CGC Collectorverse: Collector Origin Stories – Robin Bain

For this issue of Collectorverse “Origin Stories,” we reached across the pond to speak with Robin Bain about his impressive collection of Avengers U.K. Editions / Price Variants in the U.K.! International price variant comics are rare editions of comic books published for foreign markets, typically distinguished by different cover prices reflecting the currency of the country where they were sold.

Q&A with Robin Bain

Let’s go back to the very beginning. What brought you into comics?

I think I started reading comics in 1963-1964 when I was four or five years old. I began with UK comics. They were a mix of “funny” / cartoon type strips plus one or two sci-fi / adventure type stories which I preferred.

Then, UK comics such as Fantastic and Terrific arrived on the scene, which were weekly black and white reprints (although, fortunately, the covers were printed in color) with each issue containing a mix of Marvel stories like Avengers, X-Men, Fantastic Four, Captain America and Thor, and I immediately switched over to them. The early issues came with cool free gifts like an iron-on transfer of the Hulk to add to a T-shirt.

Then pence-priced Marvel comics became available. They contained original stories and were identical to the USA Cents copies except that they were published with a UK price and were for exclusive sale in the UK. I will refer to them from now on as “UKPVs” (short for United Kingdom Price Variants), the description that is now used by CGC to identify them.

The UKPVs were amazing! They were in color and contained about double the story content of the reprints.

In the early 1960s, Marvel tended to publish all their comics as a two-part story over two consecutive issues. My previous experience in reading Fantastic and Terrific was for the same story to be recounted in smaller parts over eight weekly issues.

The UKPVs were also more sophisticated than the UK reprints. I believe that the Cents copies of Marvel comics were aimed at a USA college-age readership, which probably accounts for this sophistication.

I still own my UKPV copy of Avengers #23, which I bought new when it was published and sold in the UK in December 1965. I have read it countless times, and still cherish it, even though it is now low grade.

I think I stopped reading comics when I was about 14 years old as my interests changed, but that was not the end of my comic reading and collecting story; it was just the end of my first phase.

You’re an avid collector of International Comics. As an overseas CGC Comics Registry member, how has your experience in the hobby evolved?

My second phase as a comic book reader began in 1991 when I was aged 33, and I discovered a comic book shop in my hometown. This coincided with the publication by Marvel of the great Jim Lee issues of the X-Men second series. I bought issue #1 and was hooked. I then found that Uncanny X-Men was still going. I had read it while I was a boy on and off up to issue #59, the end of the fabulous three-part story featuring the Sentinels by Neal Adams. And I began to buy that as well as X-Men.

I was very pleased to find that all the characters that I had enjoyed as a boy were still alive and kicking — and there were quite a number of new titles covering a range of storylines as well.

Soon after, I discovered that collecting comics existed as a recognized activity in addition to buying and reading them. So, I started to find out more about that. I began to handle my comics much more carefully, to bag and board them, and also to go to regular comic book conventions in London in order to buy back issues.

If I went to another town or city, I would check whether it had a comic book shop and try to visit it. I spoke to dealers about grading and what type of comics to buy. Two pieces of advice I was given were to always buy the highest-graded copy of any comic that I could afford and to steer clear of UKPVs as they have little or no value as only Cents copies are worth collecting. I followed those recommendations, except in the latter case until comparatively recently.

I began to read magazines such as Wizard and Comics International (a UK publication) and others to try to broaden my knowledge and provide myself with the contact details of comic book shops and dealers from whom I could get a catalogue of their stock. This was well before the Internet, so consulting a hard copy list or inventory was the order of the day.

When CGC began offering their services in 2000, my second phase within the hobby came to an end and my third one began.

It was in my experience a slow process for CGC to gain a foothold here in the UK. It was a case of the “Emperor’s new clothes,” with the most common objection being that it became impossible after slabbing to read the comic. On the other hand, many collectors (myself included) embraced the ethos of slabbing. Clearly, the number of comics that have been slabbed and the demand for CGC’s services (which has led to an increased workforce and the opening of further offices) demonstrate the popularity of slabbed comics to collectors.

Today, it’s much easier to be a comic book collector in the UK than when I began reading comics, and when I began collecting them. The principal reasons for this are that with the Internet the world is a much smaller place and that with CGC-slabbed comics the risks of buying a comic with unknown restoration and uncertain grading have been removed.

International Comics tend to be harder to find than the US counterparts, and high grades are tougher. In your opinion, what factors contribute to these hurdles?

OK, so I will respond purely in relation to UKPVs.

UKPVs were published in much smaller numbers than their Cents counterparts. This reflected the much smaller size of the population of the UK in comparison to the population of the USA. I believe it is estimated that the number of the UKPVs was equivalent to between 2% to 5% of the number of the corresponding Cents comics. It is fair to assume that a certain number of those UKPVs no longer exist.

UKPVs were printed in the USA exclusively for sale in the UK, so it seems likely that the bulk of the raw comics are still in the UK, making it difficult for non-UK residents to locate them.

UKPVs were transported by ship across the Atlantic Ocean to the UK, a voyage that took several weeks. It is likely that this and handling damaged the comics and reduced their grade.

UKPVs that have been slabbed make up less than 3% of the comics on the Census. It also lists a very small number of the UKPVs in high grade. Let me give you some random examples of this in relation to some of the UKPV issues in Avengers series #1:

• Avengers #19 - on the Census there are 1,064 Universal Cents copies, of which the highest are six 9.6’s. There are 14 Universal UKPVs (including my CGC 6.0), of which the highest is a single 9.0.
• Avengers #25 – on the Census there are 1,117 Universal Cents copies, of which the highest are four 9.8’s. There are 11 Universal UKPVs (including my CGC 6.5), of which the highest is a single 8.5.
• Avengers #79 – on the Census there are 272 Universal Cents copies, of which the highest are 18 9.8’s. There is a single Universal UKPV, which is my CGC 9.2.

This means that in rough terms, the number of those UKPVs is equivalent to 1% of the Cents copies.

What advice would you give to newcomers interested in International Comics?

This is, in my view, a good time to consider buying UKPVs, whether raw or graded by CGC. There are a number of reasons for this.

First, they are now recognized by CGC as being price variants rather than reprints, and they are actually the first true price variants as they were printed at the same time and on the same presses at their Cents counterparts. I am aware of discussions as to whether the UKPVs were actually printed first. The reasons for this suggestion are that when the UKPVs were first published it would take several weeks to transport them by ship across the Atlantic it would be logical for them to be printed first to enable them to arrive in the UK as close as possible to their month of publication. When this debate is resolved, if the outcome is that UKPVs were printed first, I am unsure how that will affect their value. Also, a number of commentators have said that the colors are brighter and deeper in the UKPVs than in the Cents copies and the UKPVs are free from "Marvel chipping."

For those collectors who have completed their Cents copy sets, as completists, they may want to add UKPV ones as well. Collectors who are new to the hobby may wish to build a UKPV set or sets which are desirable but can be acquired at less cost than building Cents ones.

CGC-slabbed UKPVs are starting to appear more frequently for sale at auction and elsewhere (both here in the UK and in the USA), and I have been happy to pick up a few of them for my sets. My experience from recent purchases of raw UKPVs is that mid-grade copies can still be acquired at fairly modest prices (which do not seem to reflect their rarity in comparison to Cents copies) while the prices of high-grade copies are generally climbing. Prices for some UKPVs have remained less than the Cents copy equivalent (in my experience, the gap between them has narrowed), but in the case of a key issue, such as Uncanny X-Men #101 (first Phoenix), I have seen a UKPV sell in the USA for more than an identical slabbed Cents copy in the same auction.

Here’s a fun question we like to ask collectors: if you could go back in time and buy any comic for cover price, which would it be and where would you buy it from?

My first thought was that I would buy say half a dozen (I wouldn’t want to seem greedy by buying more!) copies of Amazing Fantasy #15 to put by until they could be slabbed in 2000 after CGC came into being!

About CGC

Since revolutionizing comic book grading in 2000, CGC has grown to include certification services for a vast variety of pop culture collectibles. These divisions include CGC Cards, CGC Video Games and CGC Home Video. CGC Cards provides expert card grading for TCGs, sports cards and non-sports cards. CGC Video Games is dedicated to video game grading for the most popular consoles, including Nintendo, Sega, Atari, PlayStation and more. The newest division of CGC, CGC Home Video, provides expert VHS grading in addition to other types of home media, including Betamax tapes, DVDs and Blu-ray discs.