Census explodes for "Rare Ghost" Book - Triples 9.8 in a single week - Could this be a Census error 3 3

[OJ Pimpson]

 

 

The book in question is “Killmonger #2” the 1:25 Jeff Dekal incentive variant. Released in January of 2019. I Admit, I love this book.  I love the Character, I love Dekal, and I love its rarity and I've loved trying to hunt for this book the last year or so.  So maybe I'm just bitter.  Anyway These come and go on eBay and graded copies usually get snatched up in a matter of minutes. However recently a couple of 9.8s showed up on eBay and that surprised me. They never show up and Last I checked there were only 8 9.8s in existence and One of them is mine. So I checked the census and discovered the count had exploded. Dug in a bit deeper on CGC Data 

 

 

 

According to CGCdata.com

From release until the  3/15/22 census update this book had 14 books on census. 8 - 9.8s, 4 - 9.6s and 2 9.4s  

 

 

 

 

 

Then at the 3/27 update 22 books were added to the count, with a whopping 17 coming in at 9.8 and 5 at 9.6  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why I think this is bizarre. This was an extraordinarily under ordered book. Comic chron, which I know isn’t 100% accurate, estimates a total print run of ~17,000. As everyone knows it isn’t as simple as dividing 17,000 by 25. Shops had to order 25 copies of the regular cover to get a copy of the dekal. By all estimates there were between 2000-2500 direct market comic shops in the North America in 2019. That’s roughly an average of 7 copies ordered per store. So how many shops actually ordered and qualified for this book?Speaking to the owner of my local shop which also happens to be one of the largest shops in Southern California, his guess was that less than 100 of these “should” exist. And seeing as how these 22 books were all graded and added to the census over a single weekly update suggests that all belong to a single individual. 

 

 

More than anything else the thing I find shocking is that of the 22, 17 came back at 9.8. For those not familiar with this book, it has a completely solid black back cover. This book is notorious for all kinds of nasty color rubbing. 
 

added pics of this back cover of this book from the two copies currently for sale on eBay for those who aren’t aware of it or it’s back over issues. These are actually way better than most of the copies I have come across.

 

 

 

 

 

I guess the reason I’m posting this is because is it possible this is an error seeing as how it is so recent? It’s just hard to believe someone was somehow sitting on 22 of these and 17 came back at 9.8 with its really tough back cover. There is probably next to zero chance this is an error and I need to get over this.  Its actually embarrassing how seeing this census jump upset me.  Just kinda took the out of this book to some degree 

 

Any thoughts?

Edited April 14, 2022 by Dimez

[shadroch]

I'm very suspicious on how these are actually distributed.  You say a store had to order 25 copies to get one but was that the only way to get one.?  If 100 shops ordered ten copies each, were none of these printed or did they look at 1000 copies sold and print 40 of these.  If so, what happened to them.  What is stopping Marvel from printing up  a couple hundred copies for whatever reason.  It's not as if there is a sacred contract between Disney, the printers and the consumers. 

I don't think it is out of the question for someone along the distribution chain to end up with the excess books. 

[OJ Pimpson]

On 4/14/2022 at 11:01 AM, shadroch said:

I'm very suspicious on how these are actually distributed.  You say a store had to order 25 copies to get one but was that the only way to get one.?  If 100 shops ordered ten copies each, were none of these printed or did they look at 1000 copies sold and print 40 of these.  If so, what happened to them.  What is stopping Marvel from printing up  a couple hundred copies for whatever reason.  It's not as if there is a sacred contract between Disney, the printers and the consumers. 

I don't think it is out of the question for someone along the distribution chain to end up with the excess books. 

Absolutely no doubt Marvel produces more than is needed to fulfill the orders to those that met incentive. We’ve seen this with the Walmart packs with 1:500s showing up in them. 
 

it’s just pretty gross for those of us in the hobby that like chasing ghost books like this one just to get torpedoed by someone who found a stack of these things at diamond 

Edited April 14, 2022 by Dimez

[shadroch]

I've been picking up a few limited variants, but only because I like the covers.  I've no idea how rare they are but I just thought they looked kool.

Edited April 14, 2022 by shadroch

[Tnexus]

Marvel does semi-annual to annual dumps of excess ratio variants to retailers. I'd guess this is likely the case. Someone scooped up a chunk of these and submitted them.

This is also why numbers are never accurate from places like comichron. I'd be really surprised if any Marvel modern cover has less than 500 printed.

[Lazyboy]

On 4/14/2022 at 1:10 PM, Dimez said:

Absolutely no doubt Marvel produces more than is needed to fulfill the orders to those that met incentive. We’ve seen this with the Walmart packs with 1:500s showing up in them. 
 

it’s just pretty gross for those of us in the hobby that like chasing ghost books like this one just to get torpedoed by someone who found a stack of these things at diamond 

No, it isn't. It's a lesson. It's up to you whether you like learning or not.

Nothing is ever as scarce as you think it is unless you have a hard print number from the source. You can't estimate how many there are because you have no basis for an estimate. Other people estimating inventing numbers based on nothing (relevant) are not to be trusted.

[gregwynn]

I imagine they produce the amount of 1:25's that the print run has even if they don't all get ordered...ie print 400 1:25's on a 10000 Print Run title. How else are Artist able to sell dozens of high ratio books on their website without their own exclusive for the issue?

[Crops068]

On 4/14/2022 at 2:08 PM, Tnexus said:

Marvel does semi-annual to annual dumps of excess ratio variants to retailers. I'd guess this is likely the case. Someone scooped up a chunk of these and submitted them.

This is also why numbers are never accurate from places like comichron. I'd be really surprised if any Marvel modern cover has less than 500 printed.

I would lean towards the retailer dump being the root cause.  These could have been in something like a Walmart 3 pack or an Ollie's pack of some sort.  All it takes is the right person realizing what they found and yoinking up all they could. 

No different than UF4 Pichelli being available at 5 & below years ago in comic packs.

[sckao]

Slabbing so many at once was probably a bad idea actually... given the perceived scarcity.

[Tnexus]

On 4/15/2022 at 10:56 AM, sckao said:

Slabbing so many at once was probably a bad idea actually... given the perceived scarcity.

Selling a ton at once might be a problem, but I doubt many people look up the census to see how many are out there. Plus with current TATs, it's better to do them quickly rather than linger.

[THE_BEYONDER]

On 4/15/2022 at 5:37 PM, Tnexus said:

Selling a ton at once might be a problem, but I doubt many people look up the census to see how many are out there. Plus with current TATs, it's better to do them quickly rather than linger.

I would think that buyers chasing “ghost” books are quite familiar with the CGC census 

[Jeffro.]

On 4/15/2022 at 6:08 PM, THE_BEYONDER said:

On 4/15/2022 at 5:37 PM, Tnexus said:

Selling a ton at once might be a problem, but I doubt many people look up the census to see how many are out there. Plus with current TATs, it's better to do them quickly rather than linger.

I would think that buyers chasing “ghost” books are quite familiar with the CGC census 

I have a ghost book

Spoiler

 

[JC25427N]

On 4/15/2022 at 6:15 PM, Jeffro. said:

I have a ghost book

  Hide contents

 

 I was expecting the slabbed invisible books

[Jeffro.]

On 4/15/2022 at 6:24 PM, JC25427N said:

On 4/15/2022 at 6:15 PM, Jeffro. said:

I have a ghost book

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Expand  

 I was expecting the slabbed invisible books

That's called a Claude Rains.

[theCapraAegagrus]

Census error? Extremely unlikely. It's more likely that someone was simply sitting on them and submitted a large pre-screened order.

[Bird]

On 4/14/2022 at 1:48 PM, Dimez said:

his guess was that less than 100 of these “should” exist.

the quotation marks answer all questions

[Poekaymon]

When I got back into the hobby a few years ago, my interest was instantly piqued by ratio variants books (especially the 1:200, 1:500s, etc) which come out of the gate selling for big numbers.  They seemed special and rare and I bought a bunch, upon release, for more money than I'd like to admit.  It did not take me too long to sour on that practice.

First, ratio variants have generally depreciated, heavily, over time.  I just scanned ebay and I didn't find a single one that I bought in 2018 or so that is not both significantly lower and still readily available today.  I think this applies to most variants, but especially ratios.  (Speaking generally--this particular book could very well be the exception.)

Second, and related to #1, you have no idea how many of these ratio variants are out there.  There are some big sellers on eBay who just week after week post the same, supposedly rare or "ghost," variants.  Literally week after week.  I know because a couple of years ago I had some alerts and I would see the same people posting books I was interested in, one at a time, every week or two, without fail. I just searched for a few, and some of the same sellers are still selling them.  I'm pretty sure they've been going nonstop since 2018.  They seem to have a ton of them--they just don't dump them on the market all at once.  What were the actual print numbers?  No who has any idea how many these sellers have waiting to be sold--it could be an inexhaustible supply.

Third, I see people calling books "ghosts" on here and asking huge sums of money.  But just because something is low census doesn't necessarily mean it is a "ghost."  It could just be that someone has a stack and is either spacing them out or hasn't bothered yet.  It could also just be that no one gives a damn.  If there's one copy on the census it does not mean that there is only one copy in existence.

 

[theCapraAegagrus]

On 4/20/2022 at 11:00 AM, Poekaymon said:

When I got back into the hobby a few years ago, my interest was instantly piqued by ratio variants books (especially the 1:200, 1:500s, etc) which come out of the gate selling for big numbers.  They seemed special and rare and I bought a bunch, upon release, for more money than I'd like to admit.  It did not take me too long to sour on that practice.

First, ratio variants have generally depreciated, heavily, over time.  I just scanned ebay and I didn't find a single one that I bought in 2018 or so that is not both significantly lower and still readily available today.  I think this applies to most variants, but especially ratios.  (Speaking generally--this particular book could very well be the exception.)

Second, and related to #1, you have no idea how many of these ratio variants are out there.  There are some big sellers on eBay who just week after week post the same, supposedly rare or "ghost," variants.  Literally week after week.  I know because a couple of years ago I had some alerts and I would see the same people posting books I was interested in, one at a time, every week or two, without fail. I just searched for a few, and some of the same sellers are still selling them.  I'm pretty sure they've been going nonstop since 2018.  They seem to have a ton of them--they just don't dump them on the market all at once.  What were the actual print numbers?  No who has any idea how many these sellers have waiting to be sold--it could be an inexhaustible supply.

Third, I see people calling books "ghosts" on here and asking huge sums of money.  But just because something is low census doesn't necessarily mean it is a "ghost."  It could just be that someone has a stack and is either spacing them out or hasn't bothered yet.  It could also just be that no one gives a damn.  If there's one copy on the census it does not mean that there is only one copy in existence.

I just don't see the allure in buying a comic book simply because it's "rare".

[sfcityduck]

On 4/20/2022 at 8:07 AM, theCapraAegagrus said:

I just don't see the allure in buying a comic book simply because it's "rare".

I like rare GA comics that are historically important.  But, I don't see the point of manufactured collectibles.

[Sam T]

 

On 4/20/2022 at 11:07 AM, theCapraAegagrus said:

I just don't see the allure in buying a comic book simply because it's "rare".

 

Ya there's a difference between scarcity and false-scarcity.

 

When they printed up Walking Dead #1 they didn't know how big it was going to be. They printed a lot of em but people wanted A SUPER METRIC TON of them. So even though the book wasn't and isn't rare, it's still scarce. Supply ain't low but demand is sooooooo high that its still valuable.

 

Variants are the exact opposite of this. They're false-scarcity. They are products that they KNOW don't have high demand so they try to change the other side of the equation. They realized that its good when demand is higher than supply (but don't understand or care why) so they just muck up the supply side and pretend it means theres 'more demand'. Variants are kinda, by definition, books no one will really want because down the line a book becoming popular and valuable usually comes from familiarity.

 

If most people are getting the standard A copy right now, then thats the one that people are going to want 10-20 years from now. Look at the current market and how much value's been added to the old carnage books from the 90's that we know aren't rare...they're just cool! People like them and remember them so they are rebuying that thing they loved. If the variant is rare and not available then it CAN'T become popular.

 

Seriously, variants are crazy and backwards and every single human dealer I talk to understand that the publishers use em to squeeze retailers...its only on the internet that folks promote them like they're real books.OP posted about someone submitting 20 copies of a modern book to CGC and honestly, I can't even begin to imagine why he thinks that's weird or unlikely or noteworthy.

Edited April 24, 2022 by Sam T