The "Newsstand Edition" Phenomenon 5 5

[ADAMANTIUM]

33 minutes ago, FlyingDonut said:

This is wrong. DC books had bar codes on books cover dated May, 1976. First Marvels with bar codes were cover dated June, 1976.

I'm with you

I thought there might have been a "start" date but wasn't sure what it was. Seems as though I've heard about this eb ay seller before in eBay threads. It's a pretty gutsy listing....

4 hours ago, ADAMANTIUM said:

Is it true that this is the first UPC BarCode or "Newstand" on comics in the history of ever?

as this ebay seller says?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Deathlok-The-Demolisher-Astonishing-Tales-36-Final-Issue-1st-UPC-Code-Cover/272949769567?hash=item3f8d12f55f:g:ZRgAAOSwxCxT6rhu

Who knows?, could it be true?  It may be or whatever, but I picked up a reader today for $1.50  

 

[CanadianGothic]

Has a mediator been found yet?

[01TheDude]

- remember when this came out ?

[RockMyAmadeus]

On 10/26/2017 at 4:10 AM, The_Investor said:

Also reach out to Jon McClure who is a Comic Book historian and discovered the 30/35 cent cover price variants that we all collect today thanks to him.

[Kevin76]

I'm still not sold on the newsstand books, I know comic store owners would get newsstand copies directly from their distributor. So this "newsstands are rare in HG, must pay $500+ for a 9.8" is really a bunch of BS.  When I was 17, my LCS owner's son worked for the local newspaper, He would bring in stacks of Spawn 1's and other numbers below #10 with UPC's on them and sell them for half off, So I just laugh at all the people spending $400 for a Spawn 1 newsstand, they're everywhere.   

[LordRahl]

On 5/30/2024 at 5:07 PM, Kevin76 said:

I'm still not sold on the newsstand books, I know comic store owners would get newsstand copies directly from their distributor. So this "newsstands are rare in HG, must pay $500+ for a 9.8" is really a bunch of BS.  When I was 17, my LCS owner's son worked for the local newspaper, He would bring in stacks of Spawn 1's and other numbers below #10 with UPC's on them and sell them for half off, So I just laugh at all the people spending $400 for a Spawn 1 newsstand, they're everywhere.   

I'm confused. On ebay currently there are 29 copies in 9.8. Of those 29 copies, 29 are direct and exactly ZERO are newsstand. If they are so everywhere, why aren't they on eBay (which would be included in everywhere)?

[Stefan_W]

On 6/1/2024 at 1:57 PM, LordRahl said:

I'm confused. On ebay currently there are 29 copies in 9.8. Of those 29 copies, 29 are direct and exactly ZERO are newsstand. If they are so everywhere, why aren't they on eBay (which would be included in everywhere)?

Yeah, they definitely are not everywhere.

As a side note, a good friend of mine has owned a store for many years and he has a lot of news stand books that did not sell when they were released. I pressed and sent in a Batman Adventures 12 news stand for him and it landed on 9.8, which made him very happy. People who owned actual news stands where these were distributed may be doing well if they kept the leftover books. 

[shadroch]

On 5/30/2024 at 5:07 PM, Kevin76 said:

I'm still not sold on the newsstand books, I know comic store owners would get newsstand copies directly from their distributor. So this "newsstands are rare in HG, must pay $500+ for a 9.8" is really a bunch of BS.  When I was 17, my LCS owner's son worked for the local newspaper, He would bring in stacks of Spawn 1's and other numbers below #10 with UPC's on them and sell them for half off, So I just laugh at all the people spending $400 for a Spawn 1 newsstand, they're everywhere.   

None of the large NY distributors—Sea Gate, Comics Unlimited, Heroes World, or Crown—carried newsstand comics or magazines. As far as I know, most comic distributors didn't carry newsstands. There were some exceptions. Marvel and DC made the newsstand versions of Man of Steel and Spiderman's Wedding available, but those were exceptions.  I don't recall any shops carrying the newsstand Images.

Edited June 2 by shadroch

[Lazyboy]

On 6/1/2024 at 12:57 PM, LordRahl said:

I'm confused. On ebay currently there are 29 copies in 9.8. Of those 29 copies, 29 are direct and exactly ZERO are newsstand. If they are so everywhere, why aren't they on eBay (which would be included in everywhere)?

Key word in bold.

[valiantman]

On 5/30/2024 at 7:07 PM, Kevin76 said:

When I was 17, my LCS owner's son worked for the local newspaper, He would bring in stacks of Spawn 1's and other numbers below #10 with UPC's on them and sell them for half off, So I just laugh at all the people spending $400 for a Spawn 1 newsstand, they're everywhere.   

Many of the best collectibles spent some amount of time (often decades) when they were "nothing special". 

Some of the very best collectibles (and collectors) were laughed at when they insisted on protecting their "nothing special".

There's no need to pretend there's some big mystery with newsstand Spawn #1 anymore.

GPAnalysis has separated Spawn #1 newsstand from direct edition for years.

2022 - CGC 9.8 Spawn #1 = 1,070 Direct Edition sales, 65 Newsstand sales (5.7% Newsstand)

2023 - CGC 9.8 Spawn #1 = 728 Direct Edition sales, 51 Newsstand sales (6.5% Newsstand)

2024 (so far) - CGC 9.8 Spawn #1 = 327 Direct Edition sales, 21 Newsstand sales (6.0% Newsstand)

More than 2,000 sales, three separate tests that end up between 5.7% newsstand and 6.5% newsstand for CGC 9.8 Spawn #1.

That's about a hundred times more evidence than any of us ever get for the more important things we have to decide each day.

Edited June 3 by valiantman

[LordRahl]

On 6/3/2024 at 3:56 PM, Lazyboy said:

Key word in bold.

I like your perseverance but you can take that poll multiple times a year over the course of a whole year and I bet the ratio will not average any better than 10-1 in favor of newsstand. See valiantmans post below yours for more proof. They just aren't nearly as available in 9.8 as directs. The evidence is there, just need to look at it objectively. And if they are "everywhere" as Kevin76 said, that ratio wouldn't hold up over any length of time, yet it does. Consistenly.

[paqart]

On 6/3/2024 at 8:22 PM, LordRahl said:

I like your perseverance but you can take that poll multiple times a year over the course of a whole year and I bet the ratio will not average any better than 10-1 in favor of newsstand. See valiantmans post below yours for more proof. They just aren't nearly as available in 9.8 as directs. The evidence is there, just need to look at it objectively. And if they are "everywhere" as Kevin76 said, that ratio wouldn't hold up over any length of time, yet it does. Consistenly.

I was just looking at some of these on GoCollect today and found that every issue I looked at had sold recently for between 8x-12x the direct price. My wife was telling me to sell last year when they were at 5x direct. Glad I had no need to sell.

[Lazyboy]

On 6/3/2024 at 7:22 PM, LordRahl said:

I like your perseverance but you can take that poll multiple times a year over the course of a whole year and I bet the ratio will not average any better than 10-1 in favor of newsstand. See valiantmans post below yours for more proof. They just aren't nearly as available in 9.8 as directs. The evidence is there, just need to look at it objectively. And if they are "everywhere" as Kevin76 said, that ratio wouldn't hold up over any length of time, yet it does. Consistenly.

Who ever said they were as available as Directs? Nobody. I very recently stated the opposite. They are still everywhere. Directs are everywhere too, yet there are only 29 of the over 10000 recorded CGC 9.8s currently available on feeBay, because the venue is only a small (though highly visible) part of the market and basically nothing to the entire world of comics.

Kevin's point was also not specifically about CGC-graded books.

[LordRahl]

On 6/4/2024 at 8:46 AM, Lazyboy said:

Who ever said they were as available as Directs? Nobody. I very recently stated the opposite. They are still everywhere. Directs are everywhere too, yet there are only 29 of the over 10000 recorded CGC 9.8s currently available on feeBay, because the venue is only a small (though highly visible) part of the market and basically nothing to the entire world of comics.

Kevin's point was also not specifically about CGC-graded books.

He quoted what a CGC 9.8 sells for and specifically said 9.8s. Given those 2 things, I'm pretty sure he was talking about graded copies even though he didn't specify one way or the other. And yes ebay is a small subset of the market but it is certainly an indication and given there are none there, it certainly doesn't lend itself to the theory that they are "everywhere" and also supports why a newsstand 9.8 sells for $500 versus only $100 for a direct.

[shadroch]

On 6/2/2024 at 2:26 PM, Stefan_W said:

Yeah, they definitely are not everywhere.

As a side note, a good friend of mine has owned a store for many years and he has a lot of news stand books that did not sell when they were released. I pressed and sent in a Batman Adventures 12 news stand for him and it landed on 9.8, which made him very happy. People who owned actual news stands where these were distributed may be doing well if they kept the leftover books. 

Why would they keep newsstand copies?  They could buy them directly at 50% off if they weren't going to return them. 

[Stefan_W]

On 6/4/2024 at 3:45 PM, shadroch said:

Why would they keep newsstand copies?  They could buy them directly at 50% off if they weren't going to return them. 

Don't know the ins and outs of his business or his comic collecting. 

[shadroch]

On 6/4/2024 at 12:57 PM, Stefan_W said:

Don't know the ins and outs of his business or his comic collecting. 

 A store could get newsstand copies at 20-25% off or buy direct at 45-52% off.  If you planned to hold on to the unsold copies, buying direct makes sense.   You could almost save two direct copies for the cost of one newsstand.   A newsstand owner pays .75 for a $1.00 comic.  A comic shop pays .50 for a direct copy.

[Darwination]

Rarity is one thing, but surely people agree the barcode is ugly?

[Dr. Balls]

On 6/5/2024 at 8:09 AM, Darwination said:

Rarity is one thing, but surely people agree the barcode is ugly?

In the 90's, I knew a lot of collectors who bristled at the idea of having a barcode on their comics for that reason. But the modern cornerstone philosophy of collecting is "mine is rarer than yours".

We're all lucky that pressmen who printed the comics didn't notate ink densities across the print runs, otherwise we'd have collectors with densitometers determining which batch of comics were printed earlier in the run than the later ones and using that as a metric to gauge rarity.

[Jesse-Lee]

On 6/5/2024 at 9:09 AM, Darwination said:

Rarity is one thing, but surely people agree the barcode is ugly?

I disagree. Growing up, the only comics I had access to for a long time were at the drug store and the grocery store. I love newsstands - especially copper age newsstands - because it's nostalgic for me.