Welcome to the 7th One Week Later Report for 2021.
This week we’ll cover the books released on 02/10/2020, which was last week and yes, I’m doing this on a Thursday instead of Wednesday since I think a large majority of shops had books delayed. I know people here in Texas aren’t even leaving their homes since it’s still icy, no power and no water in a lot of areas. I’m sure most won’t be able to get out and get books until this weekend
These can be books we anticipated getting hot, total surprise winners and perhaps books that got hyped and ended up as duds. Also could be a good list to use when out picking up this weeks books for you Wednesday Warriors..
First up, DC’s Future State Teen Titans #1 2nd Printing. Lots are banking on this new Red X character, securing the first appearances.
Pre-sales and FOMO caused this to go as high as $39.99 on one single issue sale back in January with others then following around the $30 range. Not so much love now though, only fetching a few bucks above cover price on most recent solds with a few auctions that ended at a whopping $3.25 on February 15th.
So if you missed out, now’s the time to buy as you can likely snag some deals. There’s still a few hopeful sellers out there though that are still trying to offload these around the $20 to $30 range.. DC seem to be quick flips nowadays. If you know you can secure copies and list ahead of release day, that’s the only real way to win most of the time with DC titles.
Future State Teen Titans #2 also was a hot book briefly. Reaching around the $20 to $30 range for Cover B but has since settled down as well. It is a pretty slick looking Nguyen cover. Seems a lot of folks were
The hot Star Wars series High Republic #1 gave us a 3rd printing. Easy to get, not huge demand so it’s not doing much on the secondary. A few over cover price but bundled with sets of the first and second printings do well for those invested and wanting to dump copies.
A surprise hit came out of Taskmaster #3 which has a first appearance of Taegukgi.
There was a 1:25 variant as well. Most recent sold went for a whopping $242 as an auction. Love those actual demand type of sales. It truly tells the market what people are willing to spend on a book instead of the retailers and sellers “setting their own price” with buy it nows to test the market..
The last book on this list goes to the Shepherd #1 Mack Variant. Pretty cool cover, saw some sales flirting upwards of $20 but it seems as if it was brief, as prices seem to be coming down now.
Just a rant. The usps seems to be charging me more later on once a package has been delivered. Saying an 8 oz package actually weighed 13 oz. may not seen like a lot but it’s about an extra $2. I weigh my packages and buy thru eBay. What a joke.
I’ve had the same thing happen with Priority Mail. I was using the regional rate box and was unaware that if the box is shipped out of the region, the charge is more. Now I avoid the regional rate boxes and offer only Priority and Media Mail and always list the lowest weight as 1lb. I’ve not been up-charged by the post office in over six months.
Using Media Mail can bite you because the USPS will pass the charge onto the recipient and they can pay it or refuse it. Then you lose the sale and the postage. Always get a receipt when you drop the package off. If you get charged more later, submit the receipt and you’ll get your money back.
The USPS has become a pathetic joke. They keep blaming their inability to operate efficiently on Covid, unprecedented amounts of packages, holidays, blah, blah, blah. How many months does a situation have to exist before it transitions from unprecedented to precedented? Covid has nothing to do with needlessly transporting packages thousands of miles in the opposite direction from where they are destined (this was happeninglong before Covid-19 existed) . I think it’s a freaking crime to accept payment on 2 or 3 day Priority shipping when they know damned well that they can’t even come close to meeting those deadlines in many cases. FedEx and UPS are facing many of the same obstacles as the Post Office and have found ways to adapt and overcome. I get a weekly shipment of comics via FedEx that leaves Wisconsin Tuesday evening and is on my doorstep in Ohio Thursday afternoon. I’ve shipped packages via USPS from NW Ohio to SE Michigan and had them travel all the way to Iowa and back and then sit in a facility in Michigan for weeks before being delivered. 2 Day Priority. Rant over. Have a nice day.
You do realize the USPS operations far exceed what UPS and Fedex do annually right? For example, a quick lookup brought up in 2018 that the USPS had an operating revenue of 69 Billion dollars while FedEx only had around 4 billion in 2018.
While USPS delivers to every address in the United States, Fedex and UPS will hand their packages off to the regions they don’t or can’t deliver to.
Yes, so USPS has issues, they take on way more than FedEx and UPS do in not only terms of mail delivery but other services as well.
A fun fact I once learned, one of the most unusual mail methods still in use by the USPS is that they actually use mules to deliver mail to the Havasupai Indians which is a 8 mile trail to the bottom of the Grand Canyon where they live. Betcha won’t see Fedex or UPS deliver goods by mule.. 😉