What happened to the Rai TPB Blue??

shaxper · Post by **shaxper** » Thu May 20, 2004 11:09 am

It jumped from 5,000 copies to 20,000 in the guide! I just bought three of them two weeks ago because of the ridiculously low print run. How do print runs change in the guide so drastically? Did 15,000 more copies surface on ebay last month? Where did the original 5,000 stat come from? This is all very confusing.

greg · Post by **greg** » Thu May 20, 2004 1:20 pm

Technically, it could still be 5,000 copies.

The print run is now estimated to be "less than 20,000 copies".

The blue version of the trade paperbacks appear a little too often
to guarantee that there are "no more than" 5,000 copies out there.
It's possible that there are more than 5,000 copies...
but there probably aren't more than 20,000.

The original 5,000 number most likely carried over to the blue variants
because the Gold variants were limited to 5,000 copies. (Well, most were.)

No one knows for sure (at least no one who's sure they know for sure),
so... like the Solar Hardcover, it's better to revise the estimates towards
the most likely answer than to insist on something less likely.

Most of the Valiant books with print runs under 20,000
sell for around double the cover price, if not more...
Since those blue trades originally cost $10...
they're probably still undervalued at $18 or less.

Hoosierdaddy · Post by **Hoosierdaddy** » Thu May 20, 2004 1:59 pm

That raises a few questions for me Greg.

Which variant issues are the rarest? Gold? Silver? Pink?

How many TPB's were published. Variants?

Is the Solar hardback edition of Alpha/Omega the only hardback which Valiant published?

whetteon · Post by **whetteon** » Thu May 20, 2004 2:08 pm

greg wrote: The blue version of the trade paperbacks appear a little too often
to guarantee that there are "no more than" 5,000 copies out there.

This statement worries me because we know for a fact that Rai #9 gold is limited to 5,500 copies yet anytime of the day/week your sure to see 2-3 issues being sold on eBay.

hmm..

greg · Post by **greg** » Thu May 20, 2004 2:21 pm

whetteon wrote:
greg wrote: The blue version of the trade paperbacks appear a little too often
to guarantee that there are "no more than" 5,000 copies out there.
This statement worries me because we know for a fact that Rai #9 gold is limited to 5,500 copies yet anytime of the day/week your sure to see 2-3 issues being sold on eBay.

hmm..

Actually, it's the relationship between Harbinger TPB 'regular'
and Harbinger TPB 'blue' that is more important for the estimate.
(And Rai, and X-O tpbs)

I've been tracking these books for five years, and I've easily seen
at least one-in-five copies of the TPBs have been blue.
Since they were printed over 100,000 copies each,
a one-in-five ratio would be 20,000.

However, the more valuable books are more likely to be sold online,
so I would estimate that 20,000 is the "top number"
and 5,000 is the "bottom number"...
so declaring that the estimated print run is "less than 20,000"
seems to cover the bases pretty well.

P.S. Seeing dozens of unsold copies of Harbinger TPB blue and Harbinger TPB regular
in that warehouse also lends evidence that blues aren't THAT special.

Vault-Keeper · Post by **Vault-Keeper** » Thu May 20, 2004 2:24 pm

message deleted

greg · Post by **greg** » Thu May 20, 2004 2:26 pm

Steve G. wrote:All of the "Blue" TPB's were offered from Diamond only, as part of their "Star System" roster of TPB's. You couldn't get one from Capital or Heroes World.

Kevin Van Hook should know more about this, as he was Production Manager before he was elevated to Editor position. If he doesn't catch this thread, I'll write to him about it, like I did with the Rai #0 Glossy.

The print run on an of these Blue variants probably IS 5,000 or less. The Solar Hardcover WAS solicited as a limited copy of 2,000. That's where that number comes from. It helps to have a near complete set of old Previews & Advanced Comics Catalogues for reference.---Steve G

Ahhh... the man I wanted to hear from...
EVIDENCE for those old numbers.
How's about sending me some scans of those solicitations
where the print runs are mentioned?

shaxper · Post by **shaxper** » Thu May 20, 2004 3:10 pm

It's fascinating how you guys keep abreast of all of this info.

In the meantime, I'll be praying my Rai tpbs are limited to 5,000. For what it's worth, the owner of the LCS from which I acquired them could not remember how he'd obtained them. The three I'd picked up were the only blue editions he had, and had been sitting there for a very long time. No one knew they were special, and just thought it was an uglier color for the cover than the black one. He actually had more blue than black as a result. I'd speculate that may be the reason so many blue Rai tpbs have surfaced over the years. It may be an indication of a color preference rather than an indication of print run.

mrwoogieman · Post by **mrwoogieman** » Thu May 20, 2004 3:36 pm

I always thought the Harbinger blue bird edition was more rare than X-O or Rai, but maybe that was because I seemed to see more of the latter than the former.

I did snag a blue bird for $2 last month.

dino · Post by **dino** » Thu May 20, 2004 3:39 pm

I remember reading somewhere (and ive been looking for it eversince) that the harbinger blue was limited to 5000 as a variant and that the rai and xo blues were just 2nd prints and were printed to something like 10-15 000

ckb · Post by **ckb** » Thu May 20, 2004 3:54 pm

If they came like the Harbinger Blue birds, they just came with your Star System order when you exceeded a certain $$ amount. I was ordering from Diamond at the time, and I remember selling hundreds of dollars of TPBs at cost in order to order enough to get the Bluebird.

shaxper wrote:It's fascinating how you guys keep abreast of all of this info.

In the meantime, I'll be praying my Rai tpbs are limited to 5,000. For what it's worth, the owner of the LCS from which I acquired them could not remember how he'd obtained them. The three I'd picked up were the only blue editions he had, and had been sitting there for a very long time. No one knew they were special, and just thought it was an uglier color for the cover than the black one. He actually had more blue than black as a result. I'd speculate that may be the reason so many blue Rai tpbs have surfaced over the years. It may be an indication of a color preference rather than an indication of print run.

cinlach@aol.com · Post by **cinlach@aol.com** » Thu May 20, 2004 8:25 pm

the comic store i used to work for here in town used diamond too and that rai/harbinger blue exclusive thing sounds very, very familiar.
that sounds right to me on the numbers too.
but who knows, i've always been kinda wary of those "limited to 5,000" copies kinda things...i mean, has anyone ever seen any actual print numbers on anything like that.
not that i'm saying valiant did that but i bet there had to be some companies that fudged a little on their production numbers.