GPA Price Variant Report for May 2015 shows Record sale of a Thor Price Variant $3000

Many of you know that I highly recommend GPAnalysis (GPA) to serious variant collectors.  GPA keeps track of almost all publicly traded sales of certified comic books.  If you buy or sell certified comic books you owe it to yourself to get a subscription.  The subscription is reasonably priced.

One of the things I like best about GPA is that it has several Market Reports.  The GPA-Price Variant Report is one of these reports.  Below is a copy of the May edition.  GPA is reporting that a 9.8 copy of a Thor 260 35 cent price variant sold for $3000.  This is a new record for Thor Price variant and is also indicative of the current market for single-highest graded 35 cent price variants.  There are only 13 certified copies of this issue in any grade.  The condition census is one 9.8, one 9.4 and three 9.2s.

Important variant sales last month also include near record sales of Star Wars 1, X-Men 99, and a $250 sales of a mid-grade Logan's Run 6 (a very cool book).

ComicLink sale of Star Wars 1 35 cent Price Variant Crushes Previous Price Record

One of the two highest graded copies of the 35 cent price variant issue of Star Wars 1 shattered the previous record sale of a price variant by more than $10,000.  The June ComicLink auction of the CGC 9.6 Star Wars 1 price variant closed at $36,500.  This sale is over 60 times higher than the current price of a regular issue certified 9.6.  Interest in the classic bronze age Star Wars books has been stoked because of the upcoming launch of new Star Wars films starting in December 2015.   You can search this blog for the previous two record sales of 9.6 Star Wars 1 price variants back in 2010 and 2011.  

The regular edition Star Wars 1 has risen in price in the last year from the $600 dollar level to around $2500.  It is not surprising that interest in the much, much, much rarer Star Wars 1 price variant is at an all-time high.  This is the only mainstream Star Wars collectible to be released before the release of the first Star Wars movie.  The CGC census of Star Wars 1 price variants currently has two 9.6 copies certified and lists eleven 9.4 copies.  The number of 9.4s is probably inflated a bit because both 9.6 copies were a result of resubmits to CGC.


These numbers will give you an idea of the rarity (and the justification for the high prices) of Near Mint or higher price variant issues versus the regular issues of Star Wars 1.

There are 339 copies of Star Wars 1 that have been graded 9.8, 921 copies that have graded 9.6, and 861 that have graded 9.4.  This is a total of 2121 books graded 9.4 or higher.

There are two copies of the 35 price variant in 9.6 and somewhere between seven to eleven copies in 9.4.  In other words, there is about one NM or better 35 cent price variant of Star Wars 1 for every 200 NM or better regular editions.

Here is the information on the ComicLink auction.  ComicLink does not report sales to GPA, but this blog keeps track of the important ComicLink variant sales.

Also featured in the ComicLink auction was a very nice CGC 9.0 Star Wars 1 price variant with Off-White to White pages.  I think that this is the first time that two high grade copies of this book have been auctioned in the same event.  This auction closed at $5764. 

These two sales imply current prices of $18,000 to $20,000 for 9.4 certified Star Wars 1 price variants and $9000 to $11,000 for 9.2 copies.