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Hunting the 6 variants of Batman 457 (1st Tim Drake ROBIN)
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Started by Carl Elvis,

511 posts in this topic

RockMyAmadeus

RockMyAmadeus

Posted
Posted
19 minutes ago, ygogolak said:
15 hours ago, joecgcmaniac said:

Pump and dump, pump and dump! (tsk)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

:p

Sorry, I just had to do it, before your trolls did. :kidaround:

:facepalm:

:whatthe:

Quick, hide! It's the Pump & Dump King!!

RUN!!!

 

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mycomicshop

mycomicshop

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Yes, the copy pictured is a 1st printing. ;) Lonestar does list items concurrently on eBay, so I was wondering if it was a case of them not knowing the difference, and listing it, like you had said you bought all their copies of the 2nd printing, hoping one of them was a newsstand, and none of them were. Bffnut answered that question. You can come at these from two different ways: buy all the newsstands and hope one is a 2nd print, or buy all the 2nd prints and hope one is a newsstand.

What I'm asking, since you can't search through Lonestar's "sold" items, is this: did the listing that you bought, bffnut, accurately depict (in the picture) what you were buying, or was it just a regular 2nd print pictured, and a newsstand copy just showed up?

Info on where these books come from, even if they lead to dead ends, is still useful in piecing together a picture of why they came to exist. We may never know, but any bit of information might turn into a bigger story.

Maybe if I use the magical notification feature @mycomicshop can find out more info on where they got this copy of a fantastic "book that should never exist."  In any event, this is the highlight of my week, and I'm thrilled you found it, bffnut, and I'm thrilled you got it, Kirk, and that you shared it with everyone. So exciting. 

The copies that bffnut purchased came in via two different buys earlier this summer through our online buying system that people can use to sell us comics.

And as bffnut already said, our catalog differentiates between 1st and 2nd printings for that issue, but does not differentiate newsstand editions for that particular issue. So both copies were listed just as the 2nd printing with the same generic picture we show for all copies of that issue.

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RockMyAmadeus

RockMyAmadeus

Posted
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1 minute ago, mycomicshop said:

The copies that bffnut purchased came in via two different buys earlier this summer through our online buying system that people can use to sell us comics.

And as bffnut already said, our catalog differentiates between 1st and 2nd printings for that issue, but does not differentiate newsstand editions for that particular issue. So both copies were listed just as the 2nd printing with the same generic picture we show for all copies of that issue.

Thanks for the confirmation. Since you know these three books definitely exist, and certainly have collectible value far in excess of the regular 2nd prints and/or regular newsstands, are you going to differentiate them going forward?

And...is it possible to give out any generic information about where it came from, such as region and/or state and/or even city? And can it be assumed that neither the seller nor Lonestar knew it was anything special? 

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RockMyAmadeus

RockMyAmadeus

Posted
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3 hours ago, bffnut said:

I took the second approach with MCS: buy all of the second prints and see if any are newsstands. The stock on their website (at least for this comic) does not have different entries between newsstand and direct editions; they do, however, differentiate between 1st and 2nd prints (i.e. the only options, whether in stock or not, is to buy the first print or the second print - same with Batman 457). Likewise, for issues that that have DCU logo counterparts (or other similar variants like Mark Jeweler inserts), their website doesn't always those variants as a distinct entry. So I figured they probably lump all of the second prints into one bucket and maybe I'd get lucky.

That's what I suspected. I imagine going forward, that might change, but these books are so niche and rare, it's hard to say. If CGC had taken a proactive stance with differentiating Directs from newsstands...regardless of the justification for it...20 years ago, this would have been addressed in the market long before now. We're still hearing stories of buyers saying "hey...this isn't the book you pictured!" and sellers getting pissy and saying "what do you care? What's the difference??"

Thus far, we have four books that shouldn't, by all accounts, exist, in order of discovery:

1. Spiderman #1 2nd print newsstand (aka "gold upc")

2. Batman #457 2nd print news

3. Superman #50 2nd print news

4. Robin #1 2nd print news

....plus, the Superman #75 3rd and 4th print news (not counting the 2nd print, because it's just a Direct version with a UPC sticker as a "make-do.")

So that's 6 altogether.

I wonder if we'll find more?

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RockMyAmadeus

RockMyAmadeus

Posted
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1 minute ago, bffnut said:

I would love to see distinctions for the DCU variants on the site as well, for all the issues that have been identified as having such variants.

Absolutely agreed. Yeah, it's more work, but, as with all such distinctions, it will pay off in the future when you attract customers who are specifically looking for those, and stay because they're already there, might as well look around. That's 50% of marketing right there: getting people into your "space."

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RockMyAmadeus

RockMyAmadeus

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3 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Absolutely agreed. Yeah, it's more work, but, as with all such distinctions, it will pay off in the future when you attract customers who are specifically looking for those, and stay because they're already there, might as well look around. That's 50% of marketing right there: getting people into your "space."

One of the more ridiculous things I ever heard someone in management claim at CBCS was that it was "too difficult" to make all these distinctions, which is why their newsstand designations end...for no rational reason anyone can think of...at the year "2000."

Who made that decision?

Why would they cut it off at 2000?

Did they think there were no more newsstand copies published after 2000? 

It's like ending the listing for Amazing Spiderman in the OPG at issue #516....where are the rest?

No, the real reason is "we're not getting paid enough to do this, and we don't really care." It's also why they have no census, and why it took them two years to get a message board up and running...and it's not 18 years ago, when message boards were new tech. 

It's not even remotely difficult. When you see a comic book from 2001-present with a UPC code, and it doesn't say "Direct" somewhere on there...it's a newsstand edition. If you don't have it in your database...you ADD IT as you're inputting the order.

Not rocket surgery. "But it allows more room for error!!" So? Take pride in your work, and pay attention. Train people to know the difference.

Doing the distinction AT ALL was a fantastic move, that was roundly applauded...until they announced that it was only up to the year 2000, which makes it functionally useless for well over half the books for which such a distinction is important in the first place. Nobody cares whether your Uncanny X-Men #215 is Direct or newsstand...in that it makes no difference monetarily. It's just about 50/50 split on books like that.

But find an NYX #3 newsstand, which probably doesn't exist, but MIGHT? (Almost certainly doesn't, because it was mature readers, and those books weren't sold on the newsstand, but work with me.) That hypothetical copy in 9.8 would be worth TWICE or MORE a Direct 9.8...easily. 

...except that it was published in 2003, so, sorry, too bad, you lose.

:eyeroll:

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RockMyAmadeus

RockMyAmadeus

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Further....the newsstand/Direct distinctions are important at the beginning...when Direct editions (starting in Feb 1977) were a tiny, tiny fraction of the print runs, until 1979....and then from about 1995 to 2011/2013 for Marvel, 2017 for DC, and whenever other publishers stopped publishing to the newsstand (I think Archie still does.)

Distinctions for books from the 80s generally don't matter, regardless of what it is.

But there is a VERY active niche of collectors who seek out 00s Marvel and DC newsstands, and as Kirk and Jerome Wenker and others can tell you....it is NOT EASY to do that. 

Dark Wolverine, the series that started in 2003 for example. Anyone have a complete newsstand run of that series, LET ALONE a 9.8 set?

Doubtful.

How about Amazing Spiderman from #500-up? Even the "Vol 2 #36 (9/11 issue)" carries a substantial premium for very high grade newsstands.

Some of the ASM Spideys are so rare in newsstand format...like #694 for example...that people have been willing to pay hundreds of dollars for a 9.8 copy, and had a very difficult time in their search.

And this, DESPITE the massive amounts of terrible misinformation about how many of these were made. No, Marvel DID NOT PRINT just 500 copies for newsstand distribution across North America. That's stupid, idiotic, and betrays a lack of understanding about the newsstand market in multiple ways, like here for example:

https://www.comicsvalue.com/Amazing-SpiderMan-694-NEWSSTAND-VARIANT-EDITION-Marvel-COMICS-NM/122786683891.html

Very little of the blurb at the bottom is accurate, from the "58,641 were made" (wrong), to the "Marvel/DC Newsstands after 2011 are approx 1:100" (totally wrong, with a number pulled out of thin air), to the "approx 585 copies originally made" (totally wrong, based on false numbers, one of which is pulled out of thin air, the other of which has nothing to do with how many were "made"), and thus will mislead whomever reads it and doesn't know any better.

BUT...it IS true that the newsstand still operated like the newsstand, and the several thousand to several tens of thousand copies they DID print, would have been "returned and destroyed", just as they always had been...meaning, any newsstand copies surviving would be in the hands of individuals who purchased them, where they probably are to this day.

So...yes, such distinctions ARE important, and DO matter, and ARE worth the time to properly catalog.

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mycomicshop

mycomicshop

Posted
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38 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Thanks for the confirmation. Since you know these three books definitely exist, and certainly have collectible value far in excess of the regular 2nd prints and/or regular newsstands, are you going to differentiate them going forward?

And...is it possible to give out any generic information about where it came from, such as region and/or state and/or even city? And can it be assumed that neither the seller nor Lonestar knew it was anything special? 

Bffnut bought multiple copies of that book--if he can tell me our product label number of the special one, I can, but otherwise I have no way of knowing book is the one you care about.

I'll follow up with you via PM regarding any updates we might make to our catalog.

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RockMyAmadeus

RockMyAmadeus

Posted
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1 minute ago, mycomicshop said:

Bffnut bought multiple copies of that book--if he can tell me our product label number of the special one, I can, but otherwise I have no way of knowing book is the one you care about.

I'll follow up with you via PM regarding any updates we might make to our catalog.

No problem...just wanted to see if there was any way we could get a sense of where these came from, if they were scattered about the country, where they might exist.

I know these are probably unanswerable questions...Spidey #1 Gold UPC has been known almost since it came out, and all anyone really knows is the guess that there were "10,000 made", and probably "made for Wal-Mart", but that's just educated guessing, with no confirmation from Marvel.

It's possible nobody even remembers anymore with these other books. But, of course, any information can help. Thanks!

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