Tales from the variant hunt - Iron Fist 14

I have been asked several times how I find variants.  I don't pretend to be the best variant hunter out there.  Frank (ebay seller comichunters), Terry (cosmic spider-man), Harry (horkorp) and a few others in the Variant Mafia would get that award.  Searching for them is a blast and can be addicting.  Here is the story of one successful hunt.

A couple of years ago an ebay seller listed a lot titled "Iron Fist 14 variant and others" with a high starting bid of $1000 or so.  Here is the picture of the Iron Fist book that was included in the auction.  There were no bidders.

Since the auction had no bidders, I emailed the seller and asked him if he would send me more pictures of the Iron Fist and information on the other books in the lot.  Here are the additional pictures that he sent and he said that he would throw in a Silver Surfer 3 and a Silver Surfer 4 if we could agree on a price.  I offered $600 for the lot.  He countered at $700.  We split the difference at $650.

So was this a good deal or not, you ask.  It is always difficult to grade from scans or pictures on ebay.  At the time, Iron Fist 14 price variants sold for around $350 in CGC 3.5, $700 in CGC 6.0 and $1700 in 8.0.  Is that a tape pull on the T on the cover or is it a fingerprint?  Tape pulls are a grade killer, fingerprints or smudges keep a book from being NM but this book obviously isn't NM anyway.

I submitted the book to CGC and it was my registry set book until I was able to get a higher graded one from Jon McClure.  I gave the Avengers 4 to Shieldagent because it was one of his grails and I have a nice one already.  The rest of the books are in a box somewhere. 

Here is the book back from CGC.  After I received the McClure Iron Fist 14, I sold this one so I was able to buy more high-grade variants.

   

Incredible Hulk 199 joins Incredible Hulk 200 as a four figure book.

The final 30 cent price variant auctioned in the November 2010 ComicLink auction was a stunning 9.8 white paged copy of Incredible Hulk 199.  When the dust cleared, the book brought $1433.  The only other 9.8 30 cent Hulk sold was Issue 200 in a Heritage auction in April 2009 for an almost identical $1434.  This book is the single highest graded copy of the issue followed by two 9.6s and three 9.4s.  It is a rare event when a 9.8 30 cent price variant comes up for sale, and this auction proves the tremendous interest in these books.

Defenders 35 (30 cent variant) joins the 1000 Dollar club

In the ComicLink November 2010 Featured Aution, another marvel price variant joined the $1000 club.  Defenders 35, graded, in CGC 9.8 with white pages sold for $1440.  This book is the single highest graded of the series ahead of one 9.6, two 9.4s, and five 9.2s.  I suspect that this beauty will end up in a registry set of one of the big Defenders collectors of which there are several.  Here is the ComicLink write-up and the scan of the book.

Price Comparison between 30 cent Variant Issues and Regular Issues

For buyers and sellers of high-grade certified comic books, I highly recommend a subcription to GPAnalysis.  GPAnalysis tracks and records the sales of CGC certified books and publishes them in an online-searchable database.  GPAnalysis also provides some useful monthly summary reports including a very useful report each month which details the sale of certified price variants.  (For the only comprehensive sales report that includes "raw" price variants, check this blog monthly.)  One of the interesting things that this report does is compare the sales price of variants to their regular edition issues.

Here are some high grade examples.

Amazing Spider-Man 171 9.2  $800  (40x the last regular edition sale of $20)
Iron Fist 15                       8.0  $785  (37x the last regular edition sale of $21)
Amazing Spider-Man 173 8.5  $612  (23x the last regular edition sale of $26)
Star Wars 3                       8.5  $600  (30x the last regular edition sale of $15)
Daredevil 146                   9.2  $375  (22x the last regular edition sale of $17)
X-Men 106                        7.5  $375  (22x the last regular edition sale of $17)
Spectacular Spider-Man 9 9.0 $220   (27x the last regular edition sale of $8)
Tarzan 1                             9.2 $205   (29x the last regular edition sales of $7)


I have written several times about what might happen if a high-grade Spidey or X-Men price variant book ever showed up at auction.  Consider this recent book in the November 2010 ComicLink Feature Auction.

Yes, that is correct.  One of the eight current CGC 9.8 copies of Amazing Spider-Man issue 156 brought a hammer price of $650 in the auction.  In case you think that price is unusual, there was only one sale of a 9.8 issue 156 last year and it was for $550.  Highest graded Spider-Man issues are always in demand.  Figure this.  20 times $650 is $13,000 and 30 times $650 is $19,500.  I am not saying that if a 9.8 Spider-Man 156 30 cent price variant shows up at an auction that it will bring $13,000 to $19,500.  We may never know since one has not been graded yet (there are only two price variant 9.6s and two price variant 9.4s on the census.)  I never thought I would see a 9.6 Star Wars 1 price variant sell for over $25,000 either.  Interesting to think about, yes?

ComicLink Auction Brings Strong Prices for 30 Cent Variants

On the first day of the ComicLink November Feature Auction (it is nice that variants are in the Feature Auction where typically ComicLink accepts higher value books), a couple of 30 cent variant brought strong hammer prices.

The first 30 cent variant book auctioned was a beautiful copy of Astonishing Tales 35 in CGC 9.6 with White Pages.  This is one of only three 9.6s in the census with none graded higher.  Issue 35 is the next to last book in the series and is part of the great Deathlok story arc.  GPAnalysis has records of only two sales of 9.2 graded books so this is by far the highest graded book to be auctioned to date.  The final hammer price?  $210.  Here is the auction write-up and the book.

Captain Marvel 44 was the next 30 cent price variant to be auctioned off.  It is a sizzling 9.4 White Paged beauty.  It is the only 9.4 on the census and there is no other book on the census higher than 9.2.  In fact there is only one other 9.0 on the census so this book is extremely hard to find in grade.  I am always interested in watching how highest graded variants do in a no-reserve auction.  In the interest of full disclosure, I was very interested in this book and put in what I thought was a bullet-proof bid of over $300 but was blown out of the water.  The final hammer price was $444.  Here is the auction write-up and the book.  You will probably never see one nicer.  This book also sold for over 13 times as much as the last regular issue CGC 9.4 sold for.