andyborehol

Point well taken. I understand that the folks at CGC are human and prone to the occasional mistake, but if there are 2 (or maybe even 6, or maybe even more?) census errors on a book that only has 44 graded copies in total that kind of bums me out.

Such as?

You’ll notice that even in the green label books there’s nothing above a 9.4 because Wizard did a terrible job of handling these and packing then for shipping. The fact that there‘s a blue label 9.2 and a 9,0 (pretty close to the highest-graded green labels) is what’s bugging me.

In 1996 there was a promotional comic called “Wolverine Special #102.5” which could only be ordered through an offer in Wizard Magazine. Wizard offered both a “normal” version and a “Wizard Authentic” version that had a small hologram sticker and was signed by Boris Vallejo, who painted the cover. A few years back I picked up a slabbed copy of the Wizard Authentic version and thought nothing of the green label…I assumed that every slabbed copy would be qualified because the signatures from 1996 weren’t witnessed. To my surprise, I checked the registry today and saw that there are actually 6 blue-label copies, including a 9.2 and a 9.0. My question is, how is this even possible when every copy of this book was sold with a signature on it? The only thing that makes any sense to me is that some people actually removed the signature before submitting it for grading (either by just rubbing off the ink or using some sort of chemical), but it seems crazy to me that a book can still get a high-ish grade after someone deliberately altered it from how it was originally sold.

Had a busy week!

It’s obvious for the detailed accounts in this thread that this specific seller is super-shady, but let me just suggest that you should never pre-order a graded book in a specific grade from anyone. Even if the seller has good intentions, there’s always a risk that CGC will be severely backlogged when they submit their books as well as that the seller won’t get everything back in the grades that they promised in the pre-sale. Maybe I’d feel comfortable preordering if the seller laid out very specific terms about what they’ll do in the event of a CGC delay or if their submissions come back with lower grades and I’ve seen testimonials about how they’ve adhered to those terms, but I’m not aware of any pre-sellers who fit that criteria.

I’ve been a Wolverine newsstand hunter for a good 7+ years now and I honestly had no idea that this one-shot existed as a newsstand edition until a copy popped up on eBay last week: Similarly, just found this issue which had been eluding me for years (although I always assumed that it existed because I have owned #1 and #3 for quite some time);

Some recent finds out in the wild:

Just completed my newsstand run of Grant Morrison’s “New X-Men!”

Well, to answer my own question I see that this is indeed in the CGC census, although there’s 26 graded copies…super-scarce by Spidey standards. Best of luck finding one!

Interesting. Are you 100% sure that it actually exists? I spent years searching high and low for a 2nd print sketch variant of “Wolverine and Jubilee” #1 after seeing the cover in a few different collecting apps/databases and eventually found out that it was just a fan-made mock-up.

Agreed! Adi Granov is way underrated in my opinion.

A more accurate title for the thread would be “Books that aren’t commonly found in the wild but have recently been found in the wild by board members who now want to share/discuss,” But that doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.

I stumbled upon a Hungarian online used book store that ships to the United States and got some new additions to a few of my foreign Wolverine sets! The hardcover with the red border includes the Incredible Hulk #181 and from what I’ve found online it’s the first time that issue was printed in the Hungarian language. Kind of strange, as the remaining content of the book is Jason Aaron’s “Get Mystique” storyline (Wolverine, vol 3 #62-65).

Here’s an ironic conversation that happened in the Marvel offices in the mid ‘90s: Person #1: “We need to boost sales! Let’s advertise subscriptions in all of our comics.” Person #2: “When we advertised subscriptions in the ‘70s and ‘80s we encouraged people to cut coupons out of the comic’s pages and mail them in, now collectors complain that they’re buying back issues and discovering that there are missing or damaged pages.” Person #1: “OK, so we’ll put in a separate insert card just for the subscriptions! Nobody will ever care if those are missing.”

Back in my convention vendor days my partner bought a small pile of Claremont/Byrne-era X-men books. When he showed them to me I found that some of them had MJ ads and I explained that some people consider copies with the ads to be variants (and very rare ones at that). A neighboring vendor who was eavesdropping on our conversation said “Really? Any time I find a comic with one of those ads I rip it out because it makes it weigh a little more.”

Here are a couple of Thai language books that I just got…a trade paperback collecting Wolverine: Origin #1-6 and a digest-sized book that collects Giant-Size X-men #1 and (Uncanny) X-men #94-101. Both are in black & white, which looks strange in the Wolverine book given that the art in the original comics had a “painted” look. Also, it’s funny how prominent Gambit is on the cover of the X-men book given that the content inside predates his first appearance by about 15 years.

I already posted this a while back, but I find newsstand copies of Wolverine #47 surprisingly often and they’re usually stickered. Have actually found 3 different variations of the sticker:

I have a run of “Serval Wolverine” that’s about 60% complete (Semic published 43 issues under this title, then Marvel France/Panini took over the publishing and just called it “Wolverine” under the same numbering). The issue number is actually right above the barcode just before the cover price… this is issue #4. I don’t own any of the Facteur X series but I assume that the issue number is identifiable the same way. I don’t speak French either, but Google translates “version integrale” to “full version.” Not sure why, but that phrase appears on the cover of every issue of the Semic run. Each issue contains 2 issues of the US comic, for what it’s worth.

I just got this huge lot of Turkish-language comics that I’ve been watching on eBay for over 2 years. When it was first listed I asked the seller if he would be willing to just sell me the Wolverine & X-men stuff (typically that’s all I collect) but he was insistent on keeping it all together. Eventually he lowered the price on the lot enough that I was willing to pull the trigger.

That Ultimate Spidey #12 is not actually a newsstand edition, it’s a Campbell’s soup mail-in edition. The newsstand edition looks like this:

Here’s a few finds from a recent trip to Half Price Books. My personal definition of “mixed feelings” is finding a post-year 2000 X-men newsstand issue in a 50-cent bin but with a price sticker applied directly to the cover. The most interesting find is actually the JSA issue that appears to be a newsstand edition with a direct sales sticker on top of the original barcode. Anyone have industry insight as to how/why that would have happened?