Marvel October 1999 ~ February 2000 US Newsstand Price Variants 8 8

[Get Marwood & I]

11 hours ago, paqart said:

My impression is that they are less common than the 35 cent Marvel price variants from the 1970's, same for the 30-cent variants. The reason is that, if I want any of those, I just have to type it in my search bar and I'll find one or more available to buy. The prices are high for those but they are available. This group from 1999/2000 requires a lot of looking to find them. The non-variant versions, meanwhile, are plentiful.

Indeed. But then again you won't find 99% of my Charlton pence copies in an eBay trawl either, so it's all relative. 

I put together the list of these Marvel price variants over many years, trawling the web from the UK. So I can only speak to their online scarcity. Maybe there are copies to be found locally in comic shops up and down the States. I don't know as I've never been to the US. But very few examples have been added since I did the initial groundwork so either US collectors have new examples and are keeping quiet about it (which would make sense, no point alerting the world if you're trying to gather a set), or their lack of participation here is a further indication of scarcity.

@FlyingDonut is steeped in variant history and now that he is on the hunt that gives me comfort that any missing books will be discovered eventually, if they exist. If they are sitting in the bricks and mortar locations, he strikes me as the type that will find them. In my various variant research pursuits I follow the golden rule of 'never say never' but I also subscribe to the idea that if the right group of people have been looking for the right amount of time, and found nothing, that that can be a good indicator as to the likelihood of a book existing (especially when there are production patterns supporting the conclusion - e.g. my earlier post on production dates). But I've been proven wrong before, and likely will again, so to this day I still periodically trawl the web for the 'missing' copies. 

 

[FlyingDonut]

6 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Indeed. But then again you won't find 99% of my Charlton pence copies in an eBay trawl either, so it's all relative. 

I put together the list of these Marvel price variants over many years, trawling the web from the UK. So I can only speak to their online scarcity. Maybe there are copies to be found locally in comic shops up and down the States. I don't know as I've never been to the US. But very few examples have been added since I did the initial groundwork so either US collectors have new examples and are keeping quiet about it (which would make sense, no point alerting the world if you're trying to gather a set), or their lack of participation here is a further indication of scarcity.

@FlyingDonut is steeped in variant history and now that he is on the hunt that gives me comfort that any missing books will be discovered eventually, if they exist. If they are sitting in the bricks and mortar locations, he strikes me as the type that will find them. In my various variant research pursuits I follow the golden rule of 'never say never' but I also subscribe to the idea that if the right group of people have been looking for the right amount of time, and found nothing, that that can be a good indicator as to the likelihood of a book existing (especially when there are production patterns supporting the conclusion - e.g. my earlier post on production dates). But I've been proven wrong before, and likely will again, so to this day I still periodically trawl the web for the 'missing' copies. 

 

The problem with finding these stupid things in a store is that - unlike 30 and 35 cent variants - you have to pull them out of a box to find them. You can't rapidly flip past them, so it makes the time required significantly higher.

[paqart]

6 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Indeed. But then again you won't find 99% of my Charlton pence copies in an eBay trawl either, so it's all relative. 

I put together the list of these Marvel price variants over many years, trawling the web from the UK. So I can only speak to their online scarcity. Maybe there are copies to be found locally in comic shops up and down the States.

 

FWIW: I live in New York. I go to conventions in New York City, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. I also go to flea markets, garage sales, and comic book stores. I find newsstand editions in all of these locations. If anything on this list had appeared in any of those places, I would have bought them, even before I knew about the price variants. My rule is to buy any newsstand dated 1999 or later, unless it is in poor condition. Even then I might get it if it is an interesting issue or as a stand-in. I've been looking for over a year. One, ASM 10/$2.49, I already had. I have no idea how I got it. Five others came from eBay, and two more from a comic shop (both Thor 19/$1.99--yes, I found another one).

[Get Marwood & I]

1 hour ago, FlyingDonut said:

The problem with finding these stupid things in a store is that - unlike 30 and 35 cent variants - you have to pull them out of a box to find them. You can't rapidly flip past them, so it makes the time required significantly higher.

So you're that guy that's been bending all the spines...

1 hour ago, paqart said:

FWIW: I live in New York. I go to conventions in New York City, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. I also go to flea markets, garage sales, and comic book stores. I find newsstand editions in all of these locations. If anything on this list had appeared in any of those places, I would have bought them, even before I knew about the price variants. My rule is to buy any newsstand dated 1999 or later, unless it is in poor condition. Even then I might get it if it is an interesting issue or as a stand-in. I've been looking for over a year. One, ASM 10/$2.49, I already had. I have no idea how I got it. Five others came from eBay, and two more from a comic shop (both Thor 19/$1.99--yes, I found another one).

The Thor 19 regular is a good example - none of us could find a copy for the longest time and then a few came along together. That often happens, the old bus routine. Keep looking Paq, keep looking...

[mr_highgrade]

4 hours ago, paqart said:

FWIW: I live in New York. I go to conventions in New York City, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. I also go to flea markets, garage sales, and comic book stores. I find newsstand editions in all of these locations. If anything on this list had appeared in any of those places, I would have bought them, even before I knew about the price variants. My rule is to buy any newsstand dated 1999 or later, unless it is in poor condition. Even then I might get it if it is an interesting issue or as a stand-in. I've been looking for over a year. One, ASM 10/$2.49, I already had. I have no idea how I got it. Five others came from eBay, and two more from a comic shop (both Thor 19/$1.99--yes, I found another one).

Where in NY? I live in East Meadow LI.

[paqart]

6 hours ago, mr_highgrade said:

Where in NY? I live in East Meadow LI.

Up near Poughkeepsie in a tiny village a few minutes from the Taconic.

[PeterPark]

I'm in CT so I'm always looking in this area. I have found a few of the $1.99 newsstands but, in my experience, most here are the $2.49 variety.

I have no $2.29 copies in my collection and have seen 0 for sale in this area.

Edited November 27, 2020 by PeterPark

[Get Marwood & I]

4 hours ago, PeterPark said:

I'm in CT so I'm always looking in this area. I have found a few of the $1.99 newsstands but, in my experience, most here are the $2.49 variety.

I have no $2.29 copies in my collection and have seen 0 for sale in this area.

Regional availability was a thing with the 30/35 variants - maybe that's a feature with these too. 

[FlyingDonut]

5 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Regional availability was a thing with the 30/35 variants - maybe that's a feature with these too. 

I am nearly positive that regional availability was a thing and one of the areas was Jamestown, New York.

[Get Marwood & I]

21 minutes ago, FlyingDonut said:

I am nearly positive that regional availability was a thing and one of the areas was Jamestown, New York.

Which makes complete sense if these books were market testers. 

By the way, I contacted Marvel five times over successive months to see if I could get someone to look at this - every contact was ignored alas.

I just tried again:

https://www.marvel.com/help/contact

The days of the Merry Marvel Marching Malarkey are well and truly over it seems..... 

[paqart]

On 11/26/2020 at 11:29 PM, PeterPark said:

I'm in CT so I'm always looking in this area. I have found a few of the $1.99 newsstands but, in my experience, most here are the $2.49 variety.

I have no $2.29 copies in my collection and have seen 0 for sale in this area.

I just picked up a Fantastic Four #24/$2.29 edition. It is the first $2.29 that I've seen. It came from Ft. Collins, Colorado.

[Get Marwood & I]

12 hours ago, paqart said:

I just picked up a Fantastic Four #24/$2.29 edition. It is the first $2.29 that I've seen. It came from Ft. Collins, Colorado.

Well done. No reply from any of the Marvel contacts, alas. 

I wonder what the distribution numbers were for these books? @FlyingDonut, was there ever an indication of the numbers for the 30/35 cent variants? Do you have any feel for the likely distribution numbers for our 2.29/2.49 books, now you've been looking for a while? 

[paqart]

On 12/10/2020 at 4:40 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

Well done. No reply from any of the Marvel contacts, alas. 

I wonder what the distribution numbers were for these books? @FlyingDonut, was there ever an indication of the numbers for the 30/35 cent variants? Do you have any feel for the likely distribution numbers for our 2.29/2.49 books, now you've been looking for a while? 

I'm curious whether they had a fixed number of these comics printed on a per title basis, or if they assigned a percentage of the print run. Going by print run, X-Men and Spider-man should be the easiest to find, Cable and Thor the hardest. And yet, X-men seems just as hard to find as the rest, while ASM is the easiest. Also wondering if they split the run evenly between the variants? That would make all of them equally rare, making the $1.99 editions just as interesting as the $2.29/$2.49 versions. It would also dramatically increase the rarity of individual newsstand price variants, though "any" newsstand variant would not be more rare relative to the direct edition if price is ignored.

[Get Marwood & I]

6 hours ago, paqart said:

I'm curious whether they had a fixed number of these comics printed on a per title basis, or if they assigned a percentage of the print run. Going by print run, X-Men and Spider-man should be the easiest to find, Cable and Thor the hardest. And yet, X-men seems just as hard to find as the rest, while ASM is the easiest. Also wondering if they split the run evenly between the variants? That would make all of them equally rare, making the $1.99 editions just as interesting as the $2.29/$2.49 versions. It would also dramatically increase the rarity of individual newsstand price variants, though "any" newsstand variant would not be more rare relative to the direct edition if price is ignored.

I can understand why Spidey finds might be more prevalent as he tends to be more fiercely collected, researched, preserved in my experience. It's hard to make any meaningful guesses on the numbers distributed when we have so little to go on though. Maybe one day someone will unearth some documentation and we'll all go "ahhh, right".   

[FlyingDonut]

On 12/10/2020 at 4:40 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

Well done. No reply from any of the Marvel contacts, alas. 

I wonder what the distribution numbers were for these books? @FlyingDonut, was there ever an indication of the numbers for the 30/35 cent variants? Do you have any feel for the likely distribution numbers for our 2.29/2.49 books, now you've been looking for a while? 

There's no real indicator of the 30/35 cent print runs, that being said the test markets for 30s were bigger than 35s.

I think the $2.29s are much harder to find than the $2.49s. eBay is a pretty good barometer of these kind of things because no one knows what they are. I'm crawling every night for them and I see a $2.29 in any title on eBay maybe once every six months. I have never seen - ever - a Cable 73 or 74 in $2.29.

I still looking to complete a set. I need the following:

Amazing Spider-Man 10 $2.29, 13 $2.29
Cable 72 $2.49, 73 $2.29, 74 $2.29
Fantastic Four 23 $2.29, 24 $2.29
Hulk 8 $2.29, 10 $2.49
Thor 19 $2.29, 19 $2.49
X-Men 93 $2.29

I have the following to trade (ones with asterisks I have multiple copies)
Amazing Spider-Man 10 $2.49, 11 $2.49*, 13 $2.49*
Cable 73 $2.49
Fantastic Four 23 $2.49*, 26 $2.49
Incredible Hulk 8 $2.49*
Thor 18 $2.49
X-Men 93 $2.49*, 95 $2,49, 96 $2.49 

Lets see if we can help each other out here! Mine are all high grade copies.

[paqart]

On 5/12/2020 at 11:27 AM, FlyingDonut said:

Still looking to complete a set. I need the following:

Amazing Spider-Man 10 $2.29, 13 $2.29
Cable 72 $2.49, 73 $2.29, 74 $2.29
Fantastic Four 23 $2.29, 24 $2.29
Hulk 8 $2.29, 10 $2.49
Thor 19 $2.29, 19 $2.49
X-Men 93 $2.29

I have the following to trade (ones with asterisks I have multiple copies)
Amazing Spider-Man 10 $2.49, 11 $2.49*, 13 $2.49*
Cable 73 $2.49
Fantastic Four 23 $2.49*, 26 $2.49
Incredible Hulk 8 $2.49*
Thor 18 $2.49
X-Men 93 $2.49*, 95 $2,49, 96 $2.49 

Lets see if we can help each other out here! Mine are all high grade copies.

I'd love to trade for some of those but I only have extras of ASM 10/$2.49 and Thor 19/$1.99

[paqart]

On 11/26/2020 at 5:14 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

any missing books will be discovered eventually, if they exist. If they are sitting in the bricks and mortar locations, he strikes me as the type that will find them.

This probably should be in another thread, but curious if newsstand versions of Gotham City Sirens #1-22 exist? I've seen #23-26, but that's it. It seems strange they would make ns versions for the last four issues of a series and not the first 22.

[paqart]

Marwood,

Have you ever seen British price variants of the 1999/2000 Marvels?

[Get Marwood & I]

15 hours ago, paqart said:

Marwood,

Have you ever seen British price variants of the 1999/2000 Marvels?

Nay. Twenty odd years too late for anything like that to exist I'm afraid, Paqart...

[PeterPark]

The weekend before last, I found and picked up a copy of Hulk 8 (1.99). I also managed Hulk 9 and 10 (2.49) covers. @FlyingDonut, do you count the 1.99 as part of the set? I know we generally don't count them because they are "regular-priced" but I don't even know if they are more common than the other two variants, although, in my area, 2.29 is a ghost. I know you said Jamestown, New York is likely an area...but at what price? Do you have any idea where the market near my area is? I find almost exclusively 2.49's