35 cent Variant List-Help wanted

[cosmic-spider-man]

Also there are people like me with a "sickness" that must shoot for high grade all the time even when it is almost impossible to find some of these in high grade (much like Golden Age books?) and end up way overpaying for some of these. For instance, there are 2 top grade 30 centers on eBay right now (seller - Mroczek)...and I sooo was tempted to hit the BINs, even though I have 2 comparable copies right next to me that may grade out at the same or better... I think I need help

 

Carl I think I need help to, I have a similar "sickness" I see all these 35 cent variants that are up now and I see them selling for $20-$50 each for the same ones I paid $100+ for not long ago, and in better shape in most cases, well it is all I can do not to start biding on all of these just because they are selling so cheep. But I relize that if I want to complete my set I better hold out until the ones I need come up because when they do all the big money variant collectors will come out and they will be hard to win. If I had some patiance and let the other collectors have theirs first I could get some much better deals but I don't and add the fact that I am not the only one and you get very high prices.

[bounty_coder]

Greetings Darth and many of you other variant addicts.

 

I wasn't quite sure where to post this thread, so I did so in the Silver Age forum and the Comic Magazines forum, yet it lightly relates to this thread...which is Variants.

 

I would really like to get some information flowing about the Spectacular Spider-Man Magazines #1 from 1968 that had the 40c Variant Cover.

 

My post can be found here: http://boards.collectors-society.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=575355&Main=575355#Post575355

 

Thank you and hope to hear from yah guys!

 

-Aaron

[cosmic-spider-man]

Hi; bounty

I have never heard of this variant but I would love to see it could you post a scan?

As far as value if you have seen 1000 and only 2 40 cent ones they must be very, very rare and if this is the case it should be worth much more than the regular 35 cent one but only if collectors are looking for them I would think as more people hear about these the prices will go up. Did you say the one you seen on ebay disapered I would say someone is looking hard for these before the price does go up and made the seller a offer off ebay and the auction was ended .

[bounty_coder]

Yes I will work on getting a digi-picture (Sorry no scanner) by Monday. The first of the 2 that I have ever seen, was the one that I acquired about 3 years ago. And it was purchased without knowing that it was a 40c variant. Ever since then it has been a relentless persuit to find another but to no avail.

 

I have no idea what the print run was on these or anything like that. But just on the pure fact of how many I have seen compared to regular 35c covers leads me to believe that it should be valued at a boo-koo amount.

 

Though I really am looking for others thoughts. Especially the Marvel Variant specialists out there.

 

-bounty

[realitytrip]

First off, bounty_coder, nice pick up on the 40 cent variant! Always nice to find more price variants....

 

Regarding Terry's question.... I dunno.... while it is true that 35 cent variant prices are down right now, there are a few reasons why. Finecomics/earlshaw.net have discovered a huge cache and they are flooding the market right now. Around 15 books a week until they run out. Normally there are just one or two books at a time on ebay. This is still very much a niche market and it is being saturated right now. This is also generally a slow time in general for comics on ebay (Jason Ewert super high grade sales notwithstanding). All the conventions tend to tap comic buyers spending money. I know the money I spent in San Diego is influencing my current buying sprees.

 

But, these books are still rare, far more rare than the 30 cent variants, and far less obvious. Yes, they are turning up, because dealers and collectors seeing the high prices have incentive to dig them up, but they are still not turning up in extremely high numbers. Even people looking for them (with the exception of some huge collections/finds such as daethwalkers or finecomics) only turn up handfuls at a time. I think we still don't have hard numbers on how many of these are really out there. We are seeing some market correction as the completionists who will pay any price for a book they don't have are finishing up their collections, but there are exceptions to this. Popular superheroes have collectors who only care about that superhero and not other variants driving up particular books. Xmen and Daredevil in any grade seem to have a very high price floor, no matter the condition for example. There are other forum regulars seeking out variants of their favorites, such as FF or Dr. Strange, willing to pay high prices to complete those collections.

While I agree that the number of people willing to pay stupid money for reprint westerns is small, the thing is that the number of westerns out there seems to be smaller still. I mean, how many western 35 cent variants have popped up now? 10 maybe? Counting the Kid Colts and Rawhide Kids we know of anyway.... so I don't see those dropping in value anytime soon...its not like the western 30 cent variants are dropping in value...check out the Rawhide Kid 134 auction going on right now....same thing with the Hanna-Barbera books....good luck finding those Flintstones and Scooby Doo variants....I do think that the market for popular or current superhero variants and scarce western/reprint books will hold. The books that probably will drop in value are the "dead" superhero books like Ms. Marvel, Nova, Omega the Unknown, etc. which aren't insanely rare and have no current followers or collectors, much like their 30 cent cousins have dropped in value. Of course, high grade also seems to hold intrinsic value, due to scarcity of these.... And one positive of these type of 35 cent variants price dropping is more people might become 35 cent collectors due to lower prices making it seem more doable in general...

Just my thoughts anyway.....

Keith

[cosmic-spider-man]

Hi; Keith it is good to hear someone else weigh in on this subject.

 

While I agree that the number of people willing to pay stupid money for reprint westerns is small, the thing is that the number of westerns out there seems to be smaller still. I mean, how many western 35 cent variants have popped up now? 10 maybe? Counting the Kid Colts and Rawhide Kids we know of anyway.... so I don't see those dropping in value anytime soon...its not like the western 30 cent variants are dropping in value...check out the Rawhide Kid 134 auction going on right now....same thing with the Hanna-Barbera books....good luck finding those Flintstones and Scooby Doo variants....

 

You are correct as far as I know right now their is less than 10 Western 35 cent Variants found, I think 7, and their is at least 4 guys looking for them and willing to pay a lot for them , I am one of them, so for now the demand is far greater than the supply which equals me paying a whole lot to complete my set. And you are also right this high price for Western 35 cent variants will not change for quite a while unless someone comes up with several high grade copy's of each one for sale and that is not going to happen. But I still think that their has got to be quite a few of these out their in older collection probably in nice shape of people who have never heard of a 35 cent variants and I think they will show up for sale one or two at a time for a long time to come.I also think that Those Flintstones and Scooby Doo variants may be even rarer than the Westerns the reason I think this is because they were more geared towards young kids and young kids trash their comics. I guess the real big Question is just how rare are these variants it may be years before anyone has a good ideal of that. That being said I also think now is a great time to jump in and pick up some variants because you never know if a bunch like this will ever come up for sale agian and when they are gone you can look for prices to go up again.

 

Does anyone on hear know how comics were distributed back in 1977 when these variants were sold, I wonder when a big city got a shippment of comics like lets say Memphis or Wilminton or Toledo were the comics just for that city or were they for that city and all the little towns and cominuties that srounded it? Does anyone know how this worked?

[ft88]

I'd like to ask a favor to any good samaritans out there.

 

Here is a list from a heavy western collection where I found the pv Rawhide 134 and Conan 61 currently up on ebay. As I went through his books I took a stab at these two books as variants and got lucky but missed some. Going back through the list the others I see are the Spidermans, Rawhide 133 and Weird Wonder Tales 17. Am I missing any more for when I go back. A second pair of eyes would be much appreciated.

 

Its funny cause this collection covers 40s-70s and he wants full guide for all his (somewhat overgraded) books. And yes he did send an excel list of every book he had, to include the page its listed in the Overstreet !!??.

 

Thanks y'all.

 

Conan marvel 61 665 1976 $0.30

Conan the barbarian marvel 67 411 1976 $0.30

Conan the barbarian marvel 68 411 1976 $0.30

Conan the barbarian marvel 70 411 1977 $0.30

Conan the barbarian marvel 71 411 1977 $0.30

Conan the barbarian marvel 72 411 1977 $0.30

Conan the barbarian marvel 73 411 1977 $0.30

Conan-barbarian marvel 66 411 1976 $0.30

Conan-barbarian marvel 70 411 1976 $0.30

Conan-barbarian marvel 74 411 1977 $0.30

Conan-barbarian marvel 75 411 1977 $0.30

Conan-barbarian marvel 76 411 1977 $0.30

Conan-barbarian marvel 77 411 1977 $0.30

Conan-barbarian marvel 79 411 1977 $0.30

Howard duck marvel 13 527 1977 $0.30

John Carter/warlrd of mars marvel 5 541 1977 $0.30

Kazar marvel 19 550 1976 $0.30

Kid Colt marvel 214 552 1977 $0.30

Kid Colt marvel 215 552 1977 $0.30

Kid Colt marvel 217 552 1977 $0.30

Kid Colt marvel 218 552 1977 $0.30

Kid Colt marvel 220 552 1977 $0.30

Kull the destroyer marvel 18 556 1976 $0.30

Kull the destroyer marvel 19 556 1977 $0.30

Kull the destroyer marvel 23 556 1977 $0.30

Kull/destrouer marvel 19 556 1977 $0.30

Planet of apes marvel 11 633 1976 $0.30

Rawhide kid marvel 133 646 1976 $0.30

Rawhide kid marvel 134 646 1976 $0.30

Rawhide kid marvel 136 646 1976 $0.30

Rawhide kid marvel 138 646 1977 $0.30

Rawhide kid marvel 138 646 1977 $0.30

Rawhide kid marvel 141 646 1977 $0.30

Ringo kid marvel 30 655 1975 $0.30

Skull the slayer marvel 7 682 1976 $0.30

Spiderman/spectacular marvel 10 689 1977 $0.30

Spiderman/spectacular marvel 67 586 1976 $0.30

Spiderman/spectacular marvel 71 586 1976 $0.30

Tarzan/lord of jungle marvel 1 724 1977 $0.30

Tarzan/lord of jungle marvel 1 724 1977 $0.30

Tarzan/lord of jungle marvel 2 724 1977 $0.30

Tarzan/lord of jungle marvel 3 724 1977 $0.30

Tarzan/lord of jungle marvel 4 724 1977 $0.30

Tarzan/lord of jungle marvel 5 724 1977 $0.30

The amazing Spiderman marvel 157 586 1976 $0.30

The amazing Spiderman marvel 160 586 1976 $0.30

The amazing Spiderman marvel 161 586 1976 $0.30

Two gun kid marvel 133 748 1976 $0.30

Two gun kid marvel 135 748 1977 $0.30

Weird wonder tales marvel 17 770 1976 $0.30

Battlestar galactica marvel 2 353 1979 $0.35

Captain America marvel 218 378 1977 $0.35

Conan marvel 88 665 1978 $0.35

Conan the barbarian marvel 80 411 1977 $0.35

Conan the barbarian marvel 81 411 1977 $0.35

Conan the barbarian marvel 84 411 1978 $0.35

Conan-barbarian marvel 90 411 1978 $0.35

John Carter/warlrd of mars marvel 7 541 1977 $0.35

John Carter/warlrd of mars marvel 14 541 1978 $0.35

John Carter/warlrd of mars marvel 16 541 1978 $0.35

Kid Colt outlaw marvel 226 552 1978 $0.35

Kull marvel 24 556 1977 $0.35

Kull the destroyer marvel 24 566 1977 $0.35

Kull the destroyer marvel 25 566 1978 $0.35

Kull the destroyer marvel 27 566 1978 $0.35

Man from atlantis marvel 5 577 1978 $0.35

Man from atlantis marvel 7 577 1978 $0.35

Manthing marvel 7 578 1980 $0.35

Rawhide kid marvel 143 646 1978 $0.35

Spider man marvel 87 586 1978 $0.35

Spider man marvel 99 586 1979 $0.35

Spider woman marvel 5 692 1978 $0.35

Spider woman marvel 7 692 1978 $0.35

Spider woman marvel 8 692 1978 $0.35

Spider woman marvel 9 692 1978 $0.35

Spider woman marvel 11 692 1979 $0.35

Spiderman/spectacular marvel 17 689 1978 $0.35

Star Wars marvel 8 700 1977 $0.35

Star Wars marvel 13 700 1978 $0.35

Star Wars marvel 15 700 1978 $0.35

Star Wars marvel 17 700 1978 $0.35

Star Wars marvel 18 700 1978 $0.35

Tarzan lord of jungle marvel 21 724 1979 $0.35

Tarzan/lord of jungle marvel 6 724 1977 $0.35

Tarzan/lord of jungle marvel 7 724 1977 $0.35

Tarzan/lord of jungle marvel 9 724 1978 $0.35

Tarzan/lord of jungle marvel 13 724 1978 $0.35

Tarzan/lord of jungle marvel 13 724 1978 $0.35

Tarzan/lord of jungle marvel 16 724 1978 $0.35

Tarzan/lord of jungle marvel 26 724 1979 $0.35

Tarzan/lord of jungle marvel 38 724 1978 $0.35

[cosmic-spider-man]

Hi; Ft88

Theirs no 35 cent variants on that list and the only 30 cent ones I see are the ones you already mentioned but I am not up on my 30 centers maybe Darth or some of the other 30 cent variant collectors hear will help you more. by the way great finds .

 

did you find out where these variants were originaly bought.

[ft88]

All these were original buys here in Baltimore. Not sure what store or what part of the city, but I'll be sure to ask him when I see him. The other thing I noticed is that he did make some mistakes in listing the books so I'll have to keep an eye out on those kid colts. Was Baltimore a 35 cent test city like it was for the 30 centers?

 

Ed

[underthebigw]

CSM--thanks for the scan last week, by the way. That's a pretty nice collection of variants.

 

 

I haven't had much time to weigh in on the recent discussion,(or answer emails) but, like Darth, I've been waiting till the time is right to resume my 35 cent variant collection. I do believe that the 35 cent variants will follow the pattern the 30 cent ones have and have decided not to pay a premium for any of them. I also have to say that I was just contacted by another dealer who has found even more of them recently. I'm sure that they will never be present in the numbers the 30 cent books are, but I'm also confident we've only seen the tip of the iceberg.

 

On the Flintstones vs. Westerns question, I think the westerns are definitely more scarce. It would be great to see the numbers for the respective print runs, but think of it this way--which do you think Marvel had higher runs for: a new line of books for which they probably paid dearly to license, or reprints of westerns that hadn't sold well in years. Assuming a somewhat consistent percentage of variants across titles, it's likely that there are more of the HB titles. Also, I think we can be pretty certain that if you were to pick any 2 western variant issues, we would be able to identify fewer known total copies than we could the 2 HB issues.

[ShieldAgent]

Hey Ed,

 

Baltimore was not a 35 cent test site.

 

Regarding the other Rawhide--feel free to pay the guy guide prices--OS, CBG--doesn't matter--you win. Call it a 9.2 or 9.4 if you have to.

 

Side note: I am driving down to Baltimore tomorrow morning. My mission (not my wife's) is to find some variants.............. Last time in Baltimore I found nine at Megafest. It was a bonus, as I was going only to meet Steranko & have him sign some books.

 

Harry

[underthebigw]

All these were original buys here in Baltimore. Not sure what store or what part of the city, but I'll be sure to ask him when I see him. The other thing I noticed is that he did make some mistakes in listing the books so I'll have to keep an eye out on those kid colts. Was Baltimore a 35 cent test city like it was for the 30 centers?

 

Ed

 

Baltimore was definitely not a test city for the 35 cent variants. In 4 years of searching Balt., I found hundreds of them, as did Donut. It got to the point that I did not pick them up unless they were either in VF or better, or a rare issue. At the start of the search, I couldn't have imagined passing up any variant, but it got to be ridiculous. In all of that time, I only ever found one 35 cent variant; a Conan 77. For some reason, I have owned four of these in the past 5 years. I suspect this book came from the Ohio area, but could not prove it.

 

The 35 cent books can show up anywhere. A childhood friend and fellow collector has a 35 cent variant he picked up off the newstand in NY back in 1977. I clearly remember us arguing over whether it was a reprint or not.

[FlyingDonut]

Variants from your list:

 

Conan marvel 61 665 1976 $0.30

Rawhide kid marvel 133 646 1976 $0.30

Rawhide kid marvel 134 646 1976 $0.30

Spiderman/spectacular marvel 67 586 1976 $0.30

The amazing Spiderman marvel 157 586 1976 $0.30

Weird wonder tales marvel 17 770 1976 $0.30

 

I'm assuming the Spiderman/spectacular is Marvel Tales 67.

[underthebigw]

Does anyone on hear know how comics were distributed back in 1977 when these variants were sold, I wonder when a big city got a shippment of comics like lets say Memphis or Wilminton or Toledo were the comics just for that city or were they for that city and all the little towns and cominuties that srounded it? Does anyone know how this worked?

 

My last comment for the night--CSM, on distribution, it totally depended on the territory covered by local news distributors. For example, with 30 cent variants in Baltimore, I have found that the entire metropolitan area had variants. All the way from the southern towns, such as Dundalk and Pasadena, east to Aberdeen, and to the northern 'burbs of Towson and Cockeysville (really, that's the name). I have also found too many on the south shore and as far north as Frederick for them to not have been distributed there, as well. This is just too much of an area to be covered by one distributor (as they existed then). Then, there are other cities, such as Springfield, MA, where they were very localized. Essentially, in order to predict where they were distributed within regions, you would need to know every distributor at the time and the area they covered.

 

Even if 35 cent variants were distributed differently, I don't think it's really worth figuring out, since people are so mobile and you never know where a collection might end up within the region. Just hit every source in one of the known areas.

[ShieldAgent]

Hello Paul-

 

It is so hard to get out of the "hoarding mentality" especially if the price is right. I wish I could say that I only would pick up VF or better, but I can't.

 

I used to buy almost every one I could get at a certain price point, thinking I could trade the duplicates. This does not really work. I have had two successful trades with Jeremy & Terry, but that is it.

 

I would gladly trade 5, 10, or 15 variants for one I need right now, but I don't think anyone is going to take me up on the offer. Even some of the Cat 4 books are going really cheaply. Like this one:

 

WWT 17 Auction --good job realitytrip

 

 

And this one:

 

WWBN

 

Kind of sad in some respects.

 

Harry

[blowout]

I haven't had much time to weigh in on the recent discussion,(or answer emails) but, like Darth, I've been waiting till the time is right to resume my 35 cent variant collection. I do believe that the 35 cent variants will follow the pattern the 30 cent ones have and have decided not to pay a premium for any of them. I also have to say that I was just contacted by another dealer who has found even more of them recently. I'm sure that they will never be present in the numbers the 30 cent books are, but I'm also confident we've only seen the tip of the iceberg.

 

Does anyone really have any idea on the numbers of 30 and 35 cent variants that exist?

Do Marvel themselves for example, have any ideas or records of distribution numbers?

[cosmic-spider-man]

Good to hear from you S&B

 

I also have to say that I was just contacted by another dealer who has found even more of them recently. I'm sure that they will never be present in the numbers the 30 cent books are, but I'm also confident we've only seen the tip of the iceberg.

 

 

Are you free to let us know more about this how many did he find were their any Westerns or HB comics in the find ?

 

On the Flintstones vs. Westerns question, I think the westerns are definitely more scarce. It would be great to see the numbers for the respective print runs, but think of it this way--which do you think Marvel had higher runs for: a new line of books for which they probably paid dearly to license, or reprints of westerns that hadn't sold well in years.

 

I agree with you that the Flintstones and Scooby doo probably had a print run double or triple what the westerns did, does anyone have any numbers on this, since the westerns were fast on the way to being cancled and the HB comics were a new licens that marvel probably paid a lot for and add the fact they were both first issues I would say they had very,very large print runs. But I also think that the people who would have bought the Western comics at that time would have been more likely to have taken care of their comics than the ones that bought the HB comics and that maybe more of them have survived but I have no way of knowing if this is true and I may be totaly wrong, but it does make me think their will be alot more of these and they will be poping up from time to time.

 

How many Western 35 cent variants do the others on hear think exist of each, 20 ,50 maybe 100 or more, or maybe less than 20 of each I would love to hear what everyone else thinks on this and why they think that

[cosmic-spider-man]

On the Flintstones vs. Westerns question, I think the westerns are definitely more scarce.

 

I have been thinking this over alot and I have come to change my opion on this I now agree with s&b for one reason they are First issues and that most people who collect comics when they go to buy new comics and they notice any new first issues form a publisher they collect, like Marvel, they tend to pick up a couple of copy's and put them away even if they are not really interested in the story. I know back then I bough every #1 that came out even if I wasn't interested in them like Tarzan, John Carter, Godzilla, Human Fly and Flintstones #1, I did not get a copy of Scooby Doo #1 for some reason though, I bough most of these just to collect not really to read as I was a big ASM, FF & Avengers nut and not really interested in this other stuff I don't think I bought the second issue of any of these. So that leads me to think maybe a lot of other collectors did the same thing and if this is the case then the WESTERN 35 cent variants would be rarer than the Flintstones and Scooby Doo #1's. Does anyone else have any good reasons or opions why this may or may not be true I would love to hear them.

And what about reprints like that Marvel Super Action #2 that is on ebay now do you think it is anywhere near as rare as the Westerns? I don't but it is still a tough book to find.

[Darthdiesel]

Conan marvel 61 665 1976 $0.30

Rawhide kid marvel 133 646 1976 $0.30

Rawhide kid marvel 134 646 1976 $0.30

The amazing Spiderman marvel 157 586 1976 $0.30

Weird wonder tales marvel 17 770 1976 $0.30

[cosmic-spider-man]

Does anyone really have any idea on the numbers of 30 and 35 cent variants that exist?

Do Marvel themselves for example, have any ideas or records of distribution numbers?

 

blowout this is the BIG QUESTION I have been looking for a answer to that ever since I started collecting these and the only clues so far are Donuts letter and a referance in Overstreet some time back that their were 1500 Star Wars #1 35 cent variants and no ones seems to know where that number came from. The only way I see to find a answer is to find someone who worked on marvels marketing and distribution at that time or maybe even someone who worked at the factory that produced the comics problem is it has been nearly 30 years. But with all the comic collectors on this board their should be someone on hear that knows someone that worked at marvel back in 1976-1977 with some knowledge of this, their has got to be someone who knows how many were produced still around !!! But I am sure we will never know how many exist.