 digit for the cover #, then 1 digit for the printing #.  On some books with high cover or printing counts it starts getting a bit muddled.

Newsstands were returnable for a partial refund.  Not fully up on it but I think they could just return the cover.  On pre-direct market it may have even been just the upper 1/4 of the cover with the title/issue# (plenty of those on ebay).

Directs were not returnable, but were a bit cheaper up front.

Edit: by cost, I mean cost or refund to the retailer. 

I did not know about the possible B&N possible connection, that's good to know! 

I have a few of these blanks, but it's more of a passive thing while wading through cheap bins.  There have been a few side conversations in other threads. Once upon a time I did dig into it a bit, someone had mentioned it was just the DC published issues, and I came to that conclusion as well.

I've always considered these to fall into the same category as the DCU logo variants.  That places them as originally sold in some sort of multi-pack.  Most, but not all of the DCU's have no printing info in the incedentia (de facto first print).  These would probably follow suit and be mostly or entirely be first prints.  The blank boxes should only be on the issues that DC published (probably half of them).  DC and marvel had subtly different UPC formatting in that era, so if you're interested you can research it with an image search (fonts, barcode size, that sort of thing).

As I'm re-watching Doom Patrol...  I'll have to say the power of Narration.

I can't say about California or Kentucky.  In my region I've had to go in to the Post Office a few times this year for what ended up being mis-delivered packages.  The first time, 3 comics shipped from different sellers all went to an address over a mile from my house all on different days.  Most recently received a notice to lift a hold to deliver (there was no hold), turned out there was a hold on the address it was delivered to (that one took close to a month to sort out, I had to go to 4 different offices, was told it's gone, then it showed up). 

The USPS at least around me have been working their people 12+hours days for years.  I'm shocked anythings getting delivered.

Here's hoping it's just lost and they can find it.

I come across these in the cheap bins from time to time.  Always makes me pause for a moment to pick my jaw back up.  Warning, avert your eyes!!!  (also, Batman using guns)

Hadn't seen these posted yet.  Also both in the super suit!!!

I've got one or two of these, but that was 20 or more years ago, certainly not recent.  It could be a scam.  You can always check your my ebay page to see if there is anything more official there.  Payment method would be another scam indicator.

My current peeve with ebay is related to receiving offers on things I looked at (possibly twice), but didn't put in my watchlist.

Hi @Cpt Kirk

I checked and neither of my copies of 215 Newstand contain the insert.  However I will point out that the 215 Newstand IS part of a rare subset.  Much like 205 it's has a Newstand variant cover.

The blank UPC box signifies that these most likely originated in muli-packs.  It's the same overall category as the DCU variants (fairly big thread on that in Copper Age).  If I remember correctly these were only for the books that DC comics published from the set.  If you're curious which ones just take a look at generic images of the books, DC and Marvel had subtle differences in the UPC style during that era (font, size, etc.).

Variant fatigue is very real.  I used to be a Superman completionist, the New 52 pretty much put a stop to that, at least eventually.  At least with DC, Reboot-itis and Plot-Line-interurpt-osis for the mega-crossovers were also large scale factors to me dropping pretty much all new comic purchases about 2 years ago. 

My personal theory is that we may live to see the day when they do away with staples and wraps.  They'll just have a single sheet of paper with a cover on one side and a single page of story on the other, with 22-ish variant covers, one for each page.  You could read it in the slab that way.

Variants are fun....  once or twice a year per title. 

On 9/12/2023 at 4:42 AM, jimbo_7071 said:

Some of the early variants of books were incidental; not a gimmick. For instance, there were 25¢ and 30¢ variants of some books that were published around the time prices were increasing (or possibly because some copies were meant to be sold In Canada). There were Gold Key and Whitman variants of books based on where the books were sold. The publishing companies weren't deliberately creating variants in order to sell multiple issues of the same book to collectors.

Now variants are a gimmick—publishing companies are trying to manufacture collectability. To me, variants became tiresome as soon as that started.

I have much more fun hunting the un-intentional ones to be honest.

Not familiar with this issue.  I have noticed in the past that mycomicshop appears to do their own scans.  Hope that helps.

I've been buying a fair bit of comics off ebay this year.  When I do a BIN I'm actually serious, but the main issue is the sorry state of combined shipping.  It seems every seller does it differently, so I have to ask, which means waiting for an invoice.  The few times I've run across a seller who set it up for the website to do, it's not always all that stable.  The last time I combined an order the website flat out gave me an error, and said it wasn't working.  Add to cart generally just stacks the shipping charges, this has been a mess for a VERY long time.  This feels like a knee jerk reaction to one issue that is ignoring other issues.

Action 714, Tec 675 Premium  ($5 each if I'm reading that right)

Just got one of those 'fuzzy photo' bulk lots that ended up being lower grade (but a couple of rarer DCU's in there).  The only Bat Symbol was this BA 21, which included a 'Collectors Pack First Printing' note.  Just curious if this is on all of them, or are there two versions?
 

You'll need a X number of searches free, or X time period free, or something of that nature just to let people try it out, wet their appetite, that sort of thing.

I would TOTALLY pay $20/year for an ebay search that allowed me separate text boxes for 'in title' and 'in description' for the same search.  Provided all the standard ebay search stuff still worked, like '-' and '(or)'.

The first two that pop in my head are;

Reign of Emperor Joker

Age of Apocalypse

I kind of knew what was happening with Age of Apocalypse when I first read it mostly due to the hype.  I had no clue what was going on with Reign of Emperor Joker.  Real page turners, few limits on what could happen (and did happen, especially to Batman).  I need to dig them both up and re-read!!!

Nice looking 'Second' printing there.