What's your favorite Spider-Man #1 (1990)? 2 2

[Poekaymon]

Trying this instead of general because I note that general often has some hostility with regard to books in the last 50 years.  And I guess 1990 is still Copper, though it's probably cutting it close.  (In fact, maybe this book itself can serve as the end of the Copper Age, as it seemed instrumental to me in setting up variants and X-Men #1 in 1991, but I guess Lee's X-Men is a better dividing line as it really went to the races. 

Gonna skip the UPC variants as I like the Spidey head.  And this has nothing to do with value--pure aesthetics.  I had a print of this on my wall for years, and now have a framed CGC graded one.  Still one of my favorite covers of all time.

1) Green.  Simple.  Classic.  Was stacked to the ceiling at the old LCS.

2) Gold.  Young me liked this one best at the time.  I think I bought like 5 of them with the expectation of striking it rich. In other words, the great marketing ploy worked on me. Today, gold is probably my least favorite.

3) Silver.  I didn't think much of this as a kid, but in my old age silver is really growing on me.  I actually bought a slabbed silver recently to put on the wall.  The red and blue really pops off of the monochrome background.  Probably my second favorite these days.

4) Platinum.  I'm still going to have to go with old platinum.  Took the excellent green cover and jazzed it up a little.  I like the giant 1 instead of the price, and the extra art instead of an advertisement on the back puts it over the edge.  

I actually didn't know this existed at the time, and then heard rumors of it weeks later.  I think my LCS sold their copy for around $300, which I seem to recall was at that time around the price of a high grade Hulk 181.  So it was a bit mythical.  

 

[valiantman]

This one is my favorite, because it's an accidental key.

Unlike the platinum, designed to be an expensive variant, this second print gold with the bold UPC code wasn't supposed to be special.  It was for those who missed out on the first printings, who got stuck buying their reprints at Walmart.  In other words, no one wanted it.  Now everyone does. 

Some guy scribbled on it.

Edited July 7, 2020 by valiantman

[Poekaymon]

3 minutes ago, valiantman said:

This one is my favorite, because it's an accidental key.

Unlike the platinum, designed to be an expensive variant, this second print gold with the bold UPC code wasn't supposed to be special.  It was for those who missed out on the first printings, who got stuck buying their reprints at Walmart.  In other words, no one wanted it.  Now everyone does. 

Some guy scribbled on it.

I almost included this.  Probably grab one one day.

[valiantman]

1 minute ago, Poekaymon said:

I almost included this.  Probably grab one one day.

For what it's worth, I also have Spider-Man #1 Platinum in a CGC 9.6 slab, but I was happy to pay twice as much for the Gold UPC because the Platinum ended up in one dealer's hands by the thousands, but the Gold UPC disappeared from stores into collections and there's never been a good way to get them other than one-at-a-time as they came to market.

[Poekaymon]

8 minutes ago, valiantman said:

For what it's worth, I also have Spider-Man #1 Platinum in a CGC 9.6 slab, but I was happy to pay twice as much for the Gold UPC because the Platinum ended up in one dealer's hands by the thousands, but the Gold UPC disappeared from stores into collections and there's never been a good way to get them other than one-at-a-time as they came to market.

I generally go by how many 9.8s there are--247 gold upcs versus 172 plats.  But that's because the plats were so hard to find in 9.8--top 9% of books as opposed to 38% for gold.  Kind of makes a 9.8 copy a key in itself.  But you're right that overall the gold upc is rarer.

Edited July 7, 2020 by Poekaymon

[valiantman]

11 minutes ago, Poekaymon said:

19 minutes ago, valiantman said:

For what it's worth, I also have Spider-Man #1 Platinum in a CGC 9.6 slab, but I was happy to pay twice as much for the Gold UPC because the Platinum ended up in one dealer's hands by the thousands, but the Gold UPC disappeared from stores into collections and there's never been a good way to get them other than one-at-a-time as they came to market.

I generally go by how many 9.8s there are--247 gold upcs versus 172 plats.  But that's because the plats were so hard to find in 9.8--top 9% of books as opposed to 38% for gold.  Kind of makes a 9.8 copy a key in itself.  But you're right that overall the gold upc is rarer.

I already had both slabs in my collection by 2010.  It looks like the Gold UPC edition jumped up 40 copies in late June 2012 in the CGC Census, so I guess my belief that there wasn't a source for quantities of the Gold UPC is wrong... or a few dozen of the Gold (non-UPC) got misclassified.  

Edited July 7, 2020 by valiantman

[Poekaymon]

4 minutes ago, valiantman said:

I already had both slabs in my collection by 2010.  It looks like the Gold UPC edition jumped up 40 copies in late June 2012 in the CGC Census, so I guess my belief that there wasn't a source for quantities of the Gold UPC is wrong... or a few dozen of the Gold (non-UPC) got misclassified.  

I'm still mystified by the whole UPC thing, why some have separate entries and some don't.  Like as is discussed in another thread, there was just an SM 300 UPC sold for nearly double the price of a direct, but it doesn't seem to be a recognized variant like the Spidey Gold is.  I'm sure there are others.

Edited July 7, 2020 by Poekaymon

[valiantman]

3 minutes ago, Poekaymon said:

I'm still mystified by the whole UPC thing, why some have separate entries and some don't.  Like as is discussed in another thread, there was just an SM 300 UPC sold for nearly double the price of a direct, but it doesn't seem to be a recognized variant like the Spidey Gold is.  I'm sure there are others.

CGC did not have any plans to identify newsstand editions when CGC started.  The market wasn't really "ready" to separate newsstand and direct editions either.  But, the market had established that a price variation could be separated long before CGC existed.  So, what CGC essentially did was note UPC because of price difference, not because it was UPC.  Further causing a problem is that all comics have had a UPC for several years now - direct editions have a 17 digit number, and newsstands have a 14 digit number... so people get confused about whether a barcode means "newsstand" (and it doesn't, if there are 17 digits on there... the left 12 are always there, so the right 5 means direct edition... or just 2 on the right means newsstand).

Amazing Spider-Man #300 has had over 22,000 copies CGC graded without any separation of the Direct Edition and the Newsstand, so even if they started today, it would be a long time before the differences are reflected in the CGC Census.

I've been tracking ASM #300 for several years, though... so there is definitely a difference at the high end of the grading scale:

[waaaghboss]

I prefer the green, overall, but the one thing I like about the foil covers is that the word balloons blend in better.  I realized a few weeks ago, scrolling through ASM covers in the 100-300 range, that in general there are a lot of stunning covers, but when viewed the word balloons distract and lessen the impact of the art.  I'm at the point now where I can't not notice word balloons hiding good art and getting disappointed  

[Poekaymon]

1 minute ago, waaaghboss said:

I prefer the green, overall, but the one thing I like about the foil covers is that the word balloons blend in better.  I realized a few weeks ago, scrolling through ASM covers in the 100-300 range, that in general there are a lot of stunning covers, but when viewed the word balloons distract and lessen the impact of the art.  I'm at the point now where I can't not notice word balloons hiding good art and getting disappointed  

I actually hadn't noticed that before and now it's kind of bugging me.  The platinum is better than the green in that regard, though I wish they had platinumized the "Torment" as well.

[warden5523]

Can we add the chromium reprint to the list? I know it's not the true #1 (Marvel Collectibles Classics 2 I think) but boy does it look nice.

[Poekaymon]

15 minutes ago, warden5523 said:

Can we add the chromium reprint to the list? I know it's not the true #1 (Marvel Collectibles Classics 2 I think) but boy does it look nice.

I do like the Chromium.  Not a big fan of the Spidey 300 chromium, but the #1 is nice.

[Gatsby77]

Aesthetically, it was always the silver cover to me. Then - and now.

Today, having owned a platinum, I lust only after the Gold UPC version.

And Greg's right, above, when he says nobody wanted it for years. I remember a small convention in Philly in the mid-90s -- right when I walked in, the first dealer by the door had two books I wanted -- Spider-Man 1 (gold UPC) and New Teen Titans 2. Both were $20. At a time when nobody was collecting Marvel second prints, he told me how this one was actually rare, special & worth the money.

I bought neither book.

[Poekaymon]

7 minutes ago, Gatsby77 said:

Aesthetically, it was always the silver cover to me. Then - and now.

Today, having owned a platinum, I lust only after the Gold UPC version.

And Greg's right, above, when he says nobody wanted it for years. I remember a small convention in Philly in the mid-90s -- right when I walked in, the first dealer by the door had two books I wanted -- Spider-Man 1 (gold UPC) and New Teen Titans 2. Both were $20. At a time when nobody was collecting Marvel second prints, he told me how this one was actually rare, special & worth the money.

I bought neither book.

I've come around to the silver.  And I can display it without feeling too guilty about UV.  The plat has to stay tucked away.

[EC Star&Bar]

I bought the silver back then.  I still like it. 

Ordinarily I would've bought another copy with a different cover variation, but there was so much stuff coming out at the time that I had to set some limits.

 

[Comixroc]

I like the gold.  Direct version.  Did not like the UPC box in the 80’s and 90’s... and I still don’t like them.  

[valiantman]

11 hours ago, Comixroc said:

Did not like the UPC box in the 80’s and 90’s... and I still don’t like them.  

Good - many of us don't want any competition. 

[Comixroc]

9 minutes ago, valiantman said:

Good - many of us don't want any competition. 

They are all yours, my friend!

[Lorne Malvo]

On 11/10/2020 at 8:04 PM, Comixroc said:

I like the gold.  Direct version.  Did not like the UPC box in the 80’s and 90’s... and I still don’t like them.  

Even though newsstand versions are more rare, I will always prefer the look of a direct version. The face icon looks so much nicer than a barcode lol.  

[Poekaymon]

18 hours ago, Lorne Malvo said:

Even though newsstand versions are more rare, I will always prefer the look of a direct version. The face icon looks so much nicer than a barcode lol.  

Same.  Love dat Spidey head.  (Or even better, Venom head.)