Flashback Friday – One Year Later

A year ago, we spec’d on new books hitting the shelves. Now it’s time to see what books from a year ago are doing now on the secondary and direct market.

Last year by this time, we had two Wednesdays in the month of April. April 3rd and April 10th. So we’ll be reviewing those weeks from last year.

Now the top selling books from those two weeks.

Anyone remember Amber Blake? This oversized magazine format book from IDW caused all the rave with it’s 1:10 Nodet covers. Considering it’s sales numbers were only 3,553 which equates to that range for the print run as well, no wonder these were hard to come by as I doubt most shops even ordered 10 copies to even qualify. So the actual number of the ratio will always be a true mystery.

What’s this one doing a year later? Well, a few listings still have their BIN prices around the $80 range while an auction ended at $26 (appears to be in the F/VF type grade, the pics showed some nasty spine dings and creases) and a CGC 9.8 ended at $157 (from what I recall, these were not packaged well with protection so finding one in 9.8 is going to be a hard find). Two other recent solds were best offer taken from a list price of $29.99.

Immortal Hulk was still all the rave this time last year with most back issues commanding premiums but I believe Immortal Hulk #16 was the start of the decline as retailers really started to bump their orders and then Marvel started the ratio game to entice more orders. The sales numbers that included the additional prints were around the 90k figure. Prior to this issue, most issues were averaging the 40-50k print/sales run number.

Some loved the 1:25 variant while others thought it was awful. Midtown still trying to sell theirs for $90 (after their 40% discount) when a recent CGC 9.8 sold for $70 and another raw BIN sold for $40.

If this is one you need for your Immortal Hulk collection, buy on the secondary, seems you can snag it at a deal compared to what retailers might be trying to off load them at.

Good ‘ol Rob Liefeld introduced his brand new character last year that saw some love initially.

Major X #1 made his first appearance! Wait, no he didn’t, Rob got a little pissy (if I recall correctly) when he found out they snuck in a cameo that predates his issue in Spider-Man/Deadpool #47.

These reached the $20 range, stuck around the $10 range for a while and is now what I’d consider a cover price book for the most part.

I’m not a Liefeld fan but you know, this could be that character 20 years from now Marvel does something with, with a better artist, they make him more relevant and then these are sought after. I say if you got a copy or two, shove them in the longbox and don’t pull them out for say 2 decades or maybe 3 and we’ll see if you can make any money off them then.

Those are the highlight books worth mentioning from a year ago. Not a whole lot going on after a year.

2 thoughts on “Flashback Friday – One Year Later”

  1. Cheers Agentpoyo,
    Your point about store Major X in a long box for 2 to 3 decades ring strong with me. Ive only been back into comic buying for the last three years after a hiatus from the early 90s. I get to thank ‘young me’ with every ebay sale of comic from that era I have sold plus there is an element of time travel going back to decades old long boxes, bought from long gone comic shops. I have Major X #1 and im in no rush to sell it. Your right you never know. Stay safe CHU people.

    1. Re ‘element of time travel’….I know exactly what your talking about, Steven. You’re comic story sounds a lot like mine.

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