CGC now featuring newsstand copy designation 6 6

[valiantman]

On 9/28/2022 at 2:53 PM, FlyingDonut said:

So that's a 12.3 multiplier for a newsstand UF 4 in 9.4 vs. a direct - sounds about right, all things considered.

For reference, there are 212 sales for UF 4 direct edition in CGC 9.4 in the past 12 months, and UF 4 newsstand edition has 2.

I'm not saying the ratio is definitely 100:1, but you can see how it would be possible to use data (214 data points, not an insignificant number in pure statistics) to get to 106:1 for CGC 9.4 and therefore "suggest" that 100:1 isn't impossible and might even be reasonable, given all the data we have at this point. Whether that conjecture draws the objections of the people in this thread is irrelevant. The data is there... 214 sales of CGC 9.4 UF #4, and 2 of them are newsstand.

There is definitely a difference between 1% of printed copies being newsstand (which is very unlikely, why bother with a newsstand program at all if it's 1%?) and the data showing 10+ years later that only 1% of CGC 9.4 copies graded and sold in the public venues have been newsstand.

I think that the question of what was printed, for newsstand, answers about 5% of the question. What survived and in what conditions is the real question, and we should be able to get better answers (though still conjecture) with data from CGC and from what GPAnalysis has done in manually identifying newsstand for a few issues for a few years before now.

October 2021, all we really had was GPAnalysis, and here's what the data was showing at that time... https://comics.gpanalysis.com/news/2021/newsstand-direct-edition-data-where-gpanalysis-is-leading-the-way

Edited September 28, 2022 by valiantman

[Qalyar]

On 9/28/2022 at 4:06 PM, MAR1979 said:

Hey,

Hulk 234 was April 1979 cover date (Jan 1979 on-sale date), June 1979 cover date (March 1979 on-sale date) was first month Marvel newsstand and direct-sale were differentiated.  June 1979 cover date first had line through UPC and Price area was same direct and newsstand. In July 1979 depending on book the narrow diamond price area and disembodied Spidey head in UPS rectangle was first used. So don't send the Hulk 234 in

Re-holders in general scare me at current time.  To risky IMHO to have a book damaged. Perhaps if and when Q/C is again performed with CGC?

 

 

Are you sure about that on Hulk 234? I don't have one handy, but I don't believe any copies of that one had a strikethrough UPC box.

[ADAMANTIUM]

Y'all are putting a lot more thought into this than I could, I'll bow out, but let me know on the #234 or I can look. 

I could have sworn there was one other, as those were all slabs, that needed a reholder to be considered the new new and up to date label. I may just pass. Insert Scott Pilgrim vs the World meme  here

[Qalyar]

On 9/28/2022 at 4:47 PM, ADAMANTIUM said:

Y'all are putting a lot more thought into this than I could, I'll bow out, but let me know on the #234 or I can look. 

I could have sworn there was one other, as those were all slabs, that needed a reholder to be considered the new new and up to date label. I may just pass. Insert Scott Pilgrim vs the World meme  here

I also could be wrong. I collect some late 70s stuff but the bulk of my current focus is quite a bit more recent. And I've never been a Hulk guy.

[djpinkpanther67]

On 9/28/2022 at 5:47 PM, ADAMANTIUM said:

Y'all are putting a lot more thought into this than I could, I'll bow out, but let me know on the #234 or I can look. 

I could have sworn there was one other, as those were all slabs, that needed a reholder to be considered the new new and up to date label. I may just pass. Insert Scott Pilgrim vs the World meme  here

Hulk 234 is a 35c cover. The DM books didn’t start until the second month (?) there was a 40c cover price

[ADAMANTIUM]

On 9/28/2022 at 4:53 PM, djpinkpanther67 said:

Hulk 234 is a 35c cover. The DM books didn’t start until the second month (?) there was a 40c cover price

 

On 9/28/2022 at 4:52 PM, Qalyar said:

I also could be wrong. I collect some late 70s stuff but the bulk of my current focus is quite a bit more recent. And I've never been a Hulk guy.

@MAR1979 I actually meant 

 

 

Hulk

#271 whoops

Edited September 28, 2022 by ADAMANTIUM

[Pittsburgh]

On 9/28/2022 at 1:35 PM, Lazyboy said:

I hope you're not talking about me here, because I'm absolutely not against the designation. They should have done it decades ago.

I am very much against lies from people trying (successfully, in this case ) to manipulate a market for their own profit.

If you like collecting them, good for you.

Try opening your eyes next time you use the site.  I've seen it many times, and I only occasionally look at the site since I don't use it for transactions (I don't even have an account anymore).

I don't care what other people collect. I do care what ridiculous claims they make.

Open my eyes?  I do and I was simply saying that I'VE never seen it.  Understand?

You bring nothing to this topic other than disagreeing with 2 people who have obviously done a lot of research and documented their findings.  Yours?  "I've seen it many times, and I only occasionally look at the site..." (the last part is irrelevant).  Good on ya for providing solid evidence on the matter .  If you had an eBay account, you could message the sellers to inform them of their false information.  But you don't, so your white knighting is falling on deaf ears.

Most people don't buy newsstands BECAUSE they are newsstands as it's not a big enough niche to warrant the faux outrage that this thread is generating. 

 

 

[Lazyboy]

On 9/28/2022 at 5:16 PM, Pittsburgh said:

Open my eyes?  I do and I was simply saying that I'VE never seen it.  Understand?

You bring nothing to this topic other than disagreeing with 2 people who have obviously done a lot of research and documented their findings.  Yours?  "I've seen it many times, and I only occasionally look at the site..." (the last part is irrelevant).  Good on ya for providing solid evidence on the matter .  If you had an eBay account, you could message the sellers to inform them of their false information.  But you don't, so your white knighting is falling on deaf ears.

Most people don't buy newsstands BECAUSE they are newsstands as it's not a big enough niche to warrant the faux outrage that this thread is generating. 

 

 

The only person bringing nothing here is you. Go away.

[Sigur Ros]

On 9/28/2022 at 3:40 PM, valiantman said:

I meant for Ultimate Fallout #4, one of the biggest books in the past 12 years, where the market has never treated the newsstand like the direct edition, despite having identical CGC labels.

Oh, gotcha  👍

[MAR1979]

On 9/28/2022 at 5:43 PM, Qalyar said:

Are you sure about that on Hulk 234? I don't have one handy, but I don't believe any copies of that one had a strikethrough UPC box.

Correct that is why I mentioned

Hulk 234 was April 1979 cover date (Jan 1979 on-sale date), June 1979 cover date (March 1979 on-sale date) was first month Marvel newsstand and direct-sale were differentiated

'round my parts June comes after after April    -  All in good fun man

Edited September 28, 2022 by MAR1979

[ADAMANTIUM]

On 9/28/2022 at 5:30 PM, MAR1979 said:

On 9/28/2022 at 4:43 PM, Qalyar said:

Are you sure about that on Hulk 234? I don't have one handy, but I don't believe any copies of that one had a strikethrough UPC box.

Correct that why I mentioned

Hulk 234 was April 1979 cover date (Jan 1979 on-sale date), June 1979 cover date (March 1979 on-sale date) was first month Marvel newsstand and direct-sale were differentiated

'round my parts June comes after after April    All in good fun man

Ah because strike through would be the "direct" version.

Anyway, sorry for the confusion 

[Sigur Ros]

On 9/28/2022 at 6:25 PM, Lazyboy said:

The only person bringing nothing here is you. Go away.

Actually, he's 100% accurate.

[paqart]

On 9/28/2022 at 2:06 PM, FlyingDonut said:

10) People who push the ratio - not the concept that newstands are rarer (they are) or harder to find (they are) or are worth more (they are) but the ratio - as gospel are hucksters and trying to influence the marketplace.

 

It is an attempt to quantify rarity. As such, it is a valid exercise. Not making an estimate of any kind on the basis that it is a "guess" prevents understanding availability of these things. I started my counting exercises for the purpose of determining which comics are harder to obtain as newsstands than other issues. By producing ratios for every issue in question, I was able to see things I wouldn't have seen otherwise and that influenced my buying decisions. I was able to see, for instance, that in less than 9.2 grade, there is no meaningful difference between ASM #300's direct and newsstand edition (1.25:1). There is a difference in grade 9.2 and up (82:1) but those are out of my price range. As a result, I decided to strike ASM 300 from my buy list. ASM 301, however, is much harder to obtain in NS than direct regardless of condition. So, it is on my list in any grade above 8.0 as long as the price is reasonable. I would not have known this if I hadn't done the research and produced availability ratios.

My point is that there is real utility to figuring out an estimate, or ratio, of marketplace availability that has nothing to do with "hucksterism" or attempts to "influence the market". 

[paqart]

On 9/28/2022 at 2:11 PM, Qalyar said:

Honestly, one of the things that makes me sad about -- not everyone, but broadly speaking -- the current state of our hobby is that the primary concern about everything is so often "what it's worth". I think that's what makes the discussion about these books so likely to become heated. And I know, this is a business, not a hobby, for a lot of people here (it used to be mine). But we're supposed to be collectors, too, right? And I think one of the really compelling things about the distribution variants -- especially at the ends of their timeline -- is the story they tell.

The early DM books, the ones with the slashed barcodes, exist because of the growing industry influence of dedicated comic book stores. The whole point of that distinction was that direct-market books weren't returnable; if they didn't sell, too bad, the store still had to deal with them. The comic store as many of us know it, with all those long boxes of back issues to browse through and discover, exists in a large part because of the financial gamble that those early slash-coded books represent. To some extent, we're here because of those books. And then, on the other end of the spectrum, you've got the late newsstands. Comic book stores had won; they hadn't just co-existed with returnable distribution, they pushed returnable distribution out of the market entirely. But those last, late newsstands -- sold mostly in mall bookstores, but also airport kiosks, convenience stores, and a handful of other outlets -- were the publishers still trying, even as finances turned against them, to reach out with their stories to people who would never think to walk into a store dedicated to the hobby. Or the smaller publishers along the way who gambled on allowing returnable distribution just to get wider exposure, facing the real risk that a bad month of returns might cost them the money they needed to stay in the game.

Yeah, there's a big stretch of time in the middle when major-publisher newsstand copies aren't really anything special, when the distribution was equal or close to it, where maybe the only thing one version has over the other is that direct market books were a little more likely to be sold to someone who cared more about their condition than their contents. But the rise and fall of distribution variants is the story of comics books' modern history, and we get to see it on the covers of the books we collect. Surely that's at least as worthy of our collecting attention as, say, books that are only special because of cover art that a specific retailer paid to have exclusive distribution rights to?

Agreed. Another thing I'd like to add is to me, direct editions were another marker in the road: the shift toward genres that appealed to comic book collectors. It didn't happen right away but the variety in genres that survived Seduction of the Innocent gradually disappeared after comics moved to comic shops. That is one thing I have always disliked about the direct market: the publishers stopped making comics for casual readers.

 

[paqart]

On 9/28/2022 at 2:18 PM, valiantman said:

Agreed on all 10 points.

We could spend the next 50 years calculating the ratios of newsstands to direct for various books at varying CGC grades and even if we get the same answers every time, it wouldn't be fact. It would be evidence that continues to support the conjecture and educated guess.

The problem is that books which really are 80 times harder to find (over and over) aren't necessarily 1:80 in reality (so it's not gospel), and there certainly isn't evidence they are 1:1,000 as some might exaggerate somewhere online, but the objection to the actual premiums being paid is also irrational.

People seem to be objecting to prices that aren't very extreme, as if it is completely ridiculous to pay 3.6 times the price for a book that's only turned up once in every 80 sales.  Should they be a similiar price? If not, then why is 3.6 too much? Why not 20 times the direct price? Why not 40 times the direct price? Is 3.6 really an insane multiplier?

What should the price be?  I keep seeing people say, "I might pay up to 10% extra", but a book that turns up once in every eighty sales is going to have a higher premium than one that turns up once in every three sales.

It's all math. It can't be 10% every time.

If I try and fail to get a comic that is already hard to find, and then fail several more times because I'm outbid, I'll make sure to get it the next time. The harder to find the comic is, the more relaxed my pocketbook becomes. I couldn't care less what someone else thinks of that, if I've been looking for over a year, I'm quite likely to pay the price to save myself another year of looking. That's the part of this that gets ignored in these conversations, the value of your time. Forget about what you think the comic is worth or should be worth, what is it worth to a collector to save hundreds of hours of looking? Based on what I've earned in the past, spending time looking for a comic is the equivalent of spending more money on that comic, so it can be a net savings to cut that process short by paying the higher price. If that prices out someone else, too bad. My motive isn't to keep the prices low for everyone else or to raise them for future resale but to acquire things that are very hard to locate. Once I have doubles and triples, I start to relax.

[paqart]

On 9/28/2022 at 3:55 PM, FlyingDonut said:

There are many big time dealers who miss the second one. BTW if you have a NS 607 let me know.

and, just fyi, how does this get labeled now? Canadian Price Variant? Newsstand? Canadian Priced Newsstand?

 

 

[Lazyboy]

On 9/28/2022 at 7:19 PM, paqart said:

It is an attempt to quantify rarity. As such, it is a valid exercise.

It's only a valid exercise if you have relevant data.

On 9/28/2022 at 7:19 PM, paqart said:

My point is that there is real utility to figuring out an estimate, or ratio, of marketplace availability that has nothing to do with "hucksterism" or attempts to "influence the market". 

For the last time, you are not estimating marketplace availability. eBay is not the marketplace and it is certainly not the world. Sure, looking at what is on eBay is great... if you want to buy something on eBay, but otherwise...

[THE_BEYONDER]

On 9/28/2022 at 3:19 PM, valiantman said:

I agree. The first question that anyone should ask about "harder to find" books (whether they're standard publisher ratios, distribution like newsstand or Canadian Price Variant, a 35 cent price test, or whatever reason the book is different) is whether the most common edition of the book is collectible?

When the pages inside a book matter, there's an additional reason for collectors to be interested in all forms of the book, and more reason that low supply could be a problem if there's any demand at all.

Some of the "most valuable" variants have nothing going for them besides one edition has fewer available compared to the most common edition. The contents of the book are (effectively) meaningless, such as FF #257 (apologies to FF #257 fans, but the book is $1 on Ebay), or (dare I say it), Amazing Spider-Man #667. What's the value of Amazing Spider-Man #667 regular direct edition? Ummm... not good.

On the other hand, Ultimate Fallout #4 is a book that matters a lot even in its most common edition, just a plain old first print direct edition. The editions which are not exactly like the first print direct edition are the 1:25 retailer incentive and the newsstand. Later printings aren't first printings, so they're a bit of a different animal. 

Most people don't realize that every single sale of a CGC graded Ultimate Fallout #4 Newsstand has been a higher price than the same CGC grade for the Ultimate Fallout #4 1:25 Variant at that point in time.  

The last sale of a CGC 9.8 UF #4 Variant was $40,800 according to GPA in June 2022 and the last sale of a CGC 9.8 UF #4 Newsstand was $8,100 in June 2020, so it seems like the UF #4 Variant is winning, but the most recent sale of CGC 9.8 UF #4 Variant in June 2020 (when the Newsstand sold for $8,100) was $7,500.  Newsstand was higher than the variant the last time the 9.8 newsstand sold.  The CGC 9.6 newsstand was three times the CGC 9.6 variant price in 2020. The most recent CGC 9.4 sale for newsstand was higher than the CGC 9.4 variant. UF #4 Newsstand is flying under the radar despite higher prices than the variant because the newsstand sales are so infrequent.  Dare we say it?  Because the newsstand is so much tougher to find than the UF #4 variant.

Despite the UF #4 newsstand selling for more than the variant in 2020, there have been no more CGC 9.8 UF #4 Newsstand sales recorded on GPAnalysis since June 2020. 

The CGC 9.8 UF #4 Variant has sold 14 times since then.  

One of the biggest books that most people can name which was printed in the past 12 years is UF #4 Variant.  If the UF #4 Newsstand is already worth more now, when many don't even know it exists, when CGC didn't mention it on the label, what does the future hold when people actually find out?  Seems like things could be even more different now that CGC actually acknowledges what the market has always known.

Perhaps, as it has been suggested, there will be a flood of newsstands to CGC and into the market.   But more than two years has seen zero, despite a price more than $8,000 at the time.

So a CGC 9.8 UF 4 newsie is potentially a 50k+ book right now....
 
 

 

[valiantman]

On 9/28/2022 at 8:10 PM, THE_BEYONDER said:

So a CGC 9.8 UF 4 newsie is potentially a 50k+ book right now....
 

I'd be happy to watch a legit auction for one, but I wouldn't be bidding. One of the great things about science is that even the most intense observation is usually free. 

Edited September 29, 2022 by valiantman

[ADAMANTIUM]

On 9/28/2022 at 8:18 PM, valiantman said:

I'd be happy to watch a legit auction for one, but I wouldn't be bidding. One of the great things about science is that even the most intense observation is usually free. 

Lol I've long withheld this anecdote, but lcs x2016-17 maybe even 18 I don't recall:

Lcs had uf4 still in polybag and it was the start of the spark. They were still only selling for $30-40, but they had well known customers they were showing a newsstand uf4. It was a sale time of year, so I went multiple times within a week. I kept hearing the price of the uf4 newsstand going up, finally it hit $400, so I bought a direct for $40-50.

I had just bought a hulk 181 raw for $500, and I'm thinking surely I chose well

Uf4 direct came back 9.0, but then everyone said you had to press that book. I sent for house signing and came back ss 9.8.

Idk whoever made the choice to bite the bullet on the newsstand but they were available. I think they had 2

Edited September 29, 2022 by ADAMANTIUM