Mr. N

12 hours ago, valiantman said:

@Qalyar that's a good point, but we're now 25+ years since anything printed before 1996 - so if those 1980s-1990s books still aren't "worth CGC-ing" at this point, whether due to condition, contents, value, whatever, then the market needle isn't moved by those particular issues in those grades. The exact ratios of lower grade raw copies of direct and newsstand books that may exist in comic shop back rooms or collector boxes just don't matter (yet)... since those books have already have been ignored for 25+ years before anyone cared about newsstand or direct edition designations.  

When comparing direct editions to newsstand editions in 2021, it's helpful to first ask "does anyone care about either?" and a good way to answer that question is to check the CGC Census (even if it doesn't separate direct edition and newsstand) total.  Once books are "worth CGC-ing" and the CGC Census reflects more than a few copies have been CGC graded, we can look to the open market for what's available and get our direct/newsstand ratio estimate data from there.

One good example would be Spawn #1 (1992).  Obviously, it's a good idea to CGC grade raw Spawn #1 with a good chance of being CGC 9.8 whether it's newsstand or direct.  Looking at GPAnalysis for the whole year of 2020, there were 805 sales (GPAnalysis.com) for universal CGC 9.8 Spawn #1 direct edition and 71 for universal CGC 9.8 Spawn #1 newsstand.  That's 8% newsstand.  That 8% could be too low for the overall rate of newsstand for Spawn #1, since 9.8 is a high grade that is generally believed to be harder to obtain 25+ years later in newsstand than it was in direct editions.  The past 90 days (March-May 2021) have 253 CGC 9.8 sales with 5% newsstand.  Again, this is likely too low for the overall newsstand rate because 9.8 is a tougher grade.

We also have to be careful not to skew the results in the other direction when books are "worth CGC-ing" (by value) in lower newsstand grades but the lower grade direct editions are not. 

When you move down one grade to CGC 9.6 Spawn #1, there were 338 CGC 9.2 Spawn #1 direct edition sales in 2020, and 74 CGC 9.2 Spawn #1 newsstand sales in 2020.  That's 18% newsstand.  This is also likely a skewed result because there's not as much financial incentive to CGC grade a 9.6 raw Spawn #1 direct edition when sellers only got $68 average for CGC 9.6 Spawn #1 direct editions in 2020.  There was more incentive to submit 9.6 raw Spawn #1 newsstands, since the CGC 9.6 Spawn #1 newsstand average sale price was $179 in 2020.  18% is likely too high for the overall newsstand ratio.  In the past 90 days (March-May 2021) CGC 9.6 Spawn #1 direct edition has averaged $123, making Spawn #1 direct editions much more "worth CGC-ing" in 2021 than they were in 2020 averaging $68.  Of the 132 CGC 9.6 Spawn #1 sales March-May 2021, just 11% have been newsstand.  As the value of both rises, the newsstand ratio falls, now 11% newsstand in the 9.6 market.  That could still be too many newsstands overall, since the CGC 9.6 newsstands have averaged $360 (nearly three times as valuable as 9.6 direct editions) in the same timeframes.

Using the CGC 9.8 and CGC 9.6 numbers for Spawn #1 would suggest that 5%-8% newsstand is too low (using 9.8) and 11%-18% newsstand might be too high (using 9.6).  A fair estimate overall then would probably be 10% for Spawn #1 newsstand, based on more than 1,500 sales in 2020-2021 for CGC 9.6 and CGC 9.8 of both newsstands and direct editions. 

This 10% estimate is quite different from the 1%-2% newsstand rate that is sometimes quoted by various websites/sources for Spawn #1, or even 5% for that matter.

10% newsstand on Spawn #1 fits the data better, and when we have even more data in the future, perhaps we'll know even more. 

Well put. I've not thought of comparing those variables in that matter before. Nice job.

Well I just checked ebay out like you said. I just used DC comics 26 (1980) because someone mentioned it earlier. 

I saw 43 copies of the NS editions         and 13 copies of the Direct editions

So based on that specific book at least, I would say that graph is fairly accurate.