RockMyAmadeus

It happened in the early 80's, when the Canadian dollar fell in value enough against the US dollar to make the exchange worth the cost of printing up different versions for the (not insubstantial) Canadian newsstand market. As you know, Canadian price editions weren't new to the comic book market; they had been around almost as long as comic books themselves had. But, in the early 80's, it was determined at Marvel, DC, and other newsstand distributors like Archie, etc, that there was enough of a difference to print a special Canadian newsstand edition company-wide, and that's what happened. Marvel eventually figured out by 1986 that they only had to print the Canadian price along with the US price on the newsstand copies, which DC didn't figure out until 1988 (and Archie didn't until 1990 or so?), and that would save the additional costs associated with the separate version. Yeah, I realize that the exchange rate had become a factor, but who was making these decisions and couldn't figure out that multiple prices could be printed on the covers of newsstand editions as well? It would be interesting to know exactly how much that extra cover cost them. It just didn't occur to anyone, I guess. Multiple cover prices was a brand new thing, after all. Uncharted territory. It probably wasn't that much more expensive. I'll have to ask someone.

It happened in the early 80's, when the Canadian dollar fell in value enough against the US dollar to make the exchange worth the cost of printing up different versions for the (not insubstantial) Canadian newsstand market. As you know, Canadian price editions weren't new to the comic book market; they had been around almost as long as comic books themselves had. But, in the early 80's, it was determined at Marvel, DC, and other newsstand distributors like Archie, etc, that there was enough of a difference to print a special Canadian newsstand edition company-wide, and that's what happened. Marvel eventually figured out by 1986 that they only had to print the Canadian price along with the US price on the newsstand copies, which DC didn't figure out until 1988 (and Archie didn't until 1990 or so?), and that would save the additional costs associated with the separate version.

Probably about one of the best, well reasoned, clear cut and factually supported answers as you could hope to get on the subject from someone in an uniquely informed position to respond. And it only took 40 pages. -J. This is exactly what everyone has been saying for those 40 pages. You just weren't listening.

Not only is that an impossible task, it is a destructive one, as well. Impossible, because you cannot possibly know, much less account for, how others will view your statements. You have no control whatsoever over what others think about what you have said. Destructive, because if you spend your time worrying about what other people think of you and what you say, you will live in endless fear of saying "the wrong thing." What is extremely important is to speak the truth, at all times, without deception, to yourself or others. High calling, I know. Impossible, even, by our own power. Does that mean you can be callous and cruel, giving no thought whatsoever to other people's feelings? No, of course not; as with everything, moderation is the key. Does that mean you can be careless with your statements, and don't have to strive to be as clear as you can at all times? Of course not; you should always strive for clarity in what you say. As someone once said, don't write so that you can be understood, write so that you cannot be misunderstood. If you do your part, speaking honestly and truthfully and with clarity, you won't be responsible for those who don't, or won't, understand. Indeed. People who speak and behave confidently often appear to be arrogant to those who are not confident. The unconfident often wish life to be a matter of "opinion", and "there are no right or wrong answers about anything in life...whatever you think and believe is what is right for you!" Asserting otherwise, that there are things that are things that are absolute, will get you labeled "arrogant." Do you disagree with that...? The key, then, seems to be for the reader to not assume confidence is the same thing as arrogance.

Here's something that will blow some minds... The books can be taken OUT of the slabs.

This isn't true, and hasn't been in the course of this thread. If it hasn't been spelled out before, I'll do it here: there is no right and there is no wrong in situations like this. There is only reasonable, and unreasonable. Each person has to conclude, on their own, whether a particular poster, and what they are posting, is reasonable, or unreasonable. The way that is done is by examining a particular post against their history of posting, to determine if said poster generally knows what he/she is talking about most or all of the time. Does the poster think with their head, or respond emotionally? Does the poster demonstrate reason in laying out a case, or do they disregard it? Does the poster generally have his/her facts straight, or are they often incorrect? Does the poster take the time and effort to make sure their posts are grammatically correct, with proper spelling and syntax? Ah, there's a big one from a little one. If a person "can't be bothered, because it's just a message board", why should anyone then "bother" to take what they have to say seriously? Which is it? If they don't care about it, why should anyone care about what they say? Respect is a two-way street. (To be sure, there's a difference between "lazy" and unaware, and it's usually easy to see which is which.) There are some posters here whose opinions I dismiss out of hand, even if they are correct on a particular issue, because their history of posting demonstrates a certain disregard for fact and reason. There are, of course, people who view me the same way. There are some people whose opinions about certain subjects I consider seriously, and on other subjects I dismiss, because I am aware of their biases. In a case where the absolute truth cannot be known (like this one), it is vital to consider and give weight to the opinions of those with both an established track record of reasonableness, thoughtfulness, and general fastidiousness about their posting, and experience with the topic, and add to that the endorsement of others who you view in the same way (ie, Poster X, whom you trust to know what he's talking about, endorses the opinion of Poster Y, whom you also trust in like manner.) When you add it all up, you can then come to a conclusion about just what is reasonable on a given topic, and what is not. Who are those people? You'll have to decide for yourself. Yes, confidence is always viewed as arrogance by the unconfident. It has always been this way, and always will be this way. The fault lies not with the confident. On a completely unrelated aside, I find it interesting when people say "you don't know me personally" on message boards. No, of course, most people haven't met each other in person, or spent any amount of time around them physically, but if one posts regularly on a message board, is it not a person doing the posting? And isn't their personality reflected in their posts? Yes, absolutely. You can learn quite a lot about a person you have never met, simply through interaction in writing. After all...people used to get married to people they had never met, nor even seen, simply because they discovered each other through correspondence. Who a person is, what they believe, is reflected in what and how they post. I can spend years in the physical presence of someone, and know next to nothing about them, while I can spend a few days/weeks/months with someone on a message board, and know all sorts of things about them.

Best video of the day.

They are 1/10th the print run . Hi! Is this a guess, or do you know for sure? It's an approximation. Using what was mentioned earlier that the population of Canada is about 1/10th that of the USA. It's often the rule of thumb used for Canadian Price Variants. But I would also agree with the post earlier and believe the print run to be less and extremely tough to find in high grade. But as I'm sure you know, it's a complete guess. I don't imagine print runs have ever been tied, in even the most tenuous way, to general populations, or their ratios, of people. Yes, the print run was smaller than the Direct and US newsstand copies, but how much smaller isn't generally known at this time. Hopefully, that information will be revealed somewhere, somewhen. For 4-6 years of production, that information has to still exist somewhere.

True, and absolutely true, depending on where you're coming from philosophically. Oh, come on, no need for the melodrama. No one said that, at all, ever. What it IS, however, is about 5 pieces in a 500 piece puzzle. Accurate...for that section of the picture that it shows...but missing the vast majority of the bigger picture. Those 5 pieces aren't useless...they form a vital part of the picture...but only a tiny faction of it. And "millions of submissions", yes, but over 10s of thousands of different individual issues. The census does not, because it cannot, ever tell us anything conclusive about what actually exists...it merely shows what has passed before it. In that, it's not a TRUE census, but much more of a tally. A census actively gathers; a tally passively records. I don't know what this means; what is a "national" dealer? Is there some association one can join?: I'm an INTERnational "dealer", having sold comics to people all over the globe. What does that make me? Not conclusive. Yes, and these are unreasonable conclusions, as explained. Oh boy.

They are 1/10th the print run . Hi! Is this a guess, or do you know for sure? Well the country has 1/10th the population, so it's a fair assumption, but might even be lower. Jim I'm not sure how scientific that is...

The only thing blind polls tell you is the general mood of the section of people who bothered to vote. Otherwise, it is statistically useless for this sort of thing, as literally anyone, from the most experienced dealer who has specialized in AF #15 for 40 years, to my mother, who knows nothing about comics, can vote, and both votes have the same weight.

EW #4 ---> Rai #0 ----> EW #5.

I edited out that comment, because upon review, it was close enough. Nothing tangible or intangible is nothing at all. Why do you believe it is "absurdly and unreasonably high", not taking the census into consideration (because it's already been shown why the census isn't at all reliable in these types of calculations)? What do you base such an estimate being "absurd and unreasonable" on? Is your answer, not considering the census, simply "because you say so"...?

We call them ViQueens around here... Also noticed the poll is leading away with over 22,791 estimate. And 55% of respondents estimate about 11k or less. (thumbs u -J. It is not within the realm of reason to suggest that there are 9,000 or fewer total copies in existence, for all the reasons already laid out, yet 53 people voted for that range. There are reasonable estimates, and there are unreasonable estimates. Reasonable estimates are educated estimates, based on experience and observation. For example: astrophysicists estimate the mass of the sun by calculating the distance of the earth to the sun, the length of the year, and the gravitational constant, incorporating what we know about nuclear fusion, the density of hydrogen, observable energy loss, etc. It is, therefore, reasonable to conclude that the sun has a mass of about 1.989 Nonillion (30 zeroes) kilograms. This, of course, is an estimate, and not precise. We can't get out a giant scale, after all, and "weigh" the sun. But it's close. It is not reasonable to conclude that the sun has a mass of "a million billion pounds!" because that wouldn't be anywhere close, even though that sounds like a lot to the uneducated.

Whokings...? :shrug:

They are 1/10th the print run . Hi! Is this a guess, or do you know for sure?

You have at least one. Telling you you're wrong and that there are at least 10k copies or more out there. We have not had any National Dealer make any posts yet in this thread. Dale Roberts and Greg Reece are "national" dealers and I've averaged over 20 AF15 purchases and sales a year across the nation, even if I don't fit the "national" dealer mantra Yes I forgot Greg did answer, didn't see Dale's though. I did ask some of bigger National Dealers and their responses probably wouldn't be agreeable as you would think. But you can ask them as well. Who did you ask? My guess is the Rick acquires and sells more big books than a lot of them in a given year....... Wrong guess then. outside of metro, did any dealer you talk to sell (over past 18 months or so) 3 action 1s 2 tec 27's 2 superman 1 1 batman 1 1 captain America 1 24 copies of af15 oops. only sold 17 copies...(bought 24)...my bad 8 copies of All Star 8 30 copies of ST 110 96 copies of hulk 181 1 copy of action 7 2 copies of tec 31 and those are just the "highlights" if not, I would say his guess (at least for last year) is very correct Impressive sales figures Gator. I'm still bummed we couldn't work out a deal on that low grade Tec 27. By the way, Greg mentioned he's only come up on one raw, 3.0-ish AF 15 in the last year. How many of those 24 copies that you acquired were raw? -J. If Greg Reece's Rare Comics doesn't have a copy, does that mean it's not rare, or that there are zero in existence? I dunno. What does the census say...?

Pre-Unity Valiants were NOT bad comics. No way, no how. Writing, artwork, universe-building...all excellent. We'll just have to agree to disagree on this one. They were not my bag at all. I thought they were derivative & poorly written junk with mediocre, though classic style, art & just pretty boring in general. You'll be agreeing to disagree with lots of people who know the pre-Unity Valiant books. I'll grant you (and have always said so) that later 1992 through 1994 Valiant books are both common and derivative, but the pre-Unity books (Valiant published before August 1992) were very good. Starting at about 1995, you might as well call them Image books. That was Acclaim's goal. I'm not saying you don't know what you're talking about, but it's clear (over the past 20 years) that MOST people who don't like Valiant have never actually read the 50 books dated from 1991 through July 1992. Solar: Man of the Atom, that Shooter and BWS did and was inserted in Sola r#1-10, is one of the best comic book stories ever printed. It is, head and shoulders, the best Valiant ever did, and stands up against other classics of the era just fine. It is pretty breathtaking, and that it leads directly back to the first page of Solar #1 is a great device that has become the norm now, but was quite original in 1991.

If I can't post a scan of a 9.8, it must be tough. I had always been under the impression that the gold embossed version was a smaller print run than the flat gold? Is this wrong or is this true and it's just harder to find the 9.8 on the flat? The "official" story is this: The A&A #0 and EW #1 were the first golds that Valiant made. Up to that point, however, Marvel had been making gold (and silver) second printings for a couple of years, starting with Spiderman #1. The books had print runs of 5,000. Reportedly, 2,500 were accidentally shipped to the west coast, where dealers who got them thought they were second prints, and put them on their shelves for sale. Now..I never actually witnessed this, but I *was* told this was the case by a dealer in Hayward (something comics n' cards, long since vanished) shortly after it was supposed to have happened. As a result of the mixup, Valiant apologized, and printed 5,000 MORE EW #1 golds...only this time, they made sure to remove the cover price, and added the gold embossed foil. That's the story that's been around since the beginning. How much of it is true, is really anyone's guess.

What?!? I thought I was the only one who could stomach the green label of death. Someone will post the yellow one soon enough. And, if Shooter ever comes back to cons, it will have some companions...

you could have stopped right there. Yeah, but....it's me... "Never say with 10 words what you could easily say with 1,000." or "The easiest way to be misunderstood is to trust others to understand you."

You guys get any snow?

DeadPool was not a popular character back in the early 90's. I remember the only reason why I picked up a copy was for the first appearance of Domino and to complete the Liefield run between #86 - 100. He was just a cookie cutter villain that was introduced. He was changed into the DeadPool that we all know when he got his own running series with Cable down the road. I'm gonna have to disagree. I may be completely wrong, but where I grew up, he was an instant hit. I remember reading X-Force #2 over and over. Plus, he even got a card (!! haha) in X-Force #1. It's a little from column A, a little from column B. He wasn't a complete dud on arrival, but he wasn't a hit, either. Yes, the first solo series (with Joe Mad art, yo!) was the first time he broke out. True. Remember, when New Mutants #87 came out, it wasn't a sellout, and no one cared about it...for about 6 months. But when Liefeld and Cable really went bazonkers with issue #100, Marvel was in the "hey, our gold reprints are really working...let's see what else these suckers will buy!" phase, and books like NM #87, ASM #101, ASM #265, Captain America #282 (YES!) and, of course, the Marvel Milestone Editions, got pumped out in due course.

Let's consider these criteria for a second. As has been pointed out by many, the CGC census is only a part, and a very, very small part, of the bigger picture. As of right now, there are 2,777,868 listings on eBay in the "Comics" category. Of those listings, 72,391 contain the letters "CGC." This includes listings for books that aren't actually CGC'd, but contain the letters in the title (no small amount, either.) It excludes any listing that doesn't contain the letters "CGC", but actual CGC'd copies that don't list "CGC" are so rare as to be statistically negligible. So, you're looking at about 2.6% of all the listings on eBay being CGC or CGC-related. That means 97.4% of all the eBay listings in Comics have nothing to do with CGC. Then, you suggest GPA. GPA, naturally, is only a part of the part, and only includes information for slabs actually sold. Now, granted, it paints a broader picture than a single eBay snapshot, but still...it only represents a fraction of what exists. It currently lists 1,791,001 sales, including duplicates, or a little more than half the total number of books CGC has graded...together, they don't come up with a greater number of copies than the print run of Superman #75 by itself. Comiclink/Heritage, et al. - valuable resources but again...these only reflect sales of books, not actual extant copies. Look at it this way: I could, right now, call up Image and commission my own RMA variant...minimum order is 1,000. I could obtain that variant, keep it in cases on my floor, and sell 3. Looking at sales figures, one might come to the conclusion that there were only 3 that existed. But, we know that's not true. With this illustration, it's easy to see how sales...especially sales data limited to the last decade and a half....isn't going to paint a full, or even realistic, picture of what exists. Lastly, we get to "Reputable Dealer Reports." That's the real rub. Because, in reality, that should read "Reputable Dealer Reports (From People Jay Considers Reputable Dealers.)" That would be the completely honest answer. There are people who don't consider me "reputable", for no other reason than "they don't like my tone." True story. They dismiss my analysis for reasons that have nothing to do with the merit of the analysis. Now, I'm not a dealer (per se), but I've spent 95% of the last 25-26 years dealing with comics on a daily basis, selling them since 1998. Consider the Sandman #8 variant. Among people on this board, there is likely no one who has more direct experience with this book than Schmidt. Lots of us may come close, but this is one of his specialties. And yet, you argued with him about it, and cited the census to do it. Clearly, you didn't think his opinion on the book were reputable enough, right? Is it reputable if you agree with it? There are people on this board who know more than anyone else (at least on this board) about various comic-related subjects. Flying Donut has direct experience about the comics market from the 70's and 80's I could only dream of having. We sometimes disagree, but it is very, very rare. He knows what he's talking about. Branget knows Walking Dead, among other things. If I needed information about the state of brand new books, Beachbum would be who to ask. And very few people know the Sig Series program like Richie, Partouche, and Triston. Oh, and Triston is a master of late 40's/early 50's Pre-Code Horror. And that's just a few. So, it doesn't so much depend on "Reputable Dealer Reports" as it does the criteria of what and who you consider to be reputable. 94% of the time, I agree with your statement. But you're trying to apply it, here, in a way that cannot ever be done, because it is information that cannot ever be known. There is no way to figure out exactly how many of any one thing exists, especially 50+ years after it was produced and distributed to the four winds. It's simply not possible. And so, you go by what works: estimates, by people who deal in those markets on a routine basis. The census is NOT useless at all, and no one's suggesting that. It is a wonderful tool if used and viewed properly. But Lazyboy hit the nail on the head: you're a blind man trying to figure out the elephant by only feeling its ear, and suggesting that the elephant is like a fan, because you don't see the rest of the elephant. And this is completely untrue. Not only is the data not "complete" in any reasonable manner, but no one is making "naked conjecture." Quite the contrary; this so-called "naked conjecture" is far, far, by leaps and bounds, more accurate than the picture the census paints. You're just not willing to accept that.