ChatGPT Explains Why You Should Collect Canadian Price Variants (CPVs)

By Benjamin Nobel, April 25, 2024

A recent headline caught my eye: Google search boss warns employees of ‘new operating reality,’ urges them to move faster. Apparently, at a recent “all-hands meeting” the leader of Google’s search division warned employees to prepare for a “new market reality” because “things are not like they were 15-20 years ago.” User behavior is changing, and competition is heating up; and although he didn’t “name names” competition-wise, CNBC’s reporter concluded that the pressure is coming from generative artificial intelligence — AI tools like ChatGPT.

Just the other day at home my son was showing me something ChatGPT had answered him about a rare truck, and a few moments later I wondered aloud, “gee, I wonder what ChatGPT would say about Canadian Price Variants?” He quickly tapped something into his phone, and within moments not only did it give him a highly sensible answer about why CPVs are great collectibles, but it did so even though his question had misspelled variant as “varient” (yet ChatGPT still fully understood what he wanted to know). Here’s what ChatGPT said:

I was quite impressed with ChatGPT’s answer above! Although I’m a little disappointed by the complete absence of the word “newsstand” in its answer, I do have to admit, the five points the AI bot makes are incredibly astute. Perhaps there is no longer any need for new collectors to learn about the appeal of CPVs from other humans — instead of industry experts, they can just ask the AI!

Meanwhile, in the world of actual human experts: a couple of weeks ago, three of my CPV Price Guide collaborators — Greg Holland, Doug Sulipa, and Angelo Virone — participated in a livestream entitled “A Guide to Canadian Price Variants Featuring Industry Experts Sulipa, Holland & Virone” hosted by Kevin Polidano. Below, I will juxtapose each of ChatGPT’s five points, against related context from some of the actual human discussion of CPVs from that livestream. Marrying these two worlds together — the generative AI world and the actual human expert world — perhaps will amplify the message, making even clearer the collectible appeal of CPVs.

“[Doug]: People didn’t save them and the difference is that the Canadian Price Variants are actually newsstand editions just like the US newsstand editions but the main difference is we have one 10th the population — so they’re about 10 times as scarce as the American newsstand editions…”

— Doug Sulipa at 7:36 into the livestream

Doug’s comments about the US vs. Canada population difference really hit the nail on the head in terms of a simple way for a collector to grasp the scarcity that ChatGPT talked about in point #1. With a handful of exceptions, CPVs are newsstand comics; and these days (sitting here in 2024), on account of CGC’s “Newsstand Edition” labeling decision, collectors broadly have already come to appreciate the incredible collectible appeal of copper and modern age newsstand comic books versus their prevalent direct edition counterparts.

In fact, if I go to eBay and I begin typing “CGC 9.8” into their search box, a list of suggested searches appears beneath, and wouldn’t you know it, nowadays “CGC 9.8 newsstand” even edges out “CGC 9.8 1st appearance” as a top search suggestion — indicating that loads of collectors must be out there searching specifically for newsstand comics to collect (hence eBay’s search tool learned it is an important search people are entering).

So, in this context, for collectors to approach CPVs — which after all are newsstand comics — from that newsstand-preference collecting perspective makes a whole lot of sense: and then from there the collecting choice comes down to which of the two newsstand versions do you want to collect? The regular cover price type, or the more-rare higher cover price type? (Or both?) One of my favorite visualizations relating to understanding that the US had ten times the population of Canada, is the below graphic, which appeared referenced in this 2018 article by Walter Durajlija:

Isn’t that a neat map? It divides up the US population into ten “units of Canada” (i.e. each colored area of the US has, alone, the same population as all of Canada) — each of which was distributed the regular US newsstand edition (with lower cover price)… versus “the real Canada” which was meanwhile distributed the higher cover price variant newsstand copies (the CPVs). [And part of “the real Canada” speaks French and may not have even bought English language newsstand comics.]

I like this point about the historical significance of CPVs: indeed, they mark only a short “window” of time during which instead of publishing their newsstand comics with both prices (a bold US price and a small-print CAN price), publishers instead produced two distinct batches of their newsstand comics: a single-price US newsstand type, plus a second single-price Canadian newsstand type (with a higher cover price). For the comic book publisher most popular among collectors, Marvel, their “CPV window” looks like this:

That’s it: it is just those handful of years in the 1980’s where we actually have Marvel comic book CPVs (because before the price variant window the same 60 cent standard cover price was charged in the US and Canada — i.e. just one batch of newsstand copies was printed — and after the price variant window there was again just one batch printed, this time with both the US and higher CAN prices shown).

During the price variant window, beyond the cover price difference everything about the two newsstand types was identical: they were published by the same publisher, manufactured at the same time, with the same ink, the same paper, the same contents. Hypothetically if you were to take a CPV and a pair of scissors and snip out just the price box from the cover, the resulting book is rendered indistinguishable from a regular newsstand copy.

“[Angelo]: Canadian price variant newsstands, they’re first prints, US-published, on the same printer, with the same ink. And people didn’t like those barcodes so they wanted a Spider-Man logo … it naturally evolved that ‘oh wow, now that we look back, well those are actually the ones that we should have collected because no one collected them!’”
— Angelo Virone, at 58:58 into the livestream

Indeed, part of the historical significance of newsstand comics of this era were “the nuances of the comic book distribution” of that time period — in summary, that collectors were busy buying (and preserving) the direct edition type over in comic shops, whereas the newsstand type was sold to the general public. As Greg Holland recalls, that meant a way different outcome as far as survivorship and preservation in top condition:

“[Greg]: If I was in a drugstore buying a comic book with my mother, number one she doesn’t want to give me the money for a comic book because she’s already having to buy prescriptions and they’re expensive. Meanwhile if you have a mother that takes you to the comic book shop — the real comic shop with the direct editions in the 1980s — and she takes you there every week she’s less likely to throw everything out (all that time and effort into it).

If you get a newsstand it’s because she already had to go to that store anyway, she already had to go to the grocery store, she already had to go to the pharmacy, she didn’t make a special trip for you to collect comics, she was doing other things and you went along with her — and she wanted to shut you up with a comic and maybe a candy bar and a Coke. That’s the moms who threw it all away: we know you threw away the candy bar wrapper, we know you threw away the Coke bottle, so why would you need to hang onto all those “shut-up-magazines?”

[Doug]: Don’t forget the wire racks and the dog-eared copies and all these other things…

[Greg]: Yeah bending them down and the one that actually happened to me, it was a grocery store in my town, and the magazine rack was next to the produce section — yeah — and so when they wanted to water the produce with mist, the water mist, it landed on the magazines. I can find some of my original comic books, and they just have the tiny little raised bubbles on the cover from each time they got misted when they were sitting in the grocery store.

[Doug]: And don’t forget, the newsstand editions, they slopped ink on the edges of a lot of the books too and made them look worse too, so that’s another reason that people wanted the direct ones, they didn’t have to put up with that anymore. Actually I think they kind of got rid of that practice somewhere in the mid to late 80s. And they used to date stamp them all and hand write the dates on the covers and a lot of people would hate that. And now there’s people who actually collect ones with date stamps and handwritten dates on the covers.

[Kevin]: Oh yeah, when I’m cleaning comic books, some guys say don’t, don’t erase any pencil marks, leave all the pencil marks, I want the pencil marks, the names, the dates, they don’t want to change it.

— Greg Holland, Doug Sulipa, Kevin Polidano at 23:48 into the livestream

I can absolutely relate to the above sentiment of finding the date stamps to be appealing as a collector today — I view it as a historical artifact that makes the history of that specific copy more unique and interesting to me, giving the copy more personality. Below is my own copy of the Swamp Thing #37 CPV, and it makes me happy that it has a date stamp as part of its history:

“[Greg]: I think one of the things that people like to do is they like to complain number one when something goes against them — so they went to a comic shop and they bought direct editions their whole collection and they have number one through number 800 and they’ve never missed one and they don’t have any rare variants and boo boo boo, they don’t want to hear about rare variants!

Everyone else did the same thing! So we have to ask: what did only a few people do? Only a few people did certain things like keep a newsstand book in 9.6-9.8 condition during the 1980s when you had to use your mom’s Saran Wrap or something or a paper bag. Those people who did that thing that other people didn’t do, they have done something to help collectors in a way that no one else did. If you went to the comic shop and you bought your books and you put them in a box and you kept them in a closet you haven’t done something special, you’ve done the common thing, you’ve done what everybody else did. So yeah, you find out your book is common, you find out everybody else has one just like it, don’t be mad at us pointing out that you did what everybody else did!”

— Greg Holland at 56:32 into the livestream

Against a mountain of surviving direct editions, those scarce high grade surviving Canadian Price Variant newsstand copies can truly distinguish a comic book collection from one’s peers. As CGC themselves summed it up, CPVs simply had the smallest print run of the three types, “making the Canadian Price Variant the rarest type of available prints, a trophy for collectors!” And the more trophy-quality books one has in their collection, the more it stands out!

“[Doug]: It’s the same reasoning as buying a 9.8 instead of a 9.0: how do you make a really common comic scarce? You look for the highest possible grade. How do you make a really common comic even scarcer? Look for a variant. So there’s the US newsstand and there’s the Canadian newsstand … any type of variant makes a common item scarcer and this is what people like.

[Kevin]: I’ll tell you, the reason I like these variants is because the companies that were publishing these didn’t do it to make variants, right? It was because of business decisions that these variants were just made accidentally or whatever. Nowadays you have this artificial, you know artificial attempts to create variants, right? Where there’s the one in 50 dealer incentives or The Fan Expo variants, and listen I’m not going to slag anybody that’s into buying variant copies — again everybody buys what they love — I just never liked the gimmick nature of it myself personally, but these, these are a different story because these kind of came out of the business naturally.

[Doug]: These were the vintage before people even cared about variants or knew what a variant was.

[Kevin]: Exactly!”

— Doug Sulipa, Kevin Polidano at 54:56 into the livestream

I like that ChatGPT brought up this aspect, because it can often get lost amidst the usual discussions of collecting CPVs for their extreme relative scarcity alone. The cultural ties between the US and Canada are extremely strong. Chances are one of your favorite actors, favorite bands, favorite comic book artists… are Canadian. One of the most famous comic book creators of all time, Todd McFarlane, is from Calgary. And one of the most popular comic book characters of all time, is Canadian too.

Indeed, one need not be a Canadian to have an affinity for Canadian Price Variants. Any fan of Wolverine will recall that on the cover of Hulk #181 he was introduced as “the world’s first and greatest Canadian superhero!” If you are a Wolverine fan, this aspect of his origin is a highly interesting fact to consider as you decide which of the three types of Wolverine comics to add to your collection during the window where CPVs exist. I have to imagine that if Wolverine himself was to have purchased a comic book in the 1980’s, it “fits” that it would have been a newsstand comic at a gas station in Canada.

“[Greg]: Spider-Man is not a Canadian hero, he’s New York, you know a New York City based character, Batman you know it’s Gotham but we think of him as a US — he’s Gotham in the United States wherever Gotham is you know say New York or Chicago or whatever — but you know the one character that you have to say well he’s Canadian, obviously he’s Wolverine, and so to me I actually have an affinity for whatever that oldest Canadian price variant Wolverine comic would be which of course by now I’ve figured out it’s actually that one right there: it’s Wolverine number two which has a Canadian price variant. It’s 75 cents on the cover it has the bar code on the bottom, that makes it a newsstand, and the 75 cents makes it a Canadian newsstand.

— Greg Holland at 18:29 into the livestream

There are a wide variety of awesome comics featuring Wolverine published during Marvel’s CPV window. Here are some of my personal favorites that feature Wolverine on the cover: Naturally there’s the Wolverine Limited Series #2-4 (alas, #1 was published one month before the CPV window opened), with #2 notably featuring the 1st full appearance of Yukio, and with a cover so classic that CGC even turned it into one of their custom $5 labels.

And then within the Uncanny X-Men title there are quite a few awesome Wolverine covers among CPVs, although my personal favorite has got to be issue #207 with classic cover by John Romita Jr. and Dan Green. Issue #205 with cover by Barry Windsor-Smith has a Wolverine solo story featuring the origin of Lady Deathstrike. Daredevil #196 features the 1st meeting of Wolverine and Daredevil, plus the 1st appearance of Dark Wind (Kenji Oyama). And I’d better not forget to mention Alpha Flight #13, featuring a classic Wolverine cover by John Byrne (“Okay, sucker, the only way to get to the Lady is through me!”) — I love this cover, and look how Byrne “signed” the cover on the bottom tombstone!

Collecting comics featuring one’s favorite character is a lot of fun, but so is collecting comics featuring one’s favorite creator. Up in Calgary, guess which newsstand variation Todd McFarlane would have seen on the newsstands in the 1980’s? That’s right: the Canadian Price Variant newsstand version. Arguably the CPV newsstand version of McFarlane key Batman #423 is “the” trophy variant for that issue, which features not just a classic cover, but has been cited as a “Spawn prototype” based on the cape artwork.

“[Kevin]: How about this Batman I see this issue in the shop all the time, Batman 423 people love that book, yeah the McFarlane, that’s a huge one, the Swamp Thing 37 is massive as well…

[Doug]: That Batman is recently being touted as a Spawn prototype, that cover, because it looks like a Spawn cape.

[Kevin]: Interesting. Interesting, it does look like a Spawn cape, yeah!

— Kevin Polidano, Doug Sulipa at 10:00 into the livestream

Of all the McFarlane cover CPVs, Batman #423 is clearly the biggest key, and runners-up are Detective Comics #576-578, and All-Star Squadron #47. A lesser-known book with a Todd McFarlane cover is Who’s Who Update ’87 #4, and over at Arak Son of Thunder #45 there is a Todd McFarlane pin-up of Valda inside.

“[Doug]: GI Joe 21 is number one and it’s extremely undervalued okay, it’s nearly impossible to get in 9.8, I think there’s one known copy and that is going to have the value of a major Bronze Age key issue one day if it ever hits the market for sale.

[Kevin]: So what kind of money could something like that bring in? … In your opinion?

[Doug]: My opinion is $10,000 for a 9.8 if it hit the market, Angelo feels it would be even higher than that, but we’ll wait and see.”

— Doug Sulipa at 8:48 into the livestream

Later in the livestream, it was revealed that Angelo himself is the owner of the current single 9.8 CPV census copy (above). In fact, for the human-expert-discussion of ChatGPT’s investment potential point #5, let me link you to the point in the livestream where Angelo begins to share some of his collection gems, it is truly remarkable what he has been able to acquire over these past decades of collecting CPVs. The rarity of each one is discussed with census data, and there is discussion of direct-edition sales comps versus recent CPV market prices.

My opinion has always been, that when collecting any given issue, it is better to have two ways to win, than just one. The first way to win is by selecting well: if you pick an important issue, that issue might rise in value over time. The second way to win is by choosing to collect a more-rare variant of the issue and acquiring it as close to “regular price” as you can via hard work and hunting effort (even to this day “mis-listed variants” do still appear on the marketplace, where the owner of a rare variant who doesn’t know about them simply lists their treasure for sale with an asking price mirroring the going rate they see online for regular copies, or the price they see in the Overstreet guide — which still does not include CPVs). Then as variant awareness hopefully grows over time, you can win a second way: via growth of the market premium given to the variant.

Overall, the collectible appeal of Canadian price variant comic books lies in their rarity, historical significance, differentiation from standard editions, regional appeal, and potential investment value.

I hope you have enjoyed this juxtaposition of ChatGPT’s take on CPVs, versus human experts from the recent livestream event. If you missed that livestream and have not yet caught the replay, below is the full 1 hour and 46 minute show.

Happy collecting! 🙂

– Ben