Price Variant Club 31 31

[ShieldAgent]

No.. they were all low grade beaters.( unlike the astonishing tales you beat me to by 51 seconds the other night) nice book...so you actaully paid the outragous prices Goldman wants for his 35 centers??

500 bucks for a Captain america falling apart 35 cnter?? little high if you ask me

 

 

 

 

there you go again.

 

the ones I bought were in the Fine to Very Fine range with great eye appeal, and no real defects in the $40 to $60 range. This was also 2 years or so ago.

[JerryZ]

Now who rude here?? blah blah I just looked at his low grade beaters and the were 2-5 hundred bucks last show ..i was there and saw for myself..He has nothing for less then 200 bucks

 

I tell you what,,, I have on the way back from cgc

 

Avengers 164 35 center 9.4 Highest graded and

Fantastic Four 183 9.6 35 center Highest as well

 

thell be for sale if you need em

 

 

[FlyingDonut]

Not to toot our horn too much here, but the people on this thread - and at the STL boards - probably are the leading experts in the hobby on this little arcane bit of comic history. I have a full set of 30 centersm as do ShieldAgent, Canickus, and SilverandBronze (any others?). Cosmic-Spider-Man has a full set of 35 centers, and ShieldAgent is very close.

 

I've been reporting sales to Overstreet on variants for 10 years, and others here have as well.

 

Grand Rapids was one of the 30 cent variant test markets, as was Baltimore, as Harry said. If you're in Michigan, that's why you're seeing a lot of 30 centers.

 

I have found a bunch of 35 centers "in the wild", most recently Iron Man 100 at a little show here. Stuff is out there, but you really have to box dive for them. I found maybe 40 35 centers at a store in Gallatin, TN, in 2004, that was my one huge score. That, and this, which came with the Star Wars 1 35 center that is now on the census as one of the two 9.4s:

 

 

This letter was the "proof" that Marvel test marketed the books in six cities.

[canickus]

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.

[ShieldAgent]

 

thell be for sale if you need em

 

 

No thank you. My copies are good enough.

 

You have now cleared up another question though.

 

Sad, cause I was hoping you were a variant collector.

 

 

[JerryZ]

Good info..I know its gotta be hard to complete a set of those either of them..im not an expert and dont claim to be..The site you mention is very cool and informative as well

 

Isee guys who have these variants priced WAAAY over book

 

Ill use ebay as an example..

super villain team up 550 bux..8.5?? i dont get it..

 

What am i missing? so what do i price mine at??

[canickus]

Not to toot our horn too much here, but the people on this thread - and at the STL boards - probably are the leading experts in the hobby on this little arcane bit of comic history. I have a full set of 30 centersm as do ShieldAgent, Canickus, and SilverandBronze (any others?). Cosmic-Spider-Man has a full set of 35 centers, and ShieldAgent is very close.

 

I've been reporting sales to Overstreet on variants for 10 years, and others here have as well.

 

Grand Rapids was one of the 30 cent variant test markets, as was Baltimore, as Harry said. If you're in Michigan, that's why you're seeing a lot of 30 centers.

 

I have found a bunch of 35 centers "in the wild", most recently Iron Man 100 at a little show here. Stuff is out there, but you really have to box dive for them. I found maybe 40 35 centers at a store in Gallatin, TN, in 2004, that was my one huge score. That, and this, which came with the Star Wars 1 35 center that is now on the census as one of the two 9.4s:

 

 

This letter was the "proof" that Marvel test marketed the books in six cities.

 

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.

[ShieldAgent]

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.

 

My best guess is that the 35 center print runs were 1/4 to 1/3 the size of the 30 cent runs.

 

could be even worse than that. we may never know for sure.

[ShieldAgent]

Not to toot our horn too much here, but the people on this thread - and at the STL boards - probably are the leading experts in the hobby on this little arcane bit of comic history. I have a full set of 30 centersm as do ShieldAgent, Canickus, and SilverandBronze (any others?). Cosmic-Spider-Man has a full set of 35 centers, and ShieldAgent is very close.

 

I've been reporting sales to Overstreet on variants for 10 years, and others here have as well.

 

Grand Rapids was one of the 30 cent variant test markets, as was Baltimore, as Harry said. If you're in Michigan, that's why you're seeing a lot of 30 centers.

 

I have found a bunch of 35 centers "in the wild", most recently Iron Man 100 at a little show here. Stuff is out there, but you really have to box dive for them. I found maybe 40 35 centers at a store in Gallatin, TN, in 2004, that was my one huge score. That, and this, which came with the Star Wars 1 35 center that is now on the census as one of the two 9.4s:

 

 

This letter was the "proof" that Marvel test marketed the books in six cities.

 

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.

 

I wish someone knew and would share the information.

[ShieldAgent]

I have a full set of 30 centersm as do ShieldAgent, Canickus, and SilverandBronze (any others?). Cosmic-Spider-Man has a full set of 35 centers, and ShieldAgent is very close.

 

FD-

 

Sandro finished the 30 centers, and we cannot forget Darth and Metarog.

[ShieldAgent]

I have a full set of 30 centersm as do ShieldAgent, Canickus, and SilverandBronze (any others?). Cosmic-Spider-Man has a full set of 35 centers, and ShieldAgent is very close.

 

FD-

 

Sandro finished the 30 centers, and we cannot forget Darth and Metarog.

 

Cosmic only needs a few and I know one hoarder that is two books away from a second set of 30 centers...

[canickus]

Ill use ebay as an example..

super villain team up 550 bux..8.5?? i dont get it..

 

What am i missing? so what do i price mine at??

 

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.

 

 

 

[JerryZ]

So you think a straight ebay auction will be better then Comiclink to sell them??

 

I was just using that as an example I saw and thought WOW thats a bit high for that title..

 

But what do i know..Your advice in this is much appreciated as imsure you have sold these in the past

 

Thanks

JZ

[canickus]

So you think a straight ebay auction will be better then Comiclink to sell them??

 

I was just using that as an example I saw and thought WOW thats a bit high for that title..

 

But what do i know..Your advice in this is much appreciated as imsure you have sold these in the past

 

Thanks

JZ

 

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.

 

[cosmic-spider-man]

Nice to see some discusion in this thread again, it sure would be nice if someone that worked in Marketing at Marvel back in 1976 & 1977 would come on here with some answers but I guess that will never happen.

 

I to think that Letter FD has is super Cool. (thumbs u

[HighVoltage]

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.

 

My best guess is that the 35 center print runs were 1/4 to 1/3 the size of the 30 cent runs.

 

could be even worse than that. we may never know for sure.

 

I don't often chime in here, but I love the Marvel price variants. I've kept all my 30-centers & have had a lot of fun diving through my collection - especially when I first became aware of them through some of Dan's info back in the day (thanks Dan!!).

 

Regarding print runs on these books: I believe the 30 centers are much more prevalent and they could indeed be 3 to 4 times more common than the 35-centers. I would speculate that the print runs were probably pretty dang low, but no way in heck would they be single or double-digit print runs (mostly talking about the 35-centers here). The web presses that are used wouldn't even slow down enough to print a quantity that low. Just as a guess, the 30-centers could have had runs of 1% of the circulation of the respective book - as a plate-change on the back end of the run. This would be something like 2,000 copies of a decent Bronze-Age Marvel book. The 35-centers may have been in the 500-1,000 copy range. Anything lower than that - it just wouldn't have been cost-effective to even run the plate change. And if anything, Marvel has traditionally been know as being pretty tight with the purse-strings.

[joe_collector]

35 cent variants are a different animal. They are difficult to spot, especially in digital pictures and crappy ebay scans. The perception is that they are much more rare. But I ask, who is actually looking for these things???

 

I've looked for these price variants for years on EBay, and went hog-wild from about 1999-2004 or so and I can say without reservation that the 35-cent variants are exponentially rarer than their 30-cent counterpart.

 

It's not even open to discussion, and I've probably received more 30-centers in random lots (sight unseen) than 35-centers that I've searched on purpose for and bought.

 

That goes totally against your logic, since 30-centers are easier to spot and shouldn't just be included with generic lots or issue runs, right?

[Metarog]

Great discussion over here... been a long time. As many have said we may never know the specifics as to the print runs of variants as this information is well over 30 years old and who knows if accurate records where even kept. We do know there was a collection from Wilmington, NC (IIRC) that had about 100 35 cent variants but that is one of or the only BIG find I can think of.

 

I think what SA is saying is not that 30 centers are as rare as 35 centers so much as saying that the difficult nature of finding them as unidentified variants on E-bay skews the rarity some. I live and travel all over Florida and have been looking for these variants since 2003 and I have only found 4 35 cent variants and 2 30 centers while searching about 80% of the comic shops in the state. That is a very small sample but I think in this case the "normal" looking nature of the 35 centers probably worked in my favor.

 

 

 

 

[HighVoltage]

Great discussion over here... been a long time. As many have said we may never know the specifics as to the print runs of variants as this information is well over 30 years old and who knows if accurate records where even kept. We do know there was a collection from Wilmington, NC (IIRC) that had about 100 35 cent variants but that is one of or the only BIG find I can think of.

 

I think what SA is saying is not that 30 centers are as rare as 35 centers so much as saying that the difficult nature of finding them as unidentified variants on E-bay skews the rarity some. I live and travel all over Florida and have been looking for these variants since 2003 and I have only found 4 35 cent variants and 2 30 centers while searching about 80% of the comic shops in the state. That is a very small sample but I think in this case the "normal" looking nature of the 35 centers probably worked in my favor.

 

I've never found a 35-cent variant while searching through long-boxes in comic stores. I found 4 in my collection after I read Dan's info, and I admit that I capitalized on them - had them slabbed and sold them on the the 'Bay - in fact, they were probably some of the first slabbed 35-centers sold. I have found several 30-cent variants in stores, but the pickings have become considerably slimmer since Overstreet broke them out a few years ago. I found dozens of them in my collection after finding out about them - and most were the common ones for sure...

[ShieldAgent]

35 cent variants are a different animal. They are difficult to spot, especially in digital pictures and crappy ebay scans. The perception is that they are much more rare. But I ask, who is actually looking for these things???

 

I've looked for these price variants for years on EBay, and went hog-wild from about 1999-2004 or so and I can say without reservation that the 35-cent variants are exponentially rarer than their 30-cent counterpart.

 

It's not even open to discussion, and I've probably received more 30-centers in random lots (sight unseen) than 35-centers that I've searched on purpose for and bought.

 

That goes totally against your logic, since 30-centers are easier to spot and shouldn't just be included with generic lots or issue runs, right?

 

you are right, it is hard to discuss the statements you made above. I know you are one of the original variant hunters, and were way ahead of the curve. That said, I will take your word that you have bought random lots that had 30 cent variants in it. All I can tell you is that random shot has never happened to me, I know when a lot has variants prior to pulling the trigger. I have bought lots with 30 centers. The average ebay seller does not know or care about variants, they just want to get rid of the comics.

 

Like I said before, I have no doubt that the 35 cent variants are more rare than 30 cent variants. I also think the test of time will continue to support this.