canickus

I agree that price is a bit stiff but that is a ridiculously tough book, especially given the demand. Are there any other bronze-age beaters that would command that price? Along with Star Wars 1, the Iron Fist 14 35 cent price variant has been known the longest. It is a key book and too date after years of searching, there are still only 24 price variants certified (compared to 1456 of the regular issue). According to GPA and my STLcomics price variant mafia notes of sales of that issue, here is EVERY CGC sale of that book. Since CGC started, the book has never been cheap and Overstreet has never really had a full grip on price variant prices. In my opinion, the best deal recently was the 7.0 that sold in April on ComicLink for $1100 and is not on the CGC census. As you can see, I don't think that this book will ever be cheap. 2.5 sold in Jan 2009 for $475. 3.5 sold in May 2008 for $351. 3.5 sold in May 2009 for $400. 6.0 sold in Nov 2003 for $345. 6.0 sold in Mar 2006 for $735. 7.0 sold in Jan 2004 for $1100. (different book than ComicLink sale) 7.5 sold in Jun 2004 for $1025. 7.5 sold in Apr 2005 for $1325. 8.0 sold in Jan 2005 for $1225. 8.0 sold in Oct 2006 for $600 (bargain). 8.0 sold in Oct 2008 for $1729. 8.5 sold in Feb 2005 for $1601. 9.0 sold in Jun 2004 for $1100. 9.0 sold in Sep 2007 for $1975. 9.0 sold in Nov 2007 for $2500. (private treaty sale not in GPA) 9.2 sold in Jul 2002 for $1500. 9.2 sold in Oct 2008 for $4100. 9.4 sold in Sep 2006 for $5100. (this is still the one and only highest graded on the census, followed by three 9.2s and two 9.0s) By the way, for those interested in the issue, Ebay seller Giraffemaster has a 5.0 listed on at a reasonable BIN and is taking offers.

And finally, a book that I have been meaning to post for awhile. The front label has space for both "30 cent price variant" and "double cover". In case you are wondering, CGC picked "30 cent price variant" for the narrow case top label where there is only space for the one comment on the right of the label.

Nice books, Paul. I really liked Richie Rich books and would always buy them over Archie books. Now that I am older, I look at Gloria on this cover compared to Betty and Veronica on all the Archie covers, and I wonder what the $#@% was I thinking.

That is a pretty cool matching set.

I love this book. I really liked Grell's Starslayer, but Rocketeer was the best.

I think it is safe to say that I have been more of a buyer of price variants than a seller. Comiclink is a good venue to sell high grade comics as well. On comiclink, you can see listings of comics that have sold, and their prices, and you can see comics that are priced at levels which will never see an offer. Apparently, ComicLink is a VERY good Venue to sell High Grade 35 centers.

I think it is safe to say that I have been more of a buyer of price variants than a seller. Comiclink is a good venue to sell high grade comics as well. On comiclink, you can see listings of comics that have sold, and their prices, and you can see comics that are priced at levels which will never see an offer.

Highest graded single copies of 35 cent variants, particularly of popular titles like Avengers and Fantastic Four normally do very well by just putting them up for auction. CGC has started adding the price variants to the registry sets like X-Men 94-143, so books that are of interest to both price variant collectors and series collectors will do well. Pricing books using the algorithm that list a supervillian team-up in 8.5 for $550 will be very effective at generating ebay fees but less effective at selling the book.

I still think that letter is one of the neatest finds. I wonder if Mr Brodsky or anyone else at Marvel at the time knows the answer.

This is actually a an interesting discussion. I think it is still a mystery as to what the print runs were for the 30 and 35 centers. ShieldAgent is correct in his assessment that the 30 centers are much easier to find than the 35 centers if you are looking at a group of old bronze age books in a small ebay picture, because of the price starbursts. Some of the harder 30 cent variants to find are the one with the regular price blocks because they don't stand out. Because of the regular price blocks, the 35 centers are harder to pick out in a group. That being said, I am still relatively amazed at how few 35 centers have found particularly for the prices that they bring. I have no facts to base this on, but I imagine some executive in sales and marketing at Marvel in 1977 saying something like this. "You know we tried that test a couple of years ago before we raised the prices on all of our books from 25 cents to 30 cents. We ought to try it again before we raise prices to 35 cents. But maybe we don't have to do as large a test..." Anyway, using CGC certified books as proxy for the relative rarity of the books you will find that there are 2000 30 centers certified for 186 issues and 875 35 centers certified for 184 issues. Additionally, one issue, Star Wars 1, makes up almost 10% of the 35 cent books certified. Star Wars 1 was a huge print run for Marvel, has a large collector demand. The price variant was known for years before it became widely known that all the other marvel issues had price variant printings. My best guess is that the 35 center print runs were 1/4 to 1/3 the size of the 30 cent runs.

8.0?? what did the cgc notes say?..am i missing something here? first glance looked like the skull was smoking a fatty and batman was reaching for it.... The packaging material had nothing to do with the grade. Just poor QC on CGCs part. The grade had everything to do with the poor QC on my part...I sent the wrong book in. No need for graders notes, the back scan should suffice.

In my collection of double cover books, I have put a picture of the X-men 94. I figure it belongs in the collection by "proxy". Anyway, here are some cool recent pick-ups. My friend ShieldAgent sent me this book.

The explanation from the post office is that sometimes packages get stuck in their automatic equipment and in my case the smaller package was pushed into my box which pushed the contents of my package out. Since the contents were a thin comic book wrapped between two pieces of corrugated, I am sure the post office threw them away thinking that it was just some kind of packaging material. The seller was a stand-up guy. Between us, we visited and called every post office on the route to try and find the book.

I received some really nice books back from last submission. This was not one of them... To add punishment to stupidity, the piece of packaging material towards the middle bottom is safely encapsulated with this book.

We have the same tastes.

It is kind of frustrating to not know what happened to the book, but comforting to know that Chespirito will end up with it for $9.99. I definately wish I had the book and not the money. Oh well. Fortunately, the package was insured. I rarely buy insurance because until this happened, the post office had never lost anything for me and the insurance seemed like a bad bargain, particularly for cheaper books. I have to commend whatever post office employee in the Fort Worth post office stamped the box with this stamp. Without the stamp, I doubt the Post Office would have paid the claim.