Newsstands and Direct Editions (finally) get a video explainer... Version 1.2 8 8

[valiantman]

On 7/23/2023 at 10:40 PM, Aman619 said:

probably!  the longer they sat in the racks or whatever the worse shape they end up in.  Then again, weren't collectors without direct sales LCSs not ALSO showing up every week -- the day they came out -- and therefore picking up "pretty" fresh [newsstand] copies?  They might be lightly damaged from loose handling into and out of the racks, but they didnt sit in the store for the full 3 months with purchases made toward the collection deadline.

Yes, and I think that's why we see an almost immediate decline in newsstand conditions once the direct market went "full steam ahead". It wasn't a gradual decline over a decade, it was basically overnight. Serious collectors who had been protecting newsstand issues they purchased at local comic shops were switched into protecting direct editions purchased at local comic shops immediately. The newsstands in that area at grocery stores or wherever they were sold didn't suddenly get damaged more, they had always been damaged at grocery stores, etc., but the local comic shop had been protecting those newsstands in the shop.

It was an "overnight success" for direct editions to show up in local comic shops where the serious collectors doing the protecting were already doing their buying. As more shops went direct, the serious collectors in that area immediately switched to protecting direct editions. It didn't take a decade. Try finding high grade newsstand Wolverine #1 (Limited Series) and you'll be staring at 90%+ direct edition CGC 9.8 and less than 10% CGC 9.8 newsstand for a book from 1982.  Ten years later, serious collectors raided newsstands for ASM #361 and you'll see 25%+ in CGC 9.8 newsstand from 1992.  The age is not as important as the activity when the newsstands were originally on sale.

Edited July 24, 2023 by valiantman

[Lazyboy]

On 7/24/2023 at 9:56 AM, valiantman said:

Yes, and I think that's why we see an almost immediate decline in newsstand conditions once the direct market went "full steam ahead". It wasn't a gradual decline over a decade, it was basically overnight. Serious collectors who had been protecting newsstand issues they purchased at local comic shops were switched into protecting direct editions purchased at local comic shops immediately. The newsstands in that area at grocery stores or wherever they were sold didn't suddenly get damaged more, they had always been damaged at grocery stores, etc., but the local comic shop had been protecting those newsstands in the shop.

It was an "overnight success" for direct editions to show up in local comic shops where the serious collectors doing the protecting were already doing their buying. As more shops went direct, the serious collectors in that area immediately switched to protecting direct editions. It didn't take a decade. Try finding high grade newsstand Wolverine #1 (Limited Series) and you'll be staring at 90%+ direct edition CGC 9.8 and less than 10% CGC 9.8 newsstand for a book from 1982.  Ten years later, serious collectors raided newsstands for ASM #361 and you'll see 25%+ in CGC 9.8 newsstand from 1992.  The age is not as important as the activity when the newsstands were originally on sale.

I think you misread what he wrote there. He was asking about the serious collectors who did not have easy access to comic shops.

[Gonzimodo]

On 7/24/2023 at 3:36 PM, Lazyboy said:

I think you misread what he wrote there. He was asking about the serious collectors who did not have easy access to comic shops.

That was me back in the mid-80s when I first started collecting. 

As a newbie collector with only newsstand comics, I had no idea what was going on when I found a comic with that Spider-Man head instead of a UPC box.  I just assumed they were all 2nd printings, because I was getting them from those department store three-packs.  Some (usually GI Joes) were second prints, but most were just regular direct editions.  It took me awhile to figure that out.  

[valiantman]

On 7/24/2023 at 2:36 PM, Lazyboy said:

On 7/24/2023 at 9:56 AM, valiantman said:

Yes, and I think that's why we see an almost immediate decline in newsstand conditions once the direct market went "full steam ahead". It wasn't a gradual decline over a decade, it was basically overnight. Serious collectors who had been protecting newsstand issues they purchased at local comic shops were switched into protecting direct editions purchased at local comic shops immediately. The newsstands in that area at grocery stores or wherever they were sold didn't suddenly get damaged more, they had always been damaged at grocery stores, etc., but the local comic shop had been protecting those newsstands in the shop.

It was an "overnight success" for direct editions to show up in local comic shops where the serious collectors doing the protecting were already doing their buying. As more shops went direct, the serious collectors in that area immediately switched to protecting direct editions. It didn't take a decade. Try finding high grade newsstand Wolverine #1 (Limited Series) and you'll be staring at 90%+ direct edition CGC 9.8 and less than 10% CGC 9.8 newsstand for a book from 1982.  Ten years later, serious collectors raided newsstands for ASM #361 and you'll see 25%+ in CGC 9.8 newsstand from 1992.  The age is not as important as the activity when the newsstands were originally on sale.

I think you misread what he wrote there. He was asking about the serious collectors who did not have easy access to comic shops.

No, I got it. The rollout of the direct market to 1,500 stores in 1979 immediately put (Marvel) direct editions into the hands of many serious collectors who would protect them as well as they had been protecting the newsstands at the comic shop the week before. For others, the direct market took longer to come to their geography, but the day it arrived, they would have immediately added more high grade direct editions and fewer high grade newsstands would exist in that geography than the week before. The bolded sentence above addresses those you mention who did not have easy access to comic shops.

[Lazyboy]

On 7/24/2023 at 3:18 PM, valiantman said:

No, I got it. The rollout of the direct market to 1,500 stores in 1979 immediately put (Marvel) direct editions into the hands of many serious collectors who would protect them as well as they had been protecting the newsstands at the comic shop the week before. For others, the direct market took longer to come to their geography, but the day it arrived, they would have immediately added more high grade direct editions and fewer high grade newsstands would exist in that geography than the week before. The bolded sentence above addresses those you mention who did not have easy access to comic shops.

Not really, since there have always been those without easy access to comic shops, fluctuating with store openings and closures of comic shops in some areas and remaining pretty static in others.

Edited July 25, 2023 by Lazyboy
clarification

[valiantman]

On 7/24/2023 at 4:27 PM, Lazyboy said:

On 7/24/2023 at 3:18 PM, valiantman said:

No, I got it. The rollout of the direct market to 1,500 stores in 1979 immediately put (Marvel) direct editions into the hands of many serious collectors who would protect them as well as they had been protecting the newsstands at the comic shop the week before. For others, the direct market took longer to come to their geography, but the day it arrived, they would have immediately added more high grade direct editions and fewer high grade newsstands would exist in that geography than the week before. The bolded sentence above addresses those you mention who did not have easy access to comic shops.

Not really, since there have always been those without easy access to comic shops, fluctuating with store openings and closures in some areas and remaining pretty static in others.

No one is arguing that no high grade newsstands exist. There will always be high grade newsstands saved by someone out there.

Let's look at Amazing Spider-Man #194 (1979)... the direct market was barely there in 1979, but:

• 65% of the most recent CGC 9.8 copies recorded on GPA are direct edition
• 65% of the most recent CGC 9.6 copies recorded on GPA are direct edition
• 60% of the most recent CGC 9.4 copies recorded on GPA are direct edition

That's 1979, when plenty of places didn't have access to direct editions yet, but the high grade survivors are already direct editions more often.

Avengers Annual #10 (1981) is over 90% direct editions for CGC 9.4 or higher.  Wolverine #1 (1982) has already been mentioned... overwhelmingly direct editions in CGC high grade.

Yes, high grade newsstands do exist, but even in the early years of the direct market (1979-1982), it's easier to find a CGC high grade direct edition. 

Except for some outlier books (ASM #252, Thor #337, ASM #361), newsstand percentages on high grade CGC 9.8 dive toward 10% by mid-1980s and stay there (or lower) until newsstand ends.

[Microchip]

On 7/25/2023 at 7:27 AM, Lazyboy said:

Not really, since there have always been those without easy access to comic shops, fluctuating with store openings and closures in some areas and remaining pretty static in others.

 

So those who didn't have access to comic shops, but were into collecting comics, and they had intermittent openings, and closings of newsstand outlets in their area, have I got this straight?  

Impacted the buying rate of newsstands by how much?   

 

Are there any other pressing scenario's you want to bring to our attention??

 

 

[CGC Mike]

I have removed some posts due to another conflict in this thread.  I recommend you both move on and do not engage each other here again.  Otherwise, I will have to take a more drastic action.

[Lazyboy]

I have edited my previous post so it cannot possibly cause any confusion.

[valiantman]

I haven't seen any edits on my posts, so I assume we're still on topic for the most part.

Anyway, Version 1.2 has been posted about a week, which incorporates many of the earlier suggestions.

Are there any typos? Are there problems that still (might) need to be addressed?  Too fast, too slow?

Edited July 25, 2023 by valiantman

[sd2416]

So this is what you have been doing when I see you on Messenger late at night.  

[valiantman]

On 7/25/2023 at 10:29 AM, sd2416 said:

So this is what you have been doing when I see you on Messenger late at night.  

Yeah, about 5% of the time. The rest of the time, I'm working on my scams with my fellow criminals for how we're going to sell mountains of newsstand books for major profits. We're still stuck on the first part of the plan... locating the books.

Edited July 25, 2023 by valiantman

[Gonzimodo]

I'm too lazy to go back and read the entire thread again, so apologies if I'm beating a dead horse or provoking more arguments. 

I think the section from about 3:00 to 3:30 may be a little confusing to new people coming in, or it may not even really belong in this video at all.  This is where it talks about "immediately popular" books being sought out on the newsstands after they sold out in comic stores.

The term "surviving newsstand percentages" kind of comes out of left field.  You did mention that nonreturnable direct editions would have remained in comic stores and that unsold newsstand editions were supposed to be returned and destroyed, and also the idea that direct market distribution eventually overtook newsstand distribution, but there's really no mention of "surviving percentages" of the two.  Maybe there should be a more explicit statement linking those ideas to indicate that in general, more direct editions than newsstand editions are believed to have survived over the years for most comics, at least in high grade.  Of course, that is still debatable based on all the back and forth I've seen, so maybe you just didn't want to include such a statement.

I just think that it would make for a better transition into the discussion about immediately popular books, or you could just leave out that section altogether if you don't want to get into the fight over rarity of newsstand editions vs. direct editions, as that really doesn't seem to be the point of the video, anyway.

Overall, I think it's really good, though.  

[Gonzimodo]

On 7/25/2023 at 12:04 PM, Gonzimodo said:

I'm too lazy to go back and read the entire thread again, so apologies if I'm beating a dead horse or provoking more arguments. 

I think the section from about 3:00 to 3:30 may be a little confusing to new people coming in, or it may not even really belong in this video at all.  This is where it talks about "immediately popular" books being sought out on the newsstands after they sold out in comic stores.

The term "surviving newsstand percentages" kind of comes out of left field.  You did mention that nonreturnable direct editions would have remained in comic stores and that unsold newsstand editions were supposed to be returned and destroyed, and also the idea that direct market distribution eventually overtook newsstand distribution, but there's really no mention of "surviving percentages" of the two.  Maybe there should be a more explicit statement linking those ideas to indicate that in general, more direct editions than newsstand editions are believed to have survived over the years for most comics, at least in high grade.  Of course, that is still debatable based on all the back and forth I've seen, so maybe you just didn't want to include such a statement.

I just think that it would make for a better transition into the discussion about immediately popular books, or you could just leave out that section altogether if you don't want to get into the fight over rarity of newsstand editions vs. direct editions, as that really doesn't seem to be the point of the video, anyway.

Overall, I think it's really good, though.  

Okay, I just watched the video again, and you do kind of go into the survivability of newsstand copies, but it still seems just a little out of place to me.  I guess I was misinterpreting what you were going for there and got hung up on your use of "percentages."  I'm not sure how I would change that, though.  Maybe just get rid of "percentages" and stay with the idea of "more newsstand copies" surviving.

I'm starting to babble now... 

[valiantman]

On 7/25/2023 at 11:40 AM, Gonzimodo said:

Okay, I just watched the video again, and you do kind of go into the survivability of newsstand copies, but it still seems just a little out of place to me.  I guess I was misinterpreting what you were going for there and got hung up on your use of "percentages."  I'm not sure how I would change that, though.  Maybe just get rid of "percentages" and stay with the idea of "more newsstand copies" surviving.

I'm starting to babble now... 

It is tricky because we're talking about an individual issue.  Let's say XYZ #54 was available as both direct editions and newsstand... if XYZ #54 was popular when it was released, then "more newsstand copies" of XYZ #54 probably survived, but we're talking about the number of surviving XYZ #54 that would be newsstand vs. the number of surviving XYZ #54 that would be direct editions.  That's a percentage, not a single value. It's a percentage relative to the two editions of that one issue, and it doesn't have anything to do with the popularity of other issues of XYZ (such as #53 or #55) or the number of newsstand copies of any other book.

The expectation for collectors today when checking information/availability on XYZ #54 today would be that a higher percentage would be newsstand. We wouldn't really have any idea how many copies of each edition survived, only that the percentage of newsstand should be higher due to immediate popularity when it was new.  (Replace XYZ #54 with ASM #252, Thor #337, ASM #361, etc.)

Edited July 25, 2023 by valiantman

[Gonzimodo]

On 7/25/2023 at 1:01 PM, valiantman said:

It is tricky because we're talking about an individual issue.  Let's say XYZ #54 was available as both direct editions and newsstand... if XYZ #54 was popular when it was released, then "more newsstand copies" of XYZ #54 probably survived, but we're talking about the number of XYZ #54 that would be newsstand vs. the number of XYZ #54 that would be direct editions.  That's a percentage relative to the two editions of that one issue, and it doesn't have anything to do with the popularity of XYZ #53 or #55 or the number of copies of any other book. 

The expectation for collectors today when checking information/availability on XYZ #54 today would be that a higher percentage would be newsstand. We wouldn't really have any idea how many copies of each edition survived, only that the percentage of newsstand should be higher due to immediate popularity when it was new.  (Replace XYZ #54 with ASM #252, Thor #337, ASM #361, etc.)

Right, and I totally agree with that, but in the video, there isn't any overall discussion about what percentages of published or surviving copies of XYZ #54 (or comics in general) are newsstand vs. direct market.  Rather, it seems more like a general information and identification guide for newsstand vs. direct.

The ratio of surviving newsstand copies to surviving direct market copies isn't really discussed, except briefly in the case of those immediately popular books.  That's probably why it feels out of place to me.

[Lazyboy]

On 7/25/2023 at 10:34 AM, valiantman said:

Yeah, about 5% of the time. The rest of the time, I'm working on my scams with my fellow criminals for how we're going to sell mountains of newsstand books for major profits. We're still stuck on the first part of the plan... locating the books.

Who's "we" here? If you don't already know that there are multiple people with large hoards of Newsstands, I don't know what could convince you.

[valiantman]

On 7/25/2023 at 1:45 PM, Lazyboy said:

On 7/25/2023 at 10:34 AM, valiantman said:

Yeah, about 5% of the time. The rest of the time, I'm working on my scams with my fellow criminals for how we're going to sell mountains of newsstand books for major profits. We're still stuck on the first part of the plan... locating the books.

Who's "we" here? If you don't already know that there are multiple people with large hoards of Newsstands, I don't know what could convince you.

You reply in my topics consistently warning about "newsstand scammers" so I assume you think I'm part of some secret cabal of criminals. Unfortunately, I don't know any newsstand hoarders, so I'm stuck on the "locating the books" portion of your presumed nefarious plans.

I think it's safe to say that "direct edition hoards" are infinite, since that was the whole point of the direct market for retailers. Buy enough supply to last until the end of time... so you're constantly warning people about a few "dangerous" salamanders hiding amongst the "friendly" crocodiles.

[MAR1979]

On 7/25/2023 at 11:34 AM, valiantman said:

Yeah, about 5% of the time. The rest of the time, I'm working on my scams with my fellow criminals for how we're going to sell mountains of newsstand books for major profits.

Edited July 26, 2023 by MAR1979

[Lazyboy]

On 7/25/2023 at 5:46 PM, valiantman said:

You reply in my topics consistently warning about "newsstand scammers" so I assume you think I'm part of some secret cabal of criminals. Unfortunately, I don't know any newsstand hoarders, so I'm stuck on the "locating the books" portion of your presumed nefarious plans.

I think it's safe to say that "direct edition hoards" are infinite, since that was the whole point of the direct market for retailers. Buy enough supply to last until the end of time... so you're constantly warning people about a few "dangerous" salamanders hiding amongst the "friendly" crocodiles.

I don't think you're one of the Newsstand hoarders, just that you're playing right into their hands.

Direct edition hoards are hardly infinite, though they certainly exist for many issues. But nobody is generally hyping Direct editions as special or rare and when from any of the endless hype sites (or even here as we've seen too often) try to pump and dump specific issues, they are rightfully called out when people are actually paying any attention to their ..

Keeping copies for later sales as back issues was never the whole point of the direct market, though it was a point. But the extent of that varies wildly across the spectrum of comic shops and has also changed over time.