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Books you just cant find in the Wild
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4,477 posts in this topic

35 minutes ago, paqart said:

True enough. If the newsstand run was 2%, then they would have had 4,000 for B&N, which would have been enough. One thing I wonder is if the couple of estimates we've seen are of final sales after returns are subtracted, rather than print run percentages. Alternatively, maybe they didn't print enough copies for every Barnes & Nobles to get 5 copies. Maybe the stores decide what they want and some don't want any.

Stores don’t decide what they want - that’s the whole point of newsstands

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1 hour ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Stop it. lol There's no way in hell...barring being Sheldon Cooper...anyone would have had the experience and knowledge of the market that "paqart" claimed he did at 12-14. You neither.

The way I found out about this board is that I was looking for the name of a store I used to provide grading and estimating services to when they bought collections. This was in around 1977. One of the links that came up was a post on this site, by someone who I interacted with back then at that shop, who was describing what I did at that store at the time despite being a kid. It was an old post, probably several years ago now. He sent me a PM to tell me that he still had a list of Neal Adams comics that I'd written for him all the way back in '77. Believe what you like but you're wrong and that is somewhat amusing.

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1 hour ago, revat said:

Ok, then here's the real question:

I've got a line on probably 30-50 (unique issues) late Marvel newsstands (the last two years of newsstands) from non-main titles (not AMS, UXM, Avengers, Wolverine).  They're generally in VF shape and cost somewhere between $7-$10 each.  Most of them are issues I've never really seen for sale anywhere else.  Should I pull the trigger for a long-term investment?  Will there be enough completionists someday to pay $20-$50 per?

Personally, I wouldn't. I would try to buy them but not at that price. You can still get NM copies for $10 apiece from good titles. I'd try to talk him down to maybe $150-$200 for the lot.

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17 minutes ago, divad said:

Stores don’t decide what they want - that’s the whole point of newsstands

Some franchisees are given discretion. Many aren't but maybe in this case there was some leeway. I'd at least ask the question before assuming the answer.

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13 minutes ago, paqart said:

Some franchisees are given discretion. Many aren't but maybe in this case there was some leeway. I'd at least ask the question before assuming the answer.

in your hypothetical perhaps, but not in the real world

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23 minutes ago, divad said:

in your hypothetical perhaps, but not in the real world

Franchisees are given leeway when ordering stock about as often as Marvel printed newsstand editions in 2013. I didn't say it was common practice but it does happen. For instance, some McDonald's franchises don't have to follow the architectural design requirements of all the rest because local building codes prevent it. Maybe McDonald's doesn't exist in the real world, but last time I looked, they did.

Edited by paqart
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5 minutes ago, paqart said:

For instance, some McDonald's franchises don't have to follow the architectural design requirements of all the rest because local building codes prevent it. Maybe McDonald's doesn't exist in the real world, but last time I looked, they did.

another statistical insignificance, and a poor correlation as well, but:whatev:

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1 minute ago, divad said:

another statistical insignificance, and a poor correlation as well, but:whatev:

One of these days I'll figure out why total strangers are so willing and eager to be disrespectful of each other. Maybe it's just the way young people talk these days but I don't get it. 

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1 minute ago, paqart said:

One of these days I'll figure out why total strangers are so willing and eager to be disrespectful of each other. Maybe it's just the way young people talk these days but I don't get it. 

i wasn't being disrespectful at all. (shrug)

oh and btw, respect your elders. . . :preach:

Edited by divad
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1 hour ago, paqart said:

One of these days I'll figure out why total strangers are so willing and eager to be disrespectful of each other.

That will probably be on the day after I figure out why some people have the need to produce numbers based on little to no relevant information and are so eager to share their *cough* insight :eyeroll: with everybody else.

Oh, and why those same people reject the wisdom of those with more knowledge of the subject.

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3 hours ago, paqart said:

One thing I wonder is if the couple of estimates we've seen are of final sales after returns are subtracted, rather than print run percentages.

That's one of the things I love about the brilliant Mr. Nobel's blog. He often offers his distribution estimates, then says something like "but remember, newsstands were returnable, so we should reduce that number" and chops the number down until it fits his agenda. doh! Sorry, but distribution numbers already account for returns, unlike print runs.

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2 hours ago, paqart said:

One of these days I'll figure out why total strangers are so willing and eager to be disrespectful of each other. Maybe it's just the way young people talk these days but I don't get it. 

That's just divad.

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2 hours ago, paqart said:
2 hours ago, divad said:

another statistical insignificance, and a poor correlation as well, but:whatev:

One of these days I'll figure out why total strangers are so willing and eager to be disrespectful of each other. Maybe it's just the way young people talk these days but I don't get it. 

Don't worry we are all not like that some just don't know how to be nicer it takes awhile for some of them to warm up to new members.

 

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35 minutes ago, Lazyboy said:
2 hours ago, paqart said:

One of these days I'll figure out why total strangers are so willing and eager to be disrespectful of each other.

That will probably be on the day after I figure out why some people have the need to produce numbers based on little to no relevant information and are so eager to share their *cough* insight :eyeroll: with everybody else.

Oh, and why those same people reject the wisdom of those with more knowledge of the subject.

You know the guy came here and has been polite the entire time. Yet you need to insult him. Can you just be a little less rude. You don't have to 
agree, but it might help our board if you were slightly more civil.

 

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6 minutes ago, fastballspecial said:
43 minutes ago, Lazyboy said:

That will probably be on the day after I figure out why some people have the need to produce numbers based on little to no relevant information and are so eager to share their *cough* insight :eyeroll: with everybody else.

Oh, and why those same people reject the wisdom of those with more knowledge of the subject.

You know the guy came here and has been polite the entire time. Yet you need to insult him. Can you just be a little less rude. You don't have to 
agree, but it might help our board if you were slightly more civil.

??? What's this about him or insults? I was just making a general observation.

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On 10/11/2019 at 3:44 PM, paqart said:
On 10/11/2019 at 2:25 PM, FlyingDonut said:

if each of them got 5 copies of a book, that would be 3,500

True enough. If the newsstand run was 2%, then they would have had 4,000 for B&N, which would have been enough. One thing I wonder is if the couple of estimates we've seen are of final sales after returns are subtracted, rather than print run percentages. Alternatively, maybe they didn't print enough copies for every Barnes & Nobles to get 5 copies. Maybe the stores decide what they want and some don't want any.

Barnes & Noble was far from the only recipient of newsstand comics. Actual newsstands in bigger metropolitan areas, especially on the East Coast, sold them, as well as Wal-Mart.

Newsstand distribution never worked on an ordering system. Orders were printed based on what sold, and independent distributors and their vendors got what they got.

I am willing to bet $1,000 that there was never a Marvel or DC run...ever...that was only 4,000 copies for continent-wide newsstand distribution. 

I imagine the absolute lowest they ever went...for any title distributed to the newsstand...was 20,000 copies.

Remember:

"Most other comic publications are rumored to have sell-through percentages in the teens and twenties."

https://icv2.com/articles/comics/view/300/newsstand-sales-slipping-board

That's an old article, but the numbers didn't change all that much going forward. If sell-through was "in the teens and twenties" (that's 10%-29%), then the print runs were 5 to 10 times what they were selling. And if they were selling 10,000 copies or so at the newsstand, that means they were printing 50,000-100,000 copies for newsstand distribution at the time.

And...we can reasonably estimate that they were selling around 10,000 copies, because...Comichron prints sales numbers for North America AND the Statements of Ownership!

So...the SOO for 2011 for ASM showed that, on average, 79,844 copies were printed for calendar year 2011. We know that of those 79,844 copies printed on average, an average of 8, 632 newsstands copies were returned, leaving 71,212 copies remaining. We also have sales data from Comichron, and IT averages roughly 58.000 Direct market copies sold. 

Sooo...of the 71,212 copies, distributed, roughly 800 were freebies and 5,650 were subscriptions (which have always been newsstand copies), and another 58,000 were Direct copies sold through Diamond...meaning that newsstand sales in 2011, as Marvel began winding its program down, averaged about 12,000 copies. Combine that with the 8.632 copies returned on average, and you end up with an average newsstand copy PRINT RUN of 20,000+ copies. 

Things of note: ASM was being printed 3 times a month at this point.

So, at the very end of the program, it can be demonstrated that newsstand print runs for each issue of ASM in 2011 were at a MINIMUM of 20,000 newsstand copies per issue.

Edited by RockMyAmadeus
dept. of redundancy dept.
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