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Saturday, April 24, 2010

Long live the KING!

In ComicLink's November 2009 auction, a sizzling copy of Star Wars 1 achieved the record price for a Marvel Price variant. The auction for the CGC 9.6 white paged copy ended at $26,250.


The Star Wars 1 price variant holds a unique place for Star Wars collectors. The comic book is the only Star Wars collectible that was released prior to the release of the movie. Marvel Comics Group was struggling financially as evidenced by the need to try a price increase and the tremendous popularity of the movie and the tremendous sales of the Star Wars comics books helped save Marvel from financial ruin.

Currently, there have been 81 unrestored Star Wars 1 books graded by CGC. This 9.6 book is the single highest graded followed by two 9.4s and six 9.2s. Compare this to the 1735 regular issues that have been graded by CGC with 104 9.8s and 458 9.6s and 439 9.4s and you get an idea of the rarity of the marvel price variants. A regular edition of Star Wars 1 in 9.6 would typically sell for around $130 or half of a percent of the variant edition. Because of the huge print runs for the Star Wars 1 book, the Star Wars 1 price variant is the most common of all the price variants books and because of the popularity of the Star Wars franchise, one of the most desired.



The CGC census data is a tremendous resource for comic book researchers. To view the census data for Star Wars 1 go here.
http://www.cgccomics.com/census/grades_standard.asp?title=Star%20Wars&publisher=Marvel%20Comics&issue=1&year=1977&issuedate=7%2F77

The Big Comic Book Database is a great resource for Comic Book Collectors.
http://www.comics-db.com/comic-book/1061698-Star_Wars_1.html

To read more about how Star Wars 1 saved Marvel Comics Group go here.
http://www.starwars.com/episode-iv/bts/article/f20070601/index.html


The book was originally sold by an ebay seller who inherited a collection which included a number of high grade 35 cent variants including multiple copies of Star Wars 1. The book was originally sold on ebay in a CGC 9.4 holder for $10,000. You can find more about the story here. http://www.comicspriceguide.com/blog/post/2009/10/26/Star-Wars-1-35-Cent-Variant-CGC-94-Hits-2410000-on-eBay!.aspx

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