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What's more difficult to find in High Grade?

Started by Mr 9.8,

Which is tougher to find?  

249 members have voted

  1. 1. Which is tougher to find?

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27 posts in this topic

Mr 9.8

Mr 9.8

Posted
Posted

I noticed that I have seen far more 9.6-9.8 Marvles From the Bronze & Copper age then DC. Is it because far more people held on to marvels then DC's? Did marvel have a bigger print run? (shrug) Also Are there a equal number of High Grade DC books that just have yet to be slabbed? Or is it marvel Right now only getting the spotlight because of the Money involved?

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kimik

kimik

Posted
Posted

My experience in buying OO collections with unread multiples has been that even in the late 60s through 70s Marvels tend to survive in better shape than DCs. I have suspected that there is a bit of a difference in the cover stock between the two since in the collections I have found that were stored in the exact same way the DCs had more damage than the Marvels from the same month and year.

 

DCs from the 1950s through 61 are brutally tough to find in high grade. Take a look at the census on a lot of the early SA issues (1956 - 1959) and you will see a lot of 8.0 and 8.5 top census copies.

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genrlzod

genrlzod

Posted
Posted

Man you are making me think at 11:00 at night, that is just wrong. :)

 

OK lets see if I can come up with 8.

 

DC Comics Presents #26. Preview of the New Teen Titans.

Teen Titans #1 and 2. Number 2 being the 1st app. of Deathstroke.

Superman #233. New direction for Superman with a classic Neal Adams cover.

Wonder Woman #199 and 200. Classic covers.

Batman 232 1st app of Ra al Ghul

234 1st modern app. of Two Face.

251 Classic Joker cover.

All Star Western #10 1st app of Johan Hex.

All Star Comics #58 1st app of Power Girl.

Jimmy Olsen #133 I believe this is the first Kirby DC issue.

#134 1st app. of Darkseid.

 

Looks like I got more than 8, but I did cheat with 3 Batman issues. Really you could go all day with Batman. I'm sure there are others but like I said it is late and I'm tired. I'm guessing others will come up with issues that I didn't think of.

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Mr 9.8

Mr 9.8

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dkr#1, swamp thing #21, watchmen #1? Would omega men #3 fall in here? just sayin' is all...
I would also include All Star Comics #58 1st Power Girl. It's a 1976 book so it would fit as Bronze age. :sumo:
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KolmarAvenue

KolmarAvenue

Posted
Posted

love it! that's exactly what i was looking for. i knew tt#2 and asw#10 but other than that i was at a loss...now go have a nightcap and call it a night, much appreciated.

 

Man you are making me think at 11:00 at night, that is just wrong. :)

 

OK lets see if I can come up with 8.

 

DC Comics Presents #26. Preview of the New Teen Titans.

Teen Titans #1 and 2. Number 2 being the 1st app. of Deathstroke.

Superman #233. New direction for Superman with a classic Neal Adams cover.

Wonder Woman #199 and 200. Classic covers.

Batman 232 1st app of Ra al Ghul

234 1st modern app. of Two Face.

251 Classic Joker cover.

All Star Western #10 1st app of Johan Hex.

All Star Comics #58 1st app of Power Girl.

Jimmy Olsen #133 I believe this is the first Kirby DC issue.

#134 1st app. of Darkseid.

 

Looks like I got more than 8, but I did cheat with 3 Batman issues. Really you could go all day with Batman. I'm sure there are others but like I said it is late and I'm tired. I'm guessing others will come up with issues that I didn't think of.

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KolmarAvenue

KolmarAvenue

Posted
Posted

Jimmy Olsen #133 I believe this is the first Kirby DC issue.

#134 1st app. of Darkseid.

 

Anyone have a picture of the cover? hm

Google is your friend in this case.

 

204435-19172-115210-1-superman-s-pal-jimmy_super.jpg

 

408216-19172-131243-1-superman-s-pal-jimmy_super.jpg

 

i have to say those are pretty unassuming covers, especially for the 1st darkseid. btw, old topic, but dark seed or dark side (pronouncation-wise?)

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RockMyAmadeus

RockMyAmadeus

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Posted

To answer your question, Mr., you have to go back and look at the history of comics in the 1970's and 80's.

 

Marvel beat DC in unit and dollar share across the board starting in 1971. DC, having been the sales champ since roughly 1938, pretty much took that lying down, content to be the #2 publisher in the market until essentially the present day, with only a handful of months...like THREE...where that wasn't the case.

 

Now, for people who grew up in the 40's and 50's, DC was king. But people who grew up in the 60's and 70's and 80's...well, they don't call them Marvel Zombies for nothing.

 

The reflection of this popularity is easily shown in the numbers of submissions for Marvel and DC from the 1960's to 2010...Marvel submissions beat DC by a margin of almost 4 to 1 (and over 5 to 1 for the 90's) in every decade since 1960.

 

The dedication to Marvel comics became so complete in the 1980's that you would literally have people who bought every book Marvel printed, but wouldn't come within 10 feet of a DC (or any other company.)

 

As a result, since the 1960's, Marvels have outperformed every other company as back issues by very wide margins. A quick comparison of the top keys of the 1970's and 1980's will reveal this. In fact, outside of independent books that had "non-standard" print runs, 9 of the 10 most valuable regular 9.8 comic books from the 1980's are MARVELS:

 

Daredevil #168 - $744

Star Wars #107 - $665

Amazing Spiderman #300 - $648

GI Joe #21 - $521

X-Men #129 - $459

Star Wars #68 - $400 (last sale 10/09)

X-Men #130 - $313

Incredible Hulk #345 - $283 (last sale 7/09)

Amazing Spiderman #301 - $275 (last sale 12/09)

Green Lantern #141 - $246 (last sale 7/09)

X-Men #131 - $231

Justice League #3 Variant - $237 (last sale 5/09)

 

Source: GPA 90 day averages

 

(If anyone has any others they know of, please let me know.)

 

The only DC representative in the top 10 most valuable? Green Lantern #141, which has a measly 3 copies in 9.8. If GL #141 had 25 copies in 9.8, it would be a $40 book at best.

 

A similar review of the 70's would reveal much the same thing, with the exceptions being, interestingly enough, DC books published in 1971 or before (keeping in mind that a 2-3/72 cover date meant a book published in 1971.)

 

Even the once mighty Batman #426-428 have fallen heavily in the last year, and now average about $75-$160 each. The formerly powerhouse Watchmen have all plummeted (for obvious reasons.)

 

What makes these numbers even MORE astonishing? There are 25 copies of Batman #428 in 9.8. It, #426, and #427 are genuinely very difficult books to find in 9.8, and always will be. Yet #428's last sale was for $155 (off Heritage), and that sale was to ME! If I hadn't bid, it would have ended for less.

 

Amazing Spiderman #300, on the other hand, has a whopping 251 regular CGC 9.8s...or TEN TIMES the amount that Batman #428 has....and a copy just sold today for $626. There are TEN TIMES the amount of 9.8 Spidey #300s available over Batman #428, yet it still sells for four times MORE than Batman #428.

 

This is the same across the board.

 

Wolverine limited #1 has the highest 9.8 census count of the entire 1980's, at 987 regular 9.8s, plus 46 sig series. Not counting resubs (not likely at 9.8) or crossovers to SS, it's probably a safe bet to say there are at least 1,000 unique copies of Wolverine #1 in a CGC 9.8 slab of some sort.

 

There are, as mentioned, 25 copies of Batman #428 in standard 9.8, with 1 SS copy. That means that there are nearly 40 times the amount of Wolverine #1s as there are Batman #428s...yet they sell for about the same, with Wolvie edging Bats out.

 

"Well, there's no financial incentive to slab DCs" one might argue.

 

Not so! Back in early 2008, a Batman #428 sold for nearly $1,000 in 9.8! The 2008 average price was $594. The 2009 average price was $262. Not bad for a book that usually sells for $2-$15 raw. So there was PLENTY of financial incentive for clowns like Jesperson and Henn (ya know I love ya!)...and myself...to find these and slab them...but the population only went from 7 in March of 2008 to 26 in March of 2010. Why? Well, the books are GENUINELY difficult to find in 9.8 (because they are all black covers, front to back, which shows every flaw like a spotlight, and so are graded more harshly.) I, personally, subbed 8 of the 28 copies of #427 on the census, and 4 of the #428. And this is from a source with 50+ copies of each book, obtained over nearly two decades.

 

And yet, far from maintaining a $500-$600 average, like one might expect from such a low population, popular MARVEL title, the prices plummeted (please note...even the once $3K GI Joe #21 still sells for an average oif $500..and has 31 total copies on the census.)

 

It's not possible for Batman #426-428 to have census numbers like Wolvie #1, or even Amazing Spiderman #300...first, because I don't believe there are more than 100-150 such copies left "in the wild"...and second, because even a doubling in the population, say to 50-60 of each, would cause the books to tumble below the point where it is worth it to slab....a point not even close to being reached by either Wolvie #1 or Spidey #300.

 

So are DC's more rare than Marvels of the time period in 9.8? Yes, absolutely. Without a doubt. By orders of magnitude more rare.

 

But are Marvels astronomically more popular from that same time period?

 

By far.

 

PS. If Turtles #1 and Albedo #2 had the print run of, say, a Spidey #252...they'd be worthless.

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Juswuh

Juswuh

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i have to say those are pretty unassuming covers, especially for the 1st darkseid. btw, old topic, but dark seed or dark side (pronouncation-wise?)

 

"Dark-seed" (which would be a pretty good name) would be spelt Darksied.

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