Whitman or Mark Jewelers which is more rare 4 4

[Brock]

On 3/22/2022 at 8:18 PM, Beyonder123 said:

Very cool to have verification of specific sites where MJ were sold. I remember a few years back someone found a couple cpv Mark Jewelers inserts. I thought it was an error but maybe Canadian books had them too. Was anyone here stationed anywhere in Canada and bought books there and if so did any of them have inserts?

I remember as a kid growing up in southern Ontario in the mid 1970s that I had a few books that were MJ variants… I would have bought them locally - maybe used bookstores? - but at 7 or 8, I was not hanging out in American PX shops.

they were also common enough that I didn’t find it weird that they were in my books…

[Juno Beach]

On 3/22/2022 at 6:04 PM, shadroch said:

Maybe they were sold on Canadian Forces bases?

I can't remember ever seeing comics sold at any base in I was posted to on both coasts. I'm really surprised it's an actual thing. Maybe Ontario sold them? 

[Stronguy]

On 3/20/2022 at 11:03 PM, Beyonder123 said:

On 3/20/2022 at 8:01 PM, dzbad said:

Were Mark Jewelers not also sold in domestic military bases? 

Good question. They were definitely distributed overseas. Other sources say they were also distributed within US borders but I don't know where that info comes from. Maybe if someone remembers buying them while stationed in the US hopefully they can chime in. Either way I don't think whitmans were ever distributed overseas.

Yes, Mark Jewelers were at some bases in the US, at least in the '70s they were.  I bought an OO collection with over 800 MJIs and the guy got them at Ft. Bragg.  Other folks recall buying them in the NY area.

There are extensive threads in the Bronze Age and Copper Age section about MJIs and Whitmans. 

[Stronguy]

Let's take the "1,000,000 random comics" scenario and break it down... but make it 100,000 to fit individual print runs and focus on the 1970s thru mid-1980s.

Given 100k random Marvel/DC/Gold Key books from the '70s and mid-'80s, you are much more likely to hit a MJI than Whitman for 1 simple reason -- MJIs were 80% of all issues from Marvels/DCs/GKs had MJIs put in them, while only a handful of issues had Whitman versions made.  IOW, of the ~180 individual issues of Batman printed over a 15 year period, 150 of them likely got MJIs (at a rate of 2%-5% by rough estimates).  However, on about 25 of those 180 issues got Whitman versions. Granted, the Whitman print runs were likely more than 2%-5% (I have no idea exactly) but total Batmans with MJIs should exceed Whitmans.
2¢

[Mystafo]

On 3/13/2022 at 7:23 PM, Beyonder123 said:

Since we're on the topic of rare variants. How about Bubblicious ad inserts? Distributed in newsstands and directs for only 1 month.

Ok, getting really off topic here...but what the hell is up with Deathlok's pistol?!  It's like the artist got the barrel and scope confused, lollllll  Or is that like a barcode scanning gun?

Edited March 24, 2022 by Mystafo

[dzbad]

On 3/24/2022 at 2:02 PM, Mystafo said:

Ok, getting really off topic here...but what the hell is up with Deathlok's pistol?!  It's like the artist got the barrel and scope confused, lollllll  Or is that like a barcode scanning gun?

Drawn by someone who has not fired a gun I would imagine. 

 

[Gonzimodo]

On 3/14/2022 at 3:58 PM, Gonzimodo said:

I was in the Army in Germany from 1989 to 1991, so most of my comics from that time are Mark Jewelers variants.  I used to find the inserts annoying, so it took me thirty years to realize how lucky I actually am to have all those in my collection.    My best two (monetarily, anyway) are New Mutants 98 and Uncanny X-Men 266, but I've got a ton of others.  I couldn't find bags and boards over there to save my life and had to have them shipped back home to the States by military contracted movers, but almost everything survived the trip surprisingly well. 

I was going through some of my books over the weekend and discovered that I apparently sold my X-Men 266 a while back and replaced it with a standard, direct market copy.    I kind of remember doing that now, because I think it had a bent or crushed corner, so I sold it on eBay about 20 years ago without advertising it as an MJ variant since I didn't care about that at the time.    Hopefully it found a good home.

[CJ Design]

Growing up outside of DC (Dad at Pentagon) I bought MJ's at Ft Belvoir, Ft Myer and Cameron Station.