How rare are modern newsstand editions? 5 5

[Lazyboy]

On 1/29/2022 at 7:33 PM, paqart said:

There were millions of Action #1's printed

This is (once again) why nobody with a brain takes you seriously. The number of Action Comics 1 printed is a known fact and you still got it (way) wrong. You know nothing about comics, you understand nothing about comics (or reality). But you still feel the need to post so you can reveal your lack of knowledge.

You complain about the "vitriol" you experienced when you first came here, but the reality is that you came in spewing nonsense and getting many simple facts wrong and couldn't handle being challenged and corrected

[Lazyboy]

On 1/29/2022 at 2:20 PM, valiantman said:

Again, what is the bias?

The bias is in the source of the data. I have explained this in great detail multiple times before.

You seem to think that every comic collector, serious or casual, active or not, uses feeBay, sells comics, closely follows the market, submits to CGC, etc. Sorry, but that is absolute nonsense. Using data from feeBay and GPA will extremely skew things in favor of Direct editions, far more than the actual reality. And don't try to tell me you're only talking about what's available in the market, because, for the billionth time, feeBay is not the market, and you have repeatedly brought up things that have nothing to do with what's available.

Data may be data, but that doesn't mean it's actually useful.

You used to understand this. What changed?

[Lazyboy]

On 1/30/2022 at 11:44 AM, paqart said:

I'm getting a little tired of this. You've given us this message ad nauseum. Also, I haven't anywhere said that the number of copies in the marketplace resembles, or is, the print run. That is what is called a "straw man". I don't call you on it usually because there are so many other things to debate in your posts but I'm a bit fed up with this one because I haven't done it.

The quick and easy proof of this is that eighties newsstands were printed in much higher numbers than directs but show up less often in the marketplace. If print run was all that mattered, everyone would have a box of Walt Disney Comics & Stories #32 in their basement. I know you think the world beyond your front door is occupied entirely by dumbbells but please give us credit for the few things we get right.

I just re-read my post to see how you could have misunderstood it. I think I figured it out after approximately eight seconds. The key is this sentence, which you either did not read in its entirety, or you did not understand: "As it is, the ratio today is less than 1:337, regardless of print run." What do you think "regardless of print run" means? It does not mean, "this is the print run" or, "this is an estimate of the print run". It means, "this is what was observed in the marketplace, regardless of print run." It is a qualifier designed to distinguish the print run from marketplace observations. For instance, "Marketplace availability, based on today's observations, is less than 1:337. The implication for print run estimates is unknown but it does imply either a higher than normal destruction rate for this popular issue, or a significantly lower number of newsstand copies printed relative to both newsstands and all variants."

Mr. Donut, if you would do a little checking before you respond, you may find that you can stop an embarrassing mistake before it happens. Not that you'd notice.

Nobody cares what is currently available in the highly visible portion of the marketplace right now, unless they are currently looking for a copy, in which case they still don't need you to tell them because they can see it for themselves. Your stupid numbers are completely irrelevant and worthless.

[Get Marwood & I]

[THE_BEYONDER]

On 1/30/2022 at 12:05 AM, october said:

Anyone have a sense of the relative rarity and/or print run on this one? I picked it up recently, but not much of a newsstand enthusiast. 

 

Let’s all take a breath, and just enjoy this raw beauty that Andy has shared with us 

[FlyingDonut]

On 1/30/2022 at 12:44 PM, paqart said:

I'm getting a little tired of this. You've given us this message ad nauseum. Also, I haven't anywhere said that the number of copies in the marketplace resembles, or is, the print run. That is what is called a "straw man". I don't call you on it usually because there are so many other things to debate in your posts but I'm a bit fed up with this one because I haven't done it.

The quick and easy proof of this is that eighties newsstands were printed in much higher numbers than directs but show up less often in the marketplace. If print run was all that mattered, everyone would have a box of Walt Disney Comics & Stories #32 in their basement. I know you think the world beyond your front door is occupied entirely by dumbbells but please give us credit for the few things we get right.

I just re-read my post to see how you could have misunderstood it. I think I figured it out after approximately eight seconds. The key is this sentence, which you either did not read in its entirety, or you did not understand: "As it is, the ratio today is less than 1:337, regardless of print run." What do you think "regardless of print run" means? It does not mean, "this is the print run" or, "this is an estimate of the print run". It means, "this is what was observed in the marketplace, regardless of print run." It is a qualifier designed to distinguish the print run from marketplace observations. For instance, "Marketplace availability, based on today's observations, is less than 1:337. The implication for print run estimates is unknown but it does imply either a higher than normal destruction rate for this popular issue, or a significantly lower number of newsstand copies printed relative to both newsstands and all variants."

Mr. Donut, if you would do a little checking before you respond, you may find that you can stop an embarrassing mistake before it happens. Not that you'd notice.

OK. How many copies of Ultimate Fallout 4 newsstand were printed. I say 10% of the print run, based on the number of sales outlets available in 2011. What is your number?

[Lazyboy]

On 1/30/2022 at 7:20 PM, FlyingDonut said:

OK. How many copies of Ultimate Fallout 4 newsstand were printed. I say 10% of the print run, based on the number of sales outlets available in 2011. What is your number?

Distribution may have been close enough to 10%, but the print run was almost certainly higher.

[FlyingDonut]

On 1/30/2022 at 9:32 PM, Lazyboy said:

Distribution may have been close enough to 10%, but the print run was almost certainly higher.

Just an FYI - 10% is (roughly) 9,000 copies.

[paqart]

On 1/30/2022 at 8:20 PM, FlyingDonut said:

OK. How many copies of Ultimate Fallout 4 newsstand were printed. I say 10% of the print run, based on the number of sales outlets available in 2011. What is your number?

I don't think it's 10%, nor do I think the number of sales outlets is the best metric. They don't give us a reasonable guess at a minimum because we don't know how many ordered certain titles. We also don't have an idea of a maximum from the number of sales outlets because we don't know which ones ordered how many. You can guess based on observations at certain stores, preferably when the boxes are opened and the comics put out but that wouldn't account for local fluctuations and modifications to orders over time.

There were about 115,000 copies of UF4 ordered over a 4 month period, according to Comichron. If you are right, that would indicate 11,500 newsstand copies (or so) were printed. Another comic with a smaller number of orders (71,235) is Amazing Spider-Man 667. It was published in the same month. 

According to some skeptics here, possibly yourself included, higher market value of direct editions draws out newsstand editions into the marketplace. Therefore, the more valuable a direct edition is, the more newsstand versions of the same comic can be expected in the market. Based on this, given smaller order numbers and similar available outlets, the newsstand edition of ASM 667 should be less common in the market than it is. Instead, though it isn't as common as the direct edition, it can usually be found in small numbers. A quick check shows that 4 of the available 36 copies of this comic on eBay are newsstand editions. This is versus none of 337 copies of UF4.

In total, there are more copies of UF4 available than ASM 667. This is expected for two reasons: there are more of them due to higher order numbers (implying a higher print run), and it is significantly more valuable. However, it is not expected that with so many available for sale that there would be many fewer newsstand editions of UF4 than ASM 667 unless there is another factor contributing to scarcity. Availability of ASM 667 is 1:8, close to your 1:10 estimate for UF4. However, availability of UF4 is 0:337.

In this situation, UF4 is more analogous to Supergirl #1, printed six years earlier (2005) with a similar number of direct orders (123,000) and variants (6 vs. 5). When I checked today, out of 231 copies for sale, there were no newsstand editions of Supergirl #1 available, just like UF4. Without any newsstand examples, there is no significant difference between 0:337 (UF4) and 0:231. What this example may show is that popular comics (popular at the time they were published) weighted their direct/newsstand split differently than lower print run comics in such a way that direct distribution was favored even more. In other words, newsstand allotment may have had a cap beyond which more copies weren't printed. If true, that wouldn't account for fewer UF4 newsstands than ASM 667. At best, it would lead us to expect around 47 newsstand copies of UF4, not zero.

ASM 667 has a much smaller sample size than UF4. Superior Spider-Man #1, printed in 2013, had slightly in excess of 204,000 orders. This makes it more likely to have a better sample on eBay, and it does. There were 90 copies listed, of which 5 were newsstands, for a ratio of 1:18. That makes it more common on the market than UF4 but less common than ASM 667, which appears to have had a much smaller print run. This is another indication that the newsstand portion of a print run does not rise proportionate to the direct run. 

Based on the above, I don't believe overall print run or number of venues, even if these were known exactly, are as meaningful as their appearance in the market. In addition to the 337 copies of UF4 currently for sale, there were 767 sales over the past three months, none of which were newsstand editions. That makes a ratio so far of 0:1004. There is no way I am comfortable saying that kind of market availability of a highly popular and expensive comic translates to 10% of the print run. If it did, then the destruction rate would have to be correspondingly high. I'm not even comfortable saying it is a ratio of 1:1,000 without a single copy available for sale in months. This may be rarer than the 1999-2000 $2.29 price variants.

 

 

Edited January 31, 2022 by paqart

[FlyingDonut]

On 1/30/2022 at 11:00 PM, paqart said:

I don't think it's 10%, nor do I think the number of sales outlets is the best metric. They don't give us a reasonable guess at a minimum because we don't know how many ordered certain titles. We also don't have an idea of a maximum from the number of sales outlets because we don't know which ones ordered how many. You can guess based on observations at certain stores, preferably when the boxes are opened and the comics put out but that wouldn't account for local fluctuations and modifications to orders over time.

There were about 115,000 copies of UF4 ordered over a 4 month period, according to Comichron. If you are right, that would indicate 11,500 newsstand copies (or so) were printed. Another comic with a smaller number of orders (71,235) is Amazing Spider-Man 667. It was published in the same month. 

According to some skeptics here, possibly yourself included, higher market value of direct editions draws out newsstand editions into the marketplace. Therefore, the more valuable a direct edition is, the more newsstand versions of the same comic can be expected in the market. Based on this, given smaller order numbers and similar available outlets, the newsstand edition of ASM 667 should be less common in the market than it is. Instead, though it isn't as common as the direct edition, it can usually be found in small numbers. A quick check shows that 4 of the available 36 copies of this comic on eBay are newsstand editions. This is versus none of 337 copies of UF4.

In total, there are more copies of UF4 available than ASM 667. This is expected for two reasons: there are more of them due to higher order numbers (implying a higher print run), and it is significantly more valuable. However, it is not expected that with so many available for sale that there would be many fewer newsstand editions of UF4 than ASM 667 unless there is another factor contributing to scarcity. Availability of ASM 667 is 1:8, close to your 1:10 estimate for UF4. However, availability of UF4 is 0:337.

In this situation, UF4 is more analogous to Supergirl #1, printed six years earlier (2005) with a similar number of direct orders (123,000) and variants (6 vs. 5). When I checked today, out of 231 copies for sale, there were no newsstand editions of Supergirl #1 available, just like UF4. Without any newsstand examples, there is no significant difference between 0:337 (UF4) and 0:231. What this example may show is that popular comics (popular at the time they were published) weighted their direct/newsstand split differently than lower print run comics in such a way that direct distribution was favored even more. In other words, newsstand allotment may have had a cap beyond which more copies weren't printed. If true, that wouldn't account for fewer UF4 newsstands than ASM 667. At best, it would lead us to expect around 80 newsstand copies of UF4, not zero.

ASM 667 has a much smaller sample size than UF4. Superior Spider-Man #1, printed in 2013, had slightly in excess of 204,000 orders. This makes it more likely to have a better sample on eBay, and it does. There were 90 copies listed, of which 5 were newsstands, for a ratio of 1:18. That makes it more common on the market than UF4 but less common than ASM 667, which appears to have had a much smaller print run. This is another indication that the newsstand portion of a print run does not rise proportionate to the direct run. 

Based on the above, I don't believe overall print run or number of venues, even if these were known exactly, are as meaningful as their appearance in the market. In addition to the 337 copies of UF4 currently for sale, there were 767 sales over the past three months, none of which were newsstand editions. That makes a ratio so far of 0:1004. There is no way I am comfortable saying that kind of market availability of a highly popular and expensive comic translates to 10% of the print run. If it did, then the destruction rate would have to be correspondingly high. I'm not even comfortable saying it is a ratio of 1:1,000 without a single copy available for sale in months. This may be rarer than the 1999-2000 $2.29 price variants.

 

 

That's a lot of words to not answer the question. What's your guess as to the newsstand print run of UF 4?

[paqart]

On 1/30/2022 at 11:12 PM, FlyingDonut said:

That's a lot of words to not answer the question. What's your guess as to the newsstand print run of UF 4?

I answered it. If you want to pretend the answer isn't there, go ahead. It's pretty obvious you have nothing to contribute to this topic, so I'm putting you on ignore.

Edited January 31, 2022 by paqart

[FlyingDonut]

On 1/30/2022 at 11:18 PM, paqart said:

I answered it. If you want to pretend the answer isn't there, go ahead. It's pretty obvious you have nothing to contribute to this topic, so I'm putting you on ignore.

You did not. I challenge anyone to find a number in that word salad that is the number of newsstand copies of Ultimate Fallout 4 printed. Not available, not on eBay, not on Heritage, not in comic stores. The number of printed newsstand copies. What's your best guess? You won't make one, because you need to obfuscate and throw meaningless numbers around that have nothing to do with the basic question of how many are there.

And, yep, I have nothing to contribute to this topic. I've been selling comics for 45 years, understand the actual data, and benefit from the kind of fallacy you're spewing in the marketplace, but I know nothing.

Edited January 31, 2022 by FlyingDonut

[Lazyboy]

On 1/30/2022 at 10:18 PM, paqart said:

I answered it. If you want to pretend the answer isn't there, go ahead. It's pretty obvious you have nothing to contribute to this topic, so I'm putting you on ignore.

You are unbelievable. Just ridiculous.

And no, you did not answer the question. You completely avoided providing a number, you lying person_who_is_obnoxiously_self-impressed.

[Microchip]

On 1/31/2022 at 6:25 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

You completely avoided providing a number, you lying person_who_is_obnoxiously_self-impressed.

[Lazyboy]

On 1/30/2022 at 9:51 PM, FlyingDonut said:

Just an FYI - 10% is (roughly) 9,000 copies.

Yeah, but as i pointed out earlier (starting here and going through to the end of that page), responding to the false claim that printed copies of post-2000 Marvels could have been 95% Direct/5% Newsstand, even the returns (for basically anything) aren't that low and obviously there had to be more Newsstands printed than that number. Most returns aren't under 10%, even near the end.

Of course, we don't have a Statement of Ownership for Ultimate Fallout. Maybe it was completely different than the general trend.

[MetalPSI]

I'm so happy I only remember what I do

At least I'm aware of it

[MyNameIsLegion]

its seems to me that the root of attempting to extrapolate direct/newsstand print runs from their availability in the market, which in and of itself has some statistical merit, not in deriving whole numbers, but perhaps relative scarcity in this instance suffers from one big flaw: Comparing Fallout, (which I assume was a LS or otherwise didn't have a very long run) to Amazing Spiderman #667. Any comparison of a title with limited sales history, recognition, cache, etc to a title that had been selling for decades is fraught with error.  It's apples and orangutans.  Compare Spidey to X-Men, or Fallout to some other relatively new/unknown title. Run that comparison across several titles for several months.  All issues of Spidey will be represented in the market always, perhaps uniformly, because: Spidey. 

I also question how uniform the newsstand distribution was per title. Making it standard to run 10% of direct orders for newsstands makes perfect sense from a publishing perspective, and maybe more based on the size of the direct order (Maybe Spidey is 15% for instance, because it lives in a tier that historically will sell through more on newsstands because: Spidey.) Now I don't know the in's and out's or newsstand distribution order selection, but there was some other entity in the middle deciding how many of each title to carry on the newsstand. I doubt they are reading previews, they probably had an algorithm that set quantities ordered of non-monthly titles like Fallout as a % of their normal monthly orders for things like Spidey. It's very likely a large chunk of the print run never got distributed to the newsstand, or made it out of the warehouse of any number of sub-distributers and it all got returned. I think it's useless the speculate on an specific title on any specific month, but figure out what was the standard business practices for printing, distributions, orders and returns, and apply that towards the print run of a title, it's still a swag at best, but you will never get the a precise number of bumps on a gnats nads regardless. 

Edited January 31, 2022 by MyNameIsLegion

[paqart]

On 1/31/2022 at 12:29 AM, Microchip said:

You completely avoided providing a number, you lying person_who_is_obnoxiously_self-impressed.

Answering a question doesn't always require the answer sought. I was asked for a number, I said there was no reasonable method of coming up with one. That is an answer. You may as well ask someone, "when did you stop beating your wife?" If he answers, "I don't beat my wife", is that a non-answer because it wasn't a date?

[MetalPSI]

I get it

But what a bizarre analogy to use

[paqart]

On 1/31/2022 at 10:05 AM, MyNameIsLegion said:

 Comparing Fallout, (which I assume was a LS or otherwise didn't have a very long run) to Amazing Spiderman #667. Any comparison of a title with limited sales history, recognition, cache, etc to a title that had been selling for decades is fraught with error. 

And that is the point I was making. Mr. Donut seemed to be trying to say that there was a minimum number of newsstands that Marvel or DC would print. The logic is that below a certain number, it isn't worth the cost of manufacture and distribution. I don't deny the logic of the argument but it doesn't fit the evidence very well. Clearly, the newsstand UF4 is much rarer in the marketplace than comics like ASM 667 despite having a higher print run. That may be for exactly the reason you mention. The point is this: if there was a minimum number below which printing isn't viable, surely UF4 had to go below whatever that threshold was to produce the results we see in the market. That, or the destruction rate for that comic had to be much higher than normal for newsstand comics.

And for the record, I have compared UF4 to plenty of other comics in the same year, different years, different publishers, different titles, high volume comics, low volume comics, etc. To date, for any newsstand comic I've looked at that is known to exist, it is by far the rarest of them all. It is very important to understand that it is much rarer than comics that had much lower order numbers (per ComiChron), hence the comparison with the same month ASM 667.

I have seen other comics that are comparable to UF4 for the number of directs in the marketplace, over a longer period of time, that have yet to yield a single newsstand copy. Those may be rarer than UF4 but until a copy is found, there existence hasn't been proven yet.

PS: If some posters here were interested in having a serious discussion, they wouldn't carelessly refer to other people in a derogatory fashion. If, for instance, @FlyingDonut could shed some light on the issue by sharing his insights along with the source of those insights, this could be a more pleasant conversation. Disagreement on its own isn't objectionable but mockery and insult have no place in an honest discussion. For instance, I gather that he has owned a comic book store for 45 years. For that reason alone, he likely has some knowledge worth sharing. However, if he refuses to explain the basis for his conclusions, it is hard to assign them any credibility. Particularly since he hasn't stated whether he has experience selling newsstands through normal newsstand outlets and how that information is consistent with what we see in the market. Ultimately, the market is more important than print run anyway, even if there are hidden hoards.

I could say I've had experience selling comics for 45 years also, because I started buying and selling them in 1977. My first job was at a comic book store in 1978, but before that, I'd been hired a few times by local newsstand outlets that also sold back issues to grade and price collections when they came in. I even made a few comics for Marvel, DC, and other publishers, something I haven't seen FD claim. It is true there were periods when I didn't buy or sell comics. Instead, I was making VFX in film and video games, co-founding an academy, and doing other things, but I have always retained an interest in this medium. I have an extensive list of industry contacts, though most are on the creative side of the business rather than the business end of it. In aggregate, it is a significant knowledge base even if I am more interested in the newsstand phenomenon than any of the pros I've spoken with.

There are at least three posters on this board that seem to be doing all they can to make comic book collecting less interesting, less profitable, and less fun for collectors. Their argument appears to be founded in the arrogant belief that their word is inerrant, on the basis that it is their word. I should congratulate them because their posts were so negative that when I first encountered them, I stopped buying comics for almost a year--purely because of their posts. So, maybe their behavior here, particularly if they really do own comic shops, is not the wisest move.

Edited January 31, 2022 by paqart