Amazing Spider-Man 667 1:100 Dell'Otto Variant

[rjrjr]

The school of thought is that 667 was subsequently massively under ordered due to retailer/customer variant fatigue, leading to a print run of as little as 200 copies.

 

Documentation, please.

 

As has been discussed many times before, variants aren't printed "to order", and never have been. It has been a consistent mistake by many in the comics world to believe that the print run of any particular "1:X" variant is tied, in any way, to orders/print runs of the regular version.

 

They are distributed to order, not printed.

 

I don't quite understand why you keep repeating this erroneous idea, Jaydog.

 

:shrug:

 

 

Exactly.

With Marvel it's minimum 1,500 rounded to the case

They might distribute 500.

The rest usually finds their way to market.

 

I'd want documentation for either claim. Am I to just believe that Marvel stores extras in a room somewhere? I've never once heard of Marvel distributing old issues as new to unload a thousand extra copies. I have a hard time believing that Marvel wants to keep unsold issues on-hand and pay taxes on the assets year after year. So I still tend to think they print on an order-basis...unless someone can prove that they don't

 

 

Jerome

 

Could one of the retailers who buy through Diamond verify this? My understanding is some of these overprinted variant issues are sold through Diamond a few months after the initial orders are met. I know DCBS will get some of the remainder convention exclusives from time to time.

 

And wasn't there a discount store back east selling some of these ratio'd variants in multi-packs recently? Forgot the name of the store though.

[Dutch74]

I think that the books that are not rare and still very valuable are... rare

[Dutch74]

I agree that Jadogrules' threads on the ASM678 MJ/Venom and now the ASM667 Del'Otto radiate his enthusiasm about his 9.8 copies and maybe he exaggerates a bit, but what is wrong with that?

 

200 or 500 copies, or even a few more, fact is that there will always be completists, especially with ASM. People will want these books, prices are crazy at the moment and the ASM667 is still not being drawn from collections. I think it is unlikely that this will change with time passing by.

 

By the way, there are not 200 but 500 copies of the ASM666 Mac variant. I only have a lousy, signed copy, meaning there are 499 left at most and I haven't been able to find one for two years now, I rewarded a $500 reward, then $750, then $1000. And all I found was an offer for $1000 + my copy for a dinged, unsigned book...

 

 

 

[rjrjr]

I think that the books that are not rare and still very valuable are... rare

 

That is certainly the prevailing definition on these boards.

 

"Look at how rare such and such is because it goes for so much money!"

 

Never mind the fact that if you had the money, any given day you could find and buy the comic. Very, very few domestic comics are "rare". Expensive, absolutely. Rare, hardly.

 

I use the $0.35 Star Wars comics as my example. For the most part, anytime I want to buy one of these "rare" issues, I can usually do so (understand that I'm discounting the grade for these issues) if I had the money. But, try and find a newsstand reprint of Star Wars #5 or 6 (also in any condition.) These reprints are much, much harder to find (and #6 is magnitudes tougher than #5.) One sells for thousands. The other (if it can be found) sells for a few bucks. One is deemed "rare". The other "common". And that distinction is based on the value, not the actual trouble one has to go through to find copies.

[Jaydogrules]

I meant the second, doesn't have to be silver. Could be rare copper/modern.

 

2K on a 9.2/9.4 rare modern is not a good purchase, this is my opinion, which is subject to being wrong etc.

 

Agreed. 2k on a 9.2 /9.4 is on the high end especially since most modern collectors only want 9.8s.

 

I paid a tidy sum for mine 3 1/2 years ago shortly after it first dropped. Unless you had it on your pull list the day it came out, and your LCS qualified for the incentive, and still gave it to you for cover price (not likely), no one has ever gotten this book cheap in any condition. Elmer paid $1000+ for his in a slightly better condition a year and a half ago. Someone paid over $2k for this one. If another one in any kind of decent shape doesn't surface for another year, this also may look like a bargain.

 

-J.

 

Which is, of course, a perfect example of why this market is so delicate, and one needs to tread verrrry carefully. This kind of money being paid for manufactured "rarities" is going to cause major heartache in the future.

 

There's no compelling reason...other than "rarity"...that this book should be selling for this kind of money, and yet, here we are....there's nothing special about the cover, there's nothing special about the issue itself...the only reason it sells for these nosebleed prices is because it is "rare."

 

There are countless, endless examples of markets that crashed, and crashed hard, because of people paying extreme prices solely because of rarity; there was nothing about the item itself that made it special, it was just..."rare."

 

And it's all about relativity. $2,000 for this book wouldn't be a problem, if everything else was selling for the same relative amounts of money.

 

But they're not. If it's not a "key, hot, first appearance!" nobody cares. New Mutants #87 tops $500 in 9.8, but you can't give away #88 for 1/10th that price. That's not the sign of a healthy market; that's just tulipmania.

 

Speaking of "supposed" print runs, consider the example of the Batman #608 "retailer incentive edition."

 

Since almost the beginning, the "conventional wisdom" has been that DC only printed 200 copies. People made purchases based on that "fact."

 

And yet, as I write, there are 285 copies on the census. Even considering resubs without returned labels, that's still more than 200 copies..and that's just in CGC slabs. Obviously, not all copies of this book are in CGC slabs.

 

Granted, there are probably fewer than 500. But 500, or 400, or even 300, is a substantial percentage over 200. Who made up the 200 figure? Who knows? Will they ever have to take responsibility for their error? Probably not in this lifetime. Does it matter? Perhaps, perhaps not.

 

But it does illustrate the point: just because someone *says* something has "thus and such a print run" doesn't make it so, and yet, no one ever seems to be called to account for such misinformation.

 

Something to think about.

 

Some of your statements ignore the realities of comic book collecting and the collector's mentality in general.

 

Many collectors want to have something that the next guy doesn't have.

 

Everyone has an NM 87, 98 a hulk 181, etc.

 

Possibly only 200 people have this.

 

If you are a spidey completist you will want this book. So few copies of a book in the historic run of Marvel's flagship character's title will bring out wallets. The artwork is incredible, by one of the best working cover artists today. Who's to say that some of these variants of today won't be the "classic covers" of tomorrow ? "Manufactured" or not, the book is a rarity. And that is indeed something that carries a premium in this hobby when all the stars align. Granted, there are very few modern variants where this has happened.

 

But it has happened.

 

-J.

[Jaydogrules]

I agree that Jadogrules' threads on the ASM678 MJ/Venom and now the ASM667 Del'Otto radiate his enthusiasm about his 9.8 copies and maybe he exaggerates a bit, but what is wrong with that?

 

200 or 500 copies, or even a few more, fact is that there will always be completists, especially with ASM. People will want these books, prices are crazy at the moment and the ASM667 is still not being drawn from collections. I think it is unlikely that this will change with time passing by.

 

By the way, there are not 200 but 500 copies of the ASM666 Mac variant. I only have a lousy, signed copy, meaning there are 499 left at most and I haven't been able to find one for two years now, I rewarded a $500 reward, then $750, then $1000. And all I found was an offer for $1000 + my copy for a dinged, unsigned book...

 

 

 

*Ahem*. And, in fairness to me, I am posting enthusiastically in these books' "appreciation/club" threads. Not in a "Places to Invest Your Comic Money" thread.

 

There would be a few well served to remember that.

 

-J.

[N/A]

The school of thought is that 667 was subsequently massively under ordered due to retailer/customer variant fatigue, leading to a print run of as little as 200 copies.

 

Documentation, please.

 

As has been discussed many times before, variants aren't printed "to order", and never have been. It has been a consistent mistake by many in the comics world to believe that the print run of any particular "1:X" variant is tied, in any way, to orders/print runs of the regular version.

 

They are distributed to order, not printed.

 

I don't quite understand why you keep repeating this erroneous idea, Jaydog.

 

:shrug:

 

 

Exactly.

With Marvel it's minimum 1,500 rounded to the case

They might distribute 500.

The rest usually finds their way to market.

 

I'd want documentation for either claim. Am I to just believe that Marvel stores extras in a room somewhere? I've never once heard of Marvel distributing old issues as new to unload a thousand extra copies. I have a hard time believing that Marvel wants to keep unsold issues on-hand and pay taxes on the assets year after year. So I still tend to think they print on an order-basis...unless someone can prove that they don't

 

 

Jerome

 

There are sales as you describe all the time. You need only open a diamond account to prove it to yourself.

[rjrjr]

Is this the "rarest" Amazing Spider-Man variant? If Marvel started printing 1 of 500 variants for Amazing Spider-Man (i.e. manufactured collectible) do you think there would be people lining up to buy them or is this issue special because it stands alone as the "rarest" Amazing Spider-Man variant? (If so, it seems like Marvel or an enterprising comic shop could start another business to cater to this crowd.)

 

By the way, I'm quoting rare, not to disparage those who claim this comic is rare, but because I've always used the Overstreet definition of rare which is 10-20 copies. I look at this Amazing Spider-Man variant as having a low print number, not as rare.

 

Final question, if I wanted to buy this comic on any given day, regardless of price, is it available? Or is it something that comes up for sale very, very infrequently?

[Dutch74]

Is this the "rarest" Amazing Spider-Man variant? If Marvel started printing 1 of 500 variants for Amazing Spider-Man (i.e. manufactured collectible) do you think there would be people lining up to buy them or is this issue special because it stands alone as the "rarest" Amazing Spider-Man variant? (If so, it seems like Marvel or an enterprising comic shop could start another business to cater to this crowd.)

 

By the way, I'm quoting rare, not to disparage those who claim this comic is rare, but because I've always used the Overstreet definition of rare which is 10-20 copies. I look at this Amazing Spider-Man variant as having a low print number, not as rare.

 

Final question, if I wanted to buy this comic on any given day, regardless of price, is it available? Or is it something that comes up for sale very, very infrequently?

 

I have been collecting ASM variants for over two years now and this is certainly the one that has appeared the least on eBay. By far. I have seen it now four times, 1 a CGC9.6 which was on for like 2 hours or so, the others all raw. of course, money can buy anything. From this thread you can identify three boardies who have this book...

[Jaydogrules]

Is this the "rarest" Amazing Spider-Man variant? If Marvel started printing 1 of 500 variants for Amazing Spider-Man (i.e. manufactured collectible) do you think there would be people lining up to buy them or is this issue special because it stands alone as the "rarest" Amazing Spider-Man variant? (If so, it seems like Marvel or an enterprising comic shop could start another business to cater to this crowd.)

 

By the way, I'm quoting rare, not to disparage those who claim this comic is rare, but because I've always used the Overstreet definition of rare which is 10-20 copies. I look at this Amazing Spider-Man variant as having a low print number, not as rare.

 

Final question, if I wanted to buy this comic on any given day, regardless of price, is it available? Or is it something that comes up for sale very, very infrequently?

 

I don't know if this is the "rarest" printed spidey variant of all. It my be one of the rarest RI variants relative to the main cover's print run however. But even that is just speculation.

 

Marvel has printed 1:200 ASM variants that also shot up in value (the 700 ditko comes to mind), but the print run of the main cover was massive, so even that book is not as rare as this one.

 

I don't fault you for using OPG terminology, but I don't think those terms are applicable to the modern variant market.

 

Is the 667 dell'otto readily available on the open market ? No. That's why you see increasingly aggressive bidding whenever one does come up. There might be one or two copies that come to market in a year, and its usually the same raw copies changing hands. This one that just sold was the first "new" one to market that I've seen in over a year. Elmer's was the last one before this one, and he did well with it.

 

Needless to say, I'm a bit obsessed with this variant.

 

-J.

[rjrjr]

Is this the "rarest" Amazing Spider-Man variant? If Marvel started printing 1 of 500 variants for Amazing Spider-Man (i.e. manufactured collectible) do you think there would be people lining up to buy them or is this issue special because it stands alone as the "rarest" Amazing Spider-Man variant? (If so, it seems like Marvel or an enterprising comic shop could start another business to cater to this crowd.)

 

By the way, I'm quoting rare, not to disparage those who claim this comic is rare, but because I've always used the Overstreet definition of rare which is 10-20 copies. I look at this Amazing Spider-Man variant as having a low print number, not as rare.

 

Final question, if I wanted to buy this comic on any given day, regardless of price, is it available? Or is it something that comes up for sale very, very infrequently?

 

I don't know if this is the "rarest" printed spidey variant of all. It my be one of the rarest RI variants relative to the main cover's print run however. But even that is just speculation.

 

Marvel has printed 1:200 ASM variants that also shot up in value (the 700 ditko comes to mind), but the print run of the main cover was massive, so even that book is not as rare as this one.

 

I don't fault you for using OPG terminology, but I don't think those terms are applicable to the modern variant market.

 

Is the 667 dell'otto readily available on the open market ? No. That's why you see increasingly aggressive bidding whenever one does come up. There might be one or two copies that come to market in a year, and its usually the same raw copies changing hands. This one that just sold was the first "new" one to market that I've seen in over a year. Elmer's was the last one before this one, and he did well with it.

 

Needless to say, I'm a bit obsessed with this variant.

 

-J.

 

A comic that comes up for sale only once or twice a year definitely qualifies as a hard to find comic. I'll always have a hard time calling a comic with so many copies rare though but I can see why others call it rare. I appreciate the information.

 

[jreezy]

I follow "manufactured rare" variants and I agree with Jay that this book rarely comes available for sell. I don't recall a 9.8 ever hitting the market the last 2-3 years if ever.

 

I know a lot of members think that people must be looney paying thousands for a book released within the last few years, but who can really say what motivates variants buyers to spend money? Could be rarity? Fan of the art/work cover. Completionist?

 

 

 

 

[Lethal_Collector]

The school of thought is that 667 was subsequently massively under ordered due to retailer/customer variant fatigue, leading to a print run of as little as 200 copies.

 

Documentation, please.

 

As has been discussed many times before, variants aren't printed "to order", and never have been. It has been a consistent mistake by many in the comics world to believe that the print run of any particular "1:X" variant is tied, in any way, to orders/print runs of the regular version.

 

They are distributed to order, not printed.

 

I don't quite understand why you keep repeating this erroneous idea, Jaydog.

 

:shrug:

 

 

Exactly.

With Marvel it's minimum 1,500 rounded to the case

They might distribute 500.

The rest usually finds their way to market.

 

I'd want documentation for either claim. Am I to just believe that Marvel stores extras in a room somewhere? I've never once heard of Marvel distributing old issues as new to unload a thousand extra copies. I have a hard time believing that Marvel wants to keep unsold issues on-hand and pay taxes on the assets year after year. So I still tend to think they print on an order-basis...unless someone can prove that they don't

 

 

Jerome

 

There are sales as you describe all the time. You need only open a diamond account to prove it to yourself.

 

Orly? Good to know, I'll look into that, thanks man!

 

 

Jerome

[Jaydogrules]

Is this the "rarest" Amazing Spider-Man variant? If Marvel started printing 1 of 500 variants for Amazing Spider-Man (i.e. manufactured collectible) do you think there would be people lining up to buy them or is this issue special because it stands alone as the "rarest" Amazing Spider-Man variant? (If so, it seems like Marvel or an enterprising comic shop could start another business to cater to this crowd.)

 

By the way, I'm quoting rare, not to disparage those who claim this comic is rare, but because I've always used the Overstreet definition of rare which is 10-20 copies. I look at this Amazing Spider-Man variant as having a low print number, not as rare.

 

Final question, if I wanted to buy this comic on any given day, regardless of price, is it available? Or is it something that comes up for sale very, very infrequently?

 

I don't know if this is the "rarest" printed spidey variant of all. It my be one of the rarest RI variants relative to the main cover's print run however. But even that is just speculation.

 

Marvel has printed 1:200 ASM variants that also shot up in value (the 700 ditko comes to mind), but the print run of the main cover was massive, so even that book is not as rare as this one.

 

I don't fault you for using OPG terminology, but I don't think those terms are applicable to the modern variant market.

 

Is the 667 dell'otto readily available on the open market ? No. That's why you see increasingly aggressive bidding whenever one does come up. There might be one or two copies that come to market in a year, and its usually the same raw copies changing hands. This one that just sold was the first "new" one to market that I've seen in over a year. Elmer's was the last one before this one, and he did well with it.

 

Needless to say, I'm a bit obsessed with this variant.

 

-J.

 

A comic that comes up for sale only once or twice a year definitely qualifies as a hard to find comic. I'll always have a hard time calling a comic with so many copies rare though but I can see why others call it rare. I appreciate the information.

 

(thumbs u

 

-J.

[Lazyboy]

I follow "manufactured rare" variants and I agree with Jay that this book rarely comes available for sell. I don't recall a 9.8 ever hitting the market the last 2-3 years if ever.

 

I know a lot of members think that people must be looney paying thousands for a book released within the last few years, but who can really say what motivates variants buyers to spend money? Could be rarity? Fan of the art/work cover. Completionist?

 

Mental illness?

[jreezy]

I follow "manufactured rare" variants and I agree with Jay that this book rarely comes available for sell. I don't recall a 9.8 ever hitting the market the last 2-3 years if ever.

 

I know a lot of members think that people must be looney paying thousands for a book released within the last few years, but who can really say what motivates variants buyers to spend money? Could be rarity? Fan of the art/work cover. Completionist?

 

Mental illness?

 

yeah, I'm pretty much

 

You don't even want to know how much I have paid for Uncanny X-men 510 Partial Sketch.

[Jaydogrules]

I follow "manufactured rare" variants and I agree with Jay that this book rarely comes available for sell. I don't recall a 9.8 ever hitting the market the last 2-3 years if ever.

 

I know a lot of members think that people must be looney paying thousands for a book released within the last few years, but who can really say what motivates variants buyers to spend money? Could be rarity? Fan of the art/work cover. Completionist?

 

Mental illness?

 

To this day it is still the most I've ever paid for any single raw book from any age. By a lot. The heart wants what the heart wants.

 

-J.

[RockMyAmadeus]

The school of thought is that 667 was subsequently massively under ordered due to retailer/customer variant fatigue, leading to a print run of as little as 200 copies.

 

Documentation, please.

 

As has been discussed many times before, variants aren't printed "to order", and never have been. It has been a consistent mistake by many in the comics world to believe that the print run of any particular "1:X" variant is tied, in any way, to orders/print runs of the regular version.

 

They are distributed to order, not printed.

 

I don't quite understand why you keep repeating this erroneous idea, Jaydog.

 

:shrug:

 

 

Exactly.

With Marvel it's minimum 1,500 rounded to the case

They might distribute 500.

The rest usually finds their way to market.

 

I'd want documentation for either claim. Am I to just believe that Marvel stores extras in a room somewhere? I've never once heard of Marvel distributing old issues as new to unload a thousand extra copies. I have a hard time believing that Marvel wants to keep unsold issues on-hand and pay taxes on the assets year after year. So I still tend to think they print on an order-basis...unless someone can prove that they don't

 

 

Jerome

 

How about proving they do? It's a lot easier proving something DOES exist, than proving something doesn't.

 

But one needn't look any further than the first "official" retailer incentive variant ever made, Spiderman #1 Platinum. There were about 10,000 made, but Marvel had a large chunk of them held back until Todd McDevitt of New Dimension Comics bought them out in...I want to say 2005, 2006?

 

They had several cases worth. I bought 10 of them myself in 2008-ish for $30/ea. Still have my last three.

 

Yes, publishers do, and have, held on to certain books to distribute for their own purposes, sometimes years after release. And publishers have been doing this for decades. Valiant was famously raided of thousands of gold and other premium books when they were sold to Acclaim in 1996...Joe Petrilak made off with acres of these things, that Valiant had been storing for several years. I received, out of that lot, about 100 Ninjak #1 golds.

 

So yes, you are to believe that Marvel just stores them in a room somewhere, because that's exactly what they do (though that "room" is really a warehouse or two.)

[RockMyAmadeus]

The school of thought is that 667 was subsequently massively under ordered due to retailer/customer variant fatigue, leading to a print run of as little as 200 copies.

 

Documentation, please.

 

As has been discussed many times before, variants aren't printed "to order", and never have been. It has been a consistent mistake by many in the comics world to believe that the print run of any particular "1:X" variant is tied, in any way, to orders/print runs of the regular version.

 

They are distributed to order, not printed.

 

I don't quite understand why you keep repeating this erroneous idea, Jaydog.

 

:shrug:

 

 

Exactly.

With Marvel it's minimum 1,500 rounded to the case

They might distribute 500.

The rest usually finds their way to market.

 

I'd want documentation for either claim. Am I to just believe that Marvel stores extras in a room somewhere? I've never once heard of Marvel distributing old issues as new to unload a thousand extra copies. I have a hard time believing that Marvel wants to keep unsold issues on-hand and pay taxes on the assets year after year. So I still tend to think they print on an order-basis...unless someone can prove that they don't

 

 

Jerome

 

I would agree that the latter half of your post is the far more likely scenario. Marvel distributes as ordered and more likely than not hands out a few other random copies to whatever employees, vendors or whatever that might ask for one, and pulps the rest. Their retailer incentive program would have zero credibility if they flooded the secondary market with un-shipped copies of RI variants, weeks, months (or years?) down the line. Come on.

 

Fact is, this book started off exceedingly rare, and has only become even more so in the four years since its release. Hence the price tag.

 

-J.

 

Marvel has had a "variant buyout program" through Diamond for a very long time...maybe even 15+ years now.

 

They don't "hand out a few random copies and then pulp the rest."

 

Diamond allows accounts to buy these bulk variants, long after they were released, which is why you see "variant vendors" like Jay Company and others who have massive amounts of these books as almost their exclusive inventory.

 

Their retailer incentive program would have zero credibility if they flooded the secondary market with un-shipped copies of RI variants, weeks, months (or years?) down the line. Come on.

 

That is exactly what they have done, for many years now. Are you just not aware of this...?

 

 

How do you know this book has become "more rare" in the four years since its release? How would you prove such a statement in any way? Rarity doesn't equal market availability, it equals extant copies.

 

If 1,000 copies are sitting in 5 cases somewhere in storage, the book hasn't gotten "more rare"....it's simply not available on the market.

 

Will you be answering any of these questions directly, Jay...?

[RockMyAmadeus]

I agree with the grade, that back cover looked like it broke color but it maybe the lighting in the pic

 

Looks like the seller added some zoom-able pictures since I last looked at it.

 

You're right, there are a couple of colour breaks on the blue back cover. That's common on this book but they don't all have that so I don't think CGC would treat it as a printing defect.

 

Wait, how do you know that's common on this book, if there are only ~200 copies in existence...? How many have you seen in hand?

 

 

I've seen of course my own, and maybe six others raw in high res scans on these boards and auctions over the last four years.

 

All but one of those raw copies had some kind of colour breaking scratch or abrasion on the back cover. I know it is not a printing error however, because mine does not have it and neither does kuddy's, and I'm assuming the other 9 graded 9.8 copies don't have it either. It looks to be about a 50/50 chance. I would still slab the book in any condition though since even a 5.0 looking raw copy has fetched $600 in auction (two years ago).

 

-J.

So, you've only seen one copy in hand...?

 

But you know this is a "common defect" for this book...?