Valiant collecting... the INSANE 5

[greg]

All signs (Previews and Comichron) point to these 5 books being the most insane variants to locate (apart from errors or golden tickets) from Valiant 2012-2015.

[paradise]

All signs (Previews and Comichron) point to these 5 books being the most insane variants to locate (apart from errors or golden tickets) from Valiant 2012-2015.

LOL, that last one (inside joke)

[greg]

LOL, that last one (inside joke)

The early bird gets the first pick from yesterday's leftovers.

[nycjadie]

What I love about these particular issues is (a) I believe I have all of them , (b) 3 of them have iconic and amazing covers. So often the high ratio variants don't always have the best covers. Those that do usually are pretty sought after. I've always loved the early Unity rarities, and the AH4 variant here is an iconic cover. Unfortunately, I don't have any of these in 9.8, so the quest continues!

[sonicdan]

Good info. Thanks, Greg!

[greg]

These might not be the rarest Valiant books according to VEI records, but we don't have those records. We have Previews and Comichron and those two sources point to these 5. I'll happily correct my data with something official, if it is ever provided.

[JCP]

Any of you guys have any duplicates of these you'd like to part with?

[Dr Noel]

I find this odd. I don't remember having trouble getting any of these variants. I bought them all online when they first came out. I think I even got an extra set of Unity 5 because of Ed. But Shadowman 13 Davis, EW #5 Mack, and Unity #2 Braithwaite took me months to track down.

[greg]

I find this odd. I don't remember having trouble getting any of these variants. I bought them all online when they first came out. I think I even got an extra set of Unity 5 because of Ed. But Shadowman 13 Davis, EW #5 Mack, and Unity #2 Braithwaite took me months to track down.

I've bolded the key phrase from your quote. Dealers who had these didn't do anything special with them... they sold them pretty much the week they arrived for whatever price was standard.
Looking back now, if you didn't get them in the first week... you may not get them without significant time/resources.

It's not like the 3 you mentioned are easy, though. They're in the "Top 20" according to Previews/Comichron calculations.

[nycjadie]

Greg - What are your estimates on these books? Less than 200 I assume?

[depluto]

Didn't Dinesh say somewhere that the 1:40 Divinity 1 variant was the lowest print run VEI book at 350 copies, or am I "misremembering?"

And if every shop that didn't order 40 of that book didn't receive a 1:40 variant, does that mean there is a storeroom somewhere with all the extras? And does that apply to all the variants? Are they all distributed or are some left over each month due to some shops ordering short? Or say a shop ordered 60 Divinity 1s .... did they just get a single 1:40 and 3 1:20s?

[Valiant One]

Hey Greg,

Strong work!

Can you post the top 25 in order of scarcity, with estimated numbers for each?

Thanks,

Ed

[DirtbagSailor]

Mail call...



(Yes, I will trade and/or sell...)

[nycjadie]

A beauty.

[Dr Noel]

[greg]

Greg - What are your estimates on these books? Less than 200 I assume?

Didn't Dinesh say somewhere that the 1:40 Divinity 1 variant was the lowest print run VEI book at 350 copies, or am I "misremembering?"

And if every shop that didn't order 40 of that book didn't receive a 1:40 variant, does that mean there is a storeroom somewhere with all the extras? And does that apply to all the variants? Are they all distributed or are some left over each month due to some shops ordering short? Or say a shop ordered 60 Divinity 1s .... did they just get a single 1:40 and 3 1:20s?

All good questions... and we don't have the answers.

Dinesh probably said that 1:40 Divinity 1 variant was "one of" the lowest print run VEI books, but I doubt if it was the lowest.
It's about 50th lowest if you use Previews ratios and Comichron numbers.

Again, this isn't fact... because Valiant can print whatever they want for any books... but it is "documentable information" to use Previews/Comichron as estimates.

Archer & Armstrong #25 sold 6,262 copies according to Comichron.com.
A&A #25 had a 1:10, a 1:20, and a 1:50 variant.
(Ignore this section if you don't like math. 1/10th, 1/20th, and 1/50th of the copies ordered were incentive variants. That means 17% were incentives. Divide 6,262 by 117% to get the number of non-incentives, which is 5,352.)
The number of non-incentive A&A #25 books is estimated to be 5,352 according to the math (which it's OK if you skipped).

A 1:50 variant on 5,352 copies would be 108 copies. The Previews/Comichron estimate for A&A #25 1:50 variant is 108 copies.
If Valiant decided to print 500, that would be fine. Valiant can do whatever it wants, but the Previews/Comichron numbers for all the Valiant books does not have any with a lower estimate than A&A #25 1:50 variant.

The other 4 books in the first post are the next 4 in the "lowest Previews/Comichron" estimate calculations.

[Elveen]

The Divinity #1 1:40 number is correct. 350(ish).

I am sure of that. The cover B for #1 is also VERY low.

[greg]

The Divinity #1 1:40 number is correct. 350(ish).

I am sure of that. The cover B for #1 is also VERY low.

I'm sure it's 350 copies if that's what the ones who know have said. We don't have that kind of info for every Valiant book. The Previews/Comichron estimate for Divinity #1 1:40 is 257 copies. That gives us an idea. It's probably a safe bet that every number we can calculate from Previews/Comichron is too low. As mentioned before, Valiant can print as many as they want and the Comichron numbers are not all worldwide sales, they're single-month North American sales. As far as relative rankings go... they should be pretty close. If these aren't good "relative rankings", then Valiant would have to randomly print a lot of extra incentives for non-gold, non-first-issue variants without any particular reason for doing so.

[FormerReader]

Interesting work Greg. You may have just opened a can of worms trying to answer the question on print runs.

[greg]

Interesting work Greg. You may have just opened a can of worms trying to answer the question on print runs.

The cool thing about having online sources that can be double-checked is that I'm just the messenger.

[FormerReader]

Interesting work Greg. You may have just opened a can of worms trying to answer the question on print runs.

The cool thing about having online sources that can be double-checked is that I'm just the messenger.

[Dallow Spicer1]

Greg - What are your estimates on these books? Less than 200 I assume?

Didn't Dinesh say somewhere that the 1:40 Divinity 1 variant was the lowest print run VEI book at 350 copies, or am I "misremembering?"

And if every shop that didn't order 40 of that book didn't receive a 1:40 variant, does that mean there is a storeroom somewhere with all the extras? And does that apply to all the variants? Are they all distributed or are some left over each month due to some shops ordering short? Or say a shop ordered 60 Divinity 1s .... did they just get a single 1:40 and 3 1:20s?

All good questions... and we don't have the answers.

Dinesh probably said that 1:40 Divinity 1 variant was "one of" the lowest print run VEI books, but I doubt if it was the lowest.
It's about 50th lowest if you use Previews ratios and Comichron numbers.

Again, this isn't fact... because Valiant can print whatever they want for any books... but it is "documentable information" to use Previews/Comichron as estimates.

Archer & Armstrong #25 sold 6,262 copies according to Comichron.com.
A&A #25 had a 1:10, a 1:20, and a 1:50 variant.
(Ignore this section if you don't like math. 1/10th, 1/20th, and 1/50th of the copies ordered were incentive variants. That means 17% were incentives. Divide 6,262 by 117% to get the number of non-incentives, which is 5,352.)
The number of non-incentive A&A #25 books is estimated to be 5,352 according to the math (which it's OK if you skipped).

A 1:50 variant on 5,352 copies would be 108 copies. The Previews/Comichron estimate for A&A #25 1:50 variant is 108 copies.
If Valiant decided to print 500, that would be fine. Valiant can do whatever it wants, but the Previews/Comichron numbers for all the Valiant books does not have any with a lower estimate than A&A #25 1:50 variant.

The other 4 books in the first post are the next 4 in the "lowest Previews/Comichron" estimate calculations.

Are there many comic shops in the US who would order 50 copies of an issue of A&A who would qualify for a 1:50? DCBS, Collectors Paradise I'm sure but would there be more than 100 qualifying retailers? It

[greg]

Dinesh has said that they print all the 1:50 (or 1:20, 1:10, etc.) variants because there aren't normally a lot of leftovers and there is always a need to have extras in case of damages or if the artist wants copies, etc.

I think we're safe in assuming the books get printed, even if the retailers don't qualify for every copy.

[greg]

Ready for a Top 100 list?
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=47456" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[DirtbagSailor]

How does the Top 10 look now?