Curious....

[Peter Parker]

Two key elements in this discussion are: quality of production and print run.

Take any book from the 1990s other publishers, and with few exceptions,
there are hundreds of thousands of copies available, with decades of
printing experience under the belt of the publisher. Even Dark Horse
had already been around about 10 years by the mid-1990s.
Problems with the printing process would/should have been ironed
out for the other publishers years before... and they would have been
into a consistent routine for printing.

As far as the Valiant quality of production goes... consistency was hard to find.
The early Valiants (pre-Unity) had "something unusual" going on just about every issue...
Magnus - had the thick trading cards in the middle, #12 has an insert story
Solar - has the Alpha & Omega insert, #10 has the smudgy-cardstock cover
Harbinger - had the coupons, easily splitting-covers, sometimes 3 staples
Rai - somehow wasn't cut correctly, has tilted or miscut covers
X-O Manowar - was the only "normal production" early title

If we check the CGC census counts for these pre-Unity books...
http://www.valiantcomics.com/valiant/valiantcgc.asp
we can see that only about 1/4 to 1/3 of the pre-Unity issues are CGC 9.8
whenever there was "something extra" happening with the production process.

Fox X-O Manowar, CGC 9.8 occurs about 1/2 of the time...
and the same is true for Shadowman... also a "normal" production process.

That doesn't mean that 1/2 of the copies in existence are 9.8...
but of those deemed "CGC-worthy", about 1/2 have been 9.8.
(Pre-screening and selective submissions can play a big part in this process)

Given that none of these pre-Unity books has a print run of even 100,000,
we're talking about "fewer out there" than the 1990s books of their 'competitiors'.

Of course the lower print runs mean lower supply...
but quality of production is probably just as important.

If there are "fewer out there" and there are known "production concerns"...
then it's understandable that the earliest Valiant books generally
are harder to find in CGC 9.8 than other books of the day.

Excellent post, boss man as usual.

FYI:...try finding copies of Platinum Spider-Man# 1 in 9.8 grade

also, the "big 2" have had printing numbers in years past in the 300,000 range, per issue...so sheer numbers of books in the market place, will naturally produce more high grade examples as well.

Pre-Unity Valiants have long legs IMO...which is good news for all

ps

for those annoying "comics were meant to be read crowd"...i've already read them, so i'm into the "collectible" phase with them at this point get it?

[Ricomortis]

That doesn't mean that 1/2 of the copies in existence are 9.8...
but of those deemed "CGC-worthy", about 1/2 have been 9.8.
(Pre-screening and selective submissions can play a big part in this process)

This is what I assume plays the biggest part. People are getting good at submitting only hg comics. They know what not to even bother with.

Take me for instance, I have tons of pre-unities but continually send in only the 9.8 candidates, and an occasional 9.6 candidate. If you think about it, out of all the valiant pre-unity/ variant submissions... how many are from just me and ckb alone? Is it people don't have them? Don't know how to send them to get graded? Don't want to sell them? are just clueless to valiant? trashed like some have mentioned? People think they can't make a profit off of them? yea right!

I guess the best question greg would be, what % would you consider one of the issues that say have 35,000 print run like rai #3 would you consider to be 9.8?

Imo... as more are submitted to cgc threw the years it will be scewed(sp). Less and less mid to hg comics will be submitted compared to the nm/m's. This will make it seem as if there are more out there than there really is.

[ckb]

Skewed, right. If Greg really wanted to play with the math, he could throw in the "time" factor, and show the acceleration/deceleration of the number books as they were graded. His granularity is limited to the census updates, and I don't know if he has the back data to try it.

With the data, you can take the number of books over time as a function and take the derivative/integral (sorry my higher math ability is escaping me at the moment due to disuse) to map the rate of change over time.

I'm not sure anything would go to expose the pre-pre-screen factor, but it would give us an idea of how fast the slabs are coming out of Sarasota.

Another big fear of mine is that in the future I will inadvertantly buy back raw books that I have already eliminated from going to CGC (or were kicked at a pre-screen) thinking they are candidates. Anyone know any invisible ink I can mark the books with and hit it with a special light later on?

[X-O HoboJoe]

Skewed, right. If Greg really wanted to play with the math, he could throw in the "time" factor, and show the acceleration/deceleration of the number books as they were graded. His granularity is limited to the census updates, and I don't know if he has the back data to try it.

With the data, you can take the number of books over time as a function and take the derivative/integral (sorry my higher math ability is escaping me at the moment due to disuse) to map the rate of change over time.

I'm not sure anything would go to expose the pre-pre-screen factor, but it would give us an idea of how fast the slabs are coming out of Sarasota.

Another big fear of mine is that in the future I will inadvertantly buy back raw books that I have already eliminated from going to CGC (or were kicked at a pre-screen) thinking they are candidates. Anyone know any invisible ink I can mark the books with and hit it with a special light later on?

Not if you want it to pass a resto check.

The only idea I've seen that comes close to this is to put the book in a nice mylite and backer and mark those with whatever ID you want. As long as they stay in that bag, you're golden. A black-light will reveal the mark. Too crappy a bag and they get replaced; too nice a bag and they'll get used for someone's nice books.

And here you thought you were joking.

[400yrs]

You think they'd get the PLOD from a small invisible mark? I think it would take off on the books since it's not really like a date stamped or written or a grease pen slash. Getting the PLOD for that would be harsh though. I do agree that CGC would most likely catch it and deduct for it.

[ckb]

You think they'd get the PLOD from a small invisible mark? I think it would take off on the books since it's not really like a date stamped or written or a grease pen slash. Getting the PLOD for that would be harsh though. I do agree that CGC would most likely catch it and deduct for it.

Since if I find the mark, I know not to send them to CGC, who cares?

[400yrs]

You think they'd get the PLOD from a small invisible mark? I think it would take off on the books since it's not really like a date stamped or written or a grease pen slash. Getting the PLOD for that would be harsh though. I do agree that CGC would most likely catch it and deduct for it.

Since if I find the mark, I know not to send them to CGC, who cares?

Oh, now I get what you are saying. In that case, mark away. I wouldn't really want to buy books that I know have been marked, but then again I'm only willing to spend money right now on high grade books anyways which would most likely preclude those that didn't pass someone's pre-screening for cgc. What the buyers don't know won't hurt them, I guess.

[X-O HoboJoe]

You think they'd get the PLOD from a small invisible mark? I think it would take off on the books since it's not really like a date stamped or written or a grease pen slash. Getting the PLOD for that would be harsh though. I do agree that CGC would most likely catch it and deduct for it.

Since if I find the mark, I know not to send them to CGC, who cares?

Oh, now I get what you are saying. In that case, mark away. I wouldn't really want to buy books that I know have been marked, but then again I'm only willing to spend money right now on high grade books anyways which would most likely preclude those that didn't pass someone's pre-screening for cgc. What the buyers don't know won't hurt them, I guess.

Ya got me there, I didn't even think of that. As long as no-one else sends it in . . . maybe an unobtrusive inviso check mark on the inside back cover?