Qalyar

That appears to be the case. I... don't really follow the Chaos Comics stuff, so that slipped past my list. In any case, it's a little different, because the Omega Editions were apparently the prizes for winning the contest, while Valiant's #UNITYGOLDENTICKET books were Willy Wonka-esque searches -- and, critically, the contest (and existence of the unique gold books) weren't even announced until after the title had gone on sale. The only difference is a line of text in the UPC box, but it's quite a difference (and unlike direct market / newsstand, CGC recognizes the golden ticket books as distinct). Interestingly, the two "missing" golden ticket books are the two variants with the UPC on the back cover...

I'm sure there are "Gerber 11" books -- stuff that was physically printed but no longer exists. There's reason to believe that quite a few foreign books have been lost, for example, including one or two Canadian Whites, some early British stuff, and a lot of poorly-documented Asian and South American books.. For original US publications, however, it's tough to pin them down for certain because most candidates fall into two categories: Stuff that was supposed to be destroyed, but the pulping machine didn't catch them all. There's a LOT of these, some of which (Elseworlds 80-Page Giant) aren't even that rare. On the other hand, some definitely are. Off the top of my head, examples include famed underground artist Skip Williamson's Snuk Comix #1 (the printer objected to the drug content, refused to deliver the printed comics, and shredded the run; surviving copies were grabbed by Skip before the rest were pulped, and number in the single digits) or DC's Free Comic Book Day 2020 Generation Zero (intended to have been destroyed after Dan DiDio was sacked and the "5G initiative" cancelled; at least one copy survives). Stuff we can't prove existed in the first place. I think the evidence is pretty good that Motion Picture Funnies Weekly #2-4 never existed as complete comic books (covers were prepared, but there's never been any evidence that interiors existed at all). Likewise, Rural Home had a ton of books destroyed for being produced in contravention of their wartime paper quotas, but there's never been conclusive evidence that the mass government pulping expunged any titles or issues that weren't already out there in some fashion (and their probably-intentional slipshod bookkeeping doesn't help with knowing). There are honorable mentions, in my mind, for things that were printed, but weren't exactly released as comic books. DC produced quite a few ashcans as copyright registration shenanigans, and not all of them that were known to have been created are still known to exist. But those weren't ever intended for public viewing, not even in the sense of advertising giveaways or promos. Similarly, the 1933 Siegel and Shuster creation The Superman (note: well prior to Action Comics 1), which they tried to market to publishers in Chicago; when that didn't pan out, Shuster destroyed the copies except for one cover. However, that's more of an artist portfolio piece than anything published (since it explicitly wasn't published, and all...). Ironically, the most-lost comic I'm aware off offhand was never physically printed, but did exist! In the late 1990s, Marvel experimented with digital publication in the MarvelZone on AOL. One of these so-called CyberComics, Gambit: The Hunt for the Tomorrow Stone, is believed lost, despite fans (and Bleeding Cool) who have spent quite a bit of effort trying to locate archives of it. Some of Daerick Gross Sr.'s original art for the e-book still exists, but neither he nor writer Fabian Nicieza apparently have anything close to the finished product, nor did Marvel's own archival project turn up a copy. As far as the OP's original question of the rarest comics ever, strictly on a numbers standpoint, there are several books that intentionally had only a single copy printed. These include, but probably aren't limited to: Bloodshot Salvation #12 Lewis LaRosa Vin Diesel Variant, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic #12 "1 Million" Variant, Quantum and Woody! #1 Second Printing, and the five #UNITYGOLDENTICKET contest copies of 2013's Unity #1 (each with a different cover). Actually, two of those might qualify as Gerber 11s: the Bryan Hitch variant and Paolo Rivera variant were apparently never discovered (in contrast, the J.G. Jones, Travel Foreman, and Clayton Crain variants have all been located and have subsequently been graded by CGC).

I want this to get an 8.0, but I think because of the number of color rubs on the back, it'll get marked down another step for a large-area defect... so 7.5. Happy to be proven wrong there, though! Regardless, beautiful copy from the front, so it'll present well ahead of its technical grade. As you surmised, high grade copies of this don't grow on trees; the black cover and the bargain-basement thin paper conspire to make a mess out of a lot of books.

4.5 purple. While I agree it did more harm than good (as does much "restoration"), white-out intentionally applied to a white area = color touch.

Appreciate the effort. I hope he's doing well in whatever his current endeavors may be.

Yeah, I actually really like the series. Shame that the expanded stories had to be cut short (on account of, well, Marvel not having the rights to do expanded stories). Have to say that finding the pence copies of these in grades higher than "dog toy" is an uphill quest, though.

Not the one book everyone cares about from this short-run title, but it's actually a pretty nice copy for once.

Foxing is... complicated. Also, not all foxing has the same causes or chemistry. As far as rust goes, iron does require the presence of water to rust. However, the air contains moisture unless it's at 0% humidity (which is even worse for preservation). Now, an unrusted staple resists corrosion at normal atmospheric levels of moisture pretty well; that's why most staples aren't rusty. However, once rust has started, there's a problem. Although in principle rust is just iron oxide, in reality, rust contains a variety of partially-hydrated iron oxide compounds. Over time, a desiccation reaction can occur which frees the water from those hydrated complexes... which makes it available to react with the nearby unoxidized metal. In addition, the way that iron in particular corrodes tends to make adjacent "good" metal more vulnerable than it would otherwise be. Rust is bad stuff. In any case, neither foxing nor rust is going to worsen because of encapsulation. What matters more than anything are the storage conditions, and that's true for raw books just as much as it is for slabs.

Personally, I've always wanted to see rust hammered down even more than it is in terms of grade. Even more so than (most kinds of) paper degradation, rusting is an autocatalytic process. That is, the presence of rust will cause the remaining metal to rust more readily...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/01/28/900000-counterfeit-seized-customs-all-one-dollar-bills/4598937002/

I'm normally sad to see interesting books -- like relatively high grade MJI copies -- end up signed. But you know, I'll absolutely give you this one. Fantastic story resulting in a fantastic book.

Stuff that comes to mind from DC (since we're talking DC books). In no particular order; Gears of War #1 Blockbuster Twisted Metal 2 Scooby-Doo Mystery of the Fun Park Phantom Teeny Titans Aquaman #1 Special (Complex Con), and to some extent the other promo variants Fringe Preview. Fringe: Tales from the Fringe isn't a cakewalk either. EverQuest Online Adventures: The Quest for Darkpaw Edit: Apparently Fun Park Phantom has had more copies turn up than historically has been the case. MCS has a couple low/midgrade copies. But it had wonky distribution, and high grade copies are unicorns, so I stand by mentioning it.

If you didn't know, that Blood on the Moon is actually book 3 of a 3-issue mini series. Confusingly, each one has a different title: White Commanche, Red Raider, Blood on the Moon. In my experience, this one is by quite a bit the hardest of the three to find nice copies of.

It's exactly what it looks like. Taco Bell did a series of these aschcan sized promos as giveaways for their kids' meals. There's this one, Green Lantern, Superman, Wonder Woman. That I know of. I don't think they're super hard to find, especially compared to really tough promos. But, hey, promos. Promos are always fun.

It's not really special, but... I was managing a brick and mortar comics and collectibles store on 9/11. Wasn't much of an ASM fan, but bought this for myself out of our Diamond shipment shortly after. Figured I ought to show it some respect and slab it, as the original owner after all this time. Considering that it has probably moved with me 8 or so times, I assumed the unyielding hand of entropy would earn it a 9.4 or 9.6 even if I couldn't see anything wrong. Happily, even twenty-years-ago me knew how to take care of my stuff.

I dropped GoCollect over the summer. It's unfortunate, I actually liked their (previous) interface quite a bit, once you got used to the foibles. But more and more, their FMV estimates seemed like alchemy, sometimes bearing absolutely no evident relationship to their reported sales. Besides, an awful lot of what I collect isn't the sort of thing that has reliably established FMV anyway. Still, their failure to provide an API to their partner is dirty pool. CLZ was and is a good product; I hope they're able to secure another, and better, data source. As for GoCollect now? New Coke, indeed.

Especially for books of this era. I mean, seriously, you're lucky if two copies of the same issue are the same size, and I don't mean trimming. Barring something not obvious from the photos, I assume this is a production cover swap. They're rare, but they do happen, and it's not like the overall QC on books of this period was good. Fun book.

That's a really stunning copy of a book that I think deserves a lot more attention than it's traditionally gotten.

What kills you is the shipping. Modern slow track grading is $22, +$15 if you have CCS press (although there are private pressers who may have different rates, we'll go with that). If you have CGC ship a single book back UPS Ground, that's $16, but they have $100 capped insurance, so you might considered USPS Registered Mail at $32 instead. Let's say $20 to get it there in the first place, because that's a round number. Uh oh, that's $73 (or $89 if USPS returns it) for a single book to be pressed and graded. That's pretty close to $100 a pop in process costs. Don't do that if you can help it. If you can do it in lots of 25, though, let's say it now costs you $50 to get them to Sarasota. It'll cost you $72 to have CGC ship the 25 books back USPS Registered (that's slightly more than UPS Ground, but the difference isn't as big as for one book, and you probably don't want the $100 claims cap at that point). But those shipping costs are split over 25 books, so now you're under $5 a book shipping costs (both ways!) and looking at $41.88 per book in total costs. I get quite a bit of "modern drek" graded for my personal whims, but I also curate pretty tightly before hand, so most of my books don't need the extra trip to CCS, cutting my cost to slab down to around $27 per book, which is cheap enough that I'm not really concerned if it's a recoupable cost on a book that I'm never intending to sell.

Picked this up a local comic show last weekend. Jim "Howard" Johnson was a "freelance journalist" when he met the cast of Monty Python in the late '70s and hit it off with them. He published this rather idiosyncratically-spelled, if unusually high production quality, fanzine in 1978. He also published a #2 and #3; however, those were only made available through mail order, and so most surviving copies are beaters (if you've got them, go see my WTB thread...). In any case, it all worked out pretty well for Johnson. He went on to study improv with Del Close, and has written several books on comedy improvisation... as well as several historical retrospectives of the Monty Python cast, having graduated to be something akin to their official group biographer.

I have somewhat more sympathy for that poor book than for its buyer. Kudos to the seller there, though, they were at least forthright about the book's problems.

I don't think I'd consider myself a lurker, but I'm not in any danger of making a post count leaderboard or anything. The board silliness doesn't generally bother me, although it's a little irksome when it derails threads that have legitimately useful information, as opposed to the ones that were always just sort of light reading, as it were. Otherwise, I guess what prevents me from being more active is that I don't really have much common ground with most of the regulars here in terms of collecting focus. I used to. I've owned an awful lot of really great high-dollar books (and I still have a few tucked in the back). But Iately I've been having move fun putting together high grade runs of titles that, very clearly, no one else cares about. Sometimes that's been exactly as easy as you'd expect. Sometimes it has been amazingly challenging. Sometimes it means I'm still looking for copies of really cold modern variants with zero FMV history at all, and turning up nothing (for a year now!). But regardless, I consider these books part of my permanent personal collection, and I treat them with all the dignity and respect I'd treat any series that I decided to collect thus. So they're slabbed; I like the uniformity and appearance and (despite the QA flaws) the general concept of graded encapsulation. It doesn't really give me a lot to talk about here, though. One big chunk of the community is really only in this for the money, and another big population goes out of their way to remind the rest of us that we're "entombing" books and that they self-righteously break every slab they see. But with very few exceptions, I have TPBs, undercopy readers, or digital copies of anything I collect... I don't need to fondle the pretty books to enjoy their insides. And if I cared about cash value, I could just flip Marvel keys like everyone else (and have). But that... somehow, that's not collecting anymore. So I try to chip on in the Bronze-Modern "weird stuff" threads under various titles, where at least my knowledge base feels useful. Otherwise, the boards offer fun reading material...

Here's the list with the grades the books got. Note that in several cases (all the Veronica Sig Series books, and a handful of random others), there was more than 1 copy slabbed; if they got different grades, I only listed the best. Fair disclosure: I am responsible for one of the books on the list (it shouldn't require much effort to figure out which one) because it had to go back to Sarasota on a mechanical error ticket because it wasn't correctly labeled the first time around... 9.4 Wacky Adventures of Cracky 1 Gold Key 1972 8.0 Master of Kung Fu 77 U.K. Price Variant Marvel Comics 1979 9.8 * Amazing Spider-Man 234 Canadian Price Variant Marvel Comics 1982 9.2 Fantastic Four 278 Canadian Price Variant Marvel Comics 1985 8.0 Fem Fantastique v2 #1 AC Comics 1988 9.0 SS Veronica 4 Archie Publications 1989 9.6 SS Veronica 5 Archie Publications 1989 9.2 Femforce 26 AC Comics 1990 9.6 SS Veronica 10 Archie Publications 1990 9.8 SS Veronica 12 Archie Publications 1990 9.6 SS Veronica 6 Archie Publications 1990 8.5 David Anthony Kraft's Comics Interview 92 Fictioneer Books 1991 9.2 David Anthony Kraft's Comics Interview 96 Fictioneer Books 1991 9.0 David Anthony Kraft's Comics Interview 99 Fictioneer Books 1991 9.4 Marvel Tales 256 Marvel Comics 1991 9.8 Superman 52 D.C. Comics 1991 9.8 SS Veronica 18 Archie Publications 1991 9.6 Femforce 55 AC Comics 1992 9.2 ** Flaming Carrot 28 Dark Horse Comics 1992 7.5 Marvel Tales 264 Marvel Comics 1992 8.5 Marvel Tales 265 Marvel Comics 1992 9.4 Toxic Crusaders 4 Marvel Comics 1992 9.6 Donatello and Leatherhead 1 Archie Publications 1993 9.0 Donatello and Leatherhead 2 Archie Publications 1993 9.4 Femforce 57 AC Comics 1993 8.0 Femforce 58 AC Comics 1993 9.8 Femforce 62 AC Comics 1993 9.4 Nemesis Comics Special Ashcan Edition 1 Nemesis Comics 1993 8.0 Shaquille O'Neal vs. Michael Jordan 1 Personality Comics 1993 9.6 *** Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Present: April O'Neil 2 Archie Publications 1993 7.5 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Presents 3 Archie Publications 1993 9.6 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Presents: Merdude 2 Archie Publications 1993 9.8 Damselvis, Daughter of Helvis 1 Eros Comix 1994 9.8 Ren & Stimpy Show 25 Collectors Edition Marvel Comics 1994 9.8 Sabrina's Holiday Spectacular 2 Archie Publications 1994 9.4 Spawn 24 Newsstand Edition Image Comics 1994 9.0 Spawn 25 Newsstand Edition Image Comics 1994 9.2 TMNT Mutant Universe Sourcebook 3 Archie Publications 1994 9.8 Maximage 1 Image Comics 1995 9.6 Ren & Stimpy Show 28 Marvel Comics 1995 9.4 Shadow Cabinet 15 D.C./Milestone 1995 9.6 Shadow Cabinet 16 D.C./Milestone 1995 9.8 Shadow Cabinet 17 D.C./Milestone 1995 9.8 Superman: The Man of Steel 41 D.C. Comics 1995 9.6 Superman: The Man of Steel 50 D.C. Comics 1995 9.0 Kingdom Come 1 Second Printing D.C. Comics 1996 9.0 person_without_enough_empathy in Heat 6 Eros Comix 1998 9.8 Black Hole 1 Second Printing Kitchen Sink Press 1998 8.5 Original Bondage Fairies 1 Eros Comix/Studio Proteus 1998 9.2 person_without_enough_empathy in Heat 7 Eros Comix 1999 9.6 Original Bondage Fairies 7 Eros Comix/Studio Proteus 1999 9.4 Superman 143 D.C. Comics 1999 9.8 Superman 145 D.C. Comics 1999 * This is only new because of a labeling change. There were 14 previous copies slabbed as "Canadian Edition" rather than "Canadian Price Variant". This isn't a QA error in my opinion, but it's a problem long-term that, when CGC changes their policy on labeling for a book, they don't have any way to merge the two populations of slabs. ** CGC made a mess of this. There were already copies slabbed of Flaming Carrot 28 with an 8/92 issue date, but they created a new book slot for this book with a "1992" issue date. This one is a QA error. *** This is apparently a different book than Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Presents April O'Neil 2, from the same year. Different story and art credits even. Turtles are weird.

It irks me when they do not break multiple covers out as distinguishable books. I am irked.

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