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Comprehensive List of DC Universe Logo UPC Variants
18 18

Started by revat,

2,162 posts in this topic

RockMyAmadeus

RockMyAmadeus

Posted
Posted
The only problem with the stickers is that they CAN be taken off and placed on other books.

 

Very true. But if you were lucky enough to find the sticker, I can't figure out why you would take it off one comic book and put the sticker on a different comic book.

 

The thing I've wondered is whether nor not someone could figure out a way to make those stickers. Probably not likely since there's really not much demand for these DC Universe variants to warrant the trouble of trying to make exact replicas of these stickers (I've rarely seen anyone crazy enough to pay a huge premium for them except for me). Perhaps the CGC should use carbon dating to figure out the age of the sticker (just kidding!)

 

 

Like any sort of "add on" to a book, if the book itself became valuable because of that add-on, the unscrupulous would certainly attempt to switch stickers from a more common book to a rare one.

 

I would like to know why DC felt the need to sticker these books in the first place. Of course, the books were designed to be part of (discounted) packs, and they didn't want the same problem that occurred with the 70's 2- and 3-packs, whereby retailers were accidentally scanning the one book as the price for the whole pack, but since many of them seem to have been made *only* for the boxed packs, which had universally covered UPC areas, the sticker seems unnecessary.

 

hm

 

It would appear that there are very few known examples of stickered books for any of these examples. If these are the only four known books, with possibly single examples (or maybe two) of each known to collectors of these things, then it wouldn't be worthwhile to potentially damage the book or the sticker to try to manipulate anything. At best it would be a lateral move. I'd be much more concerned with potential counterfeits (because they are pretty simple designs and fairly rough printing quality) than removing legit stickers to place on other books.

 

I am also curious about the rationale for the stickers. My guess is that they may have needed some additional books to round out some of the multi-packs, so rather than go back to print on covers with the DC Universe logo they may have simply taken some regular printings and placed stickers on them. I suspect that this could have been some form of inventory control, similar to printing "not for retail sale" on some things, to prevent retailers from buying discounted multipacks and then reselling the books inside at cover price. But that is pure speculation on my part.

 

I think you have the right idea here. I don't believe any of the known stickered DCU's came from 20 packs. The last 20-pack was for issues dated Nov 1994 and the 4 known stickered DCU's were dated after Nov 1994. That leads me to believe they came from boxed sets or two packs. My stickered Superman 104 DCU actually came from a sealed boxed set (i.e., Superman's Greatest Foes) that I opened myself. I don't know why DC felt the need to place the sticker on the boxed copy since the sticker doesn't show through the box (and interestingly, it was the only stickered comic book among the 6 comic books in that boxed set). Maybe the stickers were placed on there because those comic books could be sold in either boxed sets or two packs (the UPC codes are visible in the two packs and would therefore need to be covered up)

 

For whatever it is worth, the sticker on my Superman 104 covers a newsstand UPC. The sticker on my Detective 690 and SM MOS 42 covers a direct sales UPC.

 

I don't know what possesses me to care about these things, but DC also produced stickers to cover some errors on newsstand bar codes. In case you didn't see my posting on that, you can see it in the following link:

 

http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=9240642#Post9240642

 

If anything, I would suspect the stickers were for the carded 2- and 3-packs, which would make sense.

 

 

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mysterio

mysterio

Posted
Posted (edited)
The only problem with the stickers is that they CAN be taken off and placed on other books.

 

Very true. But if you were lucky enough to find the sticker, I can't figure out why you would take it off one comic book and put the sticker on a different comic book.

 

The thing I've wondered is whether nor not someone could figure out a way to make those stickers. Probably not likely since there's really not much demand for these DC Universe variants to warrant the trouble of trying to make exact replicas of these stickers (I've rarely seen anyone crazy enough to pay a huge premium for them except for me). Perhaps the CGC should use carbon dating to figure out the age of the sticker (just kidding!)

 

 

Like any sort of "add on" to a book, if the book itself became valuable because of that add-on, the unscrupulous would certainly attempt to switch stickers from a more common book to a rare one.

 

I would like to know why DC felt the need to sticker these books in the first place. Of course, the books were designed to be part of (discounted) packs, and they didn't want the same problem that occurred with the 70's 2- and 3-packs, whereby retailers were accidentally scanning the one book as the price for the whole pack, but since many of them seem to have been made *only* for the boxed packs, which had universally covered UPC areas, the sticker seems unnecessary.

 

hm

 

It would appear that there are very few known examples of stickered books for any of these examples. If these are the only four known books, with possibly single examples (or maybe two) of each known to collectors of these things, then it wouldn't be worthwhile to potentially damage the book or the sticker to try to manipulate anything. At best it would be a lateral move. I'd be much more concerned with potential counterfeits (because they are pretty simple designs and fairly rough printing quality) than removing legit stickers to place on other books.

 

I am also curious about the rationale for the stickers. My guess is that they may have needed some additional books to round out some of the multi-packs, so rather than go back to print on covers with the DC Universe logo they may have simply taken some regular printings and placed stickers on them. I suspect that this could have been some form of inventory control, similar to printing "not for retail sale" on some things, to prevent retailers from buying discounted multipacks and then reselling the books inside at cover price. But that is pure speculation on my part.

 

I think you have the right idea here. I don't believe any of the known stickered DCU's came from 20 packs. The last 20-pack was for issues dated Nov 1994 and the 4 known stickered DCU's were dated after Nov 1994. That leads me to believe they came from boxed sets or two packs. My stickered Superman 104 DCU actually came from a sealed boxed set (i.e., Superman's Greatest Foes) that I opened myself. I don't know why DC felt the need to place the sticker on the boxed copy since the sticker doesn't show through the box (and interestingly, it was the only stickered comic book among the 6 comic books in that boxed set). Maybe the stickers were placed on there because those comic books could be sold in either boxed sets or two packs (the UPC codes are visible in the two packs and would therefore need to be covered up)

 

For whatever it is worth, the sticker on my Superman 104 covers a newsstand UPC. The sticker on my Detective 690 and SM MOS 42 covers a direct sales UPC.

 

I don't know what possesses me to care about these things, but DC also produced stickers to cover some errors on newsstand bar codes. In case you didn't see my posting on that, you can see it in the following link:

 

http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=9240642#Post9240642

 

If anything, I would suspect the stickers were for the carded 2- and 3-packs, which would make sense.

 

 

But if they were also showing up in the box sets, like the one CptKirk found his in (example below), then the stickers weren't protecting any bar codes even if they were on the very top comic. Why go through the trouble of stickering books that couldn't possibly need a bar code covered to prevent a misprice at checkout?

 

To test the theory we would need to know how the books were distributed, and if a particular issue would only see distribution in one way (i.e. in boxed sets or in shrinkwrapped 2-3 packs). If an issue could be distributed in either way, then a sticker may make sense. But if that Superman #104 was only ever available in a boxed set then the UPC couldn't possibly get scanned. It also doesn't explain his other examples of a DCU sticker over a direct sales box. Those latter examples would seem to fit better with the "preventing retailers from reselling" theory.

 

I'll see if I can check my Green Lantern book to see what the sticker is covering up. EDIT: It is covering a barcode.

 

SupermanBoxSet.jpg

Edited by mysterio
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mysterio

mysterio

Posted
Posted

I've got a question for those of you that have been hunting these variants for a while. Does Action #695 have embossed and unembossed versions of the variant, or are the variants only unembossed? A friend I was boxdiving with this past weekend asked me, and while I suspect they are only the unembossed version I am also not 100% sure...

 

Action695.jpg

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RockMyAmadeus

RockMyAmadeus

Posted
Posted
The only problem with the stickers is that they CAN be taken off and placed on other books.

 

Very true. But if you were lucky enough to find the sticker, I can't figure out why you would take it off one comic book and put the sticker on a different comic book.

 

The thing I've wondered is whether nor not someone could figure out a way to make those stickers. Probably not likely since there's really not much demand for these DC Universe variants to warrant the trouble of trying to make exact replicas of these stickers (I've rarely seen anyone crazy enough to pay a huge premium for them except for me). Perhaps the CGC should use carbon dating to figure out the age of the sticker (just kidding!)

 

 

Like any sort of "add on" to a book, if the book itself became valuable because of that add-on, the unscrupulous would certainly attempt to switch stickers from a more common book to a rare one.

 

I would like to know why DC felt the need to sticker these books in the first place. Of course, the books were designed to be part of (discounted) packs, and they didn't want the same problem that occurred with the 70's 2- and 3-packs, whereby retailers were accidentally scanning the one book as the price for the whole pack, but since many of them seem to have been made *only* for the boxed packs, which had universally covered UPC areas, the sticker seems unnecessary.

 

hm

 

It would appear that there are very few known examples of stickered books for any of these examples. If these are the only four known books, with possibly single examples (or maybe two) of each known to collectors of these things, then it wouldn't be worthwhile to potentially damage the book or the sticker to try to manipulate anything. At best it would be a lateral move. I'd be much more concerned with potential counterfeits (because they are pretty simple designs and fairly rough printing quality) than removing legit stickers to place on other books.

 

I am also curious about the rationale for the stickers. My guess is that they may have needed some additional books to round out some of the multi-packs, so rather than go back to print on covers with the DC Universe logo they may have simply taken some regular printings and placed stickers on them. I suspect that this could have been some form of inventory control, similar to printing "not for retail sale" on some things, to prevent retailers from buying discounted multipacks and then reselling the books inside at cover price. But that is pure speculation on my part.

 

I think you have the right idea here. I don't believe any of the known stickered DCU's came from 20 packs. The last 20-pack was for issues dated Nov 1994 and the 4 known stickered DCU's were dated after Nov 1994. That leads me to believe they came from boxed sets or two packs. My stickered Superman 104 DCU actually came from a sealed boxed set (i.e., Superman's Greatest Foes) that I opened myself. I don't know why DC felt the need to place the sticker on the boxed copy since the sticker doesn't show through the box (and interestingly, it was the only stickered comic book among the 6 comic books in that boxed set). Maybe the stickers were placed on there because those comic books could be sold in either boxed sets or two packs (the UPC codes are visible in the two packs and would therefore need to be covered up)

 

For whatever it is worth, the sticker on my Superman 104 covers a newsstand UPC. The sticker on my Detective 690 and SM MOS 42 covers a direct sales UPC.

 

I don't know what possesses me to care about these things, but DC also produced stickers to cover some errors on newsstand bar codes. In case you didn't see my posting on that, you can see it in the following link:

 

http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=9240642#Post9240642

 

If anything, I would suspect the stickers were for the carded 2- and 3-packs, which would make sense.

 

 

But if they were also showing up in the box sets, like the one CptKirk found his in (example below), then the stickers weren't protecting any bar codes even if they were on the very top comic. Why go through the trouble of stickering books that couldn't possibly need a bar code covered to prevent a misprice at checkout?

 

That's what I was saying originally....it doesn't make sense to sticker books that were bound for boxes, because the boxes were made in such a way as to obscure the books...BUT...it could be that these weren't specifically earmarked for boxes, but could have gone to boxes or 2- and 3-packs, so they added stickers just to be safe.

 

That's just speculation, but I've opened quite a few boxes, and haven't seen any stickered books come out...not that they can't, but I haven't seen them. DC, with their various reprintings of these books, seems to have used these as a sort of "clearing house" for unsold stock, putting some together in specific storyline boxes like the above, or just randomly making 2- and 3-packs based on what was on hand.

 

To test the theory we would need to know how the books were distributed, and if a particular issue would only see distribution in one way (i.e. in boxed sets or in shrinkwrapped 2-3 packs). If an issue could be distributed in either way, then a sticker may make sense. But if that Superman #104 was only ever available in a boxed set then the UPC couldn't possibly get scanned.

 

It seems much more likely that the random books were put in 2- and 3-packs, and would need to be stickered as a result. The "storyline" books (and Superman #104 doesn't seem to be one of those) would have been more likely to get the box treatment.

 

It also doesn't explain his other examples of a DCU sticker over a direct sales box. Those latter examples would seem to fit better with the "preventing retailers from reselling" theory.

 

I think it does make sense, in a way, which would be "hey, we'd like to do a "Batman" pack, do we have any copies of any issues on hand?

 

It would also depend, of course, on what Diamond, Capital, and the others before the Diamond takeover, would have 1. had access to, and 2. been willing to send to wherever these packs were being assembled....if they were even getting TO the distributors (which could be a big if.) Frankly, they could have been stored in one of Quebecor's warehouses on Montreal.

 

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Cpt Kirk

Cpt Kirk

Posted
Posted

 

I've got a question for those of you that have been hunting these variants for a while. Does Action #695 have embossed and unembossed versions of the variant, or are the variants only unembossed? A friend I was boxdiving with this past weekend asked me, and while I suspect they are only the unembossed version I am also not 100% sure...

 

Action695.jpg

 

 

The only DC Universe variant of Action 695 that we know of is the un-embossed version like the one shown in your photo.

 

For whatever it is worth, it looks like the embossed version also got stickered and sold at news stands (makes sense to me, since Superman was selling like crazy at the time due to the death of Superman story). Following is a link that shows the stickered newsstand version of the Action 695.

 

http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=8602705

 

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mysterio

mysterio

Posted
Posted

I've got a question for those of you that have been hunting these variants for a while. Does Action #695 have embossed and unembossed versions of the variant, or are the variants only unembossed? A friend I was boxdiving with this past weekend asked me, and while I suspect they are only the unembossed version I am also not 100% sure...

 

Action695.jpg

 

 

The only DC Universe variant of Action 695 that we know of is the un-embossed version like the one shown in your photo.

 

For whatever it is worth, it looks like the embossed version also got stickered and sold at news stands (makes sense to me, since Superman was selling like crazy at the time due to the death of Superman story). Following is a link that shows the stickered newsstand version of the Action 695.

 

http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=8602705

 

Thank you!

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21Pittsburgh58

21Pittsburgh58

Posted
Posted (edited)

I went to one of my local LCS' that has really good back order stock thinking I'd find a ton of them. Wrong. But I did find a Wonder Woman #86 Bolland cover DC Universe Logo, so it was worth it. Great cover! There was a Catwoman one but it wasn't in very good condition.

 

What I did notice is that some of the cover art for this time frame is atrocious! I'll never have them all anyway, but there are a lot I wouldn't want for my collection at all.

 

The Wonder Woman 86 Bolland cover is a HUGE exception. That's not going anywhere :)

 

Edit: I did stumble across a Legionnaires 16 (early Hughes) in my boxes so that was awesome as well.

Edited by 21Pittsburgh58
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21Pittsburgh58

21Pittsburgh58

Posted
Posted

I also want to say thank you for this thread! It gives me something else to look out for when I go through long boxes :)

 

It was fun to look through books that I haven't seen before. I got back into the hobby in 2013 after a hiatus of those dastardly 90's. Yes, I was one of the baseball card kids that got into comics. No, I was not one of the smart ones that bought NM87's or NM98's. lol

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Warlord

Warlord

Posted
Posted
LIST OF DC Universe UPC Variant Comics Updated 10/5/15

 

:news: Added Looney Tunes 15, Flash 94

 

Action Comics 684 3rd print, 686 2nd print, 695-705 (2 versions of 700), 707-710 , 712-715, 718, 722-726

 

Adventures Superman 498 4th print, 499 3rd print, 508-520, 522, 524-529, 531-532, 535-540, Annual 8

 

Animaniacs 1, 2, 4-7, 9-10, 15, 16, 18, Christmas 1

 

Aquaman 1, 3, 5-9, 21-24

 

Aquaman: Time & Tide 1-3

 

Azrael 15, 16, 19, 20, 22

 

Batman 503-512, 514-524 (515 has two versions), 526-527, 529, 531 (2 versions)-535,

 

Batman Annual 13, 20

 

Batman Adventures 17, 18, 33, 35-36

 

Batman Chronicles # 4

 

Batman & Robin Adventures 1, 3, 4, 7, 8

 

Batman Legends Dark Knight 62-63

 

Batman: Shadow of the Bat 25, 29, 30, 35, 38 ,48, 49, 52-57

 

Catwoman 5-7, 9, 11-13, 15, 17, 18 31, 32, 36, Annual 2

 

Damage 0

 

DC vs Marvel #1, 4

 

Detective Comics 670-691 (675 and 682 have 2 versions), 694-704,

 

Detective Comics Annual 8-9

 

Flash 86-102, 104, 109-110, 114-115, 117

 

Final night 1-4

 

Green Lantern # 36, 47-56 (51 has 1st and 2nd print), 58, 59, 61, 63-68, 70, 75-77, 79-81 (2 versions of 81),

 

Green Arrow 110-111

 

Guy Gardner 15-17

 

Impulse 3, 10, 14-16

 

Justice League International 60-63, 67

 

Justice League of America 69 4th print 84-93, 95, 97-99, 107-108, 112

 

Justice League Task Force 7, 17, 19, 20, 22, 23, 32

 

Legionnaires 10, 12, 16, 19, 21-22, 25-26, 29, 33

 

Looney Tunes 2-6, 8, 12-15

 

Nightwing 1, 2

 

Pinky & Brain 1

 

Parallax: Emerald Night # 1

 

Power of Shazam 1-4, 12, 16-17, 19

 

Robin 3-9, 11, 13-22, 25, 27-28, 31-35

 

Robin Annual 4-5

 

Showcase '94 1-10

 

Sovereign Seven 1

 

Steel 1-9, 11-15, 17, 23, 24, 28-29, 31

 

Superboy 1-9, 11-16, 20, 23-24, 29-30, 32, Annual 3

Superboy and the Ravers 1-2

 

Supergirl (1994) #1-4

Supergirl (1996) #2-4

 

Superman 74 4th print, 77 3rd print, 85-96, 98-106, 108-109, 114-116, 118

 

Superman Annual 6, 8

 

Superman Man Steel 18 5th print, 19 3rd print, 20 2nd print, 29-38, 40-49, 52-53, 57-60, Annual 3

 

Superman: The Man Of Tomorrow # 1, 5

 

Superman Doomsday: Hunter/Prey 1-3

 

Superman Wedding 1 (2 versions)

 

Superman Toyman 1

 

Sovereign Seven # 1

 

Where in the World is Carmen San Diego? #1

 

Wonder Woman 82, 84-93, 96-98, 101, 106

 

You have Sovereign Seven #1 on the list twice.

 

Also the list contains Batman Annual #13 and #20. #13 is from 1989 so that must be incorrect. #s 18 through 20 would be 1994 through 1996 so those seem to be the likely numbers to have DCU variants. Can anyone confirm the correct issues for the Batman Annual DCUs?

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revat

revat

Posted
  • Author
Posted

I'll take off one of the sovereign sevens. I can assure you the annual batmans are right. I've bought and sold at least three copies of annual 13

 

 

And we have some very serious bat collectors who have confirmed 20

 

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Warlord

Warlord

Posted
Posted
I'll take off one of the sovereign sevens. I can assure you the annual batmans are right. I've bought and sold at least three copies of annual 13

 

 

And we have some very serious bat collectors who have confirmed 20

 

Thanks for the confirm. :applause:

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Martin Sinescu

Martin Sinescu

Posted
Posted
Batman Annual 13 was offered in the Batman's Greatest Foes 4-pack Collector's Set, so that's probably where the DCU variant originated.

 

Good to know. What other issues were in that BGF 4-pack set?

 

'Tec Annual 8, Catwoman Annual 2 and LOTDK 50. 2 of the 3 are on the DCU list, with the exception being LOTDK 50, which is a shame because that would be an awesome variant.

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