ASM 300 Appreciation/ Club Thread 12 12

[ADAMANTIUM]

7 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

18 minutes ago, ADAMANTIUM said:

ALL 8.0 sales dating back to June are between $250-350....  

perhaps the 6.0 in that range is an outlier?

 

Are you stating a fact or asking if the statement is true or not?

If your statement is in fact true, then this is probably why Overstreet raised his top of guide price for Spidey from $250 all the way up to $350 for an not so Overstreet-like 40% price increase.  

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=amazing+spider-man+300+cgc+8.0&_sacat=0&rt=nc&LH_Sold=1&LH_Complete=1

I wouldn't go as far as "fact"

But at least on ebay.... and I would say further back than June too. It's worth saying I own an 8.0

A 6.0 in that price range, to me, just means there were no 8.0s at the time...or none priced close to the 6.0. Idk, but it has been this way a long time and with no real change...maybe in 9.8/9.6 and the rest of the 9s vary, fairly consistent in VF

 

[lou_fine]

On 8/14/2018 at 4:31 PM, divad said:

On 7/24/2018 at 3:08 PM, october said:

Curious what people think the current value of this copy is. 9.8/9.8 double cover white newsstand variant. The only double cover I have ever seen of this issue, though there are probably more out there. 

Every time I think about selling it I stop, but values are reaching a pretty decent level for regular 9.8s.

 

Ka-Ching! 

Well, I guess we'll get a chance to find out tonight since it looks like CC has 3 of these semi-key Spidey double cover books coming up in their auction tonight, namely Spidey 238, 252, and the apparently much in demand Spidey 300.  The only problem being that all 3 of these double cover copies have been signed by the creators so I am not sure if this is the reason for their seemingly low values at this point of the auction.  Although the signatures didn't seem to hurt the CGC 9.2 graded copy of Spidey 300 that managed to hit $950 in the CL auction last night.    

From the CL results last night, it looks like double covers and signature copies might just have to take a back seat to the price variant copies as the Canadian newsstand version copy of Spidey 238 went for the astounding price of $2,300.  And yet the double cover signed Spidey 238 in the same CGC 9.6 grade is still sitting in the low $400 price range and the double cover Spidey 300 not doing much better in only the high $600 price range for now.  In fact, all of the Spidey 300 appears low at this point with the one in CGC 9.2 graded condition still running at slightly lower than top of guide and even lower than where the Spidey 300 in 9.0 finished up at last night in the CL auction.  

Or I guess that's the thing with the CC auction format, because it tends to encourage bidding more towards the end of their auctions, especially if the 3-minute extended bidding time button gets hit.  So, I guess it's just a matter of waiting to see if it's really   time or not for these double covers and Spidey 300 books.  

[CKinTO]

Yes, I wouldn't try to make any conclusions based on bid levels before auction closes. Lot of auction behavior / psychology at work

[valiantman]

10 minutes ago, CKinTO said:

Yes, I wouldn't try to make any conclusions based on bid levels before auction closes. Lot of auction behavior / psychology at work

True, plus none of those ASM 300s on ComicConnect are newsstand, if we're attempting to evaluate the book that @october posted.

[divad]

I assume that both covers are newsstand?  

[valiantman]

1 minute ago, divad said:

I assume that both covers are newsstand?  

Maybe @october knows.  That would be some kind of crazy if they weren't.  

[RockMyAmadeus]

1 hour ago, valiantman said:

Maybe @october knows.  That would be some kind of crazy if they weren't.  

That would be some kind of shady if they weren't....

[lou_fine]

3 hours ago, valiantman said:

3 hours ago, CKinTO said:

Yes, I wouldn't try to make any conclusions based on bid levels before auction closes. Lot of auction behavior / psychology at work

True, plus none of those ASM 300s on ComicConnect are newsstand, if we're attempting to evaluate the book that @october posted.

Although the common sense thinking is that it must be tougher to find HG copies of comic books that are distributed to the newsstand, this is not necessarily the case all the time.  

Especially when it comes to what is perceive to be hot books at the time, as the newsstand copies usually tends to hit the stores a month after they are distributed to the LCS's.  I remember there was a hot Flash or JLA title that came out to the LCS and it was quite obvious that the newsstand copy would hit the shelves the following month.  I remembered simply waiting a month before going to the local Chapter's bookstore and then cherry picking a couple of the nicer copies for my own personal collection.  Of course, being a hot MA book, I've even completely forgotten what it was since the heat dies down on virtually all hot Moderns a few short months afterwards, like a water hose to fire.    

[valiantman]

9 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

Although the common sense thinking is that it must be tougher to find HG copies of comic books that are distributed to the newsstand, this is not necessarily the case all the time.  

Especially when it comes to what is perceive to be hot books at the time, as the newsstand copies usually tends to hit the stores a month after they are distributed to the LCS's.  I remember there was a hot Flash or JLA title that came out to the LCS and it was quite obvious that the newsstand copy would hit the shelves the following month.  I remembered simply waiting a month before going to the local Chapter's bookstore and then cherry picking a couple of the nicer copies for my own personal collection.  Of course, being a hot MA book, I've even completely forgotten what it was since the heat dies down on virtually all hot Moderns a few short months afterwards, like a water hose to fire.    

True, but ASM #300 was still subject to returns of unsold copies, standard "handling" in the stores by mostly non-collectors, and your experience of going to the bookstore to cherry pick a couple would be a far more common story for those who went to comic shops to cherry pick direct editions.  Each time I've taken a "snapshot" of the available copies on Ebay, the direct editions are 12-to-1 more common than newsstand and the average grade of CGC slabbed direct editions is around 1.0 point higher.

Edited August 29, 2018 by valiantman

[valiantman]

19 minutes ago, valiantman said:

True, but ASM #300 was still subject to returns of unsold copies, standard "handling" in the stores by mostly non-collectors, and your experience of going to the bookstore to cherry pick a couple would be a far more common story for those who went to comic shops to cherry pick direct editions.  Each time I've taken a "snapshot" of the available copies on Ebay, the direct editions are 12-to-1 more common than newsstand and the average grade of CGC slabbed direct editions is around 1.0 point higher.

The above numbers are from 2016.

I just did the "snapshot" of available copies of ASM #300 (CGC'd).  129 copies, 96 direct editions, 33 newsstands.  That's a 3-to-1 for direct-to-newsstand.  The average slabbed grade is 9.1 for direct, 8.3 for newsstand.  +0.8 for direct.

[Martin Sinescu]

4 hours ago, lou_fine said:

Although the common sense thinking is that it must be tougher to find HG copies of comic books that are distributed to the newsstand, this is not necessarily the case all the time.  

Especially when it comes to what is perceive to be hot books at the time, as the newsstand copies usually tends to hit the stores a month after they are distributed to the LCS's.  I remember there was a hot Flash or JLA title that came out to the LCS and it was quite obvious that the newsstand copy would hit the shelves the following month.  I remembered simply waiting a month before going to the local Chapter's bookstore and then cherry picking a couple of the nicer copies for my own personal collection.  Of course, being a hot MA book, I've even completely forgotten what it was since the heat dies down on virtually all hot Moderns a few short months afterwards, like a water hose to fire.    

Yes, very true, although I remember it being 3 weeks. This is why I used to consider the newsstand versions of hot keys as inferior: If a hot book sold out on release day or if something flew under the pre-hype radar and you didn't pick it up the week it came out, the johnny-come-latelys could expect them to be back around in the grocery stores a few weeks later. It just seemed like cheating. I felt you either had to get in on the ground floor or pay the price. Is that weird?

[ADAMANTIUM]

56 minutes ago, Martin Sinescu said:

Yes, very true, although I remember it being 3 weeks. This is why I used to consider the newsstand versions of hot keys as inferior: If a hot book sold out on release day or if something flew under the pre-hype radar and you didn't pick it up the week it came out, the johnny-come-latelys could expect them to be back around in the grocery stores a few weeks later. It just seemed like cheating. I felt you either had to get in on the ground floor or pay the price. Is that weird?

Thanks for this info

As I was oblivious to LCS well into my teens, as they weren't bicycle close. Interesting that the comics I would buy were old news but thems is the breaks!

[lou_fine]

9 hours ago, valiantman said:

9 hours ago, CKinTO said:

Yes, I wouldn't try to make any conclusions based on bid levels before auction closes. Lot of auction behavior / psychology at work

True, plus none of those ASM 300s on ComicConnect are newsstand, if we're attempting to evaluate the book that @october posted.

Well, it looks like the bidding for all of the Spidey 300's didn't really go into extended bidding except for the double cover copy which moved up a couple hundred dollars during the extended time bidding.  It also looks like the CGC 9.0 newsstand version of Spidey 300 on CL managed to get pretty much the same as the CGC 9.2 Direct version of the book.  So, maybe the substantially higher prices which the CL newsstand copies managed to get does have something to do with the Canadian price variant and/or the newsstand versions versus the Direct versions.  

I noticed on the CL Canadian newsstand version, CGC clearly designates the book as a Canadian Edition on the label.  Yet, at the same time, it seems that they do not bother to differentiate between the newsstand and the Direct version for the American copies.  Is this because there is not that much of a perceived price difference between the 2 different versions when it comes to the American editions of the books?  

[RockMyAmadeus]

1 hour ago, lou_fine said:

 Is this because there is not that much of a perceived price difference between the 2 different versions when it comes to the American editions of the books?  

Yes. A few folks have been talking about it for many, many years, but there's an entrenched belief that there's no difference between the two. And, for the most part, they're right.

However, the early Direct market versions (what people used to call "Whitman" versions, but which were probably not exclusive to Whitman as far as Marvel was concerned) are rather rarer than their newsstand counterparts, and by the late 90s, the opposite was true.

CBCS totally half-arsed it by only designating newsstands from 1977 to 2000, which, while useful for the books published from 1995-2000, utterly fails to address the true scarcity of books from 2000-2011/2013 (Marvel's last newsstand copies), 2017 (DC's) and present, some of which are prohibitively rare (see: ASM #694.) The may as well have not done it at all.

Some day, it'll be addressed. 

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

7 hours ago, valiantman said:

The above numbers are from 2016.

I just did the "snapshot" of available copies of ASM #300 (CGC'd).  129 copies, 96 direct editions, 33 newsstands.  That's a 3-to-1 for direct-to-newsstand.  The average slabbed grade is 9.1 for direct, 8.3 for newsstand.  +0.8 for direct.

And remember...ASM #300 was NOT a "hot book" when it came out, despite the hindsight history rewriting of some. Buyers were jusssst starting to notice McFarlane's art at the time. It must be remembered that, when ASM #300 came out, there were only a grand total of 4 comics that showed what McFarlane was capable of, artwise: Detective #578 and Hulk #340-342.

All the other books McFarlane did were inked by others, and it shows. Most of the time, his pencils were buried. This is especially obvious in #298 and #299. 

So, when #300 came out, buyers said..."heeyyyy...this McFarlane guy's art is really GOOD!"

And then the rest came out. Even still, though, #301 was a rush job, inked again by McLeod, #302 and #303 look good, #304 was buried by Rubinstein, #305 was inked by a bunch of guys, and it wasn't until #306 that McFarlane finally hit his stride, and by #309-310, you start to see the really polished art that he was capable of, and would turn in for much of the rest of the run.

And NOBODY was talking about Venom. People enjoyed the story, but there wasn't a clamoring for the character...that wouldn't happen for several more years.

So, yes, #300 no doubt sold better than most issues, but was not a sellout, and still subject to returns like any other book. It did a slow burn for the rest of 1988, picked up speed in 1989, and then went nutso, like the rest of the run, by the spring of 1990. The anticipation for Spiderman #1 was palpable. All you saw dealers and buyers talking about was McFarlane's "adjectiveless Spiderman title."

Of course, when it came out with the special bagged versions, everyone lost their collective minds. 

The reports were 1.75 million copies, but I think Marvel could easily have sold 3 million, if they had printed that many. 1989 was the year of the Bat...but 1990...as I think Alan of All About Books and Comics said in an Update once...was the year of the Spider.

And, of course, ASM McFarlane back issues went nutso, with #298 and #300 jacked up to $30 each in the #12 OPG Update...a crazy price at the time. And that was pretty much where they stayed until ASM #361...THEN, it was all about Carnage, but Venom too, because it was all tied together...then a year later, ASM #375 came out, with that gold foil webbed cover....and then Lethal Protector #1...and it was over. Venom was king. #300 was a $65-$100 book by then, and it left the other McFarlane ASMs in the dust. It never looked back, either.

 

[lou_fine]

2 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

4 hours ago, lou_fine said:

 Is this because there is not that much of a perceived price difference between the 2 different versions when it comes to the American editions of the books?  

Yes. A few folks have been talking about it for many, many years, but there's an entrenched belief that there's no difference between the two. And, for the most part, they're right.

However, the early Direct market versions (what people used to call "Whitman" versions, but which were probably not exclusive to Whitman as far as Marvel was concerned) are rather rarer than their newsstand counterparts, and by the late 90s, the opposite was true.

Yes, I imagine the newsstand copies should in theory be tougher to find in grade by the late 80's as the Direct market should have been in place to supply virtually all of the LCS's by then. 

Any idea approximately when the change took place that the regular local newsstand distributors gave way to the Direct comic book distributors for the LCS's?  I imagine this would not have been consistently implemented across the various regions throughout the country at the same time.  So, would I be correct to assume that most of the LCS's would still have been receiving their comic books from their regular local newsstand distributors around the early 80's?  

[RockMyAmadeus]

7 hours ago, lou_fine said:

Yes, I imagine the newsstand copies should in theory be tougher to find in grade by the late 80's as the Direct market should have been in place to supply virtually all of the LCS's by then. 

Any idea approximately when the change took place that the regular local newsstand distributors gave way to the Direct comic book distributors for the LCS's?  I imagine this would not have been consistently implemented across the various regions throughout the country at the same time.  So, would I be correct to assume that most of the LCS's would still have been receiving their comic books from their regular local newsstand distributors around the early 80's?  

That's a REALLLLY good question, and hard to pin down, because so many LCSs didn't keep meticulous records, and the vast majority have come and gone. I would be willing to bet, since the explosion of the LCS coincided with the rise of the Direct market, I would guess that most stores opened on the Direct market model throughout the 70s. But that's just a guess. Folks like Bud Plant and Geppi would know for sure.

A lot of people erroneously believe that the Direct market didn't exist until 1979, and they point to the company-wide notations of Marvel comics, beginning with June cover dates, of Direct market versions. That isn't remotely true: the DM had been in operation since 73-74. It just took Marvel (and then DC) a while to figure out that some retailers were gaming the system; buying copies at the Direct market discount, and returning them as newsstands for higher credit.

So, were most LCSs still part of the Curtis (newsstand) distribution system in the early 80s...? Probably not, but I don't doubt that some maintained both types of accounts.

 

[lou_fine]

19 hours ago, valiantman said:

19 hours ago, valiantman said:

True, but ASM #300 was still subject to returns of unsold copies, standard "handling" in the stores by mostly non-collectors, and your experience of going to the bookstore to cherry pick a couple would be a far more common story for those who went to comic shops to cherry pick direct editions.  Each time I've taken a "snapshot" of the available copies on Ebay, the direct editions are 12-to-1 more common than newsstand and the average grade of CGC slabbed direct editions is around 1.0 point higher.

The above numbers are from 2016.

I just did the "snapshot" of available copies of ASM #300 (CGC'd).  129 copies, 96 direct editions, 33 newsstands.  That's a 3-to-1 for direct-to-newsstand.  The average slabbed grade is 9.1 for direct, 8.3 for newsstand.  +0.8 for direct.

Yes, makes perfect sense that there should be a greater proportion of better condition copies from the Direct market versions and hence moreof these would have been slabbed and resold.  But as RMA has pointed out below, probably not to the point where there is a belief of a significant difference in price between the American newsstand version from the American Direct market version:

11 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Yes. A few folks have been talking about it for many, many years, but there's an entrenched belief that there's no difference between the two. And, for the most part, they're right.

Hence, my personal belief for the seemingly higher prices on these more recent and common CA books is that CL has a strong customer base for these HG BA and CA books because this is where CL originally built their reputation.  Customers loyal to the point that they probably don't even bother to look at the CC offerings since their reputation is more towards the older vintage more expensive collectible books which is much more their forte.  The only reason I can think of for why there would be sometimes hundreds of dollars of difference for these same common books in exactly the same CGC grade?  

Edited August 30, 2018 by lou_fine

[valiantman]

30 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

19 hours ago, valiantman said:

I just did the "snapshot" of available copies of ASM #300 (CGC'd).  129 copies, 96 direct editions, 33 newsstands.  That's a 3-to-1 for direct-to-newsstand.  The average slabbed grade is 9.1 for direct, 8.3 for newsstand.  +0.8 for direct.

Yes, makes perfect sense that there should be a greater proportion of better condition copies from the Direct market versions and hence moreof these would have been slabbed and resold.  But as RMA has pointed out below, probably not to the point where there is a belief of a significant difference in price between the American newsstand version from the American Direct market version:

Belief of a significant difference in price is kind of irrelevant.  When there's a significant difference in price, it will show itself.  I believe that it will happen, and I believe that there will be statistics (like the above) that are pretty good reasons for the difference.

The market won't allow one item to be 2, 3, or 12 times more common with higher average grades than another item and both to have the same pricing.  Either they'll eventually be the same when it comes to the stats, or the prices will separate... even if it's just slightly different, like ASM 300 Unleaded (direct) and ASM 300 Premium (newsstand).  Otherwise identical... one's just got slightly different stats.

[lou_fine]

16 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

And remember...ASM #300 was NOT a "hot book" when it came out, despite the hindsight history rewriting of some. Buyers were jusssst starting to notice McFarlane's art at the time. It must be remembered that, when ASM #300 came out, there were only a grand total of 4 comics that showed what McFarlane was capable of, artwise: Detective #578 and Hulk #340-342.

 

So, yes, #300 no doubt sold better than most issues, but was not a sellout, and still subject to returns like any other book. It did a slow burn for the rest of 1988, picked up speed in 1989, and then went nutso, like the rest of the run, by the spring of 1990. The anticipation for Spiderman #1 was palpable. All you saw dealers and buyers talking about was McFarlane's "adjectiveless Spiderman title."

 

I guess it's sort of regional because I always had the impression that there were a ton of Spidey 300's out there as they were always all over the place at the time.

Of course, it was probably skewed due to the fact that McFarlane was pretty much a home town boy in our area who tended to show up at the local cons to happily sign his books for his fans before he became a big star in the comic book world.  And Spidey 300, besides being a big anniversary issue, was definitely one of the more popular go to books that local collectors would grab for him to sign at the time.  

Edited August 30, 2018 by lou_fine