Marvel Australian Price Variants 7 7

[Get Marwood & I]

21 minutes ago, A ROM Curator said:

I only have the same picture of GR/Blaze #13 and I'd guess it's a sticker because of its slightly crooked placement.

It's difficult to be 100% sure isn't it Gary.

The US version appears to have a sticker on the US newsstand copy (unstickered DE 25c cheaper):

 

But regardless of the US position, the wonky placements on these two AUS copies certainly indicates a sticker to me:

What would be cool - bearing in mind the US scenario - is if there is an AUS printed price under the AUS sticker (i.e. they repriced it higher).

Quote

I don't have any version of the Independence Day book and was also searching online for the indicia, to see if it showed a month i.e. August, or just 1996.  I hadn't thought of the possibility of it being a local printing, so definitely, comparing indicias will be essential to full confirmation.

Yep. It could easily be a reprint or locally produced book.

I've seen similar scenarios with UK priced books which, on the face of it, appear to be variants but which turn out to be later local reprints when you look inside. Example here:

 

If we find that the indicia of the AUS priced ID4 TPB indicates that it is a price variant, I'd still be minded to record it separately from the 'proper comics' though. 

[Get Marwood & I]

8 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

What would be cool - bearing in mind the US scenario - is if there is an AUS printed price under the AUS sticker (i.e. they repriced it higher).

Actually Gary, I think I've cracked it! @A ROM Curator

The AUS newsstand has a price sticker and an '11' barcode:

 

The US newsstand has a price sticker and an 06 barcode:

So the sticker on the AUS copy probably does mask an AUS printed price. The reason for the sticker is that they got the price wrong (hence the US correction too).

Have I got that right Gary? I'm posting on the spot.

[Get Marwood & I]

Check out the CGC label wording Gary - attached to back cover:

[Get Marwood & I]

11 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Actually Gary, I think I've cracked it! @A ROM Curator

The AUS newsstand has a price sticker and an '11' barcode:

 

The US newsstand has a price sticker and an 06 barcode:

 

....unless the UPC barcode is a sticker of course 

We need a copy of this book in hand to firstly confirm that both cover price and back cover UPC are stickers on the AUS copies and then to remove them to see what printed price / UPC are underneath. If the AUS 11 UPC is a sticker over a US 08 barcode we're in trouble - but the fact that the CGC example seems to say the UPC on the back of the US copy is a sticker makes me wonder.

Live investigation. All good fun 

[Get Marwood & I]

This book definitely needs more attention - here's a quick visual summary:

 

And here's the only example I have seen of the interior UPC of a Direct Edition:

 

...of which the indicia says $2.25 per copy despite the cover saying $2.50!

What on Earth happened with this book!

What are the chances that every extant copy is a printed Direct Edition and that both the US and AUS 'newsstands' are stickered directs?

For the time being, I'm not counting it as an APV until we've confirmed both front price and back UPC are stickers and, crucially, what is underneath them.

I'll have to buy one

 

[A ROM Curator]

I'm having a blast.

I think I only had the GR #40 parchment cover back in the day, bought at a comic shop but sold away long ago.

We glossed right over the fact that the GR/B #13 AUS price sticker says Oct instead of the expected Nov, even though they got the 11 correct on the barcode sticker!  Wonder if the AUS price printed on the parchment underneath (would be $3.95 I guess?) correctly says Nov below it?  I wouldn't be able to resist peeling it up partially to see, if I had one.  Actually, the sticker's big enough it could be covering all the US price info as well as the tell-tale CCC symbol.

Hmm, what does a US Newsstand version have in place of the "Direct Market"-labeled barcode on the inner first page?  I won't have time to search it out 'til tonight at the earliest.

I bet the outer barcode stickers don't have anything underneath them, just blank parchment like the Direct Market versions.  If there was another '08' barcode sticker under the '11' barcode, we'd probably be able to detect uneven edges where they surely couldn't've placed it perfectly over top it.

[Get Marwood & I]

9 minutes ago, A ROM Curator said:

Hmm, what does a US Newsstand version have in place of the "Direct Market"-labeled barcode on the inner first page?  I won't have time to search it out 'til tonight at the earliest.

I will. Have even 

The US Direct Edition has an internal regular DE UPC and the US Newsstand has a picture UPC - which in itself is odd, as picture UPCs are normally found on Directs!

We must find an AUS copy and start peeling. None on eBay that I can see. I'll buy the first one I do though 

[A ROM Curator]

Nice.

I do have a picture of a Newsstand $2.50 with barcode sticker.  I saved it from the internet in November 2019.  There must be enough copies like this that CGC considers the price sticker version a "$2.75 Price Variant", right?

I'm not super familiar with CGC "Qualified Grade"...is it because of the barcode sticker?  It makes more sense to me that the Newsstand version was originally "manufactured with sticker attached to BACK cover" BY Marvel.  Very soon after they decided to increase the price (error correction? opportunism?) & rather than pulp or do a 2nd Printing they made a price sticker.  As long as we're speculatin', why not.

Edited October 5, 2020 by A ROM Curator
typo

[Get Marwood & I]

1 minute ago, A ROM Curator said:

Nice.

I do have a picture of a Newsstand $2.50 with barcode sticker.  I saved it from the internet in November 2019.  There must be enough copies like this that CGC considers the price sticker version a "$2.75 Price Variant", right?

I'm not super familiar with CGC "Qualified Grade"...is it because of the barcode sticker?  It makes more sense to me that the Newsstand version was originally "manufactured with sticker attached to BACK cover" BY Marvel.  Very soon after they decided to increase the price (error correction? opportunism?) & rather than pulp or do a 2nd Printing they made a price sticker.  As long a we're speculatin', why not.

Trouble is, if both are stickers, that could be a DE with a sticker on the back in error, or a copy that should have had a sticker on the front, or someone peeled it off....

The CGC qualified grade is used as follows:

The 'defect' in this instance is the application of an after the original printing event sticker which, to be fair, CGC may not have seen any direct evidence for to confirm whether it was official or not. We obviously think it was official, so you could argue that CGC have labelled that copy incorrectly as the book is 'as it should be'.  CGC's decisions are often open to interpretation in this area though. What I'm interested in myself is what is under the stickers and that alone will determine in my mind how I record this book in the APV records.

[A ROM Curator]

Likely we'll land on there being 4 versions...

DM (no CCC symbol) with no stickers;

NS regular $2.50 printed with CCC symbol also with '08' barcode sticker;

NS variant $2.75 price sticker also with '08' barcode sticker; and

APV $4.40 price sticker with '11' barcode sticker. {you wouldn't count this as confirmed APV, I understand, but add it to your stickered subset}

...with an unlikely 5th version being APV $3.95 printed price {which you would count confirmed}.  When you get your stickered copy, it'll be interesting to learn how easily they peel & if the parchment tears at all.

I doubt you'll ever find a Newsstand without a barcode sticker (especially if it's difficult to remove without blemish), so they'd always get "Qualified Grade", I guess.  Doesn't seem right & probably could be argued...so many NS parchments, Morbius, Nightstalkers, etc. have the same style barcode sticker.

 

[Get Marwood & I]

1 hour ago, A ROM Curator said:

...with an unlikely 5th version being APV $3.95 printed price {which you would count confirmed}.  When you get your stickered copy, it'll be interesting to learn how easily they peel & if the parchment tears at all.

You never know - the fact that the other parchment books have printed AUS prices - Morbius example below - gives me hope that there may be a printed AUS price under the SOV #13 sticker 

[Get Marwood & I]

Morning 

I've ordered a stickered newsstand copy of the US version of Ghost Rider / Blaze #13 to see what's under those stickers and to see how hard it will be to remove them assuming I ever snag an AUS copy. I'll let you know how it goes. I bet none of them have printed UPCs underneath on the back covers. 

I've completed my sweep of all the known titles now and arrived at my own personal opinion of how many more books might be out there. There are 1,711 actual US copies for all the titles within the AUS date waves so that is the maximum number of APVs that we could have. We have a nice round 1,300 confirmed and, by my reckoning alone, another 74 may be out there:

That's just my own personal assessment based on my experience and analysis to date. 

Of those 74, there are still some that I think will not surface. Take these three books in the 'Night' titles:

 

I have multiple examples of the 3 confirmed books for Night Thrasher: Four Control (2-4). Wouldn't you expect number 1 to be more prevalent than it's following issues? There are a few titles that are missing the number ones so it may be that this title ends up joining them. 

Time as ever will tell.

Back to the GR / Blaze book, here is my list of the seven books which have some variation of 'official' issue sticker and / or unique APV barcode:

If anyone knows of any others, please shout - all of them have been covered in this thread at some point.

 

[PeterPark]

Picked up Amazing Spider-Man 346 and Ghost Rider 25 before they get out of hand. Now they can go with my Amazing Spider-Man 373 to form my Australian Price Variant collection thus far...

[revat]

Thanks for the work on the ghost rider guys, crazy interesting 

[Get Marwood & I]

8 hours ago, PeterPark said:

Picked up Amazing Spider-Man 346 and Ghost Rider 25 before they get out of hand. Now they can go with my Amazing Spider-Man 373 to form my Australian Price Variant collection thus far...

It took me years to put the ASM run together all those years back. It would probably be easier now, as there are more copies coming out of the woodwork, but the prices on some have gone nuts. I should've kept quiet! 

4 hours ago, revat said:

Thanks for the work on the ghost rider guys, crazy interesting 

It's not often you can find something new to get the juices flowing, but I can't wait to see what's under those stickers Revat. My US copy is coming from the Netherlands, so it might take a while though. I've got the lighter fuel and magnifying glass ready... 

[AusBooks]

Hi there awesome people! Longtime AUS collector from OZ - 1st time poster (please be gentle!) 

I happen to have AUS GR#13 in my collection......annnd I actually let curiosity get the better of me some years back and peeled off the sticker.......annnd ....... here’s the pix I snapped this morning for your viewing pleasure! 😁

I’ve been meaning to cross reference your list with my collection for a while! Thank-you to everyone involved in this unraveling this fun puzzle from my little corner of the world!  Love your amazing work!!!! 

 

Appears to be a $3.80 price printed on the cover.

Edited October 7, 2020 by AusBooks
Add more info

[Get Marwood & I]

21 hours ago, AusBooks said:

Hi there awesome people! Longtime AUS collector from OZ - 1st time poster (please be gentle!) 

I happen to have AUS GR#13 in my collection......annnd I actually let curiosity get the better of me some years back and peeled off the sticker.......annnd ....... here’s the pix I snapped this morning for your viewing pleasure! 😁

I’ve been meaning to cross reference your list with my collection for a while! Thank-you to everyone involved in this unraveling this fun puzzle from my little corner of the world!  Love your amazing work!!!! 

Appears to be a $3.80 price printed on the cover.

That is excellent AusBooks, thank you!

As I suspected, a printed AUS price underneath the correcting $4.40 AUS sticker which means I can add it to the confirmed APV list - 1,301 

It may be a $2.80 printed price as that was the AUS price for many of the surrounding issues - they obviously priced it incorrectly

Did you ever feel like peeling the back cover sticker off too? I'm peeling both off of my US copy when it arrives.

[Get Marwood & I]

21 hours ago, AusBooks said:

I’ve been meaning to cross reference your list with my collection for a while! Thank-you to everyone involved in this unraveling this fun puzzle from my little corner of the world!  Love your amazing work!!!! 

By the way, I wasn't ignoring you AusBooks - the board owners have it set up here so that all new members first posts need to be assessed before they are posted - so even though you did it 21 hours ago, it's only just appeared for me to see and respond to 

[AusBooks]

Glad it’s of help! Nah - I’not game to try the back one. 😁 The front ones glue had perished a bit, so I was willing to try, but I’m pretty sure if I back I’ll just make a nice big hole in the cover. (Just to be sure thigh I’ll have a look later today 🙏)

I’ve got quite a large collection of Australian books that I (inadvertently) began collecting around the age of 10 when my dad got me my first comic book while waiting for Friday night take-away at the local fish & chip shop. Fond memories spurred a love of the hunt! 

I’ve had a dig through my collection to see if I can fill any gaps and here’s what I came up with - not as much as I was hoping, but I hope these will tick some boxes! 👍

[Get Marwood & I]

55 minutes ago, AusBooks said:

Glad it’s of help! Nah - I’not game to try the back one. 😁 The front ones glue had perished a bit, so I was willing to try, but I’m pretty sure if I back I’ll just make a nice big hole in the cover. (Just to be sure thigh I’ll have a look later today 🙏)

Don't bust it on my account - no one likes a holey comic 

55 minutes ago, AusBooks said:

I’ve got quite a large collection of Australian books that I (inadvertently) began collecting around the age of 10 when my dad got me my first comic book while waiting for Friday night take-away at the local fish & chip shop. Fond memories spurred a love of the hunt! 

That sounds wonderful. Your Dad (I do miss mine), fish and chips, comics and the innocence of a ten year old. It doesn't get much better 

55 minutes ago, AusBooks said:

I’ve had a dig through my collection to see if I can fill any gaps and here’s what I came up with - not as much as I was hoping, but I hope these will tick some boxes! 👍

 

Two more, excellent stuff! You're my new best friend AB 

I'd convinced myself that the Surfer #42 did not exist - great to see that one appear 

1,303 confirmed APVs!