RockMyAmadeus

I love that Egdar bought his copy of NYWF second-hand as one of the discounted 15c leftover copies. That's such a cool confluence of factors.

Again, depends on the rest of the book AND the "raggedness" or lack thereof of the tear. An otherwise 9.6-9.8 type copy with a 1" clean tear shouldn't grade lower than 7.0 or so. The lower you go in overall condition, the less the damage a specific defect does to the grade. For example..if the book is otherwise in the 8.5 to 9.0 range, a 1" tear will probably knock it to 6.5-ish. A 1" tear on an otherwise 4.0 book probably wouldn't affect it at all. Large flaws tend to amplify their effects the better the general condition, and lessen in the other direction.

I meant "Cuse and Lindelof." Damon and Lindelof is just one guy.

Good...I've been hearing good things about him. We need more of that.

No problem...just wanted to see if there was any way we could get a sense of where these came from, if they were scattered about the country, where they might exist. I know these are probably unanswerable questions...Spidey #1 Gold UPC has been known almost since it came out, and all anyone really knows is the guess that there were "10,000 made", and probably "made for Wal-Mart", but that's just educated guessing, with no confirmation from Marvel. It's possible nobody even remembers anymore with these other books. But, of course, any information can help. Thanks!

Further....the newsstand/Direct distinctions are important at the beginning...when Direct editions (starting in Feb 1977) were a tiny, tiny fraction of the print runs, until 1979....and then from about 1995 to 2011/2013 for Marvel, 2017 for DC, and whenever other publishers stopped publishing to the newsstand (I think Archie still does.) Distinctions for books from the 80s generally don't matter, regardless of what it is. But there is a VERY active niche of collectors who seek out 00s Marvel and DC newsstands, and as Kirk and Jerome Wenker and others can tell you....it is NOT EASY to do that. Dark Wolverine, the series that started in 2003 for example. Anyone have a complete newsstand run of that series, LET ALONE a 9.8 set? Doubtful. How about Amazing Spiderman from #500-up? Even the "Vol 2 #36 (9/11 issue)" carries a substantial premium for very high grade newsstands. Some of the ASM Spideys are so rare in newsstand format...like #694 for example...that people have been willing to pay hundreds of dollars for a 9.8 copy, and had a very difficult time in their search. And this, DESPITE the massive amounts of terrible misinformation about how many of these were made. No, Marvel DID NOT PRINT just 500 copies for newsstand distribution across North America. That's stupid, idiotic, and betrays a lack of understanding about the newsstand market in multiple ways, like here for example: https://www.comicsvalue.com/Amazing-SpiderMan-694-NEWSSTAND-VARIANT-EDITION-Marvel-COMICS-NM/122786683891.html Very little of the blurb at the bottom is accurate, from the "58,641 were made" (wrong), to the "Marvel/DC Newsstands after 2011 are approx 1:100" (totally wrong, with a number pulled out of thin air), to the "approx 585 copies originally made" (totally wrong, based on false numbers, one of which is pulled out of thin air, the other of which has nothing to do with how many were "made"), and thus will mislead whomever reads it and doesn't know any better. BUT...it IS true that the newsstand still operated like the newsstand, and the several thousand to several tens of thousand copies they DID print, would have been "returned and destroyed", just as they always had been...meaning, any newsstand copies surviving would be in the hands of individuals who purchased them, where they probably are to this day. So...yes, such distinctions ARE important, and DO matter, and ARE worth the time to properly catalog.

One of the more ridiculous things I ever heard someone in management claim at CBCS was that it was "too difficult" to make all these distinctions, which is why their newsstand designations end...for no rational reason anyone can think of...at the year "2000." Who made that decision? Why would they cut it off at 2000? Did they think there were no more newsstand copies published after 2000? It's like ending the listing for Amazing Spiderman in the OPG at issue #516....where are the rest? No, the real reason is "we're not getting paid enough to do this, and we don't really care." It's also why they have no census, and why it took them two years to get a message board up and running...and it's not 18 years ago, when message boards were new tech. It's not even remotely difficult. When you see a comic book from 2001-present with a UPC code, and it doesn't say "Direct" somewhere on there...it's a newsstand edition. If you don't have it in your database...you ADD IT as you're inputting the order. Not rocket surgery. "But it allows more room for error!!" So? Take pride in your work, and pay attention. Train people to know the difference. Doing the distinction AT ALL was a fantastic move, that was roundly applauded...until they announced that it was only up to the year 2000, which makes it functionally useless for well over half the books for which such a distinction is important in the first place. Nobody cares whether your Uncanny X-Men #215 is Direct or newsstand...in that it makes no difference monetarily. It's just about 50/50 split on books like that. But find an NYX #3 newsstand, which probably doesn't exist, but MIGHT? (Almost certainly doesn't, because it was mature readers, and those books weren't sold on the newsstand, but work with me.) That hypothetical copy in 9.8 would be worth TWICE or MORE a Direct 9.8...easily. ...except that it was published in 2003, so, sorry, too bad, you lose.

No politics allowed.

Absolutely agreed. Yeah, it's more work, but, as with all such distinctions, it will pay off in the future when you attract customers who are specifically looking for those, and stay because they're already there, might as well look around. That's 50% of marketing right there: getting people into your "space."

That's what I suspected. I imagine going forward, that might change, but these books are so niche and rare, it's hard to say. If CGC had taken a proactive stance with differentiating Directs from newsstands...regardless of the justification for it...20 years ago, this would have been addressed in the market long before now. We're still hearing stories of buyers saying "hey...this isn't the book you pictured!" and sellers getting pissy and saying "what do you care? What's the difference??" Thus far, we have four books that shouldn't, by all accounts, exist, in order of discovery: 1. Spiderman #1 2nd print newsstand (aka "gold upc") 2. Batman #457 2nd print news 3. Superman #50 2nd print news 4. Robin #1 2nd print news ....plus, the Superman #75 3rd and 4th print news (not counting the 2nd print, because it's just a Direct version with a UPC sticker as a "make-do.") So that's 6 altogether. I wonder if we'll find more?

Thanks for the confirmation. Since you know these three books definitely exist, and certainly have collectible value far in excess of the regular 2nd prints and/or regular newsstands, are you going to differentiate them going forward? And...is it possible to give out any generic information about where it came from, such as region and/or state and/or even city? And can it be assumed that neither the seller nor Lonestar knew it was anything special?

Sure. 1/4" tears...if they're actually 1/4", and not an underexaggerated 1"...are perfectly ok in 8.5, provided the book is otherwise in the 9.4+-9.8 range.

Oh, I'm definitely lost. And yet have not resorted to name calling. 1. Yes. 2. via Imgflip Meme Generator 3. RRUUUUNNNNNNN!!!!

RUNNNNNN!!!!

That IS a great question, though... Indeed, why bother putting a cover price for something that usually won't sell for cover price,

Very true, maybe we should introduce the concept of “classic back cover”. Could create a whole new driver to get people to pay exorbitant prices for books. Eventually, someone will invent a cube, wherein books can be paged through, front to back, while preserving the grade.... (Don't laugh, someone's probably already thinking about such a silly idea.)

The books aren't worth the prices you're asking. The stickers mean they're damaged. Marvel already had their own test price program in place, and stickers was not part of that. Even if the stickers are legitimate...even if they were printed by Marvel, which is almost certainly not the case...they don't add value to these REGULAR COPIES because they are stickers....added to the book after the fact, and damaging them. Are they "real"? Of course they are; they're right there. But are they Marvel products? No. of course not. Marvel had the resources of the largest magazine printer in the world...World Color in Sparta...why would they need to make stickers? As interesting as they are, the likeliest explanation is that they were back issues that some store had and wanted to sell for the then-current cover price a few months later.

 Quick, hide! It's the Pump & Dump King!! RUN!!!

That tracking is awesome. Too bad each stop can't get its own stamp.

Exactly. I get that this is the best forum for comics on the internet, but there IS a subtext to all of this, and openly hating CGC or one of its aspects is at odds with that.

Didja...didja see what I did there? Huh, huh, didja....?

Dude! Don't 'fingh' that meme. Remove the via imgflip link. Never!!

And, by the way...as groundbreaking as Sandman was, let's not be fooled for a minute into thinking that Gaiman wasn't doing heavy recycling of stories that were, in some cases, thousands of years old.

Yes, this is all very important to keep in mind. Name the stories that have come out from Marvel or DC in the last 20 years that have been original, and made an impact on comics history. What...? None, you say? Ok, name the characters that have been created in the last 20 years that have been original, and made an impact on comics history? What....? There aren't any, except maybe, possibly, a Wolverine clone....? "But...but...but...what about Hush in Batman!?" you may protest. Ok. Tell me 1. what happened in Hush, and 2. how it impacted Batman in any way. I can tell you what happened in Swamp Thing #21. Hell, I can practically recite it from memory. I can tell you what happened in Batman #426-429, cheesy as that story is. I can tell you what happened in Batman #436-442. I can tell you what happened in Amazing Spiderman #300. I can tell you what happened in X-Men #266....sorta. Claremont was clearly high on something when he wrote the last 5 years of X-Men. I can definitely tell you what happened in Watchmen, and Killing Joke, and Miracleman, and Animal Man and Sandman. The last 20-25 years should be called "The Derivative Age." Consider one of the most popular titles from the 00s: Ultimate Spiderman. What is Ultimate Spiderman? A "re-imagining" of the previous 40 year history of the character's stories! Bendis spins a great yarn....don't get me wrong...but one of the most popular comics of the entire decade was a DERIVATION of characters and stories that had already been told. Why? Because no one wants to give Marvel or DC anything new and exciting...or just different. You go to Image, and you find Ellis' brilliant Stormwatch/Authority masterpiece, and Astro City (still derivative!!), and Planetary, and Walking Dead, and other stuff that is fun, or interesting, or creative...lots that didn't work, but some that did. DC and Marvel? Forget it. Why create something that is only going to make money for other people? DD was a couple of seconds from being cancelled...no, really. Mainline characters don't go to bi-monthly publication because sales are UP. Claremont and Cockrum were given X-Men because it was already a dead title. Batman, when Miller took on the character, was selling less than 100,000 copies a month, and was limping along (yes, Virginia, there was a time when Batman was in the dumps, and nobody wanted it.) Wonder Woman was CANCELLED ALREADY when Perez was given the character, reducing the number of characters in continuous publication since WWII to 2: Batman and Superman. Justice League was no hot shakes in the sales dept, which is why Giffen & DeMatteis were given a shot. Pasko's Swamp Thing was dying on the vine. Animal Man had a grand total of 15 or so appearances in his first 20 years of existence. So what made the "Copper Age" so great is that creators took existing concepts and turned them on their heads. Whether it was Gaiman's Sandman, or Moore's Swamp Thing...very little was created in the Copper Age that was wholly new, but what was done was that the artform was perfected, from a "almost entirely for kids" medium in the late 70s, to a "holy , this stuff is really, really good!" by the early 90s. Now, you see endless derivation, endless repetition of old ideas, endless recycling...and it's part of the larger Arc of Culture that the West is going through in its dying phase. Look at what's popular on TV. Do you see groundbreaking shows, like Lost (which, due to the ineptitude of its creators, Damon and Lindelof, was squandered)? Do you see groundbreaking cultural shows, despite what you may think of their premises, like Will & Grace, or Roseanne, or Murphy Brown..? No. You see Will & Grace, Roseanne, and Murphy Brown...and Magnum PI, and Twin Peaks, and....well, you get the idea. 2017-2018 reboots of these 80s and 90s originals! And, as an example of how taking an idea and building on it can work, that quintessential sequel, Star Trek: The Next Generation, was a "Copper Age" (1987) production. Then....Paramount took that idea and ran it smack dab into the ground until...it...couldn't....get....back....up....again. So. There you have it. You want to know why new comics struggle to sell 100,000 copies, or 50,000, or 2,000...? It's not...AT ALL...because "people are moving away from print to digital." No. It's because very few companies are publishing anything that connects with the public. If someone came up with an X-Men, like Claremont, Cockrum, and Byrne did...or a DD like Miller did....or a Sandman like Gaiman did...or Swamp Thing like Moore did...but NONE of those things, something totally original....the public would eat it up. The superhero movies are proof of that...and the Star Wars movies are going down the tubes because they're just rehashing the same stories. Tell a good story, and the people will flock to you, regardless of the format. They really will.

Yes, the copy pictured is a 1st printing. Lonestar does list items concurrently on eBay, so I was wondering if it was a case of them not knowing the difference, and listing it, like you had said you bought all their copies of the 2nd printing, hoping one of them was a newsstand, and none of them were. Bffnut answered that question. You can come at these from two different ways: buy all the newsstands and hope one is a 2nd print, or buy all the 2nd prints and hope one is a newsstand. What I'm asking, since you can't search through Lonestar's "sold" items, is this: did the listing that you bought, bffnut, accurately depict (in the picture) what you were buying, or was it just a regular 2nd print pictured, and a newsstand copy just showed up? Info on where these books come from, even if they lead to dead ends, is still useful in piecing together a picture of why they came to exist. We may never know, but any bit of information might turn into a bigger story. Maybe if I use the magical notification feature @mycomicshop can find out more info on where they got this copy of a fantastic "book that should never exist." In any event, this is the highlight of my week, and I'm thrilled you found it, bffnut, and I'm thrilled you got it, Kirk, and that you shared it with everyone. So exciting.