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Ratio Variant Covers Question
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Started by Escaflown41,

37 posts in this topic

Escaflown41

Escaflown41

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Recently, I came across a seller on eBay that's selling tons of rare ratio 1:50, 1:100, 1:200 variant covers starting the bids at $1 each.  He has a wide variety from Marvel, DC and Independent publishers.  Naturally I placed bids on some of them and won a few.  The following week, this seller lists even more copies of the same rare ratio variants, but this time in lots of 2's and 4's.  I was like woah, he has more copies, but I refrain from bidding and just watched a few of them to see what they sell for at the end without thinking too much about them.  After those ended, he starts listing more and more lots of these books, but this time in larger lots of 8 copies each with multiple listings of the same books.  At this point, I'm just wondering how the heck does someone end up with so many copies of these supposedly rare ratio variants?  Now the questions I have is can anyone confirmed that these books are indeed printed according to ratios and is it normal for any reseller to have large quantities of them?

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ADAMANTIUM

ADAMANTIUM

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I've coincidently seen "ratio" attributed on ebay to non-ratio books. Same with newsstand.

Such is possible, and it depends on examples, if not all maybe "some" are, to that extent it takes knowledge.

Personally, idk if anyone can order the correct ratios whether using a LCS as a source or not, or even do it on their own if they have an account with the distributor?

I would think all of this is possible. I wish I could be more clear and offer a website to double check a list of some sort, but idk that much about it to begin with nor if such a thing is out there ??? 

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Sigur Ros

Sigur Ros

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Did you get your books?

Maybe he's just relisting them to score a bunch of cash then deleting the account.

I've seen it before.

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Escaflown41

Escaflown41

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On 7/26/2024 at 9:54 PM, ADAMANTIUM said:

I've coincidently seen "ratio" attributed on ebay to non-ratio books. Same with newsstand.

Such is possible, and it depends on examples, if not all maybe "some" are, to that extent it takes knowledge.

Personally, idk if anyone can order the correct ratios whether using a LCS as a source or not, or even do it on their own if they have an account with the distributor?

I would think all of this is possible. I wish I could be more clear and offer a website to double check a list of some sort, but idk that much about it to begin with nor if such a thing is out there ??? 

So let's use an example of a listing of 8 copies of a single 1:50 ratio book.  That means that this person would have to had ordered 400 copies of the regular cover which seems highly unlikely.  Unless there was another way to obtain these ratio covers, I sincerely doubt any one seller would be ordering that many copies especially in today's market.  Granted that this seller has listed more copies previously and some of these books are listed now in multiples lots of 8 of the same ratio covers, I don't think these came through the normal channels.

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Escaflown41

Escaflown41

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On 7/26/2024 at 10:04 PM, Sigur Ros said:

Did you get your books?

Maybe he's just relisting them to score a bunch of cash then deleting the account.

I've seen it before.

Yes, I have received the books from him and his feedback looks stellar so far. 

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Stefan_W

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I bought up some former store stock last year, and there were many copies of some ratio variants in there. Not many 1:100s, but tons of 1:10s, 1:20s, 1:50s, and stuff like that. I am not saying that the Ebay guy is legit or not legit (I have no idea), just saying it is possible to find groups of books like that. And Ebay is a place where one can offload stuff like that after buying it up. 

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Escaflown41

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On 7/26/2024 at 10:26 PM, Stefan_W said:

I bought up some former store stock last year, and there were many copies of some ratio variants in there. Not many 1:100s, but tons of 1:10s, 1:20s, 1:50s, and stuff like that. I am not saying that the Ebay guy is legit or not legit (I have no idea), just saying it is possible to find groups of books like that. And Ebay is a place where one can offload stuff like that after buying it up. 

That seems more reasonable to see many copies of 1:10s and 1:20s since I know many resellers that have those in bulk to some degree, but this guy has like tons of copies of the same 1:50, 1:100, 1:200 covers which is raising my eyebrows on where he got those from.

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masterlogan2000

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On 7/26/2024 at 8:50 PM, Escaflown41 said:

Now the questions I have is can anyone confirmed that these books are indeed printed according to ratios and is it normal for any reseller to have large quantities of them?

I think the obvious answer here is that these books are NOT printed according to the stated ratios.  Yes, that is how many of them were originally distributed to your LCS.  But, many of these books are printed in large quantities and end up making it into the aftermarket months or years after release.

It's probably best to contact the seller and see if you can get an answer from him.  I bet he has some sort of connections to obtain and resell a number of these books.

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Escaflown41

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On 7/27/2024 at 1:35 AM, masterlogan2000 said:

I think the obvious answer here is that these books are NOT printed according to the stated ratios.  Yes, that is how many of them were originally distributed to your LCS.  But, many of these books are printed in large quantities and end up making it into the aftermarket months or years after release.

It's probably best to contact the seller and see if you can get an answer from him.  I bet he has some sort of connections to obtain and resell a number of these books.

I tried asking a few days ago.  Never got a response back.

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Escaflown41

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On 7/27/2024 at 2:51 AM, RockMyAmadeus said:

image.thumb.png.e85aa7b8b637015785fc71f190539de0.png

That's what I am starting to think.  I always thought books like 1:200 ratios are scarce but after seeing this, it's just a gimmick to promote the illusion of rarity.  Most likely these ratio covers are printed in bulk and only distributed accordingly to retail orders initially.  The undistributed copies are most likely sitting in warehouses until a seller like this guy comes across them.  Now he's just flooding / dumping them to the market in mass.

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revat

revat

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The ratios are a way to guarantee you get the book.  They are not the ONLY WAY TO GET THE BOOK. 
 

If you have inferred anything else, you should not have done so

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awakeintheashes

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On 7/27/2024 at 1:56 PM, Escaflown41 said:

That's what I am starting to think.  I always thought books like 1:200 ratios are scarce but after seeing this, it's just a gimmick to promote the illusion of rarity.  Most likely these ratio covers are printed in bulk and only distributed accordingly to retail orders initially.  The undistributed copies are most likely sitting in warehouses until a seller like this guy comes across them.  Now he's just flooding / dumping them to the market in mass.

Yeah, there is no telling how many the publishers actually print. There are quite a few instances of these newer “rare” ratios showing up in Walmart multi-packs or even 5 Below, I believe.

I think some are even made available to shops at very discounted prices well after the original release date of these books. 

Edited by awakeintheashes
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shadroch

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On 7/27/2024 at 10:56 AM, Escaflown41 said:

That's what I am starting to think.  I always thought books like 1:200 ratios are scarce but after seeing this, it's just a gimmick to promote the illusion of rarity.  Most likely these ratio covers are printed in bulk and only distributed accordingly to retail orders initially.  The undistributed copies are most likely sitting in warehouses until a seller like this guy comes across them.  Now he's just flooding / dumping them to the market in mass.

Why would a publisher print bulk copies of books not to be distributed?  

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RockMyAmadeus

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On 7/28/2024 at 7:36 AM, shadroch said:

Why would a publisher print bulk copies of books not to be distributed?  

 

On 7/28/2024 at 7:31 AM, awakeintheashes said:

 There are quite a few instances of these newer “rare” ratios showing up in Walmart multi-packs or even 5 Below, I believe.

 

On 7/27/2024 at 3:07 PM, revat said:

The ratios are a way to guarantee you get the book.  They are not the ONLY WAY TO GET THE BOOK. 
 

If you have inferred anything else, you should not have done so

:popcorn:

 

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