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Copper's Heating/Selling Well on Ebay
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18,720 posts in this topic

7 minutes ago, RCheli said:

We all have to remember that facts aren't nearly as important as what the market is saying. The market has told us that  IH #181 is more valuable than #180 and SPJO #134 is more valuable than Forever People #1. There is no rhyme or reason to it.

Are there any good examples of this flipping? The only thing that comes to mind is perhaps X-Men 94/GSX #1, but I think they were both pretty even a few decades ago.

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6 minutes ago, RCheli said:

We all have to remember that facts aren't nearly as important as what the market is saying. The market has told us that  IH #181 is more valuable than #180 and SPJO #134 is more valuable than Forever People #1. There is no rhyme or reason to it.

That's not true (for the specifics you mention). Basic economics: Supply and demand.

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6 minutes ago, Lazyboy said:

That's not true (for the specifics you mention). Basic economics: Supply and demand.

I don't think there's any difference in supply between IH #180 and #181 or SPJO #134 and FP #1, so that doesn't really answer why. (And I don't know the reason why.) The difference is all in demand.

The same may go with this WW/Circe fiasco. Do people care more about a full body/face/cover than merely a panel or two of eyes?

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4 minutes ago, RCheli said:

I don't think there's any difference in supply between IH #180 and #181 or SPJO #134 and FP #1, so that doesn't really answer why. (And I don't know the reason why.) The difference is all in demand.

The same may go with this WW/Circe fiasco. Do people care more about a full body/face/cover than merely a panel or two of eyes?

Spjo is rarer In high grade...

But 180 is just rarer than 181 period, so idk either....maybe because 181 has him on the cover?

And neither 134 or fp #1 have darkside on the cover either? So market goes for 134 idk

Edited by ADAMANTIUM
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1 minute ago, RCheli said:

I don't think there's any difference in supply between IH #180 and #181 or SPJO #134 and FP #1, so that doesn't really answer why. (And I don't know the reason why.) The difference is all in demand.

The same may go with this WW/Circe fiasco. Do people care more about a full body/face/cover than merely a panel or two of eyes?

I'm sure there's rarely much difference between two consecutive issues of a title, but you don't think there's a difference between the supply of a #1 issue and a random mid-run issue from the 70s? Um, okay...

As for Circe, the same problem arises any time a character becomes hot for the first time: incomplete information and/or misinformation about their first appearance(s). Will it ever get fixed? Maybe.

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2 minutes ago, Lazyboy said:
10 minutes ago, ADAMANTIUM said:

But 180 is just rarer than 181 period

???

I've always thought there was lower supply of 180 compared to 181...

If it makes more sense to say in high grade, then fine, but I believe by looking at available copies.... there just seems to be less 180's than 181's

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43 minutes ago, Lazyboy said:

I'm sure there's rarely much difference between two consecutive issues of a title, but you don't think there's a difference between the supply of a #1 issue and a random mid-run issue from the 70s? Um, okay..

I would not be in the least bit surprised if there were more copies printed and did of that Jimmy Olsen issue than I'd Forever People #1. They didn't really overprint first issues then and the Superman family books still sold well. 

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Just now, RCheli said:

I would not be in the least bit surprised if there were more copies printed and did of that Jimmy Olsen issue than I'd Forever People #1. They didn't really overprint first issues then and the Superman family books still sold well. 

It has nothing to do with "overprinting first issues" which is utterly irrelevant in an era in which everything was significantly overprinted. In the 70s, #1s were the be-all, end-all of speculation.

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1 hour ago, Lazyboy said:
2 hours ago, ADAMANTIUM said:

I've always thought there was lower supply of 180 compared to 181...

I don't know where you got that idea.

But, but . . . LB - Where were you in 1976? hm

 

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12 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

It has nothing to do with "overprinting first issues" which is utterly irrelevant in an era in which everything was significantly overprinted. In the 70s, #1s were the be-all, end-all of speculation.

Yeah, these Kirby #1s were some of the earlier big speculation books (relatively speaking for that era)

 

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I think the price discrepancies in "true" first appearances vs market accepted first appearances, cameo vs full appearance, etc, simply come down to comics largely being a nostalgia based hobby, in which collectors buy what they think is "coolest". Hulk 180 is the first appearance of Wolverine. It's true, it's a fact. But 181 has that cool cover, and Wolverine appearing through the whole story. Isn't that cooler? Surely the answer comes down to a matter of opinion, but it seems like the vast majority of the collectors have spoken, and it snowballs from there. Facts about first appearances don't matter. What matters is what the collective decides. So, Hulk 181 is the champ, forever and ever amen. 

Now the X-men 94/GSX1 thing, I could see them pulling back closer to even at some point, simply because both have cool covers on which all of the characters appear, and the characters appear throughout the stories. I'd still say GSX1 is the one to have, but 94 is, indeed, a pretty cool book!

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41 minutes ago, the blob said:

Yeah, these Kirby #1s were some of the earlier big speculation books (relatively speaking for that era)

 

(I know this isn't copper and it's getting way off topic, but...)

There is a Statement of Ownership available for Jimmy Olsen #136. It reads: Average print run 627,102; average paid circulation 333,539. (That's for the average of the previous year's issues.)

That's a really big number -- bigger than possibly any Marvel book at the time. (Compare it to the Avengers #86: average print run 411,541; average paid circulation 239,986 or Fantastic Four #109: average print run 518,737; average paid circulation 285,639. I can't find a Spider-Man sales figure for that period, which I believe was Marvel's top selling book.)

I do not think that Forever People #1 touched that Jimmy Olsen number and probably was lower than even the Avengers. Even if DC/National started to speculate (which I doubt), printing 600k of a new #1 wasn't realistic, especially for characters nobody had ever heard of.

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40 minutes ago, RCheli said:

(I know this isn't copper and it's getting way off topic, but...)

There is a Statement of Ownership available for Jimmy Olsen #136. It reads: Average print run 627,102; average paid circulation 333,539. (That's for the average of the previous year's issues.)

That's a really big number -- bigger than possibly any Marvel book at the time. (Compare it to the Avengers #86: average print run 411,541; average paid circulation 239,986 or Fantastic Four #109: average print run 518,737; average paid circulation 285,639. I can't find a Spider-Man sales figure for that period, which I believe was Marvel's top selling book.)

I do not think that Forever People #1 touched that Jimmy Olsen number and probably was lower than even the Avengers. Even if DC/National started to speculate (which I doubt), printing 600k of a new #1 wasn't realistic, especially for characters nobody had ever heard of.

Nobody had heard of the characters, but everyone had heard of Kirby. 

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14 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

I'm sure there's rarely much difference between two consecutive issues of a title, but you don't think there's a difference between the supply of a #1 issue and a random mid-run issue from the 70s? Um, okay...

 

Especially the much vaunted "Kirby @ DC." #1s ruled the roost. I would imagine there were 2-4 times as many copies printed and sold of FP #1 as SPJO #134, though that's just a relatively educated guess. Superman titles were losing ground at this point (evidenced by LL being cancelled in '74, and JO becoming Superman Family.)

New Gods, Forever People, and Mister Miracle were speculated quite a bit. 

Interestingly enough, the census numbers for JO #134 (1309) and FP #1 (1339) are nearly identical, which is quite the coincidence, and also very close to the numbers for New Gods (1389). But, the disparity between high grade copies is quite clear.

Mister Miracle, at least for now, is far more scarce than the other 3 on the census.

 

 

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4 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Especially the much vaunted "Kirby @ DC." #1s ruled the roost. I would imagine there were 2-4 times as many copies printed and sold of FP #1 as SPJO #134, though that's just a relatively educated guess. Superman titles were losing ground at this point (evidenced by LL being cancelled in '74, and JO becoming Superman Family.)

 

You can't honestly believe that 1.2-2.4 million copies of Forever People #1 were printed, can you? There hadn't been print runs of that magnitude for well over a decade.

Remember, editorial did not determine print runs (and they were the ones promoting Kirby); numbers were all on the business side, and while I can assure you that the print runs were higher for the first Fourth World issues than the first issues of Hawk and Dove or Beware the Creeper a few years earlier, they were not in the millions. 

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6 minutes ago, RCheli said:

You can't honestly believe that 1.2-2.4 million copies of Forever People #1 were printed, can you? There hadn't been print runs of that magnitude for well over a decade.

Remember, editorial did not determine print runs (and they were the ones promoting Kirby); numbers were all on the business side, and while I can assure you that the print runs were higher for the first Fourth World issues than the first issues of Hawk and Dove or Beware the Creeper a few years earlier, they were not in the millions. 

It'll be a tricky issue to suss out, due to returnability.  No, it's unlikely over 1M copies of FP 1 were printed.  It's likely more copies than JO 134 were printed.  The question that really affects extant supply now is this:  what was the sell through of the book?  What was printed and distributed doesn't necessarily proportionately reflect what's out there.  Returnability allowed for latitude in ordering.

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56 minutes ago, RCheli said:

There is a Statement of Ownership available for Jimmy Olsen #136. It reads: Average print run 627,102; average paid circulation 333,539. (That's for the average of the previous year's issues.)

These numbers would not have covered issue #134; the issues in which this information appears (#136) was in production while #134 was being distributed to newsstands.

That SOO was "filed" Oct 1, 1970; #134 was on the stands September at the earliest (Dec cover date) and DC would not have had sales information to report for it by "Oct 1" (or whenever they actually filed.)

However...#133 was on the stands in July/August, so it's entirely possible that 1. DC had sales information for this issue to include in the SOO, and 2. sales would have jumped significantly because of the addition of Kirby to the line. Not certain...but  likely. 

For comparison's sake, here is the 1968, 1967, and 1966 reports. There doesn't seem to have been a 1969 SOO filed.

1968 (#118) - Avg. Printed - 748,000

Avg. Sold - 460,560

1967 (#109) - Avg. Printed - 791,000

Avg. Sold - 450,700

1966 (#100) - Avg. Printed - 786,000

Avg. Sold - 523,455

So, from 1966 to 1970, sales dropped an average 36%...quite substantial.

Spiderman sales figures for 1970 are as follows:

Avg. Printed - 596,102

Avg. Sold - 322,195

(#95)

In 1970, Spidey sold almost as well as JO. In 1971, Marvel would beat DC in sales for the first time, and never look back.

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