...and sometimes more than one Variant collector finds the Hidden Western Variant lot.

There is nothing quite as exciting for a variant collector than finding the needle in the haystack.  In this case, the "needle" is the hidden western 30 cent price variant lurking in an ebay auction but not described as such in either the title or the description.  Every once in awhile, several variant hunters find the same needle and that is where the fun begins.  I suspect that seller porkyscomics was surprised when his listing for 45 well read bronze age westerns fetched $178.49 at a recent auction.  Or maybe he was just cagey because the one extremely rare Two-Gun Kid 131 30 cent western variant is inserted right in the middle of the picture.  Yes, the tell-tale starburst is almost in the middle of the picture.  Anyway, if the buyer is a collector of 30 cent price variants, he got a good deal on this one.  If the buyer is a speculator, he may have paid a bit more than he thought he was going to have to pay.

There is still hope...

for finding rare raw western hidden variants.  Here is proof.  An ebay seller recently posted a "beater" lot of eleven western bronze age books with an auction start of $23.95.  Ebay is filled with lots like this of beat-up bronze-age books that sit forever because they are overpriced.  No one is going to pay $2 bucks a book for dreckage like this except there is that Rawhide Kid 134 30 cent western variant sitting in the bottom right of the picture.  You would think that a seller going with the handle "sherlockseller" might have checked a little more closely, but the fact that the Rawhide Kid is a western price variant is not noted in the title or in the description.  Hidden lots like this get a variant collectors crazy excited when they see one.  They get even more excited when the hammer hits for the minimum bid which means that none of the other variant collectors out there found the listing.  They get even more excited when the book actually arrives in the mail. 

If you don't currently have the budget to collect 30 cent variants, start looking for the needles in the hay stack and you just might find them cheap.  Warning!  It may take a long time.

A trio of Rawhide Kid price variants hit the 'bay.

It has been awhile, but a nice trio of Rawhide Kid 30 cent price variants were auctioned off on ebay.  The first was a nice Rawhide Kid 133 from ebay seller msjackhammer which brought $350 in the auction.  There are only eight Rawhide Kid 133s which have been certified.

The same seller auctioned a second 133 (which I thought was nicer than the first) and it brought $202 at auction.

The seller had both variants as msjackhammer auctioned off a VG Rawhide Kid 134 which brought a hammer price of $522.

Kid Colt 208 sale shatters record for western price variant

It seems like it has been forever, but it has only been five years since the last Kid Colt 208 price variant came up for sale on ebay.  As part of a group of very hard-to-find 30 cent price variants that ebay seller msjackhammer listed on ebay, the Kid Colt 208 was bound to catch the attention of price variant collectors everywhere.  The book is a very solid mid-grade.  I think that the bottom right corner creasing will keep the book in the 7 range, but it would be very attractive for the grade. The auction brought $1628 for the book.  The highest graded 208 resides in a CGC 9.2 holder with another in a CGC 9.0 holder.  There are currently only five copies in any grade on the CGC census.

Here is a picture of the CGC 9.2 copy of the book.

Interestingly, at the same time, another copy of Kid Colt 208 was being auctioned on ebay.  This Kid Colt was in what variant collector's call a "hidden" auction.  A "hidden" auction is one where the seller lists the issue, but doesn't know and doesn't note anywhere in the listing that the book is a price variant.  Ebay seller, ethrift_superstore, must have been shocked when their listing for two Kid Colt Marvel Comics fetched $250 in an auction.  Hopefully, they are not going to go out and buy a bunch of similarly beaten up bronze age comics or they will take a bath on them.  However that pretty white 30 cent starburst makes all the difference in this case.  If they had correctly listed the book as a marvel price variant, I think that would have made several hundred dollars more.  Interest in this book is that high.  It is usually the last book needed to complete the 30 cent marvel price variant set.

Rawhide Kid 141 in CGC 4.5 shows up on ebay and then disappears

One of the grails of the 35 cent price variant set showed up on ebay.  Listed by ebay seller comics4less, the book was listed in an auction format.  Within a day, however, a buyer had contacted the seller and worked out a deal (purported to be $800) to sell the book privately and pull the listing off of ebay. 

The rarity of western 35 cent price variant issues is epic.  If the purported price is true, I think it a fair price., and a record for the issue. However, knowing how many collectors are missing that book, I think if the auction had gone to completion, I suspect that the final hammer price may have even been higher.  Alas, we will never know. 

Some exceptionally rare 30 cent price variants hit ebay this month.

It has been a couple of years since a western price variant has hit the bay and one nice kid colt sales brings a couple more out of hiding.

Here are the exceptional books.

Sgt Fury 133 FN+    $80

Chamber of Chills 22 VF+     $157.55

Kid Colt 206 G            $266.51

Ringo Kid 28             $308.11

Ringo Kid 27              $338

Rawhide Kid 134        $538

Now if only a spate of 35 cent westerns would suddenly appear.  I am keeping my fingers crossed.

A Neat Little Kid Colt 218 Western story

Kid Colt 218 is one of the keys to the series. Until earlier this year, there were only two copies of this book known. Terry Hall, who is the only person to complete the 35 cent variant set has one. Harry Miller, who only lacks two books to complete the set and will be the next person to complete the set has one.

And then a noted hunter of hidden variant comics on ebay who I call Sherlock Holmes found an auction lot titled KID COLT OUTLAW COMIC BOOK (BRONZE AGE) 9 ISSUES accompanied by the above picture. If you look closely, right in the middle of the picture, is the third known copy of Kid Colt 218. And Sherlock paid $12 bucks for the lot.

After receiving the books from the original seller, Sherlock listed the book correctly on ebay and not surprisingly the auction results were much different for the Kid Colt 218. The hammer price was $408.28 for this correctly listed book. I have not seen the book in hand, but the grade can probably be best described as "beater".

The remaining question is what is the cover price on the Kid Colt 220 in the top picture? And who says that searching for price variants isn't fun?

A little bit about me.

I grew up an avid comic book reader and collector while I was in school in the 70s and early 80s. I remember biking to the 7-11, buying books off the spinner rack, and reading the great bronze-age classics like Cockrum and Byrne’s New X-Men, Frank Miller’s Daredevil, and Dave Steven’s Rocketeer. After graduating from college, getting married and having kids, I stopped buying comic books because of the demands of my new responsibilities and home budget constraints. Fast forward to a couple of years ago with my own kids in high school, some spare time, and settled in a bigger house with some extra storage space, I started working to complete some of the comic runs that I never finished as a kid. Searching for these books led me to the CGC website where I discovered a thread on Marvel price variants of the same books that I collected as a kid. That thread led me to the STL comics site where I met up with the Variant Mafia. You can't complete a set of marvel price variants without help from the mafia. Anyway, I became hooked on the price variants. Hard.

As of 2010, I have completed the 30 cent set. I am actively working on completing the 35 cent but so are several others and the competition for the last twenty books that I need for the set is pretty fierce.