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Modern Comics - Exactly HOW MANY HG Copies Out There??

Started by 14 of spades,

52 posts in this topic

vic6string

vic6string

Posted
Posted

I don't think that the biggest problem is higher print runs...they had some pretty huge runs in the 70s and even in the sixties. The difference is that from the mid 80s on, it seems like almost every book went straight from the shelf to a mylar or at least a bag and board. Even 8 yr olds would buy two copies of stuff, one to read and one to put away. And as for the number of buyers willing to pay a huge premium for super high grade...they are a tiny portion of the collecting world. A book like Wolverine mini #1 that people have been buying for years at 30 bucks will not get the 200 dollars it is currently getting in 9.8 because there will be too many people willing to live with a 9.4-9.6 (which are much better condition than what most people have been calling mint for years) at 30 bucks. And I am another believer that there are definately over 1000 9.6 or better ASM 300s, but most will never see a slab because of the price of slabbing and the risk involved.

 

If you are looking at investments in the modern age, stick to the super-low print runs of books with comback potential like TMNT and the pre-unity Valiant stuff.

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dam60

dam60

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Yes! Yes! Pre-Unity Valiants are AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

True that about even 8 year olds buying an "investment" copy. When I was 11(???) I bought 10 copies of Deathlok #1. At $17.50 that was a big investment! grin.gif Still have 'em all too, although I think I would have been better off burying the money in the sand! tongue.gif Good read though . . .

 

DAM

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valiantman

valiantman

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What are pre-Unity Valiants?

 

Basically, they're just what they sound like...

Valiant Comics that came out before Unity...

 

So...what is Unity? Luckily, that's already been answered online:

http://www.valiantcomics.com/valiant/whatisunity.asp

 

The Unity Crossover (in 1992) added lots of readers for Valiant Comics

and sent the earlier issues through the secondary-market roof!

 

Obviously, Valiant Comics learned to print more copies of their books,

as soon as the 1992-1993 money started rolling in...

so Valiant Comics quickly became "bargain bin books" for 1993 or later issues.

 

Investment wise, today the pre-Unity Valiants (1991-early1992) have it all...

Low print runs (25,000 to 80,000 copies)

Great Stories - (like Solar: Alpha & Omega)

Great Art - (Barry Windsor-Smith, etc.)

The "Nostalgia Factor" - all those kids who wanted them but couldn't afford them.

Current "Cheap" Prices - $50 to $100 in the early 1990s, but now $2 to $20 each.

Completability - there are only 70 books that count as "Pre-Unity" or "Unity" Valiants.

 

No matter what your "favorite comics" are...a pre-Unity Valiant collection is a

fun collection "on the side"... 70 great books that were once highly-sought-after.

http://www.valiantcomics.com/valiant/gal-covers.asp

 

Oh, and did I mention the growing fan base active at http://www.valiantcomics.com ? grin.gif

 

:::END COMMERCIAL:::

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dam60

dam60

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Dotcomfool is the one to talk to - he and I pm'ed a few weeks back and he is not only the moderator of the site, but has some great Valiants!

 

If I had to pick between story or art, I would have to pick story. That's the essence of the comic for me, but the art really brings the story to life. I loved the great stories in the Valiant universe. X-O is my personal favorite, but I have a nice little run of Bloodshot (kind of like the Punisher, but I thought he was a lot cooler. Part man, part machine!) and want to get a few Rais and Magnus. Heck, I might even get all the pre-Unity books one day. I do have a full run of Unity and it was really great reading. Valiant also had such cool issues - they had a Shadowman comic (18 I think) guest starring Aerosmith. As lame as it could have turned out, it was actually a great book. Then Archer & Armstrong / Eternal Warrior #8 turned out to be a play on the three musketeers, really fun stuff.

 

One of my personal favorites is X-O 14 & 15 where he teams up with Turok to battle Dinosaurs in the NYC sewers. Really fun and incredible art by Bart Sears.

 

Regarding "collectibility" I like X-O, Rai, and Bloodshot but for the most part all he early stuff is a fun read. I didn't buy X-O past 50 as that's when I thought it really started to go south, but have finished the run in the last year and read issue 68, the last issue. Creative ending reminiscent of the early days . . .

 

Whew! Sorry for the rant!

 

DAM

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vic6string

vic6string

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If you are looking investment-wise on the Valiants, the first few issues of Rai have ridiculously low print runs, as do the first few Harbingers. But X-O and Shadowman (and maybe Solar) are the 3 characters I feel have the best potential to be picked up by some other company someday, which would make the early Valiant issues very sought after. When Valiant hit it big, people found out that Magnus and Solar were actually silver age characters, and their old Gold Key comics shot through the roof.

 

I can also add one more thing that Unity was: it was what Marvel and DC have wanted to achieve for years and never been able to do. Crisis, Zero Hour, Onslaught, Infinity Gauntlet...etc... Unity was the ultimate crossover that perfectly linked ALL of the books in the Valiant universe. After that, every story, every character was somehow tied together in this bigger story. The continuity Valiant had in all its books was better than any other company ever with a stable of books that diverse.

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valiantman

valiantman

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I'm pretty sure that "fredkarger" deserves his own thread...

It doesn't matter if you're talking Valiant, Marvel, DC, or anything...

"fredkarger" lives in a world none of us call reality.

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valiantman

valiantman

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Well...yes, I do have a full run of Valiant comics...but few of them are CGC graded.

(They are "low-value moderns", after all... and CGC is expensive!) smirk.gif

 

I'll admit it...the CGC 10.0 Rai 0 was really a purchase of the CGC label...

but it's also one-of-a-kind (so far)...and it's always fun to own one-of-a-kind stuff.

 

When you figure that 30 copies of Rai 0 have been graded...and only one has been 10.0,

that means $450 worth of CGC grading went into finding one CGC 10.0 copy.

(Or, if you use current prices, $570 in CGC grading to find one CGC 10.0)

 

...then again, maybe I'm just kidding myself. grin.gif

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