Bronze-Age Marvel Variants

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Amazing Spider-Man 156

A strong CGC 9.4 copy of the 30 cent price variant of Amazing Spider-Man 146 brought $450 in a recent ebay sale. As a comparison, the last sale of a 9.4 copy of the regular edition brought $23 or about one twentieth of its price variant brother. This is a record price for this book in this grade, but this shouldn't be surprising, as there is only one other sale of this book in this grade, back in 2004 for $173. It is one of only three in 9.4 with only three examples graded higher in 9.6. It may be another eight years before you see another up for sale.

X-Men 100

I have always felt that issue 100 is the toughest of the three X-Men 30 cent price variants. Because it has a white cover and issues 98 and 99 have black covers, I think that X-Men 100 is generally found in higher grade than the other two issues. Anyway, this is a very nice copy of the book for $455 and they don't come around very often so it is not surprising that this is a record price for this book in this grade. The last time that this issue in this grade sold was five years ago in 2007 - so these are pretty rare.

Amazing Spider-Man 155

The price level for CGC 9.6 examples of Amazing Spider-Man 155 seems to be comfortably at $400+ with the recent sale of two books. There are only two examples graded higher at 9.8 and only five copies graded 9.6. Nice copies of the regular edition normally bring about $75, so this is a relative bargain as a price variant.

Iron Fist 5

A CGC 9.6 Iron Fist 5 30 cent price variant brought $250 in a recent ebay transaction. Although advertised as the highest graded, it is actually the second highest grade behind two 9.8 copies of this book. Iron Fist books have a large collector base and nice price variant examples always bring strong prices - don't get me started on the 35 cent books.

Doctor Strange 16

The single highest graded example the 30 cent price variant Doctor Strange 16 sold for $650 in an ebay auction. White pages and a full starburst and a CGC grade of 9.8 make this the best Doctor Strange price variant that I have ever seen. I am also certain that there is not a nicer one out there as this is absolutely as nice as they come.

Tomb of Darkness 21

The single highest example of one of my favorite 30 cent price variants recently traded hands for $750 on ebay. It a beautiful copy of this black-covered, atomic bomb button cover, horror book which, like the other horror variants, is extremely hard to find, particularly in high-grade.

Logan's Run in Good sells for $200 bucks

Here is an example of a real sleeper book. First, it is a very hard to find 35 cent variant of a minor title which makes it even tougher. Second, it has a back-up story which just happens to be the first solo story of Thanos. Thanos is going to be the main protagonist of the next Avengers movie so this is a very important book. This is also why a beater copy of this book would bring $200 bucks at auction. Watch what happens when the movie comes out.

Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld, DC, 35 cent price variant

I haven't spoken about them much, but there are a couple of interesting DC price variant books. I don't know many collectors of the Amethyst title, but there are several collectors of the price variant books which is a very short series. Recently, a CGC 9.4 copy brought $225 in an ebay auction.

Ghost Rider 24

A very nice copy of Ghost Rider 24 found by the best variant hunter of them all was recently auctioned on ebay for $282.

Conan 75 in CGC 9.4 brings strong coin

A very nice Conan 75 brought $315 in a recent ebay auction. It is one of only two books certified at the 9.4 level with only one book certified higher at 9.6. This is a record price for the issue and for comparison, a 9.8 of the issue would normally fetch $50.

A very nice "raw" Captain America 214 on the "bay"

A very nice example of the 35 cent variant edition of Captain America 214 brought $585 in a spirited ebay auction. It is always difficult to tell from the scan but the book appears to be the nicest that I have seen particularly since the highest certified by CGC is 8.5. This book is almost certainly nicer.

GPA's Analysis of Certified Sales of Variants for September 2012

Here is a screenshot of GPA's analysis of sales of certified price variants books. I highly recommend their service for any serious collector of high grade books. You will notice the $2225 sale for a CGC 9.6 X-Men 98 30 cent price variant. What an incredible book!

I also regularly get people asking me about Star Wars 1 price variants. As you can see, nice mid-grade copies trade for $2000 so it is unreasonable to expect that you are going to land one of the NM- or better copies cheaply. In fact, there is enough demand that these books are on the rise again.

Friday, August 17, 2012

Certified Variant sales as reported by GPAnalysis for the August 2012

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Important Iron Fist 14 sale sets record

CGC boardie Keldog sent me a message about an important sale of an exceptionally high-grade Iron Fist 14 35 cent variant. High-grade dealer Greg Reese's Rare Comics sold this CGC 9.2 copy of this key bronze-age issue. The sales site shows the comic as sold with the price shown as $6000. GPAnalysis reports the final sale as $5600. Since the last reported sale of a CGC 9.2 Iron Fist 14 was $4100, this is a new record for the book. This sale amount is also higher than the last reported sale of one of the two 9.4 copies in existence in 2006 for $5100. Your guess is as good as mine, but this sales implies a five figure value for a 9.4 copy in today's market.

Kid Colt 219 ebay sale

A couple blogs ago, I mentioned that a great variant hunter had found a lot with at least two Kid Colt 35 cent variants. Well the second Kid Colt auction ended and again produced expected results. $413.28 for what could only be described as a Poor to Fair copy. I don't think there are any other bronze age comics which would sell for this kind of money in this condition except for 35 cent price variants. In fact, I am not sure that there are many silver age comics that would sell for this kind of money in this condition. A poor Amazing Fantasy 15 which is the key silver age comic and the first appearance of Spider-Man would sell for between $1000 and $1500.

Monday, June 18, 2012

Avengers 147 30 cent price variant latest addition to the 4 Figure Club

A sensational example of Avengers 147 30 cent price variant was recently auctioned by Heritage. It is the latest price variant issue to crack the $1000 dollar barrier. It is not surprising because of the popularity of the Avengers movie, the popularity of the Avengers comic book title, and the popularity of the marvel price variants. The single highest graded example of this issue by two grades (followed by 2 9.4s) this auction was sure to bring the excitement and it did not disappoint.

Some other notable Price Variant Sales.

On ComicLink,

On ebay

one of the best if not the best 30 cent variant collection ever sold,

another good ebay seller,

From Heritage

Arrrgh. I was out of the country and missed this one. Kid Colt 218!!!!!!

I went to China for a week and completely missed this one. One of the best variant hunters found a zero feedback seller listing a lot consisting of several issues of bronze age dreckage. He smartly noticed that the seller was in Toledo, Ohio which we think is one of the test areas for selling 35 cent variants and that despite the sketchy pictures, this lot was worth the $50 bucks that the seller was asking. Why would this normally ignored box of bronze age beaters be worth $50, you ask? Well check the scan and look closely in the middle.

The variant hunter received the books and correctly listed the Kid Colt 218 as the super rare Kid Colt 218 35 cent price variant and the auction closed at $540. Yes, $540 in VG, and I can assure you that the buyer was ecstatic. If I had seen the auction, the book would have gone higher, but still it wasn't a bad return for the seller. In my opinion, sometimes 3 day auctions get missed, I think that a 7 day or 10 day auction would have achieved even better results for this book.

Ohh, and by the way, the lot also contained an even more beat-up Kid Colt 219. We will see how that one does.

GPA variant report for May

As I have written before, GPAnalysis is the best source of information on certified comic sales. I highly recommend a subscription if for no other reason than getting the market reports. One of the market reports is the price variant sales report. This is the report for May 2012.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Some Notable 35 Cent Variant Sales on Ebay

It appears that several new collectors have entered the 35 cent variant fray. I have missed out on three books that I need in the past four weeks with what I thought were strong bids but in actuality wasn't even close.

John Carter 1