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The "Newsstand Edition" Phenomenon Part 2
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39 posts in this topic

Since the original post on this subject has gotten ridiculous and seems to have nothing to do with the topic, I thought about starting it anew. Keep your rants and raves about anything else to yourself, or better yet, create a new topic called rants and raves.

I've mentioned before in the Modern section and the newsstand thread mentioned above that over the past few years, there seems to be an increase in demand for newsstand variations. Mile High has been promoting separating direct and newsstand editions for many years now. Probably to increase their sales but also to cater to those collectors out there who actually distinguish between those versions. It's like those who want to collect the Mark Jewelers or other inserts in comics that the majority are regular copies, but a small percentage has something about the comic that separates it from the rest.

Newsstand (UPC) US editions are a field where there are enough collectors out there that I personally think there should be a separate market for them. CGC will recognize only those issues where there was actually something different about the comic which separates it from the direct edition. That could be price difference, paper quality, maybe something available exclusively to the direct or newsstand, something else, or any combination of these. Regardless, the market seems to be there and those who want to try and capitalize on it are attempting to do so. There is nothing wrong with this. Variations for collectibles in all fields have been an avenue to profit for many years.

Whatever the reason for collecting these variations, let's take a look at what data seems to be out there.

1. Direct editions seemed to have taken over the market somewhere towards the late 80s. There is a small line graph where newsstands were high in the late 70s to mid 80s and direct were low. The newsstand line goes down with print run while the direct edition climbs, crossing somewhere in the mid-80s. This is a guess, but seems reasonable. I'm attaching the graph again so you don't have to go searching in the other thread.

2. In the late 1990s, maybe even mid-1990s, there seems to be a lack of newsstands. Though unsold copies were supposed to be destroyed, I actually knew someone at the time Spiderman #1 came out, he acquired tons of newsstand editions that didn't sell and would sell them at a flea market that I had a table. He worked for the newsstand distributor. He would rent the table next to me and put out all these comics. That included 110 copies of the bagged newsstand Spidey #1. So most likely there are more copies of newsstands that have survived than what legally should be. Though that doesn't mean there are tons of copies still in existence, but maybe a bit more than what there should be.

3. There are documented sales on Ebay for the past few years that show there is some interest in newsstand copies. I've read on several threads posts where fellow collectors on these chat boards have been searching for newsstands. These sales and posts show that there is a market and people are willing to pay a premium for newsstand editions, especially high grade.

4. If there is a market for newsstands, then there will definitely be a premium for high grade copies. We all know that newsstands sit on racks, sometimes spinner racks, but even if they are just magazine racks, damage occurs. How many times have you walked into a Barnes & Nobles and people are just sitting or standing by the racks reading, not having any inkling of making a purchase of these books. And then putting them back, sometimes they'll knock around not only the copy in their hands, but the other copies on the racks. So even if newsstand copies exist, trying to get a 9.8 may be impossible.

So I'd like to know what others think. Feel free to post finds or sales you think are crazy. On my excursions, I've come across nearly no Valiant newsstands. Maybe 2 or 3 and those were literally uncollectible in my opinion (maybe VG). Since someone pointed out Malibu, I've been on the hunt for those. I've been buying up Image ns whenever I find them for the past 1 1/2 years or so.  And like I mentioned in the other thread that went way off topic, you don't have to make a fortune for a newsstand to become collectible. Just having someone purchase a direct and ns copy, even for the same price is twice the sales than if they just collected one copy in the run. And if ns copies go for double, triple, or 10 times a direct, it's still more profit than just selling the copy in the run. Like Mile High (which I don't agree with many of their price gouging on ns copies that are more common than direct), if enough people start separating out newsstand from direct, you may just create a big enough market where it's worth your while.

 

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Edited by Philflound
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Perception has turned into reality when it comes to newsstand editions. I have sold mid to late 80’s NE’s at quite a premium because there are people out there who prefer them for whatever reason.

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8 minutes ago, Aweandlorder said:
19 hours ago, bababooey said:

bababooey is currently reading the other newsstand thread but will return to his 'posting station' shortly to participate in  'the newsstand edition phenomenon part the second':nyah:

45AFE6BF00000578-0-image-a-19_1509003491453.jpg

What are these stains on the chair?

Egg fried rice?

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23 minutes ago, Bronzed Jbone said:

Should the graph be more specific for the Y axis?  More and less are pretty much de rigueur, right?  I mean, it's never less on top, is it?

No, it's only a graphical interpretation of the most general statement about the reality of comics distribution: As the Direct Market rose to prominence, the total percentage of DM copies grew while the total NS percentage declined. The graph wasn't meant to be specific or accurate.

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2 hours ago, Bronzed Jbone said:

Should the graph be more specific for the Y axis?  More and less are pretty much de rigueur, right?  I mean, it's never less on top, is it?

Not sure where the graph came from. Saw it for the first time about a year and a half ago when I was looking into the whole newsstand thing.

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19 hours ago, Philflound said:
21 hours ago, Bronzed Jbone said:

Should the graph be more specific for the Y axis?  More and less are pretty much de rigueur, right?  I mean, it's never less on top, is it?

Not sure where the graph came from. Saw it for the first time about a year and a half ago when I was looking into the whole newsstand thing.

That was from me.  I purposefully made it to be "accurately vague".  (March 2016)

 

I really just wanted people to stop saying "newsstands are tougher" (at the time, people were saying that for books like DC Comics Presents #26 from 1980) since that doesn't happen until somewhere around 1986 (when they're about 50/50).

Edited by valiantman
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8 hours ago, valiantman said:

That was from me.  I purposefully made it to be "accurately vague".  (March 2016)

 

I really just wanted people to stop saying "newsstands are tougher" (at the time, people were saying that for books like DC Comics Presents #26 from 1980) since that doesn't happen until somewhere around 1986 (when they're about 50/50).

Although newsstands are not tougher to find due to larger print runs than direct editions in the late 70's or early 80's, are newsstands tougher to find in ultra high grade (CGC 9.6 or 9.8 copies) in comparison to direct editions due to the greater likelihood of newsstand damage or vendor/buyer mishandling from that time period?  hm

Edited by mosconi
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7 hours ago, mosconi said:

Although newsstands are not tougher to find due to larger print runs than direct editions in the late 70's or early 80's, are newsstands tougher to find in ultra high grade (CGC 9.6 or 9.8 copies) in comparison to direct editions due to the greater likelihood of newsstand damage or vendor/buyer mishandling from that time period?  hm

Many "newsstand books never saw the newsstands but were pilfered and warehoused. These would have less handling, especially the copies in the middle of a bundle.

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Well I just checked ebay out like you said. I just used DC comics 26 (1980) because someone mentioned it earlier. 

I saw 43 copies of the NS editions         and 13 copies of the Direct editions

 

So based on that specific book at least, I would say that graph is fairly accurate. 

 

 

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On 10/30/2017 at 4:50 PM, valiantman said:

Just for the fun of it, I just checked the CGC listings on Ebay for the years we're discussing and looked at the covers of the comics themselves (not relying on the word "newsstand" in the title)...

CGC 1980 results in 82 direct editions, 48 newsstand

CGC 1981 results in 98 direct editions, 27 newsstand

CGC 1982 results in 103 direct editions, 27 newsstand

CGC 1983 results in 114 direct editions, 21 newsstand

CGC 1984 results in 120 direct editions, 10 newsstand

CGC 1985 results in 130 direct editions, 9 newsstand

CGC 1986 results in 160 direct editions, 5 newsstand

I stopped counting for each year when I got to the end of my notecard, not when the auctions ran out.

These books have already been CGC graded, so we're talking about "slab-worthy" comics from these years, but the results speak for themselves.

We're not talking about the original printing numbers... we're talking about "survival rates" since it has been 30+ years.

For the mathematically lazy, that corresponds to:

1980 = 63% direct, 37% newsstand

1981 = 78% direct, 22% newsstand

1982 = 79% direct, 21% newsstand

1983 = 84% direct, 16% newsstand

1984 = 92% direct, 8% newsstand

1985 = 94% direct, 6% newsstand

1986 = 97% direct, 3% newsstand

It's just a sample, taken at a random time of day, but those were the results.  Try it yourself, if you like! :foryou:

There are probably somewhat more newsstand editions in circulation (used broadly, as I'll get to) than these kind of surveys suggest. It's well established that the average grade of surviving newsstands is lower than the average grade for direct market copies. If we take on faith the axiom that the "average" DM modern in "unread" or "like new" condition is an 8.5 (which... sure, I guess that passes a smell test, maybe?), the equivalent NS book is probably more like 7.0-7.5.

For a lot of moderns, a 7.0 book isn't worth slabbing and isn't worth eBaying. But there are still thousands upon thousands of mid grade moderns languishing in dealers' backstock boxes. I agree that late-Modern NS books are rare in grade and are rare in general vis-a-vis their DM cousins (although that's explicitly not true for earlier years...), but the disparity is likely a tad narrower than metrics suggest.

But... with this being an internet-market hobby now, there's some question about whether backstocked books are "in circulation". Books in shop back room boxes aren't always even available for sale, aren't indexed. When stores close, the fate of "bulk" is... uncertain. 

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@Qalyar that's a good point, but we're now 25+ years since anything printed before 1996 - so if those 1980s-1990s books still aren't "worth CGC-ing" at this point, whether due to condition, contents, value, whatever, then the market needle isn't moved by those particular issues in those grades. The exact ratios of lower grade raw copies of direct and newsstand books that may exist in comic shop back rooms or collector boxes just don't matter (yet)... since those books have already have been ignored for 25+ years before anyone cared about newsstand or direct edition designations.  

When comparing direct editions to newsstand editions in 2021, it's helpful to first ask "does anyone care about either?" and a good way to answer that question is to check the CGC Census (even if it doesn't separate direct edition and newsstand) total.  Once books are "worth CGC-ing" and the CGC Census reflects more than a few copies have been CGC graded, we can look to the open market for what's available and get our direct/newsstand ratio estimate data from there.

One good example would be Spawn #1 (1992).  Obviously, it's a good idea to CGC grade raw Spawn #1 with a good chance of being CGC 9.8 whether it's newsstand or direct.  Looking at GPAnalysis for the whole year of 2020, there were 805 sales (GPAnalysis.com) for universal CGC 9.8 Spawn #1 direct edition and 71 for universal CGC 9.8 Spawn #1 newsstand.  That's 8% newsstand.  That 8% could be too low for the overall rate of newsstand for Spawn #1, since 9.8 is a high grade that is generally believed to be harder to obtain 25+ years later in newsstand than it was in direct editions.  The past 90 days (March-May 2021) have 253 CGC 9.8 sales with 5% newsstand.  Again, this is likely too low for the overall newsstand rate because 9.8 is a tougher grade.

We also have to be careful not to skew the results in the other direction when books are "worth CGC-ing" (by value) in lower newsstand grades but the lower grade direct editions are not. 

When you move down one grade to CGC 9.6 Spawn #1, there were 338 CGC 9.2 Spawn #1 direct edition sales in 2020, and 74 CGC 9.2 Spawn #1 newsstand sales in 2020.  That's 18% newsstand.  This is also likely a skewed result because there's not as much financial incentive to CGC grade a 9.6 raw Spawn #1 direct edition when sellers only got $68 average for CGC 9.6 Spawn #1 direct editions in 2020.  There was more incentive to submit 9.6 raw Spawn #1 newsstands, since the CGC 9.6 Spawn #1 newsstand average sale price was $179 in 2020.  18% is likely too high for the overall newsstand ratio.  In the past 90 days (March-May 2021) CGC 9.6 Spawn #1 direct edition has averaged $123, making Spawn #1 direct editions much more "worth CGC-ing" in 2021 than they were in 2020 averaging $68.  Of the 132 CGC 9.6 Spawn #1 sales March-May 2021, just 11% have been newsstand.  As the value of both rises, the newsstand ratio falls, now 11% newsstand in the 9.6 market.  That could still be too many newsstands overall, since the CGC 9.6 newsstands have averaged $360 (nearly three times as valuable as 9.6 direct editions) in the same timeframes.

Using the CGC 9.8 and CGC 9.6 numbers for Spawn #1 would suggest that 5%-8% newsstand is too low (using 9.8) and 11%-18% newsstand might be too high (using 9.6).  A fair estimate overall then would probably be 10% for Spawn #1 newsstand, based on more than 1,500 sales in 2020-2021 for CGC 9.6 and CGC 9.8 of both newsstands and direct editions. 

This 10% estimate is quite different from the 1%-2% newsstand rate that is sometimes quoted by various websites/sources for Spawn #1, or even 5% for that matter.

10% newsstand on Spawn #1 fits the data better, and when we have even more data in the future, perhaps we'll know even more. :cloud9:

Edited by valiantman
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It's also tricky because the books that have the highest volumes of CGCed copies aren't always representative of broader distribution patterns. Spawn #1 was an event. Are its distribution ratios the same as other books around the same time? Even other Image books? Additionally, Spawn collectors have expressed more interest than the hobby aggregate in tracking down and collecting newsstand issues and assorted other shenanigans (it helps that CGC recognizes the DM/NS split for a lot of Spawn issues due to differing paper stock). That's going to tend to push the slabbed numbers higher than they would be Random Marvel Issue #123, for example.

And of course, some of the genuinely rarest newsstands, as the various companies were winding down their newsstand distribution entirely, are versions of books with minimal market impact in general, which makes all of this a lot trickier to apply.

That's not to say this sort of analysis isn't worth doing, it's just that it has be done with a grain of caution and some understanding of the sources for error.

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2 minutes ago, Qalyar said:

It's also tricky because the books that have the highest volumes of CGCed copies aren't always representative of broader distribution patterns. Spawn #1 was an event. Are its distribution ratios the same as other books around the same time? Even other Image books? Additionally, Spawn collectors have expressed more interest than the hobby aggregate in tracking down and collecting newsstand issues and assorted other shenanigans (it helps that CGC recognizes the DM/NS split for a lot of Spawn issues due to differing paper stock). That's going to tend to push the slabbed numbers higher than they would be Random Marvel Issue #123, for example.

And of course, some of the genuinely rarest newsstands, as the various companies were winding down their newsstand distribution entirely, are versions of books with minimal market impact in general, which makes all of this a lot trickier to apply.

That's not to say this sort of analysis isn't worth doing, it's just that it has be done with a grain of caution and some understanding of the sources for error.

Absolutely, but we should make it known that 10% for Spawn #1 newsstand is a reasonable estimate based on data - and those who are still clinging to some 1% newsstand claims on Spawn #1 are no longer informing, they're misinforming.

Spawn #9 newsstand has been split out by CGC since March 2013.  Since March 2013, CGC has graded 3,405 copies of Spawn #9 (universal grades), with 8% newsstand.  For over 500 Signature Series, it's 7% newsstand on Spawn #9.

Spawn #9 wasn't an event like Spawn #1, but the 10% newsstand estimate for Spawn #1 holds up pretty well against the 7%-8% newsstand CGC census counts for Spawn #9.

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