The Ongoing eBay Direct to Newsstand For Sale Ratio Project. 3 3

[RockMyAmadeus]

2 hours ago, valiantman said:

11 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Amazing Spiderman #194 - 106 copies; 77 newsstand, 29 Direct copies. 27% Direct, 63% newsstand (this alone puts a large dent in Rozanski's claim of Shooter saying the Direct market was "only 6% in 1979.")

It puts a dent, but it isn't necessarily wrong if direct editions were 4 or 5 times more likely to be saved for 40 years. 

But in 1979, they (probably) weren't. Remember, in 1979, there were still only a few hundred comics specialty stores, and Marvel had only just gone to a company-wide Direct market scheme. The vast majority of buyers (even collectors) still obtained their copies at their local newsstands, rather than at Direct market outlets. 

And ASM #194 came out in April of 1979. 

No way to prove any of this, but I think Rozanski is completely wrong, here (as in many places), and either misquoted Shooter, or Shooter was mistaken. The fact that Marvel went company-wide with the Direct market cover markings in March of 1979 (June 79 cover dates) is compelling circumstantial evidence that the DM accounted for more than a mere 6% of sales in 1979.

In any event, however, I don't believe, at least in 1979, that there was enough of a collector mentality to have distinguished between Direct and newsstand copies to have Direct copies be 4 or 5 times more likely to be saved. 

I think, by 1982, and the explosion of the comics specialty stores in those years, you'd be correct. But I don't believe that, in 1979, the infrastructure was quite in place to have Direct copies be more likely to be saved than newsstands, at all, much less 4 or 5 times more likely. 

Edited September 11, 2018 by RockMyAmadeus

[valiantman]

1 minute ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

But in 1979, they (probably) weren't. Remember, in 1979, there were still only a few hundred comics specialty stores, and Marvel had only just gone to a company-wide Direct market scheme. The vast majority of buyers (even collectors) still obtained their copies at their local newsstands, rather than at Direct market outlets. 

And ASM #194 came out in April of 1979. 

No way to prove any of this, but I think Rozanski is completely wrong, here (as in many places), and either misquoted Shooter, or Shooter was mistaken. The fact that Marvel went company-wide with the Direct market cover markings in March of 1979 (June 79 cover dates) is compelling circumstantial evidence that the DM accounted for more than a mere 6% of sales in 1979.

In any event, however, I don't believe, at least in 1979, that there was enough of a collector mentality to have distinguished between Direct and newsstand copies to have Direct copies be r or 5 times more likely to be saved. 

I think, by 1982, and the explosion of the comics specialty stores in those years, you'd be correct. But I don't believe that, in 1979, the infrastructure was quite in place to have Direct copies be more likely to be saved than newsstands, at all, much less 4 or 5 times more likely. 

Fair enough... is there an argument to be made that direct editions simply survived more often because there was no return program and because unsold copies eventually did get sold?

[RockMyAmadeus]

1 hour ago, valiantman said:

1 hour ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

But in 1979, they (probably) weren't. Remember, in 1979, there were still only a few hundred comics specialty stores, and Marvel had only just gone to a company-wide Direct market scheme. The vast majority of buyers (even collectors) still obtained their copies at their local newsstands, rather than at Direct market outlets. 

And ASM #194 came out in April of 1979. 

No way to prove any of this, but I think Rozanski is completely wrong, here (as in many places), and either misquoted Shooter, or Shooter was mistaken. The fact that Marvel went company-wide with the Direct market cover markings in March of 1979 (June 79 cover dates) is compelling circumstantial evidence that the DM accounted for more than a mere 6% of sales in 1979.

In any event, however, I don't believe, at least in 1979, that there was enough of a collector mentality to have distinguished between Direct and newsstand copies to have Direct copies be r or 5 times more likely to be saved. 

I think, by 1982, and the explosion of the comics specialty stores in those years, you'd be correct. But I don't believe that, in 1979, the infrastructure was quite in place to have Direct copies be more likely to be saved than newsstands, at all, much less 4 or 5 times more likely. 

Fair enough... is there an argument to be made that direct editions simply survived more often because there was no return program and because unsold copies eventually did get sold?

Absolutely. But, I don't know that the Direct program was so robust at that point to make such a distinction. Look at ASM #192...there are 21 Direct copies up for sale...and this was cover date May of 1979, the month just prior to the DM cover marking program going company-wide. That's out of 177 copies, or a percentage of 12% Direct, 88% newsstand. 

I think that would be more in line with a 6% total sales figure...but that's as of Feb of 1979, just before the transition.

But then, consider a book like X-Men #128, that was published in September (Dec cover date) of 1979. There are 121 Direct copies, out of a total of 229 copies available for sale. That's 53% Direct. I suspect that ratio will tend to hold over time. Even accounting for the facts that (Direct) X-Men at this point was being bought in multiples by speculator/dealers, and that Directs couldn't be returned...surely, that speaks to a much, much higher overall sales figure than 6%. 

And, it should be kept in mind, ASM still had a sell-through rate of nearly 50% at this point (all types), which made it one of Marvel's (and comicdom's) best selling titles. That would be a lot of surviving newsstand copies; enough, I think, to "cover the spread", so to speak. X-Men had average sales per issue for the year (according to the Statement of Ownership printed in X-Men #131) of 171,091 copies. That's sales (distribution), not print run. If the 6% figure is to be believed, that means a mere 10,265 copies were Direct market copies. Assuming all of those were saved...that still leaves a staggering (approx) 160,000 newsstand copies that were sold (meaning, not returned and destroyed.)

If there were 160,000 newsstand copies that sold. but only 10,000 copies of the Direct...how do we arrive, 40 years later, at a 53%/47% Direct to newsstand ratio on eBay, even accounting for all the wildly unknown and unknowable factors? Even if all 10,000 copies were carefully saved, and the newsstands had terrible attrition rates...how do you dispose of 150,000 copies or so of the newsstand version?

I suspect, given the delightfully random nature of eBay listings, that those ratios aren't actually very far off from ORIGINAL numbers...that is, by that point, the Direct market accounted for maybe 25-40% of sales, at least for X-Men. Maybe others, as well.

Obviously, these numbers are just far, far too broad to try and come to any concrete conclusions, but I think there's enough to indicate some patterns...and the "available for sale" ratio tells a different story than Rozanski claims of Shooter.

[valiantman]

5 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Absolutely. But, I don't know that the Direct program was so robust at that point to make such a distinction. Look at ASM #192...there are 21 Direct copies up for sale...and this was cover date May of 1979, the month just prior to the DM cover marking program going company-wide. That's out of 177 copies, or a percentage of 12% Direct, 88% newsstand. 

I think that would be more in line with a 6% total sales figure...but that's as of Feb of 1979, just before the transition.

But then, consider a book like X-Men #128, that was published in September (Dec cover date) of 1979. There are 121 Direct copies, out of a total of 229 copies available for sale. That's 53% Direct. I suspect that ratio will tend to hold over time. Even accounting for the facts that (Direct) X-Men at this point was being bought in multiples by speculator/dealers, and that Directs couldn't be returned...surely, that speaks to a much, much higher overall sales figure than 6%. 

And, it should be kept in mind, ASM still had a sell-through rate of nearly 50% at this point (all types), which made it one of Marvel's (and comicdom's) best selling titles. That would be a lot of surviving newsstand copies; enough, I think, to "cover the spread", so to speak. X-Men had average sales per issue for the year (according to the Statement of Ownership printed in X-Men #131) of 171,091 copies. That's sales (distribution), not print run. If the 6% figure is to be believed, that means a mere 10,265 copies were Direct market copies. Assuming all of those were saved...that still leaves a staggering (approx) 160,000 newsstand copies that were sold (meaning, not returned and destroyed.)

If there were 160,000 newsstand copies that sold. but only 10,000 copies of the Direct...how do we arrive, 40 years later, at a 53%/47% Direct to newsstand ratio on eBay, even accounting for all the wildly unknown and unknowable factors? Even if all 10,000 copies were carefully saved, and the newsstands had terrible attrition rates...how do you dispose of 150,000 copies or so of the newsstand version?

I suspect, given the delightfully random nature of eBay listings, that those ratios aren't actually very far off from ORIGINAL numbers...that is, by that point, the Direct market accounted for maybe 25-40% of sales, at least for X-Men. Maybe others, as well.

Obviously, these numbers are just far, far too broad to try and come to any concrete conclusions, but I think there's enough to indicate some patterns...and the "available for sale" ratio tells a different story than Rozanski claims of Shooter.

Definitely... there are a few individual factors that we just can't know, but consistent results over time could make knowing the individual factors irrelevant.

[valiantman]

We also have the potential for a Heisenberg principle (the physicist, not the television chemist), if there are books which are more "marketable" as newsstand editions, then the market could be over-representing that type.  I'm guessing that people are far more inclined to put their copy of Spawn #1 on Ebay if they can net $40 for a newsstand than if they can net $5 for a direct edition.  The 6.5% newsstand rate mentioned earlier, as low as it is, could still be too high because direct edition Spawn #1 isn't worth a lot of people's time to list.

[RockMyAmadeus]

I was thinking about this over the course of this thread, and I thought it would be useful to list factors that would affect the CURRENT existence and distribution, as represented by available copies for sale on eBay, of both newsstand and Direct market copies over time.

Direct market copies:

• Non-returnable. All copies printed = all copies (theoretically) sold. All copies sold = all copies distributed. Very high survival rate.
• Generally sold to collectors. High survival rate, and in better general condition.
• Could usually be obtained from original dealers long after publication.
• Often subject to speculation, with multiple copies available from multiple sources on a regular basis.
• Not distinguished in Statements of Ownership with newsstand copies. Impossible to know actual print run, unless stated by publisher.
• After demise of SoOs, no print run data available at all.
• Sales data on Comichron represents only initial sales numbers in North America, as reported by Diamond, and includes ALL VARIANTS (if any) in those numbers
• Increase over time of "comics specialty shops", which sold (mostly) Direct copies. More care given to preserving and maintaining both existence and condition of copies.

 

Newsstand copies:

• Printed and distributed on a returnable basis. 20-50% survival rate, in general, from initial print run. Unsold copies returned and destroyed (though not always.)
• Generally sold to readers. Higher attrition rate over time, and in worse general condition.
• Rarely subject to speculation, and usually distributed as single copy sales to readers.
• Not obtainable from vendors after initial sales window
• Not distinguished in Statements of Ownership with Direct copies. Impossible to know actual print run, unless stated by publisher.
• After demise of SoOs, no print run data available at all.
• After demise of SoOs, no sales data available at all.
• Not sold (generally) in comics specialty shops. Only made their way to such shops as aftermarket items. Little care given to preserving and maintaining both existence and condition of copies.
• Potential tendency to be over-represented on eBay, due to perceived value differences with Direct copies.

Any other factors that would influence the state of these books in 2018? Any that you disagree with, or that could be worded better? 

Edited September 11, 2018 by RockMyAmadeus

[valiantman]

I'm a little concerned our experiment so far is Marvel-heavy, so I'll throw a well-known DC into the mix:

New Teen Titans #2 (1980) - 197 copies, 101 Direct, 96 Newsstand, 51% Direct, 49% Newsstand

Note, I added "Deathstroke" to the Ebay search, so that it would eliminate a lot of false matches, and there's nothing about "Deathstroke" as a qualifier that is partial to either newsstand or direct editions.

Edited September 11, 2018 by valiantman
It was 197 copies, not 297. Typo corrected.

[RockMyAmadeus]

5 minutes ago, valiantman said:

I'm a little concerned our experiment so far is Marvel-heavy, so I'll throw a well-known DC into the mix:

New Teen Titans #2 (1980) - 297 copies, 101 Direct, 96 Newsstand, 51% Direct, 49% Newsstand

Note, I added "Deathstroke" to the Ebay search, so that it would eliminate a lot of false matches, and there's nothing about "Deathstroke" as a qualifier that is partial to either newsstand or direct editions.

Yeah, that works. I'll add it in as part of the regular search. NTT #2 is handy, too, because it comes just as DC was making its transition to distinguishing Direct copies from newsstands, too. 

The first "Direct market" (excluding Whitmans) DCs were Oct 1980, and NTT #2 is a Dec 1980 cover date.

[valiantman]

4 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

I was thinking about this over the course of this thread, and I thought it would be useful to list factors that would affect the CURRENT existence and distribution of both newsstand and Direct market copies over time.

Direct market copies:

• Non-returnable. All copies printed = all copies (theoretically) sold. All copies sold = all copies distributed. Very high survival rate.
• Generally sold to collectors. High survival rate, and in better general condition.
• Could usually be obtained from original dealers long after publication.
• Often subject to speculation, with multiple copies available from multiple sources on a regular basis.
• Not distinguished in Statements of Ownership with newsstand copies. Impossible to know actual print run, unless stated by publisher.
• After demise of SoOs, no print run data available at all.
• Sales data on Comichron represents only initial sales numbers in North America, as reported by Diamond, and includes ALL VARIANTS (if any) in those numbers
• Increase over time of "comics specialty shops", which sold (mostly) Direct copies. More care given to preserving and maintaining both existence and condition of copies.

 

Newsstand copies:

• Printed and distributed on a returnable basis. 20-50% survival rate, in general, from initial print run. Unsold copies returned and destroyed (though not always.)
• Generally sold to readers. Higher attrition rate over time, and in worse general condition.
• Rarely subject to speculation, and usually distributed as single copy sales to readers.
• Not obtainable from vendors after initial sales window
• Not distinguished in Statements of Ownership with Direct copies. Impossible to know actual print run, unless stated by publisher.
• After demise of SoOs, no print run data available at all.
• After demise of SoOs, no sales data available at all.
• Not sold (generally) in comics specialty shops. Only made their way to such shops as aftermarket items. Little care given to preserving and maintaining both existence and condition of copies.

Any other factors that would influence the state of these books in 2018? Any that you disagree with, or that could be worded better? 

These are all really good.  The other factor that would impact our experiment, specifically, is this:
 

Ebay sellers, particularly for multiple copies of the same book, are generally retailers (either officially, formerly, or effectively), and their larger volumes will likely be direct editions if the original stock is what is being sold.

You've already mentioned this factor, but it is likely that any "restocking" of back issues would occur with multiples of direct editions more often than multiples of newsstands for the same issue.

 

So the venue for this data source experiment, Ebay, has some factors that are going to impact our numbers "separately" from the factual statements about Direct vs. Newsstand (regardless of venue).

[RockMyAmadeus]

Also...you might want to post your graph showing the relation of Direct to newsstand over time. It's really rough, but it does illustrate what we can know:

Over time, as Direct market sales took hold and increased, newsstand sales decreased, in a (generally) inverse relationship (is that redundant?) 

In the beginning of the Direct market, DM sales were tiny, and newsstand sales dominated. As we go through the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s, those positions steadily reversed, until the newsstand was completely abandoned by Marvel Comics in 2013, and by DC in 2017.

[valiantman]

6 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Also...you might want to post your graph showing the relation of Direct to newsstand over time. It's really rough, but it does illustrate what we can know:

Over time, as Direct market sales took hold and increased, newsstand sales decreased, in a (generally) inverse relationship (is that redundant?) 

In the beginning of the Direct market, DM sales were tiny, and newsstand sales dominated. As we go through the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s, those positions steadily reversed, until the newsstand was completely abandoned by Marvel Comics in 2013, and by DC in 2017.

[RockMyAmadeus]

10 minutes ago, valiantman said:

These are all really good.  The other factor that would impact our experiment, specifically, is this:
 

Ebay sellers, particularly for multiple copies of the same book, are generally retailers (either officially, formerly, or effectively), and their larger volumes will likely be direct editions if the original stock is what is being sold.

You've already mentioned this factor, but it is likely that any "restocking" of back issues would occur with multiples of direct editions more often than multiples of newsstands for the same issue.

 

So the venue for this data source experiment, Ebay, has some factors that are going to impact our numbers "separately" from the factual statements about Direct vs. Newsstand (regardless of venue).

I'll add that as this:

Direct:

• Due to their initial distribution, can often be found on the aftermarket in "groups" or "pockets" of copies.

Newsstand:

• Due to their initial distribution, very rarely found on the aftermarket in numbers greater than single copies.

 

It leads to some interesting questions about distribution prior to the advent of the Direct market. 

For example: how did speculators manage to obtain multiple copies of a book? Did they haunt newsstands? Wouldn't that disrupt normal business, and be actively discouraged by vendors, who now didn't have copies to sell to other customers? Did they simply open their own ID account? Could vendors order specific copies in specific numbers? Or, was it the standard "you get what you get" model?

All fascinating questions, for which I have no answers at all.

[valiantman]

Here's another that fits our need for data pretty well, and it's less likely that the direct editions aren't being listed because all copies of this book are worth listing:  

Detective Comics #880 (2011) - 50 copies, 48 direct (96%), 2 newsstand (4%)

 

Side note, I'm concerned that Batman Rebirth #24 isn't a great choice for 2017... 5 copies of newsstand sold in one auction lot, and a CGC 9.6 direct is only worth $19.  There may not be a good choice for 2017, other than to try to combine the numbers for a run from that year, rather than a single issue.

Edited September 11, 2018 by valiantman

[RockMyAmadeus]

19 minutes ago, valiantman said:

Here's another that fits our need for data pretty well, and it's less likely that the direct editions aren't being listed because all copies of this book are worth listing:  

Detective Comics #880 (2011) - 50 copies, 48 direct (96%), 2 newsstand (4%)

 

Side note, I'm concerned that Batman Rebirth #24 isn't a great choice for 2017... 5 copies of newsstand sold in one auction lot, and a CGC 9.6 direct is only worth $19.  There may not be a good choice for 2017, other than to try to combine the numbers for a run from that year, rather than a single issue.

Yes...if I didn't mention it directly before, I'll do so here: it's important that the books in question have value enough to be listed on eBay, otherwise it's going to skew results. That means they should have value RAW, greater than $5-$10 or so.

Tec #880 is a good choice. 

[valiantman]

17 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Yes...if I didn't mention it directly before, I'll do so here: it's important that the books in question have value enough to be listed on eBay, otherwise it's going to skew results. That means they should have value RAW, greater than $5-$10 or so.

Tec #880 is a good choice. 

Right, I think $5 to $10 might be too low... or at least, I think we'll have better results when books are $20+ regardless of direct/newsstand.  Here are some other potential Detective candidates for our years of interest, since Detective Comics is a consistent title that goes back to the 1930s.

Detective #500 (1981)

Detective #526 (1983)

Detective #575 (1987)

Detective #608 (1989)

Detective #647 (1992)

Detective #737 (1999)

Detective #831 (2007)

Detective #850 (2009)

Detective #880 (2011) - 50 copies, 48 direct (96%), 2 newsstand (4%)

Detective #1 (2011) < -- that should be a good test vs. #880 to see if there's a #1 bump

Detective #23.1 (2013)

Detective #934 (2016)

I'm not sure how many of these (if any, to be honest) are good raw books (minimum of $15 or so), but they are some of the most popular CGC submissions across the timeline.

 

[valiantman]

Another data point, different method:

CGC recognized the first Spawn #9 Newsstand on the March 4, 2013 census.

Throwing out all CGC graded copies of Spawn #9 prior to March 4, 2013, we can isolate Direct/Newsstand for Spawn #9 since they started recognizing it.

Since March 4, 2013, there have been 1,453 universal Spawn #9 direct editions (94.6%) and 83 universal Spawn #9 newsstands (5.4%).

If we consider the signature series books as a separate data point, then it's (Since March 4, 2013) 290 SS Spawn #9 direct editions (96.3%) and 11 SS Spawn #9 newsstands (3.7%).

Overall, there's not much change from universal, but the numbers are 1,743 Spawn #9 direct editions (94.9%) and 94 Spawn #9 newsstands (5.1%).

It would be surprising to me if that's also the original print ratio, but it is a perfectly believable scenario that Image was ordering the printing for the newsstand market for around (or exactly) 5% of their volume, and it would mean that it's possible they ordered exactly 100,000 newsstand copies for Spawn #1 to get the program started. 

Edited September 11, 2018 by valiantman

[ADAMANTIUM]

I don't remember exactly what issues we're all looking for, but Punisher #102 might be a good one? I know there is at least 1 newsstand and it is in 9.8 on ebay, the rest appear to be direct...

and not a lot of listings...

 

[valiantman]

2 minutes ago, ADAMANTIUM said:

I don't remember exactly what issues we're all looking for, but Punisher #102 might be a good one? I know there is at least 1 newsstand and it is in 9.8 on ebay, the rest appear to be direct...

and not a lot of listings...

 

1995 doesn't have many options, so that's a good suggestion. 

[ADAMANTIUM]

Just now, valiantman said:

3 minutes ago, ADAMANTIUM said:

I don't remember exactly what issues we're all looking for, but Punisher #102 might be a good one? I know there is at least 1 newsstand and it is in 9.8 on ebay, the rest appear to be direct...

and not a lot of listings...

 

1995 doesn't have many options, so that's a good suggestion. 

It has 1 newsie out of 6 listings so 1/6, I'm not quick on my feet to do percentages.... a little under 20% newstand little over 80% direct....

[ADAMANTIUM]

 but that is only 6 copies graded.... 

10 minutes ago, ADAMANTIUM said:

It has 1 newsie out of 6 listings so 1/6, I'm not quick on my feet to do percentages.... a little under 20% newstand little over 80% direct....

In total with graded and ungraded there are 15 direct and 5 newsies.... 5/15 or 1/3....