George Brent

D-a-m-'. That was a good half hour I spent on that thread --but a good one (though I'm not sure about one claim on there that every Sensational She Hulk after #2 had both direct and newsstand, as I've never seen a newsstand copy of #51-60 --and, holy cow, I just checked MHC for their She Hulk newsstand info and their prices for #40-onwards are now 4-5x the already very high prices of a few weeks ago, #60 is $2280 in VF)

:-) Actually, some are. Talking about basically worthless issues (but, darnit, have to have them -- this goes back to the bug of collecting that someone just posted about) : try finding newsstand copies of Namor #16-34. AFAIK, 16-19 only exist with UPC stickers on them, I have never seen a newsstand copy of 20-26, and have found and bought only 1-2 copies of 16-19 & 27-34 in the past ~10 years. This is very surprising for an era of huge print runs for both direct and newsstand Marvels, I'm sure there are interesting lost stories about such cases ("yeah, I remember those pallets of just-printed comics tipping and falling into the Hudson river") --Lazyboy, can I claim that those are 1:100,000 ?

(thanks for the welcome, btw, though I've been here for a few months) Yes, it is marketing. No, I don't think it is a ploy (MHC's ridiculous prices notwithstanding). You are saying you don't advertise newsstands as being 1:100 when you sell them, but the empirical evidence is that this is quite a realistic estimate (your argument of "why not 1:50 or 1:250?" can be translated as "nobody knows exactly what it is, so why bother mentioning an estimate?" --well, because estimates are out there for anyone to come up with via eBay (or CGC as well, I suppose) and, yep, ~1:100 is pretty close in many cases, so why are you opposed to people referring to that? I don't think it's false advertising or wishful thinking, the numbers out there support that well. On your comment about issues that gain in popularity/price and then becoming more available: yes, you are correct for pre-2000s issues and post-2000s direct issues. The main difference between that population and post-2000s (roughly) newsstands is that 1:50 or 1:100 or 1:250 scarcity. The small amounts of newsstands printed post-2000 (inferring from the greatly reduced overall --direct+newsstand-- print volumes compared to pre-2000) mean that there aren't many collectors/hoarders/dealers out there who have those newsstand copies and you only get odd cases every now and then (the Doc Collection is a prime example, as well as 2-3 folks selling only newsstand editions on eBay, so I imagine they are sitting on stock they somehow accumulated via a newsstand store they owned or had access to its supply --but I'm only guessing). Furthermore, newsstand copies have been commanding multiples of direct-prices for at least 6 years now and, if your theory were correct, we would already have seen an influx of newsstand copies due to the higher prices --but we haven't and, on the contrary, that supply has dwindled, especially for 2010-2013 issues. So, respectfully, what you say is not what we've been seeing. I would like it if you were right (so I could get some of the late newsstands I'm missing to fill my collection), but I don't see any way this happens.

Lazyboy's and fastballspecial's fixation on (and denial of) the 1:100 ratio is baffling (folks, never too late to repent and join the newsstand bandwagon! :-) Sure, nobody can absolutely prove the 1:100 ratio, but there is a ton of empirical evidence out there, as Paqart mentioned. Try looking up, for example, what's for sale on eBay right now for Amazing Spider Man in the #660-700 range. A couple I just checked show >50 directs and 0 newsstands --combine that with completed listings from the past 3 months and the 1:100 ratio is certainly not the BS you are indignantly claiming it is. I could say the same about any 2010-2013 series, but there are a lot of 2000-2010 issues I've been actively looking for newsstand copies of and haven't found any during the past 10 years. And the scarcity is becoming a lot worse. Back in 2010-2013 I would constantly find plenty of modern newsstands on eBay (kicking myself for not buying some of them back then), whereas now things have dried up considerably and it takes a lot of digging (and luck) to find copies. Yes, MHC has got crazy high prices, I would never pay those (though in a lot of cases they have the only known newsstand copies of issues in stock), but the (obvious and readily available) empirically derived evidence for newsstand scarcity should lead to a very hefty premium, and for key issues (and lots of non-keys) it indeed has led to hefty premiums on eBay sales for years now --but, yeah, you guys can continue claiming that there really is no ~1:100 scarcity b/c nobody can outright prove it and everyone paying those prices is being misled and any day now it'll be obvious that there are a lot more copies out there and make the prices collapse, blah blah. And here are some newsstand pets, to get back to the "show us your modern newsies" theme:

Grading question: (disclaimer: my knowledge of GCC criteria is zippo) I thought 9.8 was pretty much flawless, only extremely difficult to spot tiny defects. For Astonishing X-men #3 I see a small (but nevertheless perceptible even in the photo) spine bend, about straight to the left of the bottom of the "X". I thought something like that would drop the condition to a 9.6. Not complaining, as this means a lot of my issues that I thought were 9.6's may be 9.8's, but I, maybe erroneously, thought that 9.8 meant basically flawless --bshowell, if what I think is a spine bend is really not a spine bend, feel free to call me a insufficiently_thoughtful_person and move on :-)

Some great info I didn't know about, though I've been into newsstands for over 10 years now, thanks! Also good to know that someone else has struggled to get a newsstand edition of Wolverine(2003) #74, have been looking for that forever and have never seen a newsstand copy.

Well, it depends on the stickered issue. Some were only printed as direct editions (I assume accidentally) with the sticker added later by Marvel (e.g., Spirits of Vengeance #13, Wolverine(2003) #44 --or #43, can't remember which, etc.), and I'd definitely pay a premium for those. The stickered XMen(1991) #1 is a bit odd, those do exist with the UPC code and they are not that rare, so not sure that the stickered finds by F For Fake qualify as a rare collectible (but I'd certainly pay a bit of a premium for those as well, cool to have).

Nice! On the topic of "do they even exist?", has anyone ever seen newsstand copies of the 2005 House of M series? (I also have the same question for some not-quite-modern-newsies, like Marvel Comics Presents #175, but we'd go down a rathole if we started discussing 90s issues as well).

Speaking of multiple copies: I'm betting most of us would rather lose an arm than sell our newsstand copies, however, what about swapping our multiples? Sorry if this topic has been brought up before (I joined very recently) --but I would be interested, please ping me if interested as well.

Thanks, good to know the Mighty Avengers #1 has a newsstand version, adding it to my "wanted" list.

Speaking of which issues have newsstand editions and which do not, does anyone know whether Amazing X-men #1 (Jan 2014) or Mighty Avengers #1 (Nov 2013) came out as newsstands? (I once read a comment on some board or other where someone claimed they had seen Amazing X-men #1 as a newsstand at Barnes & Noble, but I have never seen a copy).

Comforting to see many are similarly afflicted Re:newsstands, here are pics of some of my stuff: