Superman: The Man of Steel #17 & 18 (Doomsday) 3 3

[MetalPSI]

[William-James88]

Have the two books fallen in value since the thread began? Looks like it.

 

Edited January 17, 2021 by William-James88

[Chillax23]

4 hours ago, William-James88 said:

Have the two books fallen in value since the thread began? Looks like it.

 

MOS 18 has fallen in value - however, the 4th and 5th print variants still demand a healthy premium over the other printings especially in 9.8. In addition, the 4th and 5th are hard to price as they don’t sell/change hands a lot in 9.8 so pointing at one sale is tough.  

[William-James88]

2 hours ago, Chillax23 said:

MOS 18 has fallen in value - however, the 4th and 5th print variants still demand a healthy premium over the other printings especially in 9.8. In addition, the 4th and 5th are hard to price as they don’t sell/change hands a lot in 9.8 so pointing at one sale is tough.  

I dont really get the demand for those later printings . Yes, they are rarer but they are still subsequent printings. Like the "recent" Batman 89 which has a second and third print. The first print is the priciest and yet it is the largest number of copies produced.

[Iconic1s]

2 hours ago, William-James88 said:

I dont really get the demand for those later printings . Yes, they are rarer but they are still subsequent printings.

This is exactly the way I felt back when these came out. I remember seeing many 2 packs with these later printings at Toys R Us and passed when I saw the Roman Numeral. I even remember thinking that the way title colors changed made them look cheap!  Man did my opinion change over time!

I think the problem then was that the first printings were still easy to find AND not many people, other than @onlyweaknesskryptoniteand maybe a few others were wise enough to see how cool these were in real time.

Also people like @Brandon Shepherd et al starting threads like this about this set makes their popularity rise as well.

I also think it’s the completionist gene probably found in most collectors.  Now I find myself wishing I had snagged all the later printings I could back when no one else wanted them and the different title colors look really cool to me now and those Roman Numerals sit on the cover with an air of authority.

This is only one opinion though and it is surely tainted by how much I enjoy this particular set.

P.S. Not to mention the DC Universe logo on some which opens up a completely different can of worms entirely!

Edited January 17, 2021 by Iconic1s

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

18 hours ago, Chillax23 said:

MOS 18 has fallen in value - however, the 4th and 5th print variants still demand a healthy premium over the other printings especially in 9.8. In addition, the 4th and 5th are hard to price as they don’t sell/change hands a lot in 9.8 so pointing at one sale is tough.  

 

15 hours ago, William-James88 said:

I dont really get the demand for those later printings . Yes, they are rarer but they are still subsequent printings. Like the "recent" Batman 89 which has a second and third print. The first print is the priciest and yet it is the largest number of copies produced.

 

13 hours ago, Iconic1s said:

This is exactly the way I felt back when these came out. I remember seeing many 2 packs with these later printings at Toys R Us and passed when I saw the Roman Numeral. I even remember thinking that the way title colors changed made them look cheap!  Man did my opinion change over time!

I think the problem then was that the first printings were still easy to find AND not many people, other than @onlyweaknesskryptoniteand maybe a few others were wise enough to see how cool these were in real time.

Also people like @Brandon Shepherd et al starting threads like this about this set makes their popularity rise as well.

I also think it’s the completionist gene probably found in most collectors.  Now I find myself wishing I had snagged all the later printings I could back when no one else wanted them and the different title colors look really cool to me now and those Roman Numerals sit on the cover with an air of authority.

This is only one opinion though and it is surely tainted by how much I enjoy this particular set.

P.S. Not to mention the DC Universe logo on some which opens up a completely different can of worms entirely!

Yes the price on the first prints has come down some and that is to be expected as more and more of these hit the census.  However the later prints have not been on the huge increase as the early printings ( on the census ) and when they do they are still tough in higher grade due to being distributed through the packs, which are known to cause damage.  This coupled with perceived less printed and the fact those packs generally were found in toy stores, where they were tossed around by staff and kids , did not help their condition.  All of these factors have led to them gaining in price over the earlier prints. The same can be said for several other books. Batman 457 second print Newsstand. The Killing Joke has been seeing a decline recently and yet the 9th Print have still been increasing.  Recently a Raw just sold on ebay for over $200. As Iconic1 said the DC Universe Logo issues across the board have been seeing big increases to a LOT of the issues. ASM 365 has been starting a down trend, but the Toybiz Spiderman 2099 has still been trending up especially in grade, but even raw is still up. I know there are many more examples, but these are just off the top of my head. Besides these there are still reader survey versions of the MOS 19 & 20 I am still trying to track down. 

Edited January 18, 2021 by onlyweaknesskryptonite
Corrected Reader Survey MOS issue #

[William-James88]

3 hours ago, Iconic1s said:

This is exactly the way I felt back when these came out. I remember seeing many 2 packs with these later printings at Toys R Us and passed when I saw the Roman Numeral. I even remember thinking that the way title colors changed made them look cheap!  Man did my opinion change over time!

I think the problem then was that the first printings were still easy to find AND not many people, other than @onlyweaknesskryptoniteand maybe a few others were wise enough to see how cool these were in real time.

Also people like @Brandon Shepherd et al starting threads like this about this set makes their popularity rise as well.

I also think it’s the completionist gene probably found in most collectors.  Now I find myself wishing I had snagged all the later printings I could back when no one else wanted them and the different title colors look really cool to me now and those Roman Numerals sit on the cover with an air of authority.

This is only one opinion though and it is surely tainted by how much I enjoy this particular set.

P.S. Not to mention the DC Universe logo on some which opens up a completely different can of worms entirely!

Thanks for this great reply. I am curious about the DC logo mentions. Why is that more collectible now?

Edited January 17, 2021 by William-James88

[Iconic1s]

58 minutes ago, William-James88 said:

Thanks for this great reply. I am curious about the SC logo mentions. Why is that more collectible now?

Thanks!  My personal opinion (and I am nowhere near the DC Universe logo expert here) is that they were 1) in lower numbers and in packs sent to toy stores etc like onlyweaknesskryptonite mentioned and didn't survive in high numbers in high grade, and 2) in the case of the Doomsday/Funeral story were the last printings of the books (although not every book from this set with multiple printings got the DC Universe logo treatment).

I also think that where they shared the first/only printings spot with regular editions they just look really cool with the logo on them, which appeals to me.  I guess they are another niche, kinda like Newsstand and Direct.

Again, I know there are people on here that know way more than I do about the DC Universe books and have been tracking those books for a long time so I can't speak for the trend in prices.  Personally I was/am willing to pay a steep price for a couple that I need/ed to complete a set, other than that I'm not sure what may be driving the rest up.

Edited January 17, 2021 by Iconic1s

[Brandon Shepherd]

It’s good to see this thread getting some action again!

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

10 hours ago, William-James88 said:

Thanks for this great reply. I am curious about the DC logo mentions. Why is that more collectible now?

They were more hidden and lesser known for a while. Then topics were created to bring these to attention as a few completists wanted to finish their sets so they started offering bounties on the remaining issues. The harder to get started driving prices on these bounties up and they got spread more and more. Now you find multiple topics both here and Voldy as well as YouTube , Instagram, Facebook,Twitter, etc and the spec train took over. This all combined with the assumption that these had way less printed as well as the aforementioned distribution as well as condition has driven prices. There are several of these that so far only 1 or 2 examples have been found to date and several that have easily have or could reach $1k plus in 9.8 and many that are $100 books that their counterpart copy direct or newsstand do not command the same premium.  Although just like the newsstand or direct there are also a few of these that do seem relatively common. 

I  have an almost complete set of the DC Universe Logo and can definitely say that several have been near impossible to find. Even though I bought almost every pack I saw on the shelves as they came out, but since the creation of the assemblage of the list did not realize how many issues there actually were. Even this last year about 10 new ones were discovered.  I found several myself and even one of those I let go to a fellow board member for about $200 to help with his set and am now searching to find another for my own set. 

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

Here are some of the group shots of some of the horde. I need to go back through and separate as well as do new group shots.  This is only a small fraction and doesn't include the 20 or so I have already had graded. 

here is an example of a few that there so far have only had 1 or 2 found so far.  Although again I need to update as I know I have several more that fit into this category. 

I also didn't include any 20 or 16 packs as I do believe those have been shown enough.  

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

Also wanted to point out that I made a mistake earlier as I mentioned looking for the reader surveys in two of the Death of Superman story arc. The correct issues that they have been found and identified so far are MOS 19 & 20. 

These images were sent to me from another board member and I have been searching since. Have yet to find either.  Just incase any of you come across them or others .

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

Speaking of oddities and outliers as well as to bring us back on topic several of the later prints and some others that were distributed to bookstores where they usually sold using an ESN or EN UPC had several of these with UPC stickers placed over the direct box. Including the MOS 18. Here are some of the ones I have found so far as well as one that I found in a lot that another member was looking for at the time and he bought but sold me one of them (the Superman #75 first print stickered CGC)

[Brandon Shepherd]

11 hours ago, onlyweaknesskryptonite said:

Also wanted to point out that I made a mistake earlier as I mentioned looking for the reader surveys in two of the Death of Superman story arc. The correct issues that they have been found and identified so far are MOS 19 & 20. 

These images were sent to me from another board member and I have been searching since. Have yet to find either.  Just incase any of you come across them or others .

Dude, I did not know about these!

[Iconic1s]

I know we’re way off topic here but I really think those stickered books should be Universal and not Qualified.

For comparison you have guys over in the sketch cover thread burning and cutting up covers and not being Qualified, yet a sticker put on by the publisher gets Qualified?

Makes zero sense to me! 

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

2 hours ago, Iconic1s said:

I know we’re way off topic here but I really think those stickered books should be Universal and not Qualified.

For comparison you have guys over in the sketch cover thread burning and cutting up covers and not being Qualified, yet a sticker put on by the publisher gets Qualified?

Makes zero sense to me! 

While I would tend to agree, the issue is that there hasn't been any documentation on the publisher or printer placing these stickers. So in an effort to be impartial CGC , like they do with unverified signatures, uses the qualified label for stickers. I do understand.  I may not agree, or like it , but I do understand.  

[Iconic1s]

Triple cover 9.8 of Superman: The Man of Steel 18 

 

Spoiler

 

[Brandon Shepherd]

Maybe I can find a second printing of MOS 18 in CGC 9.8 soon. That way I can have all five printings in 9.8 for the 10th anniversary of this thread creation. I have a little under a year to do this. 

[Jesse-Lee]

On 10/15/2022 at 4:20 PM, Brandon Shepherd said:

Maybe I can find a second printing of MOS 18 in CGC 9.8 soon. That way I can have all five printings in 9.8 for the 10th anniversary of this thread creation. I have a little under a year to do this. 

I have a copy - I wasn't really planning on parting with it, but if you were seriously considering that goal I'd be open to a conversation about it...