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How many complete copies of Tec 27 and Action 1 exist?
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60 posts in this topic

Blue, purple, raw, slabbed? I'd guess maybe 200 Tecs, 300 Actions? It does appear that there are more Actions than Tecs, anyway. How long before all of the existing copies are accounted for, or most every copy anyway? It will happen eventually.

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Strongly doubt it will be happening anytime soon or even in the foreseeable future. :gossip:

 

Most of the long-term collectors who have these types of books just have absolutely no interest in slabbing their books, until it comes time to actually selling them. hm

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But of course all of this is just conjecture as no one really knows, not even Metro.
an exact number is highly unlikely one will ever know , that is certainly true ... but it is relatively easy to extrapolate from the existing information and come up with a reasonable estimate

 

100 is a number I'm 100% confident in stating is too low

 

300 is not a number that is necessarily too high, though it is an extrapolated estimate that should be within the range of actual existing copies

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I guess that puts everyone's estimates pretty much in the same ballpark as we mostly agree 150 above the already existing 60 ;)
150 is highly likely still too low. 200-250 is highly probable imo. And my opinion is based on a myriad of factors

1) certified copies ( not just cgc but cbcs and , gulp, even pgx)

2) known raw copies (that's the number the avg person likely has no clue, and the reasons I believe many estimates low )

3) some "common" sense to me. I've owned 15+ copies of each book. My experience tells me it is highly unlikely that iVe owned 10% of all existing copies :idea:

4) extrapolating from fellow collectors /dealers that know of copies I don't, etc

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I guess that puts everyone's estimates pretty much in the same ballpark as we mostly agree 150 above the already existing 60 ;)
150 is highly likely still too low. 200-250 is highly probable imo. And my opinion is based on a myriad of factors

1) certified copies ( not just cgc but cbcs and , gulp, even pgx)

2) known raw copies (that's the number the avg person likely has no clue, and the reasons I believe many estimates low )

3) some "common" sense to me. I've owned 15+ copies of each book. My experience tells me it is highly unlikely that iVe owned 10% of all existing copies :idea:

4) extrapolating from fellow collectors /dealers that know of copies I don't, etc

 

I have limited access to the above points but if my guess is around 210 that makes me a pretty good guesser lol

 

I would certainly like to see this thread revived in say 10 years and see how the census has progressed.

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I guess that puts everyone's estimates pretty much in the same ballpark as we mostly agree 150 above the already existing 60 ;)
150 is highly likely still too low. 200-250 is highly probable imo. And my opinion is based on a myriad of factors

1) certified copies ( not just cgc but cbcs and , gulp, even pgx)

2) known raw copies (that's the number the avg person likely has no clue, and the reasons I believe many estimates low )

3) some "common" sense to me. I've owned 15+ copies of each book. My experience tells me it is highly unlikely that iVe owned 10% of all existing copies :idea:

4) extrapolating from fellow collectors /dealers that know of copies I don't, etc

 

Your modesty is understandable, maybe even spot on. But, this is far from a random sampling effect. As a dealer who specializes in such books, it makes the idea that you or Metro and a few others may have indeed touched 15% or more of these two books as they came up for sale logical, even probable.

 

Then again, the math would be trickier than simply counting copies owned or sold by any one of you since your 15 copies had in all likelihood been also sold by some of the others too at one time.

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I guess that puts everyone's estimates pretty much in the same ballpark as we mostly agree 150 above the already existing 60 ;)
150 is highly likely still too low. 200-250 is highly probable imo. And my opinion is based on a myriad of factors

1) certified copies ( not just cgc but cbcs and , gulp, even pgx)

2) known raw copies (that's the number the avg person likely has no clue, and the reasons I believe many estimates low )

3) some "common" sense to me. I've owned 15+ copies of each book. My experience tells me it is highly unlikely that iVe owned 10% of all existing copies :idea:

4) extrapolating from fellow collectors /dealers that know of copies I don't, etc

 

Your modesty is understandable, maybe even spot on. But, this is far from a random sampling effect. As a dealer who specializes in such books, it makes the idea that you or Metro and a few others may have indeed touched 15% or more of these two books as they came up for sale logical, even probable.

 

Then again, the math would be trickier than simply counting copies owned or sold by any one of you since your 15 copies had in all likelihood been also sold by some of the others too at one time.

that's the key...I might have touched 15% of all copies sold over a period of time, but I know I haven't touched 15% of all copies that exist (imo)... so one does have to differentiate...

 

I'm thinking metro has likely sold 50 copies of each alone, since they started dealing...many raw, restored, not slabbed and not "known"... and that just them...think of all the dealers from the 70s-90s that sold raw copies that are still out there raw...trust me, it is hundreds!

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In addition to the rules of thumb rick pointed out I think it's also instructive (as wildly different as the books are ) to compare with more recent comics of known print quantities. We know what 3250 copies in the wild is like - tmnt 1. We know what 2000 copies is like - albedo 2. We know what 500 copies is like - dark red albedo 1. We know what 100 copies is like - superman bradman. We know what 35 copies is like - cancelled comic calvalcade. Point is at many points in the spectrum of possible population values, we have reference points.

 

Those reference points along with the more traditional approach Rick explained suggest to me the number is higher than we'd think, 300 or more action 1s.

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exactly. The copies we see compared to the known overall populations is surprisingly small, over and over again, even for relatively recent books.

 

That's really the greater point and the reason why we have to go high, high, high when estimating these things.

 

If it wasnt for the fact that the TMNT1 print is known, what would people guess? They'd look at the 50 or 100 copies known on the boards and the copies they've seen and they'd guess 500 or 1000 copies. Yet they'd be off by a factor of three to six.

 

The copies we see in circulation are always the tip of the population iceberg.

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My guess is that there are a lot of Action 1s that have been sitting in collections for decades. A lot of old school collectors store their books raw and keep their holdings secret. Just think of the surprise when Bangzoom revealed his collection (and he's never revealed an Action 1 although he once appeared to imply he has it), the shock at the record setting Action 1, the"surprise" when Grimes Action 1 was first publicized on these boards (and it was subject to national press coverage when he bought it back in 1980). It's a big country, some knowledge is regional or local, memories fade (or those with the knowledge die), and some of these books are overseas. Plus there are copies in institutional holdings as well.

 

I think it would be very very hard to make a list of all of the owners of Action 1, especially when many dealers would likely prefer to keep that list entirely to themselves.

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P.S. An article on the Ethan Roberts' original art collection being auctioned contained this nugget on the record setting Action 1: "Emphasis on 'was,' " Mannarino said. "I had the copy and then sold it for $14,000 back in 1986 for a down payment on a house. The guy I sold it to resold it for several hundred thousand dollars, and the man who he sold it to cashed in for $3.2 million."

Edited by sfcityduck
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