Hunting the 6 variants of Batman 457 (1st Tim Drake ROBIN) 8 8

[RockMyAmadeus]

1 minute ago, Wolverinex said:

anyone have a photo of superman 2nd print newstand?  I can't find it.  

 

[WolverineX]

5 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

 

Wow.  who owns that beautiful comic?

[RockMyAmadeus]

5 minutes ago, Wolverinex said:

Wow.  who owns that beautiful comic?

That would be me.

[WolverineX]

1 minute ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

That would be me.

Where did you find it?  

[RockMyAmadeus]

17 minutes ago, Wolverinex said:

Where did you find it?  

Hidden in an eBay listing.

[Cpt Kirk]

6 hours ago, Wolverinex said:

anyone have a photo of superman 2nd print newstand?  I can't find it.  

http://the-comic-book-forum.boards.net/thread/812/discovery-superman-1990-print-newsstand

[Cpt Kirk]

14 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

You really need to ask yourself at what point does something become so niche that you don't need to suspect the motives of people interested in it.

I would imagine your answer is "never", but some of you have a hypercynical view of things. Sometimes, a spade really is just a spade.

If there was an attempt to "pump and dump", as it has been accused...why was the first sale...the $117 sale...not highlighted here...? Shouldn't that have been...ya know...MENTIONED if there was a "pump and dump" effort going on...? Especially after the bidding on the book far exceeded the value of a regular copy?

Some elaborate coverup, I imagine...or, it could just be that not everyone is secretly out to get everyone else. It could simply be that people who are 1. interested in the book, and 2. in a better position than most to know about the relative scarcity of such a book, are interested in the number of extant copies for scholarly reasons, rather than hidden financial motives. Nah, couldn't be that. 

You can't "pump" if there isn't anything to "dump." "Ygogolak" makes a big effort to claim that going from "7 known copies" to "double that" is some big pump and dump conspiracy...for a book that, in the regular edition, was printed to the tune of 200k-300k copies, and has over 100 different examples for sale right now on e bay...think about that: the "7 known" manages to double in a few YEARS, and that is somehow a "pump and dump" conspiracy...?

They are freaks of nature. They shouldn't exist AT ALL. That we are discussing books that would be Gerber 9s and 10s should be your clue that there are easier targets to "pump and dump."

Time to take off the tinfoil. Not everyone is out to get you. 

Here's the truth for any of my friends who care to know... I decided on the 4th of July to create the listing for the newsstand version of the 2nd printing of Robin #1 after reading the discussion about it in this thread.  This Robin #1 was sent to me as a spare when I bought some other newsstand issues and the seller sent it to me with the following note:  "I also have this Robin newsstand issue so I thought you might like to have it too."    

I don't collect Robin but I saw the debate about whether or not this comic book had any worth.   So I thought "Let's create a listing and see what is worth... I would love to know".    I didn't give much thought about the listing but I went back later that night and saw that the high bid had increased from $30 to $150 (I really didn't expect to get much more than $30 for it).   Then I saw my statement in the original listing that "only a couple copies known" and I thought to myself "oh .... I've overstated the rarity of this comic book... I need to check into this and make sure I don't create a false sense of rarity".   So I revised the listing to make it clear that I've heard of 4 known copies and that even though they cannot be easily found on ebay right now, I'm sure that others will be found.    

Money has never been the issue for me.   If you look at my ebay history, I've bought more than 1,000 things and sold about 20 or 30 comic books.   I'm just trying to collect comic books, man!.... no intent to ever sell (it is too much of a hassle).   Several of my sales were actually me selling a comic book for a friend who did not or could not sell on ebay for whatever reason.

I would expect that many more copies of this Robin #1 2nd print newsstand comic book will be found to exist if they sell at more than $150 per issue.   I recall a short time ago when Batman 457 2nd print newsstand was thought to be a "faked" comic book because no one had ever been able to produce a real copy.   But one was finally found and now it seems like roughly 25 copies have been identified on these boards.  So I would personally caution against speculating on the Robin #1 2nd print newsstand because I would think there's only a few people who would care about it.  In other words, I would expect that supply will eventually exceed demand.    To me, the supply/demand of variants is a very interesting topic.   It seems to me that the die-hard variant collectors will battle each other to get these variants, but once they have them in hand the market is completely saturated and then there is zero demand after that.   The insatiable demand for the Batman 457 2nd print newsstand is understandable to me because there are so many fanatical Batman collectors.  I can't imagine there are too many fanatical Robin collectors, so I would caution anyone about spending a lot of money for this Robin 1 2nd print newsstand.

The price that a variant can achieve is simply fascinating and unpredictable to me.  When two die-hard variant collectors go toe-to-toe in an auction, silly things can happen.   Case in point... there are only a few DC Mark Jeweler variants collectors, me being one of them.  A string of Batman jeweler variants came up for auction on ebay the other day, and one of them was Batman 271 in vgFN condition.  I already had one in my collection, but it was on my 'upgrade' list ((my copy was gvg).   I was on vacation and knew I would not be able to monitor the end of the auction, so I put a ridiculous max bid of $250 on it to make sure I got the darn thing, knowing that I might not see another one in 10 years.   The auction ended at approximately $110 whereas most of the other jeweler variants in that run ended in the $10 to $20 range (which was probably just other Batman collectors trying to get a reasonably priced Batman comic book, not caring about the jeweler insert).   I took my undercopy and listed it for $50 BIN, and it sold withing hours.   Turns out the buyer was the other guy who was bidding against me on the higher graded Batman 271 jeweler variant, and he was a friend.   So we had a good laugh about it and we both felt pretty decent about spending $50 to get what we wanted.  I suspect if we listed a 3rd Batman 271 jeweler variant in vgFN, it would sit on ebay forever at $20 and not sell.   I've seen at least 50 high-grade Batman jeweler variants sit on ebay for more than 6 months now at $30 per copy with no bites (because I already own them in high grade and I'm guessing the other very few Batman jeweler collectors have them too.) 

 

Edited July 7, 2018 by Cpt Kirk

[Cpt Kirk]

Ygogolak --- thanks for "liking" my posting.  I also see your point about hyping a comic book.   As a result, I added the following to my Robin #1 listing:

"Additional words of caution:
1.   Please look at the photos carefully.   This comic book looks very  nice but it is not high grade in my opinion.  Look at photos carefully. There are some stress marks on the back cover on the spine, and they break color on the back cover.  2.  This existence of this comic book has only recently come to light.  I'm sure other copies will be found, and supply may eventually exceed demand"

Now, hopefully for you, others will stop bidding on this comic book and you can win the darn thing!  

[ygogolak]

1 hour ago, Cpt Kirk said:

Ygogolak --- thanks for "liking" my posting.  I also see your point about hyping a comic book.   As a result, I added the following to my Robin #1 listing:

"Additional words of caution:
1.   Please look at the photos carefully.   This comic book looks very  nice but it is not high grade in my opinion.  Look at photos carefully. There are some stress marks on the back cover on the spine, and they break color on the back cover.  2.  This existence of this comic book has only recently come to light.  I'm sure other copies will be found, and supply may eventually exceed demand"

Now, hopefully for you, others will stop bidding on this comic book and you can win the darn thing!  

You took a nice approach to explaining the situation and seem reasonable. I felt a like was warranted. Good luck. 

[RockMyAmadeus]

50 minutes ago, ygogolak said:

You took a nice approach to explaining the situation and seem reasonable. I felt a like was warranted. Good luck. 

Perhaps if you took a nicer approach, people wouldn't react to you the way they do. Perhaps, instead of accusing people of dishonest motives who 1. have no history of "pumping and dumping", and 2. have a long, well established history of scholarly interest in these areas, you might consider a more measured approach.

It's certainly not an issue of form, as you imply here. Substance is miles more important than form. After all...the current discussion was initiated by you, and was accusatory from the start. What was preventing you from taking a nice approach to start with?

[RockMyAmadeus]

4 hours ago, Cpt Kirk said:

I would expect that many more copies of this Robin #1 2nd print newsstand comic book will be found to exist if they sell at more than $150 per issue.   I recall a short time ago when Batman 457 2nd print newsstand was thought to be a "faked" comic book because no one had ever been able to produce a real copy.   But one was finally found and now it seems like roughly 25 copies have been identified on these boards.  So I would personally caution against speculating on the Robin #1 2nd print newsstand because I would think there's only a few people who would care about it.  In other words, I would expect the eventual supply will exceed demand.    To me, the supply/demand of variants is a very interesting topic.   It seems to me that the die-hard variant collectors will battle each other to get these variants, but once they have them in hand the market is completely saturated and then there is zero demand after that.   The insatiable demand for the Batman 457 2nd print newsstand is understandable to me because there are so many fanatical Batman collectors.  I can't imagine there are too many fanatical Robin collectors, so I would caution anyone about spending a lot of money for this Robin 1 2nd print newsstand.

It seems to me that Robin #1, for whatever reason, is the most common of the three being discussed at the moment (Bats #457, Supes #50.)

I do not know why this is...these are flukes that shouldn't exist. There simply was no mechanism in place for newsstands to order second printings, and the Spiderman #1 Gold was, from all accounts, a special request from Wal-Mart. I think I mentioned this before, but perhaps these were made the same way, for the same reason.

To date, the other implied possibilities....Superman #53, Action #662, and a couple of others....haven't been made public if they exist. 

As far as speculating...as I mentioned earlier, these are so niche as items, it's doubtful more than 20-30 people in the hobby would ever want one badly enough to pay any real kind of money for them. But...they are the most interesting because, not only shouldn't they exist, but as a result of a confluence of factors (the sum of which was unique to these books, and that has guaranteed that they had very high attrition rates completely naturally, as opposed to the "manufactured rarity" of so many books right from the start) they occupy a very strange place in comics history up to that point.

Those factors are as follows: 

1. Despite initial demand, which is what prompted the newsstands reprints in the first place, all three of these books quickly fell in popularity. 

2. In 1990, "reprints" such as these were considered the worst of the worst, with absolutely zero collectability. Nobody wanted them, and as a result, any people who bought them would have bought them to read, and likely thrown them out...if they were purchased at all. They were certainly not purchased knowingly by collectors, and the majority of copies obtained would have been treated well only by accident.

3. They are newsstand copies. That means they were fully returnable if they didn't sell, and they almost certainly were returned in large numbers. By the time whoever had them had to claim credit for them, the original books would have been 3-4 months old...long enough for all of them to have cooled substantially. 

4. The last time any demand-based reprints had been issued was for Star Wars in 1977, and the Direct market was in its infancy. In the intervening 13 years, immediate demand for further copies would have been satisfied by reprinting the Direct market version, which, in fact, happened on several occasions (Dark Knight, Transformers, Ghost Rider #1, Ghost Rider #5, etc.) 

5. If people really needed a copy, there were plenty of Direct market second printings of all three books available at local comic stores...which were ubiquitous in 1990...to find one. They didn't need to haunt a newsstand to hope more would show up, and, in fact, conventional practice guaranteed that once the initial copies sold out, there weren't going to be any more to be had. If you wanted one, the only shot you had was the comic store.

6. And, finally, nobody knows how many they printed in the first place, and, unlike Spiderman #1, which was followed by thousands and thousands of people, and as a result, became known very shortly after they made their appearance, these books quietly slipped under the radar, and vanished into the pages of history, unknown and unappreciated for at least a couple of decades, by which time it was far too late to launch any sort of mass acquisition campaign. I suspect not even DC still has records of these books being produced. It's been nearly 30 years, after all.

Any one of these factors is enough to make the books hard to find, but all of them combined, and you have the scenario in which we find ourselves today: mainstream DC comics that have distinct versions that are prohibitively rare, and, despite a concerted effort to locate at least Batman #457 going back several years, has only succeeded in finding a mere handful...15-25 copies known, despite literally hundreds of thousands of still extant copies of the "regular version." That's pretty amazing, all things considered.

We'll see how many more copies surface, but at these price points, if they're out there, they will be found. 

 

Edited July 7, 2018 by RockMyAmadeus

[Cpt Kirk]

1 hour ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

It seems to me that Robin #1, for whatever reason, is the most common of the three being discussed at the moment (Bats #457, Supes #50.)

We'll see how many more copies surface, but at these price points, if they're out there, they will be found. 

 

Great analysis.... thank you!   As for Superman 50 2nd print newsstand, I've been looking high and low, as well as offering a bounty.   No other copies have surfaced except the one you found.   You might find this amusing... I cleaned out MyComicShop's stock of 2nd printings of Superman 50 (roughly 16 of them at roughly $3 a piece) with the hopes that they had a newsstand copy somewhere among their bunch.   Not a single one was a newsstand copy.

[RockMyAmadeus]

2 hours ago, Cpt Kirk said:

Great analysis.... thank you!   As for Superman 50 2nd print newsstand, I've been looking high and low, as well as offering a bounty.   No other copies have surfaced except the one you found.   You might find this amusing... I cleaned out MyComicShop's stock of 2nd printings of Superman 50 (roughly 16 of them at roughly $3 a piece) with the hopes that they had a newsstand copy somewhere among their bunch.   Not a single one was a newsstand copy.

Ick.

Another fascinating part of this is that it answers the question "what would happen if people treated comic books in the 1990s the way they treated them in the 1930s and 40s."

Since all the collectors were focused entirely on the first printings, Direct OR newsstand, and deliberately ignored these reprints, the reprints show up, several decades later, in tiny number, saved pretty much by accident, in varying degrees of condition, but mostly "worn." That's precisely what happened to comics from the earlier era. Nobody "collected" them; if they were saved at all, they were saved by people who simply didn't want to throw them out, or had the means, like Church, to save a single example of everything being published. And he certainly didn't put a lot of effort into keeping them perfect. He just stacked them in the closets.

If you had told Edgar, in 1941, that in a couple of decades, his comics would be worth thousands and tens of thousands of times what he paid, I'm sure he would have looked at you as if you had two antenna growing out of your head

It wasn't until people like Bill Gaines, starting in 1950, that people started to purposely save multiple copies for posterity, and do so in a deliberate manner to preserve their condition.

It's a very interesting mirror, these books, a time warp into "What If...?"

Er, that's Marvel, I mean "Elseworlds"...

[FlyingDonut]

18 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

 

Is the only way to find out that it is the second print the bar code or is there a tell on the cover somewhere? Same with the Robin 1. First week of October I'm diving into a back stock of a closed store that has 300 long boxes and had been buying up other closed stores. Who knows what I'll find.

Edit: The "Historic Engagement Issue" banner? What about the Robin?

Edited July 7, 2018 by FlyingDonut

[Cpt Kirk]

9 minutes ago, FlyingDonut said:

Is the only way to find out that it is the second print the bar code or is there a tell on the cover somewhere? Same with the Robin 1. First week of October I'm diving into a back stock of a closed store that has 300 long boxes and had been buying up other closed stores. Who knows what I'll find.

Edit: The "Historic Engagement Issue" banner? What about the Robin?

For SM 50, it is easy.... it has the "Historic Engagement Issue" banner and bar code on front cover.  (all other 2nd prints have Superman shield in the UPC box)

For Robin, it is also easy... it has "The Adventure Begins" banner on top right hand side of cover and bar code on front cover.   

[RockMyAmadeus]

46 minutes ago, Cpt Kirk said:

57 minutes ago, FlyingDonut said:

Is the only way to find out that it is the second print the bar code or is there a tell on the cover somewhere? Same with the Robin 1. First week of October I'm diving into a back stock of a closed store that has 300 long boxes and had been buying up other closed stores. Who knows what I'll find.

Edit: The "Historic Engagement Issue" banner? What about the Robin?

For SM 50, it is easy.... it has the "Historic Engagement Issue" banner and bar code on front cover.  (all other 2nd prints have Superman shield in the UPC box)

For Robin, it is also easy... it has "The Adventure Begins" banner on top right hand side of cover and bar code on front cover.   

Yes...if you see the "Free Poster Inside!", it's a regular first printing.

[FlyingDonut]

3 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Yes...if you see the "Free Poster Inside!", it's a regular first printing.

[ygogolak]

On 7/7/2018 at 11:08 AM, RockMyAmadeus said:

Perhaps if you took a nicer approach, people wouldn't react to you the way they do. Perhaps, instead of accusing people of dishonest motives who 1. have no history of "pumping and dumping", and 2. have a long, well established history of scholarly interest in these areas, you might consider a more measured approach.

It's certainly not an issue of form, as you imply here. Substance is miles more important than form. After all...the current discussion was initiated by you, and was accusatory from the start. What was preventing you from taking a nice approach to start with?

I had made my case yet you keep bringing me back in.

I'm the one who needs to take a nicer approach? Coming from you that's hilarious. How many "timeouts" do you have?

I've made my case already and others have agreed. But just to add a little more backup, here's a couple more quotes:

Auction 1:

I drove the high bidder...I am the 3376 bidder. I was interested in seeing how high he would go. Unfortunately, I forgot about the auction at the end, but another bidder came along, trying to snipe, but couldn't. 

Auction 2 (live auction):

Well, I threw my bid into the ring. 

Pushing the price up to "see how high it would go" but not winning, is a tactic that could be considered shill bidding. A tactic often associated with one method of pump and dump.

 

I'll explain why you have a vested interest in this book since you are not comprehending it. You have stated you own one of the four KNOWN copies.

You, along with every person on the planet, does not know what tomorrow brings. You have stated you do not plan on selling, which I assume true. But, any day something could happen causing me, you, someone else to liquidate their collectibles. In fact it happens all the time.

Say that doesn't happen and you carry it to your last days. After that, it will come into the possession of someone else like a family member. At which time the value of that comic will be important.

 

Edited July 8, 2018 by ygogolak

[RockMyAmadeus]

1 hour ago, ygogolak said:

I had made my case yet you keep bringing me back in.

 

You initiated this current discussion by accusing me of having dishonest motives for discussing these books, namely to "pump and dump." Just on a purely equitable standpoint, the person who initiates it should be different from the person who finishes it, wouldn't you say? You can't start a discussion and then complain that people respond, after all.

1 hour ago, ygogolak said:

I'm the one who needs to take a nicer approach? Coming from you that's hilarious. How many "timeouts" do you have?

Logical fallacy, and below the belt shot. Your opinion of why I have had "timeouts"...itself a matter of legitimate dispute...does not therefore negate the fact that you've engaged multiple conversations over the past several years in bad faith, as you have done here.

It doesn't absolve you of your own bad behavior. "I know you are, but what am I?" is not a legitimate counterargument.

1 hour ago, ygogolak said:

I've made my case already and others have agreed. But just to add a little more backup, here's a couple more quotes:

It wouldn't matter if 10 billion people agreed with you. That's the logical fallacy of "appeal to popularity." Agreement does not equal evidence. The only thing that matters is the evidence, and you don't have any.

1 hour ago, ygogolak said:

Auction 1:

I drove the high bidder...I am the 3376 bidder. I was interested in seeing how high he would go. Unfortunately, I forgot about the auction at the end, but another bidder came along, trying to snipe, but couldn't. 

Auction 2 (live auction):

Well, I threw my bid into the ring. 

Pushing the price up to "see how high it would go" but not winning, is a tactic that could be considered shill bidding. A tactic often associated with one method of pump and dump.

This is wholly inaccurate.

First, it cannot be considered "shill bidding", because that's not what shill bidding is. If you did your research responsibly, you'd see that I was actually the high bidder at several points during the first listing. 

Let me be perfectly clear, here: every single bidder has the right to bid any amount they can, at any time they'd like, for any reason they'd like, so long as they pay for the item if they're the high bidder at the end. That's the key: actually going through with the purchase if they end up being the winner. 

After all...who are you to judge someone else's motives for bidding, IF they're playing by the rules? If I win, and I pay, regardless of why I won, then that price is not an artificial price...it is a REAL price, even if it's a price I would have preferred not to pay. 

Are you offended that there are people who LEGITIMATELY drive up bids out there? Too bad. That's reality, and it's both perfectly allowed and perfectly ethical. 

It's only "shill bidding" if the person placing the bids has no intention of paying if they win the item. That's it. If they win and pay....there is no shill bidding, by virtue of the fact that they have "driven up the price" on themselves, and have established a legitimate price for that item, regardless of what you imagine to be their motives for doing so. The price is only artificial if an actual transaction did not take place, because the bidder never had any intention of actually buying the item.

All of which, by the way, was rendered moot by the two highest bidders, who blew my high bid out of the water.

As far as "Auction 2" goes, when I posted that I "threw my bid into the ring", I was...again...the high bidder, and perfectly prepared to pay if I won at my high bid.

Therefore...by DEFINITION...there's no shill bidding. And, if there's no shill bidding...which there wasn't...then there's no claim of "pump and dump" because of "shill bidding."

After all...it's kinda hard to "pump and dump" if you're doing the OPPOSITE of "dumping"...that is, BUYING.

Now, wouldn't it have been a LOT nicer if you didn't come out of the gate swinging, but tried to have a good faith dialogue about this...?

I think so.

1 hour ago, ygogolak said:

I'll explain why you have a vested interest in this book since you are not comprehending it. You have stated you own one of the four KNOWN copies.

You, along with every person on the planet, does not know what tomorrow brings. You have stated you do not plan on selling, which I assume true. But, any day something could happen causing me, you, someone else to liquidate their collectibles. In fact it happens all the time.

Say that doesn't happen and you carry it to your last days. After that, it will come into the possession of someone else like a family member. At which time the value of that comic will be important.

Here's your error, as I explained before: that's not "pumping and dumping." Carrying the book "to my last days", and having my heirs dispose of it IS NOT even remotely "pumping and dumping." I think it's fairly clear that if I sell the book in, say, 2037, what I said about it in 2018 no longer has much bearing on the value of the item, wouldn't you say...?

Aside from that, you make the fallacious assumption that I will only dispose of the item by selling it, of having my heirs sell it. There are more ways to dispose of something than selling it.

And, on top of all of that, you've changed the parameters of your statement. Here's your INITIAL comment:

Quote

 It was in the context of relating to a live auction. In which the poster has a vested interest.

(emphasis added)

In other words, your original claim was that my "vested interest" was in THE LIVE AUCTION (which I have disputed, and continue to dispute.)

NOW you say my "vested interest" is "in this book" (which I obviously do not dispute, depending on what you mean SPECIFICALLY as it relates to this book and "vested interest." If you mean a FINANCIAL interest, then, again, I dispute that.)

So which is it...?

You have operated in bad faith, and continue to do so. I...and, I'm sure, many other people...would love to interact with you in good faith. If you can't do that, how about just letting it go, and not accusing people of having dishonest motives...?

Edited July 8, 2018 by RockMyAmadeus

[ygogolak]

1 hour ago, ygogolak said:

I had made my case yet you keep bringing me back in.

 

12 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

You initiated this current discussion by accusing me of having dishonest motives for discussing these books, namely to "pump and dump." Just on a purely equitable standpoint, the person who initiates it should be different from the person who finishes it, wouldn't you say? You can't start a discussion and then complain that people respond, after all.

 

 

You asked me to stop and thus I did after I made my case. Just as I said.

On 7/6/2018 at 9:54 PM, RockMyAmadeus said:

That is the correct definition, which makes your usage of it incorrect. 

I have no personal stake in the listing mentioned, nor do I have any expectation of financial gain in the matter. I do not care if you believe me or not; I merely wish you'd stop making hay of it.