Top 200 Rarest Valiant books 2012-present? (2018 UPDATE)

[markie7235]

Ahhh, I guess I never knew what the line wide designation meant, but that makes sense.

Are there any rough estimates on how many of these exist? I know they show up on occasion but not very often. I also noticed there's not a lot that have been submitted for grading. Not sure if that's because condition on many was poor due to lower quality paper at the time or just lack of interest in grading on it. Looks like only 22 have been submitted to CGC st this time, which seems really low

[greg]

Ahhh, I guess I never knew what the line wide designation meant, but that makes sense.

Are there any rough estimates on how many of these exist? I know they show up on occasion but not very often. I also noticed there's not a lot that have been submitted for grading. Not sure if that's because condition on many was poor due to lower quality paper at the time or just lack of interest in grading on it. Looks like only 22 have been submitted to CGC st this time, which seems really low

We've got something of a mystery for most of the Valiant variants, since we were told that Valiant printed at least 1,000 (if not 1,200 or 1,500) of all the ratio variants in 2012 and possibly 2013, but we have also been told that unsold variants were destroyed several months after re-orders and returns for damages had been completed. It is very hard for me to believe that a box (or multiple boxes) of variants worth $25 or even $5 each would be destroyed when they could easily be moved elsewhere, used as giveaways, etc., so I am struggling with what to believe about variants which should have 1,000+ copies being actually limited to just a few hundred copies. I also have a problem believing that a 1:100 variant for a book that sold 12,000 copies would only have 120 variants printed. It seems far more likely that at least 500 copies are printed for everything, except the special manufacturing books like the brushed metal covers... those would probably be essentially hand-made and could easily be limited to however many needed to be hand-made.

Whether there are 120 or 240 or 2,400 copies for a given book doesn't mean much if they are impossible to locate and only show up in the market once or twice a year. The problem is "how much to pay" if there's always a chance that someone has 100 copies (or 1,000 copies) that they can release into the market anytime they feel like it. That uncertainty makes the market really hard to predict.

[markie7235]

Thanks, that all makes sense. I have someone willing to sell me a 9.8 grader copy that I'm considering, but was just trying to get a better feeling on the actual rarity.

Like I mentioned, I can see 22 copies have been graded, but I know there's more out there than that. Was trying to figure out if this was because a high grade copy is really that rare, or just lack of interest in grading this book. Given it's the first appearance of Shan Fong, I would have thought there would be more interest in grading. I know from books i have from that time, the paper quality was not as good, so many of these early variants were tough to obtain in 9.8 condition, even when brand new from the publisher.

While I wont say how much they are asking, I will say it is between what a 9.8 copy went for over the last 3 years according to the valiantfans price tracking guide. So just trying to decide, or get advice on how likely it is to find a 9.8 grader copy again in let's say the $300 to $450 price range given how few have been graded.

[greg]

You didn't mention the grading company, so I'll just say that if it happens to be a PGX 9.8, you should price it as if it wasn't graded at all.

I've probably already said everything I can about what likelihood there is for more of these. It's possible, but we're now talking about a 5 year old comic, so a significant number of them being sent to CGC now would take someone who stockpiled early or someone who has access to the unsold stack/boxes. There aren't many people who stockpiled, so the risk is probably the unsold stack scenario... which is true of pretty much every Valiant 2012-current variant.

[markie7235]

Hey, sorry, it is CGC graded. Thanks, your input really helped and I decided to get it. Been one I have sought for awhile, and instead 9f chasing a cheaper ungraded version in Hope's of getting a 9.8, just getting the 9.8 seemed like a good choice since the issue doesnt come up often and so few have graded 9.8 in 5 years

[Joshua]

Was the Bloodshot Bear variant for Bloodshot Salvation 1 only available if you bought the bear? I wonder how many of those are out there?