bshowell

Here are today's acquisitions.

This happened toward the end of when Marvel was offering newsstand editions (and mostly only through Barnes and Nobel). If they wanted to offer a new title there was a fee associated with that so they would just put titles that they had already sold on the barcode and sell that issue under the wrong title. That Wolverine issue would have rung up as "Spider-Man Family" at the cash register. I have a ton of Fantastic Four issues that say Astonishing X-men near the barcode because when it was replaced by FF and then later returned, FF kept the Fantastic Four designation on the newsstand. The funny thing was they actually fixed this a few months before they stopped selling them altogether. The last few issues of Fantastic Four that they offered actually say Fantastic Four. I wonder if they were getting complaints because they couldn't track sales of the correct titles?

I like Kieth's art a lot so I was excited to find this one.

Just got this.

That's crazy. Can you tell if it was a newsstand under the sticker, it's hard to tell in the pic you posted? The Spider-Man 75 I posted with the sticker a couple days ago was definitely a newsstand underneath. I just ask because I was under the impression CGC would blue label stickered issues if it was done at the manufacturer level but not if, say, the drug store did it. This kinda looks like the drug store did it.

Well, in the 90s when we enhanced our baseball players we roided them up, when we enhanced our comics we added sparkles.

This is the second time you've implied I'm not smart enough to understand your point. I understand, I just disagree. It also shows the weakness of your argument that you can't let it stand on its own but have to insult the person you're making it to. Since this conversation has devolved into petty insults I'm going back to ignoring you and posting all the embossed, die-cut, foil, glow-in-the-dark, newsstand price variants I can find (and if anyone can find a comic that fits that description, let me know, that's an oddity I need in my collection). I hope you have a great life (I mean that sincerely).

Cool, I appreciate the info. The chart in the other thread said no one had seen the $2.29 variant yet but I only made it through page 4 of that thread. Thanks again!

Cool, I didn't know since I haven't seen a $2.29 of this particular issue if all three existed for 24 as well as 23.

I think this is one of those issues that had three different prices on the newsstand if I'm not mistaken. Can anyone confirm that? I know 23 did but I don't remember if 24 did as well. Unfortunately, like the PP: Spider-Man above it's not a 9.8 candidate so I'll probably end up selling it as well but it came in a lot I got off of eBay which did have 3 9.8 candidates in it from the Claremont Era so I count that as a win.

I found this one today. It is an example of one that would probably be green labelled but I thought you'd like to see it. Unfortunately it's not a 9.8 candidate so I'm not going to submit it but it was a fun find. I'll probably end up selling it because I don't keep floppies unless they're graded (I'm a read digital to save space guy).

Got this today too. As a side note, I loved the short run Joe Kelly and Steve Seagle had on X-Men. It didn't last very long or gain much praise but I thought it was thoughtful and fun.

I have only ever seen the Fantastic Four foil newsstand, I don't know if those other two titles have one or not.

Both of the non-enhanced are pretty common. There are usually 2-3 up on ebay at any given time. It took me a while to find a 9.8 candidate though, many just look trashed. The one I really want to find in 9.8 is the FF 35 foil Newsstand, it's really elusive and I've only ever seen two that both had pretty bad spine ticks (I own one of them).

Ok, I get that your are trying to define the word oddity in a way that allows you to say that I am part of a thread spewing nonsense and lies, and you keep saying that "by definition" the way I used oddity was wrong. Oddity's definition boils down to the opinion of the person observing a situation. The problem is the situation you describe isn't even the situation I was talking about. Your example of a price variant not being a price variant because it is consistent with the pricing of newsstands at the time, and therefore not odd, is irrelevant because I am talking about now, trying to find 9.8 worthy copies of Fantastic Four 60. Ebay, LCSs, Garage sales, I run into 25 copies of that 9cent issue for every one copy of the newsstand variant(probably more considering i think they printed 8 million copies of that thing). That makes the newsstand variant odd now because it is super uncommon compared to the norm. That is my opinion and it is not wrong or nonsense to state it. And I will continue to use the word oddity to describe any situation that seems rare currently. I am also concerned that you seem opposed to adding information in front of the word variant to help clarify why it's a variant. Your ASM example, the non-enhanced version has the lowest barcode number so it is the cover that Marvel considered its main or A cover. I will continue to call any edition that differs from the main cover a variant no matter how small or "insignificant" that change is (the words variant, edition, and version can also be used interchangeably in most situations). So the foil enhanced cover is the enhanced variant or the enhanced price variant, or the enhanced flip-book variant, or the sparkly variant if that last one floats your boat. All are correct and I prefer more description before the word variant over less for the sake of clarity, so I would call that one the foil price variant. Fantastic Four 60 therefore has a newsstand price variant because both the barecode and the price differ from the main, direct cover. All of this is influenced by the way most collecting software sort comic books. All the programs I've tried pull an issues up and give a,b, and c (and so on) versions of that book. The descriptions always refer to differences between the variant from the A cover, whether it's different art, title font or color (see those new Walmart variants for an example of this), or price. It clarifies differences in versions of the same book and is useful because of it, so I am grateful for descriptions such as newsstand price variant. Again, when I'm looking for a copy of Fantastic Four 60 I want to know all the options I have for that book, I don't care whether it's pricing was in line with the 10 prior issues. I only care about the difference in that issue's versions. Having said all of that, I am going to continue speaking about newsstands the way I have because it is the most clear way to do it and I will call something odd whenever I feel like it. You're free to ask why I think it's an oddity but can't convince me that I can't use that word.

Sorry, I should have posted this in the last reply but I just saw it. I have the ASM 25 newsstand as well.

You know, I've seen you post in this thread for a long time and I've always wondered why you take so much time trying to convince those of us who like newsstand comics that they are nothing special. I at least see where you're coming from now. It's all pattern recognition to you. It's only a variant if it bucks the price trend of that title. By that definition I guess you are right that the Fantastic Four isn't a price variant (it also means that the 9cent direct edition is a price variant). The problem is that almost no one is going to take the time to spot those patterns. I don't care what the price of Fantastic Four #55-59 are when I'm looking for a copy of #60. I do care what all of the options for buying a copy of #60 are. And I like to buy the one that is at least a little bit different. Also, nothing you said convinced me that a price variant is only a price variant when compared to the price of former issues of that title. Again, a variant is anything that makes a copy different from the Direct Edition A cover. The link you shared says that multiple price variants exist for some issues, not that newsstand price variants that have different prices from their Direct counterparts aren't variants because they share a price with former issues. Just curious, do you hang around threads that talk about collecting Venomized covers or Zombie covers and try to talk down to their preferences too? Is it an alternate cover thing? Newsstand issues are a collecting niche. We know it's not for everyone but I find it a lot of fun to try and track down 9.8 candidates and send them into CGC to use as decoration later. I have a pretty good track record if you look at my former posts. It is no challenge at all to find 9.8 candidates of almost any comic published after about 1985 in the direct market. There are a ton of them. So it makes the hunt more exciting and limits the amount I can find at least somewhat (which also saves me money😁).

I do have that one. Interestingly, there is a newsstand foil edition of this issue too. I have an ungraded one in storage (so I can't take a pic of it right now but I'll try to find one)

Just back from CGC today.

Sorry, but normal to me is the Direct A cover. Anything deviating from that is at least somewhat outside of normal (I realize the overwhelming amount of variants over the last decade or so water this point down, especially open to order variants, but the fact they're still so new compared to 60 years of comic history still makes them kind of odd). A price variant with an msrp (which is what cover price is) 25 times higher than the direct A cover counts as odd in my book. To say that buying comics off the newsstand in 2002 was the normal way of buying comics is to stretch believability. And I emailed CGC about the FF label and complained about Ben being covered by the sticker saying I never would have paid for those labels if I knew this was going to happen and they refunded the $5 cost of the label on 5 books I had submitted.

I've been trying to find these too because they are fun oddities. I'm a little picky because I'll only buy them if they are a 9.8 candidate so I can submit them. The Fantastic Four book I found and submitted. The X-Men book I got on ebay, luckily just before the current price explosion. I had the Daredevil at one point but it came back 9.4 or 9.6 so I sold it.

I'll take Lil Gotham if it's still there. Thanks! And I'll send you a PM momentarily.

Merry Christmas to me!

Got this off ebay.