How much of a premium are we talking for newsstand issues v/s direct editions? 10 10

[paqart]

29 minutes ago, paqart said:

I was totally shocked to find a Daredevil with a Mark Jeweler's insert at a flea market for a dollar. Didn't know it was there until I got home. Would be really hard to find those in most situations involving bagged comics.

 

I'll add that it's the only one I have that I know of.

[Cpt Kirk]

2 hours ago, Martin Sinescu said:

Nice, i don't have either of those, nor did I even have an entry for the DCU variant on my spreadsheet. Trying to do all the regular/deluxe/newsstand/DCU/reprint variants in the late 400's and through the 500's is a real challenge.

You are right about that.  If you send me a PM, I can send you a list of all variants for Batman, TEC, Superman and Action.  Many of them are unknown to typical comic book databases.

[Cpt Kirk]

17 minutes ago, paqart said:

I'll add that it's the only one I have that I know of.

Those jeweler inserts are a real trick to find, especially in DC comics.  Once you get some experience, they are very easy to find, even without taking the comics out of the bag.  If you want to learn more, just look for "DC Mark Jewelers Kirk" and you will see an article I wrote.   And Awe4one wrote an in-depth article on the Marvel Jeweler variants.

[Cpt Kirk]

2 hours ago, onlyweaknesskryptonite said:

Was the DC Universe Variant for the regular,  deluxe or both?

The regular cover

[divad]

10 minutes ago, Cpt Kirk said:

Those jeweler inserts are a real trick to find, especially in DC comics.  Once you get some experience, they are very easy to find, even without taking the comics out of the bag.  If you want to learn more, just look for "DC Mark Jewelers Kirk" and you will see an article I wrote.   And Awe4one wrote an in-depth article on the Marvel Jeweler variants.

the weight . . .

[RCheli]

On 10/15/2019 at 9:25 PM, Cpt Kirk said:

Barnes and Noble would have real data in their system. And Barnes and Noble was about the only company selling newsstand issues from roughly 2008 until the demise of the DC newsstand issues in October 2017.   I've seen B&N data with my own eyes on their computerized inventory system. Each store had a record of how many newsstand issues they received for any given title, and how many were actually sold. So I am pretty sure someone at the corporate level could get a roll-up of exactly how many issues of each comic book were received and how many were sold.  The variables would be the accuracy of the "sold" data, and how many of the unsold were actually destroyed.

I don't think this is true. Barnes and Noble gets their periodicals through a few different distributors. The store didn't count how many of a certain issue was sold, just that there were X issues sold at a certain price point. And when the unsold copies were returned to the distributors, they did a count to see how many of a certain issue of Time or Rolling Stone or whatever sold overall. There are too many periodicals and too many stores to do that sort of store by store inventory. 

Magazines are a pretty volatile market,  too,so if they sold 0, 4, 2, 1, and 8 of the last 5 issues of Superman, it wouldn't be surprising. 

Each store did not order its own number of titles. That was done by the home office, and for magazines, they looked more at how many copies were sold overall throughout their stores rather than how many of each issue was sold at a specific location.

[Cpt Kirk]

4 hours ago, RCheli said:

I don't think this is true. Barnes and Noble gets their periodicals through a few different distributors. The store didn't count how many of a certain issue was sold, just that there were X issues sold at a certain price point. And when the unsold copies were returned to the distributors, they did a count to see how many of a certain issue of Time or Rolling Stone or whatever sold overall. There are too many periodicals and too many stores to do that sort of store by store inventory. 

Magazines are a pretty volatile market,  too,so if they sold 0, 4, 2, 1, and 8 of the last 5 issues of Superman, it wouldn't be surprising. 

Each store did not order its own number of titles. That was done by the home office, and for magazines, they looked more at how many copies were sold overall throughout their stores rather than how many of each issue was sold at a specific location.

Interesting information.   thanks for weighing in.   Having visited Barnes and Noble weekly for about 6 years, your explanation seems very plausible.  I did notice that they tended to order more of the comic book titles that sold out, but it was very hit or miss.

[Cpt Kirk]

18 hours ago, divad said:

the weight . . .

True, the weight and feel of the comic book.  The slicker and thinner ads that occurred from issues dated Nov 77 thru July 86 are a little tougher to "feel" the difference and to see in the centerline when just looking from the top.  I've made a pretty concerted effort over the last 10 years to find them all and I'm up to about 95% found for the DC titles I collect.   One thing is for sure in DC comic books, I've found more than 1,000 jeweler inserts and I have never seen one occur in a "Direct Sales" issue..   

[RockMyAmadeus]

1 hour ago, Cpt Kirk said:

True, the weight and feel of the comic book.  The slicker and thinner ads that occurred from issues dated Nov 77 thru July 86 are a little tougher to "feel" the difference and to see in the centerline when just looking from the top.  I've made a pretty concerted effort over the last 10 years to find them all and I'm up to about 95% found for the DC titles I collect.   One thing is for sure in DC comic books, I've found more than 1,000 jeweler inserts and I have never seen one occur in a "Direct Sales" issue..   

Which makes sense. Since the Mark Jeweler's were aimed at the military, and those were serviced by Curtis Circulation (the newsstand circulation management company at the time), they wouldn't be found in Direct copies, which only went to comics specialty stores.

Someone "found" a Mark Jeweler's ad in a direct copy, I believe, which, while possible, would have been very unlikely. Publishers (through advertisers) paid for these to be printed, after all, and wouldn't have appreciated ads going to the wrong markets. I think the more plausible explanation would be that someone added it to a Direct copy.

As for B&N, I would be very surprised if anyone at B&N had anything to do with ordering. Much like vending machines are serviced, I imagine that "newsstands" like B&N, Borders, Wal-Mart, etc were serviced by the local newsstand distributor, which determined which account received what and in what quantities (with the obvious difference being the point of purchase.) It was the "you got what you got" system. This is how it worked at actual news vendors until the end, so I don't imagine it would have been much different for the "book store" accounts. While, yes, B&N would then track what they received and what they sold, I very much doubt anyone within the B&N heirarchy had anything to do with the actual ordering of periodicals.

[divad]

this page is just another reason i love this place. 

[Cpt Kirk]

4 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Which makes sense. Since the Mark Jeweler's were aimed at the military, and those were serviced by Curtis Circulation (the newsstand circulation management company at the time), they wouldn't be found in Direct copies, which only went to comics specialty stores.

Someone "found" a Mark Jeweler's ad in a direct copy, I believe, which, while possible, would have been very unlikely. Publishers (through advertisers) paid for these to be printed, after all, and wouldn't have appreciated ads going to the wrong markets. I think the more plausible explanation would be that someone added it to a Direct copy.

As for B&N, I would be very surprised if anyone at B&N had anything to do with ordering. Much like vending machines are serviced, I imagine that "newsstands" like B&N, Borders, Wal-Mart, etc were serviced by the local newsstand distributor, which determined which account received what and in what quantities (with the obvious difference being the point of purchase.) It was the "you got what you got" system. This is how it worked at actual news vendors until the end, so I don't imagine it would have been much different for the "book store" accounts. While, yes, B&N would then track what they received and what they sold, I very much doubt anyone within the B&N heirarchy had anything to do with the actual ordering of periodicals.

Thanks RMA.  As always, you are a wealth of interesting information.   

p.s. I think if anyone ever claims to find a jeweler in a direct sales comic book, it will either be an error copy or someone added it to the direct sales issue.   A close examination of the insert will probably show that the original staples do not line up exactly with the insert's original staple penetrations.

[RCheli]

When I ran the magazine department at Borders we got stuff from 5 different distributors, though most were from either our local distributor (for the weeklies and other big name magazines) and Ingram (which distributed the second tier ones).

Borders at the time (94-97) carried no comics, but I suspect that if they did, they would have come through Ingram. (Also, we returned the magazines to our local distributor full copy, cover and all, whereas we stripped the cover and returned only that for all other avenues.)

The only thing I had control over as far as ordering was the out of town newspapers. Pre-internet, people still looked at the newspaper to apply for jobs, and certain papers and areas were getting more popular so I was allowed to add to that.

Edit: I ran the section at just one store, obviously. Not the whole chain.

Edited October 21, 2019 by RCheli

[comicginger1789]

I understand that back in the day, you had newsstand copies with the barcode that were on public display racks in convenience stores and the like. I get that issues without the barcode were sold direct to consumer. Not sure why there would ever be a premium on one over the other. It is neat and neat to know that a newsstand copy survived and perhaps is higher grade given the "life" it has lived.

I just dislike the use of the term as a supposed selling point. For example, on a newer comic like ASM #606, I have heard people call it a "newsstand" copy. To my knowledge, this issue only has one cover and it has the barcode (there are variants and stuff yes but I am talking the regular cover). So calling it a newsstand copy really doesn't differentiate it from a non-newsstand copy because to my knowledge, they all have the barcode. 

Someone correct me here if I am extremely wrong....

[bababooey]

17 minutes ago, comicginger1789 said:

I understand that back in the day, you had newsstand copies with the barcode that were on public display racks in convenience stores and the like. I get that issues without the barcode were sold direct to consumer. Not sure why there would ever be a premium on one over the other. It is neat and neat to know that a newsstand copy survived and perhaps is higher grade given the "life" it has lived.

I just dislike the use of the term as a supposed selling point. For example, on a newer comic like ASM #606, I have heard people call it a "newsstand" copy. To my knowledge, this issue only has one cover and it has the barcode (there are variants and stuff yes but I am talking the regular cover). So calling it a newsstand copy really doesn't differentiate it from a non-newsstand copy because to my knowledge, they all have the barcode. 

Someone correct me here if I am extremely wrong....

When the direct editions have a barcode (not artwork) then you need to look closely at the format/content of the barcode.  Newsstands always* have the second segment as two digits indicating the month.  Direct editions' second segment reflects issue number (3) variant & print are reflected by the last two digits and there is some inconsistency in how they are determined.

*there are probably some exceptions to this

[ADAMANTIUM]

1 hour ago, comicginger1789 said:

I understand that back in the day, you had newsstand copies with the barcode that were on public display racks in convenience stores and the like. I get that issues without the barcode were sold direct to consumer. Not sure why there would ever be a premium on one over the other. It is neat and neat to know that a newsstand copy survived and perhaps is higher grade given the "life" it has lived.

I just dislike the use of the term as a supposed selling point. For example, on a newer comic like ASM #606, I have heard people call it a "newsstand" copy. To my knowledge, this issue only has one cover and it has the barcode (there are variants and stuff yes but I am talking the regular cover). So calling it a newsstand copy really doesn't differentiate it from a non-newsstand copy because to my knowledge, they all have the barcode. 

Someone correct me here if I am extremely wrong....

Also ASM #606 is a price variant.. and is noted on the label similar to #607...

 

[ADAMANTIUM]

5 minutes ago, ADAMANTIUM said:

1 hour ago, comicginger1789 said:

I understand that back in the day, you had newsstand copies with the barcode that were on public display racks in convenience stores and the like. I get that issues without the barcode were sold direct to consumer. Not sure why there would ever be a premium on one over the other. It is neat and neat to know that a newsstand copy survived and perhaps is higher grade given the "life" it has lived.

I just dislike the use of the term as a supposed selling point. For example, on a newer comic like ASM #606, I have heard people call it a "newsstand" copy. To my knowledge, this issue only has one cover and it has the barcode (there are variants and stuff yes but I am talking the regular cover). So calling it a newsstand copy really doesn't differentiate it from a non-newsstand copy because to my knowledge, they all have the barcode. 

Someone correct me here if I am extremely wrong....

Also ASM #606 is a price variant.. and is noted on the label similar to #607...

 

Look at it this way, they're similar to the 30 cent and 35 cent price variants of the bronze age books that people collect

 

[comicginger1789]

So people do care? Is the rarity level as high though? Personally, I think the 30/35 cent variants are much neater than a barcode but hey...one collector's opinion.

I sit corrected and appreciate the knowledge (I havent purchased a "new comic" ever so this info is helpful)

Edited October 22, 2019 by comicginger1789

[ADAMANTIUM]

24 minutes ago, comicginger1789 said:

So people do care? Is the rarity level as high though? Personally, I think the 30/35 cent variants are much neater than a barcode but hey...one collector's opinion.

I sit corrected and appreciate the knowledge (I havent purchased a "new comic" ever so this info is helpful)

There are 2-3 newsstand threads in the modern section that might explain more, and not only "price variant newsstands" get the label treatment. There are now no newsstand editions currently on stands, as they've been phased out, and after the 2000's not only are they "rare in high grade", they are just rare period. Because there were less newsstand retailers, but for "copper age", I see your point newsstands are only "rare for the life they lead." "Modern age" is a bit of a different story, depending on who you talk to

 

[paqart]

21 minutes ago, comicginger1789 said:

So people do care? Is the rarity level as high though? Personally, I think the 30/35 cent variants are much neater than a barcode but hey...one collector's opinion.

I sit corrected and appreciate the knowledge (I havent purchased a "new comic" ever so this info is helpful)

Keep in mind the price difference. On many newsstand editions (though not the majority, as I understand it) there are different prices. For one three month period, Marvel had three different prices on around six of their most popular titles: $1.99, $2.29, and $2.49, with $2.29 being the hardest to find. That means for each issue published in that period, for instance, Amazing Spider-Man V2 #'s 10, 11, and 13 (not 12 because it was giant-size) there are all three price variants. So far, I've only found one of these for my collection (a $2.49 ASM 10). Does anyone know which of these are considered the variant? I assume that the $1.99 version is the regular edition (not a variant) and the $2.29 and $2.49 versions are the variants. They did this for Cable, Fantastic Four, and a few other titles, but only on the newsstand editions. All of the direct versions have the same price.
Yesterday, I picked up a Hulk #441 newsstand price variant with a cover price of 150 cents (not $1.50). It is also printed on newsprint, including the cover, unlike the direct version.
As for rarity, try finding some of the later newsstands, it isn't easy. Earlier in the week I picked up a CGC graded 9.6 newsstand copy of Incredible Hulk 92. It is only the second copy I've seen, but the direct copy is available everywhere.

[bababooey]

1 hour ago, ADAMANTIUM said:

Look at it this way, they're similar to the 30 cent and 35 cent price variants of the bronze age books that people collect

 

33 minutes ago, comicginger1789 said:

So people do care? Is the rarity level as high though? Personally, I think the 30/35 cent variants are much neater than a barcode but hey...one collector's opinion.

I sit corrected and appreciate the knowledge (I havent purchased a "new comic" ever so this info is helpful)

Some people care but the price variant moderns are no more rare than any other newsstand of that era.  The fact that CGC chooses to only make note of newsstand issues when they are price variants makes them a more viable target for hucksters to talk them up & extract money from n00bs...even the ultra rare bronze age 35 centers need to be a decent grade for most people to cough up some dough for them.  IMHO* any price variant where the price is over a dollar is too new for me to care.  No offense. 

*Other than the 3/4 month period documented in moderns by marwood/sparky

Edited October 22, 2019 by bababooey