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Thursday, May 26, 2011

Highest Graded Silver Age Journey Into Mystery 76 Sets Auction Record

I haven't blogged on the three Silver Age Marvel Price Variants yet.  The single highest graded of one of these issues and the easiest of the three issues to find (don't get me started on the Love Romances one), Journey into Mystery 76 recently came up for sale in the May Comiclink Feature Auction.  When the dust settled and all the snipes were set, the auction finished at $1687 which is more than twice the amount of any previous auction of this price variant.


What exactly are the black circle variants.  They are the silver-age brethren of the bronze age marvel price variants.  The three issues were all published by Marvel in January 1962.   Marvel decided to up their price from 10 cents to 12 cents and apparently still had three issues to print in January - Journey into Mystery, Love Romances, and Gunsmoke Western.  They made the decision to change the price on these but somehow the word didn't get to the printer or the printer didn't follow instructions until after the printing had started.   Some of the initial books were printed with the standard 10 cent price in a white circle.  After the mistake was discovered, the books were corrected by overprinting a black circle over the 10 cent price and printing 12 cents near where the price circel had been.  The remainder of the print run was printed with the new correct 12 cent price in the white circle.  The correctly printed 12 cent issues are the regular issue while the "black circle" ones are the variant issues. 
One question that has nagged variant collectors for years is "Did any of the 10 cent copies escape the printers?"  I have never seen or heard of one, but finding one would be a lot of fun.

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