RockMyAmadeus

So you had to visit multiple newsstands? You weren't able to purchase all of these copies at a single vendor? Did you buy all available copies at each place? Were you ALLOWED to buy all available copies, or could you only buy 1 or 2 at each place? Thanks!

Yes, but HOW did he obtain them? That's the question of the hour. Did he buy them from the newsstand new? Did he buy them on the aftermarket? If they were in such nice shape, can we assume he bought them brand new? If so, did he buy them all at one place, or did he have to visit multiple outlets? Where was he from, etc?

This is actual feedback this buyer left: Misleading headline. This is NOT for cats. Too small...

Well. Isn't this special?

That's ok, PGX doesn't count pages, either. I would skip Paypal entirely at this point and file a chargeback. Be very clear that what you were sold was incomplete. What is critical here is that you were sold an item with missing parts; it was incomplete, and therefore not properly described. If you're up for a fight, call someone at Paypal and demand to speak to a resolution/claims specialist (whatever they're calling themselves these days), and tell them that the GRADE of the book is irrelevant...it was INCOMPLETE, and therefore not what the seller offered. Any item is presumed to be complete unless otherwise explicitly stated. What's the listing in question? If what you're saying is true, then the seller is absolutely responsible.

Let's keep personal commentary and opinions to a minimum.

"recalled comics" also has some errors, and uses other people's scans without their permission, but the difference...and it's major...is that the person who runs that site is willing to correct the record when it's pointed out.

This is not a legitimate source of information. It is fact mixed with error, and as such, completely unreliable as a source. The site's owner, Mr. Benjamin Nobel, does not make corrections when they are pointed out to him, and blocks people from commenting on his "blog" when they do. For example: https://rarecomics.wordpress.com/2015/11/08/comic-book-newsstand-editions-understanding-the-difference/ ...this paragraph has fact mixed with fiction. The Direct market started in 1973/74...NOT 1979, as Mr. Nobel inelegantly claims here, and their first sales of distinct direct edition comic books to comics specialty shops was in late 1976...NOT 1979. And his contention, that "outside of some non-returnable comics produced for Whitman/Western Publishing" is completely erroneous. Those comics weren't produced solely for Whitman, as the DC program launched a year later was...they were produced for the Direct market, of which Whitman was probably the largest consumer at the time. When he says "outside of some non-returnable comics", he's unwittingly talking about the Direct market and its operating principles. And there are many more errors like this. And if those are the mistakes that are obvious to people who know...how many people don't know, and accept his errors as fact? Be very, very wary about such sites, especially those which are part of "blog" type sites, that anyone can post to with little or no cost.

Yes, there are the old stories, which I believe are true, of people essentially hijacking the distribution trucks leaving Sparta with copies of Shazam #1 and paying off the drivers to "lose" those copies. ...which really demonstrates that, even by late 1972, there really was no formal way for buyers to (easily) access multiple copies in advance, or even as they were distributed. "Buying more than one copy...?" went the convention wisdom. "Why would anyone want to do that...?" It makes folks like Phil Seuling and Bud Plant look like absolute geniuses for circumventing all of that cumbersome process and creating the Direct market.

George Reeves...?

By the way...I don't think I ever saw a real "newsstand" until I visited Washington DC as a teenager in 1985-1986. They probably had them in San Francisco, and maybe Oakland, but that would have been it. However, as mentioned, comics were a regular feature at 7-11 and Borders, Waldenbooks, Barnes & Noble, K-Mart, etc.

No, just wanted to get a sense of the time frame you were talking about. One of the great undocumented aspects of the comics publishing industry is just how the mechanism worked from publisher to printer to distributor to vendor to reader in the time before the Direct market (which is fairly well documented.) It seems no one kept many records of that process. Seems fairly straightforward, but there are all sorts of questions that are unanswered, or inadequately answered, like "how did vendors deal with collectors in the days before the comics specialty store?" and the like. For example...did Edgar Church have a special relationship with his local vendor(s)? It's been mentioned that he did. How did that work? What did the vendors receive, and how did they go about ordering it? Did they order it? I know there was a large segment of vendors who "got what they got", and weren't able to order anything specifically. Were there distribution channels whereby someone COULD order something specifically? Did any large vendors/vendor chains attempt to circumvent the ID system that existed back then? Would they even have been allowed, since DC had its fingers in all of those pies back then, too? So many questions.... My (incredibly limited) experience with comics as a young kid (1978-1982) was that they were sold on spinner racks at my local 7-11, or sometimes at the drug store, and the thought of asking them to "reserve a copy" would have been unthinkable to me (I grew up in the SF Bay Area.) I didn't buy or read comics as a kid, with perhaps a couple of very rare exceptions, but I do remember them being a presence in the 7-11s that I frequented as a kid playing soccer on the weekends. Thanks for your response!

That is a great anecdote, Brock. What time period are you specifically referring to? There were ads, as far back as the 30s and 40s, encouraging readers to "don't miss out! Reserve your copy at your local newsstand/vendor today!" Obviously, that was possible, on some level, even back then.

To Complete your Runs before the end comes. To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.

Do you know how they were purchased in bulk? What the procedure for doing so would be?

I looked up Superman after the knife was revealed, and started at issue #100. Derp!

Funny and I have been long acquainted. We are like besties. That's weird. It's almost like a secret you share with no one...

Dranzer!!

Egg Axe Lee I don’t get it.  That bar's getting lower by the minute... You and funny shall meet one day. Today is not that day. I promise, when that day comes, I'll bring funny with me to your place, so you can see what it's like, too. Because I care.

awwww....now I'm sad. Remember when we could make insulting but hilarious bastardizations of user names, and not get banished to Siberia for it...? I was even fond of Tup's dopey "RockMyGayAnus", which doesn't even work, but was still fun. Sad. Now it's all "cyber bullying" and "safe spaces."

Dude it’s weird you’re more concerned with title than the actual question I’m new here I’m not perfect but thanks for letting me know No problem. If you're interested you can take my descriptive thread titles course. I'm here to help. I highly recommend it. I audited 'fro's "Creative Changes To User Names" course in 2011, and let me tell you, it's paid for itself 100 fold. In fact, if you do some searches, you'll find a whole curricula of courses for the discerning newb.

Yes, without question.

That's a good point, but....there's always a but...it is helpful to have at least one such issue in these results, because we know this was one of the rare books that would have sold a substantially higher percentage of newsstand copies (like Thor #337, Batman #426-429, ASM #121-122, Conan #1, etc.) if not selling out completely. I think, based on the numbers, that it's fair to say that #252 had significant sell-through, and, while probably not a sellout, perhaps came fairly close...which is going to, as you state, lopside the numbers of surviving newsstands vs. Directs. If you look at the sales data, you see that for the three years prior to #252, sales were pretty steady in the 240k range...then you get nearly a 10% jump for the 1984 average. Even more telling is that the average amount of copies printed was actually lower for 1984 than for those previous three years (554k, 513k, 470k, vs. 461k for 1984), which means the sell-through percentage was substantially higher than for those previous years: 43.8% for 1981, 46.9% for 1982, 51.4% for 1983...and a hefty 56.5% AVERAGE for 1984. I think that jump, even with the lower print run, was due entirely to the driving force that was #252. You get both higher sales and a substantially higher sell-through percentage, due almost entirely to that one issue. And the 261k average sold includes all versions: Direct, newsstand, Canadian newsstand. All of which goes to show that Marvel wasn't done with the newsstand at this point, by a very long shot. So, as long as we keep that in mind, I think it will prove to be valuable data in the long run. That said, there's nothing wrong with adding #238...which was not an instant hit...to the mix, since it's definitely worth listing in nearly every grade.

The census numbers are "harder" (meaning, more concrete) numbers to work with, so they're definitely useful in this regard, though it's essential to control (as you have done) for the copies graded before that date, which were not distinguished. They may represent 0 newsstand copies, or they may represent 100...we don't know, and have no way of finding out. We're still dealing with the same constraints...slabbing is self-selecting...but, mitigated over time, it has useful implications. When dealing with CGC copies, it must always, always, always be remembered that the vast majority of slabs are created because it is "worth it" to slab that particular copy of that particular book. What falls below the threshhold of "worth it", we don't know, and it could be a vast ocean of examples (and would tend to be, the older the book gets.) So, census numbers will always be skewed in that direction. It would be nice to know how they arrived at whatever number they arrived at. I wonder if Larry Marder knows. I'll put it on my questions to ask him next year at SDCC.

Egg Axe Lee I don’t get it. That bar's getting lower by the minute...