How rare are modern newsstand editions? 6 6

[paqart]

On 2/1/2022 at 2:49 PM, valiantman said:

I'm not sure there's a title available with those qualifications: https://www.comichron.com/titlespotlights.html

I'd love to see the numbers for Jonah Hex, Catwoman, or Supergirl, which seem to have a range of around 13k-25k, based on orders on Comichron. All were published as newsstands but they are very hard to find, particularly Jonah Hex. I'd love to get the three JH issues with Darwyn Cook covers but have yet to see them as newsstand editions. Meanwhile, the direct versions are easily found every day of the week, seemingly in any condition. To date, I've only had the opportunity to buy two JH issues as newsstands (none of which had covers by Cooke), still looking for the rest, though my primary interest is the three issues previously mentioned.

Edited February 1, 2022 by paqart

[valiantman]

On 2/1/2022 at 2:38 PM, paqart said:

With the above paragraph, I have taken a step beyond suggesting that marketplace availability can be used as an indicia of absolute rarity. I am saying that rather than erring in the direction of making newsstand editions appear to be more rare, I think it is possible that eBay makes newsstand editions appear to be less rare than they actually are.

Playing devil's advocate, it is possible that the vast majority of newsstand comic holders (whether original purchases when new or "hoarders" in the years that followed) are either 1) not on eBay or they are not eBay sellers (many eBay users only buy) or 2) are not interested in selling for only a small profit (holding out for the future).

Where we have counter-arguments are situations like Ultimate Fallout #4 newsstand, which has sales of $1,000+ in any condition, and generally represents one of the highest profits possible for modern books - effectively eliminating argument 2) that the profit isn't enough.  That leaves "not on eBay" and "not an eBay seller" as the likely scenarios for "where are all the Ultimate Fallout #4 newsstand books that should exist?"

We have no proof that Ultimate Fallout #4 newsstand books aren't overwhelmingly in the hands of uninformed collectors who don't realize the value, but that doesn't give us much reason to expect a flood of them anytime soon.  "One clueless collector at a time" will definitely increase the number of newsstands sold (similar to how new copies of Action Comics #1 turn up), but it's not happening nearly as often as we should expect now that any half-decent copy of UF #4 newsstand has been thousands of dollars for a few years.  The Lifesuggs Barnes & Noble newsstand hoard of 2018 looked like it only had two copies in it, and he (and his supplier) knew exactly what they were doing.

[paqart]

On 2/1/2022 at 4:24 PM, valiantman said:

The Lifesuggs Barnes & Noble newsstand hoard of 2018 looked like it only had two copies in it, and he (and his supplier) knew exactly what they were doing.

How many newsstands were in that hoard? The pictures he posted looked like 100-150 comics or so. Unless those were just notable issues, I've found two hoards of similar or greater size myself. The two I found were 167 and about 250 issues each. In both cases, there were many copies of the same issues, none of which were big keys like UF4. The Lifesuggs  "hoard" however, had a few key issues. My only point is that the mere existence of hoards does not guarantee that they contain the right issues.

Edited February 2, 2022 by paqart

[Microchip]

On 2/2/2022 at 8:24 AM, valiantman said:

Playing devil's advocate, it is possible that the vast majority of newsstand comic holders (whether original purchases when new or "hoarders" in the years that followed) are either 1) not on eBay or they are not eBay sellers (many eBay users only buy) or 2) are not interested in selling for only a small profit (holding out for the future).

Where we have counter-arguments are situations like Ultimate Fallout #4 newsstand, which has sales of $1,000+ in any condition, and generally represents one of the highest profits possible for modern books - effectively eliminating argument 2) that the profit isn't enough.  That leaves "not on eBay" and "not an eBay seller" as the likely scenarios for "where are all the Ultimate Fallout #4 newsstand books that should exist?"

We have no proof that Ultimate Fallout #4 newsstand books aren't overwhelmingly in the hands of uninformed collectors who don't realize the value, but that doesn't give us much reason to expect a flood of them anytime soon.  "One clueless collector at a time" will definitely increase the number of newsstands sold (similar to how new copies of Action Comics #1 turn up), but it's not happening nearly as often as we should expect now that any half-decent copy of UF #4 newsstand has been thousands of dollars for a few years.  The Lifesuggs Barnes & Noble newsstand hoard of 2018 looked like it only had two copies in it, and he (and his supplier) knew exactly what they were doing.

I think there will be distinct "virgin" collectors out there, with newsstand copies in their collections.  How and if they will interact with the wider fraternity is unknown.   I think we'd see the whole range of scenario's, where copies would join the wider market, but nothing in significant numbers, and of course the important question around condition.   How many Edger Church's are out there in the social media generation currently?   And is comic collecting like smoking, no one over the age of 25 takes it and goes deep down the rabbit-hole of preservation, in a vacuum to the rest of the hobby?

[paqart]

On 2/1/2022 at 4:24 PM, valiantman said:

 

We have no proof that Ultimate Fallout #4 newsstand books aren't overwhelmingly in the hands of uninformed collectors who don't realize the value,

Or that the amount in the hands of uninformed collectors would satisfy demand. That is the other half of this. The quantity of available comics is large or small compared to demand. Only if the absolute number of available copies is less than the demand in both categories is it insufficient, or larger than both is it sufficient. 1,000 copies of newsstand UF4's wouldn't make a dent in demand for the issue, though it would probably impact the price of the newsstand version. Ironically, 1,000 copies of that comic would still leave it in the minority.

[JoeyClarkKent]

Wow, what an intense 24 page thread! As an outsider (up until this post, of course) I can say that I’m actually impressed that the discussion didn’t go completely off the rails, as unfortunately it often does. One bit of information I’d like to add as the thought occurred to me while journeying through this thread, is that from 1987 until around 1990 or so I exclusively purchased off the rack (newsstand) comic books, and while I “took care of my things, ie baseball cards, toys, comic books, etc” much better (like light years better) than any of my peers of the time, the comics I was getting from say 7-11 or Great Scott or K-Mart for example, were not backed and boarded in any sense of the term, and are therefor not in as good of condition as the direct editions I started purchasing from comic shops (which almost exclusively became where I was purchasing comics from) until 1996 or so when I stopped collecting in my adolescence. All direct edition books I had purchased were immediately backed, boarded, and stored in a comic book box which is where they remain today as I write this. I’d add that I have never sent in any of those books in to be graded, nor have I ever sold any which could have then been graded. I point this out as I believe there could possibly be a decent amount of people similar to myself. My gut feeling is that there are probably way more direct editions sitting in peoples houses which could grade out as a CGC 9.8s than there are newsstand editions sitting in a .50 cent bin at a comic shop bins, warehouses, or people’s attics (combined) that would grade a CGC 9.8. And while I know parts of this thread pertained to initial print run or one thing or another, this aspect of “newsstand scarcity” is what interested me and this brought me here. Please excuse any typos or grammatical errors, I’m typing this from my phone and haven’t gone back and proofread what I’ve just now written. 😀

[paqart]

On 2/4/2022 at 8:54 PM, JoeyClarkKent said:

Wow, what an intense 24 page thread! As an outsider (up until this post, of course) I can say that I’m actually impressed that the discussion didn’t go completely off the rails, as unfortunately it often does. One bit of information I’d like to add as the thought occurred to me while journeying through this thread, is that from 1987 until around 1990 or so I exclusively purchased off the rack (newsstand) comic books, and while I “took care of my things, ie baseball cards, toys, comic books, etc” much better (like light years better) than any of my peers of the time, the comics I was getting from say 7-11 or Great Scott or K-Mart for example, were not backed and boarded in any sense of the term, and are therefor not in as good of condition as the direct editions I started purchasing from comic shops (which almost exclusively became where I was purchasing comics from) until 1996 or so when I stopped collecting in my adolescence. All direct edition books I had purchased were immediately backed, boarded, and stored in a comic book box which is where they remain today as I write this. I’d add that I have never sent in any of those books in to be graded, nor have I ever sold any which could have then been graded. I point this out as I believe there could possibly be a decent amount of people similar to myself. My gut feeling is that there are probably way more direct editions sitting in peoples houses which could grade out as a CGC 9.8s than there are newsstand editions sitting in a .50 cent bin at a comic shop bins, warehouses, or people’s attics (combined) that would grade a CGC 9.8. And while I know parts of this thread pertained to initial print run or one thing or another, this aspect of “newsstand scarcity” is what interested me and this brought me here. Please excuse any typos or grammatical errors, I’m typing this from my phone and haven’t gone back and proofread what I’ve just now written. 😀

I am increasingly confident that damage and destruction post-purchase are a bigger factor in newsstand rarity than print run. Put another way, as interesting as the print run is, it looks less and less relevant to newsstand scarcity by the day. The empirical data to support this conclusion is market availability of issues from the time period you mention that have known print runs (or good estimates from the year end postal statements). With those, we see an overwhelming majority of printed copies are newsstands. On today's market, however, the majority of available copies are usually directs, regardless of condition. What that suggests is that the newsstands, printed in great abundance, managed to lose so many copies along the way that they became less than the minority. 
Brought forward to the present, where newsstands were printed as a minority to begin with, it is easy to understand why they are so scarce. The idea of a 1:1000 scarcity ratio for the newsstand UF4, for instance, is not that difficult to believe when, over the past 90 days over a thousand were sold or offered on eBay and Heritage Auctions, and none were newsstand editions. At the same time, it is difficult to believe that the scarcity ratio for that issue is a mere 1:100 or less. This isn't the only newsstand that is so rare but it is likely the most valuable and heavily traded, making it a good benchmark for other issues that have yet to appear for sale, whose survival is theoretical rather than certain.

Edited February 5, 2022 by paqart

[paqart]

On 1/31/2022 at 2:43 PM, Lazyboy said:

Again, paqart cannot see the marketplace. He can see only a tiny part (yes, though highly visible, it is still only a tiny part) of it. So his claims about availability in the marketplace can be immediately dismissed.

"Immediately dismissed" is not the kind of thing I expect to hear from any reasonable person making a serious inquiry into a subject. I'll tell you this, I've looked for newsstands at garage sales, flea markets, comic book conventions, auctions, local comic book stores, individual collectors, and online auctions. Of the group, eBay is the only place I can find them in any quantity, particularly when looking for specific issues. It may represent a fraction of the market (how big a fraction is a separate issue) but for newsstands, it is the majority of the market from what I have seen. If not for eBay, I'd probably have around 300 modern newsstands instead of the 2,500 or so that I have.

[Lazyboy]

On 2/5/2022 at 8:57 AM, paqart said:

"Immediately dismissed" is not the kind of thing I expect to hear from any reasonable person making a serious inquiry into a subject. I'll tell you this, I've looked for newsstands at garage sales, flea markets, comic book conventions, auctions, local comic book stores, individual collectors, and online auctions. Of the group, eBay is the only place I can find them in any quantity, particularly when looking for specific issues. It may represent a fraction of the market (how big a fraction is a separate issue) but for newsstands, it is the majority of the market from what I have seen. If not for eBay, I'd probably have around 300 modern newsstands instead of the 2,500 or so that I have.

Yes, feeBay is a very convenient place for one individual to find things, because nobody is going to (or can) travel to every store, convention, garage sale, flea market, etc. in the world. Even if somebody did all that traveling, they wouldn't likely get access to the full stock of every store/dealer they encountered.

But if somebody is going to make claims about marketplace availability based on one part of the market, then yes, I will simply dismiss it.

[divad]

I could while away the hours, conferring with the flowers, consulting with the rain . . . 

Edited February 6, 2022 by divad

[FlyingDonut]

Friend of mine who owns a comic store just bought a collection of 1500 or so newsstands. Late 89-95. I'll take a look. They're out there.

[mr_highgrade]

On 2/6/2022 at 12:05 AM, FlyingDonut said:

Friend of mine who owns a comic store just bought a collection of 1500 or so newsstands. Late 89-95. I'll take a look. They're out there.

That time period doesn't really surprise me. Now, if you told me mid 2000's and up...  

[paqart]

On 2/6/2022 at 12:10 AM, mr_highgrade said:

That time period doesn't really surprise me. Now, if you told me mid 2000's and up...  

Agreed.

[paqart]

On 2/6/2022 at 12:05 AM, FlyingDonut said:

Friend of mine who owns a comic store just bought a collection of 1500 or so newsstands. Late 89-95. I'll take a look. They're out there.

Not that a group from that time period is relevant to the rarity of later issues. The only newsstands I get excited about from that era are Canadians in high grade. Even then, while less common than directs from the same era, they aren't that difficult to find. The only issue with those is price from what I've seen.

[paqart]

Sometimes I feel like I'm trying to have a conversation with gerbils in here. Not everyone of course. There are quite a few interesting posts by people who are more concerned with little-explored territory in the hobby of collecting than in testing their ability to come up with gibes for their own amusement. It reminds me of the kind of dialogue written for "punk 1" through "punk 3" in the Karate Kid movies. Anyway, that's it for me. The gerbils have taken over and they aren't worth the effort to clean up after them. For the serious collectors among you, and those whose parents taught you how to behave in public, it's been fun. For the rest of you, it hasn't. Give yourselves a pat on the back.

Edited February 6, 2022 by paqart

[divad]

Say it ain't so, paquito You'll be missed. 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 2/6/2022 at 5:43 AM, paqart said:

Sometimes I feel like I'm trying to have a conversation with gerbils in here. Not everyone of course. There are quite a few interesting posts by people who are more concerned with little-explored territory in the hobby of collecting than in testing their ability to come up with gibes for their own amusement. It reminds me of the kind of dialogue written for "punk 1" through "punk 3" in the Karate Kid movies. Anyway, that's it for me. The gerbils have taken over and they aren't worth the effort to clean up after them. For the serious collectors among you, and those whose parents taught you how to behave in public, it's been fun. For the rest of you, it hasn't. Give yourselves a pat on the back.

I enjoyed your contributions to the forum very much, Paq, and whilst I am sorry to see you go, I completely understand why you would reach the decision you have. The love of comics is a wonderful thing - please don't let your experience here taint that. Good luck in all you do.  

[MetalPSI]

Well, the only thing I've learned is that its more PC to refer to people as rodents than their intellectual capacity

Keep those wheels spinning 

[500Club]

On 2/5/2022 at 7:57 AM, paqart said:

I've looked for newsstands at garage sales

What was your success rate?  Both for any comics, and for post-2000 newsstand books.

[Microchip]

On 2/6/2022 at 9:16 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

On 2/6/2022 at 4:43 PM, paqart said:

Sometimes I feel like I'm trying to have a conversation with gerbils in here. Not everyone of course. There are quite a few interesting posts by people who are more concerned with little-explored territory in the hobby of collecting than in testing their ability to come up with gibes for their own amusement. It reminds me of the kind of dialogue written for "punk 1" through "punk 3" in the Karate Kid movies. Anyway, that's it for me. The gerbils have taken over and they aren't worth the effort to clean up after them. For the serious collectors among you, and those whose parents taught you how to behave in public, it's been fun. For the rest of you, it hasn't. Give yourselves a pat on the back.

I enjoyed your contributions to the forum very much, Paq, and whilst I am sorry to see you go, I completely understand why you would reach the decision you have. The love of comics is a wonderful thing - please don't let your experience here taint that. Good luck in all you do.  

Another quality contributor hounded out.  And we're left with reprobates @Lazyboyand @greggy to thank for that.