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Amazing Spider-Man #184 All Detergent Has Anyone Seen This Version?
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125 posts in this topic

This past weekend I was out hitting some antique shops in Maine, at one place stumbled across a booth that had a couple of boxes of comics from the 70s-early 80s, mostly mid to lower grade, no key issues among the titles that were present and mostly priced around $2 each.  I was taking a quick flip through as I saw some late bronze books in front and found this Amazing Spider-Man #184 with All Detergent sticker. 

I know the All Detergent no price variant is more often found without the sticker than with it, but has anyone else seen one like this that has the price & All Detergent sticker?  I've reached out to a few board members with variant knowledge and they(and others) don't recall having seen one like this.

19998.jpg.90c3cfda56b9f126cb1126bd5d047378.jpg

 

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Wow, that is an interesting find! The sticker commands a premium but strange circumstances would necessitate stickering a regular copy for distribution, except of course, if the sticker was easily removable and "all detergent" regular copies would be like any other with no sticker. I think the low print run is what drives the price on the no-price cover with the addition of a removable sticker. That is a very cool find!

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I had tracked the All Detergent ASM 184 for about 7 years before I got out of comics back in 2012 or so.  I have had a stickered copy with no price and about 6 copies of no price issues with the sticker removed.  I have never seen a stickered copy with a price.  The sticker looks correct.

I also know that the Northeast was a distribution area, so finding this in Maine does not surprise me.

Very neat.

Edited by Spider-Variant
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I have been a sideline observer of this all detergent ASM 184 for quite some time. It was originally nostalgic based, as I remembered having a no-price issue (with no sticker) as a kid. So when I discovered how much these were fetching, I kept an eye on them. As I told @GACollectibles via PM (thanks for the heads-up btw of this thread) I had not seen another, and looked through about 7 years of worthpoint search results to confirm what I could recollect from memory. My only stated concern via PM was that the prices these have fetched could draw in unscrupulous elements.

And I want to make it clear that I'm not implying this is the case with this particular copy, however there is historical context for the above stated concern.

Back in the early 80's, Kenner was using a Boba Fett Coin sticker offer which was placed on Return of the Jedi, and has also been found on some Empire Strikes Back MOC's. These "offer" examples began gaining a following by certain collectors, and began fetching a premium value over examples which didn't have these stickers.

From time to time, you would see someone posting an unused sticker in their collection, which they regarded as something of a special item as these were meant to be applied to promote the offer, and after the offer ended, should have been discarded.

Then in 2014, someone listed an entire roll of unused stickers for auction on feeBay, and it caused a bit of panic in the vintage collecting community. Many just didn't trust any one person not to try to use these stickers on certain character MOC's which were never seen with these stickers. To be clear, "special offer" collectors will often seek out examples of characters they might already own, and when those come up for sale, they may fetch multiples of what an unstickered example might fetch.

If it didn't create a craze for those who followed this area of niche collecting, it would certainly impact it since now anyone could have any carded figure on any character wave and/or any character variation they pleased with this special offer sticker provided they owned this roll. It almost overnight impacted the market, and anyone who had been paying a premium had seen that market slip away in terms of it being deemed special or rarer than an unstickered example.

It's interesting how the internet works. In early 2014, there was a thread filled with photos that could be readily harvested. Now, not so much. Glad I kept this screenshot so I could at least back this up with some posterity for others who may not have been aware.

 

POTF_sticker_roll.jpg

These are examples of how an MOC would be stickered with this offer:

POTF_sticker-offer.jpg.56638246d84ceb029af9e6d428f02a91.jpg

esb-sticker.jpg.5ab87911a6b6d1820b0a5b23d53d6ff6.jpg

Edited by comicwiz
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Thanks for the feedback so far!

14 minutes ago, comicwiz said:

My only stated concern via PM was that the prices these have fetched could draw in unscrupulous elements.

And I want to make it clear that I'm not implying this is the case with this particular copy, however there is historical context for the above stated concern.

I would agree except for the circumstances in which this book was found- non comic dealer stock, misc comics, low dollar price tag, sticker appears to have been adhered to the book for a substantial amount of time(I'll try to post pic of inside cover).  There was another booth with more modern comics that obviously had somewhat of a handle on pricing.  It would seem more than odd for someone to manufacturer one and then place it randomly in a backroads store for a low price.

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I agree with Get Marwood, I has all the appearance of real variant.  One could speculate that either these were the first in the run of Giveaways, while Marvel was awaiting for the no price book back from the printers, or perhaps the last, in need of a few more copies of the Giveaway, to make a shipment, so used the remaining 184 35 cent inventory.

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8 minutes ago, Spider-Variant said:

I used to be obsessed with this book.  I wish I could have keep going on my map, but lost the file and interest.  I think I've seen about 10-15 still stickered copies.  

Fancy popping back in the Tardis. "Where are you going?" "Me? Supermarket. In 1978. Need some washing powder..."

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3 hours ago, Spider-Variant said:

I agree with Get Marwood, I has all the appearance of real variant.  One could speculate that either these were the first in the run of Giveaways, while Marvel was awaiting for the no price book back from the printers, or perhaps the last, in need of a few more copies of the Giveaway, to make a shipment, so used the remaining 184 35 cent inventory.

I don't know about that, sorry. While a promotional comic would have been a separate run, they were purposely printed this way as a "no resale value" promotional item. And even if we lend this theory some benefit of doubt, we would have seen more.

Edited by comicwiz
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9 minutes ago, comicwiz said:

I don't know about that, sorry. While a promotional comic would have been a separate run, they were purposely printed this way as a "no resale value" promotional item. And even if we lend this theory some benefit of doubt, we would have seen more.

You're probably correct, only two explanations I can come up with, no matter how improbable.

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There are really only two options: (1) this was part of the original giveaway run or (2) an original all sticker was placed "after-market" on a normal copy of ASM 184.  To me #1 is infinitely more likely.  #2 could only take place if someone (a) had access to the stickers and (b) decided to stick it on the exact comic that it belonged upon, only to (c) have it languish as a beater in a $2 flea market box.  Wait, what?

To paraphrase Sherlock Holmes, once you have eliminated the impossible, that which remains, however improbable, is the truth.

 

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13 minutes ago, seanfingh said:

There are really only two options: (1) this was part of the original giveaway run or (2) an original all sticker was placed "after-market" on a normal copy of ASM 184.  To me #1 is infinitely more likely.  #2 could only take place if someone (a) had access to the stickers and (b) decided to stick it on the exact comic that it belonged upon, only to (c) have it languish as a beater in a $2 flea market box.  Wait, what?

To paraphrase Sherlock Holmes, once you have eliminated the impossible, that which remains, however improbable, is the truth.

 

I agree Sean. The outlier here is that the person found the sticker unsightly and removed it from the original no-price copy.  It wouldn't surprise me given the amount of OCD collectors out there. I have found a lot of unusual ephemera included in collections over the years. This is speculating of course, but as a one-of sticker placed on a wax sheet that was later found by someone aware of this variant, and put back in play on a more common ASM 184, I would say we can't overlook the unscrupulous element.

Initially I went back to 2011 on Worthpoint, but did manage to go back a few years earlier. Every instance of this variant was a no price example. 7 out of 10 were mid grade or lower.

Edited by comicwiz
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13 minutes ago, comicwiz said:

I agree Sean. The outlier here is that the person found the sticker unsightly and removed it from the original no-price copy.  It wouldn't surprise me given the amount of OCD collectors out there. I have found a lot of unusual ephemera included in collections over the years. This is speculating of course, but as a one-of sticker placed on a wax sheet that was later found by someone aware of this variant, and put back in play on a more common ASM 184, I would say we can't overlook the unscrupulous element.

Initially I went back to 2011 on Worthpoint, but did manage to go back a few years earlier. Every instance of this variant was a no price example. 7 out of 10 were mid grade or lower.

But it was in a $2 bin.  If it was a knowing fraudster, how did it not end up in a slab and in a huckster hyped auction?

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39 minutes ago, seanfingh said:

But it was in a $2 bin.  If it was a knowing fraudster, how did it not end up in a slab and in a huckster hyped auction?

That is an unusual occurrence for certain, but not decisively indicative of whether that comic was originally part of the all detergent promo. I acquired collections with multiples where certain ones were stickered. You quickly realized one sibling had an upper-hand in these decisions (always seeming to put the stickers on lower condition copies for their brother, and keeping the better copies for themselves). Only in one instance did I have a chance to speak to one of the surviving brothers and he even admitted he made sure to take the better copies. That's unscrupulous, but not fraud per se.

Anyhow, here's a screenshot of all the past auctions for the all detergent variant, they are all no price copies:

 

worth.jpg

Edited by comicwiz
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Things that shouldn't be happen a lot in comics, and unless they are proven to be impossible (like that ASM #121 Mark Jeweler's), I tend to think that they are legit. Printing and distributing are not exact sciences, and things can happen due to many different hiccups in the process.

The two Canadian-variant Mark Jeweler's I found in a random box of stuff are good examples. They should not be, and yet they are. This All-stickered ASM with a price shouldn't be, but I can see how it could have happened.

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1 hour ago, seanfingh said:

There are really only two options: (1) this was part of the original giveaway run or (2) an original all sticker was placed "after-market" on a normal copy of ASM 184.  To me #1 is infinitely more likely.  #2 could only take place if someone (a) had access to the stickers and (b) decided to stick it on the exact comic that it belonged upon, only to (c) have it languish as a beater in a $2 flea market box.  Wait, what?

To paraphrase Sherlock Holmes, once you have eliminated the impossible, that which remains, however improbable, is the truth.

 

I will go on record that this is NOT an original copy. There has never been an priced version found of this AND the sticker is in the wrong place pursuant to every other copy.

Edited by FlyingDonut
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