• When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

New Stand Edition vs Direct Edtion
0

5 posts in this topic

Hello. I am fairly new to collecting and was wondering do you guys differentiate between New Stand Editions vs Direct Editions when buying and selling your comics. Is the News Stand Edition more valuable or rarer? Thanks for your remark/opinions.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It depends on the year. I'll buy any Big Diamond Marvel I find, as they were a very small fraction of the print run. In the 80s, Direct copies and newsstand are pretty much interchangeable, except some issues have completely different covers for the two markets. Spider-Man Annual 21 and Man of Steel #1 come to mind, but there are others.  By the late 90s, newsstand copies are in the minority and some are scarce. Marvel and Dc did a few books with nine or ten cent cover prices for the Direct market and the newsstand copies were supposed to be regular price but a few of the special prices escaped into the newsstand run. These are scarce. Also, a few companies that were almost exclusively Direct did small newsstand distribution in their home areas. Now did it in Chicago, Comico did it in Pennsylvania, Modern did it in NY.  These are very hard to find, but there isn't much demand for them either.

However, the spread in price  some large dealers ask for the two is insane.

Edited by shadroch
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Great answer Shadroch. I wish more people collecting newstands understood that  a newstand issue from 1978 isn't scarce. It's the direct editions that were scarce at that time. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are two main drivers in rarity: Print Run and scarcity (survivability). Early on, the direct editions were a much lower print run. But Direct editions went from the publisher into the mail and to the collector who was pretty good at preserving the condition. In a news stand edition, early on, they were more plentiful, but the supply chain really damaged high grade comics as they went from hand to hand and into the metal racks. Their survivability in higher gardes are difficult to find.

So if you are collecting like 9.2 or 9.4 and below, there is not a big difference from the mid 80's and earlier between the two.Later the NS editions became a much lower print run and are therefore NS will be rarer. But in the later issues, the NS are very hard to find and blow away the direct editions in both print run scarcity and survivability.

If you are a 9.8 collector like me, it is always news stand....always.

Eventually the general collecting public will realize the scarcity of the NS editions in high grade and they will easily outperform and hold their value compared to direct editions.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, hitmandm said:

There are two main drivers in rarity: Print Run and scarcity (survivability). Early on, the direct editions were a much lower print run. But Direct editions went from the publisher into the mail and to the collector who was pretty good at preserving the condition. In a news stand edition, early on, they were more plentiful, but the supply chain really damaged high grade comics as they went from hand to hand and into the metal racks. Their survivability in higher gardes are difficult to find.

So if you are collecting like 9.2 or 9.4 and below, there is not a big difference from the mid 80's and earlier between the two.Later the NS editions became a much lower print run and are therefore NS will be rarer. But in the later issues, the NS are very hard to find and blow away the direct editions in both print run scarcity and survivability.

If you are a 9.8 collector like me, it is always news stand....always.

Eventually the general collecting public will realize the scarcity of the NS editions in high grade and they will easily outperform and hold their value compared to direct editions.

WTTB!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
0