By Paul Clairmont, Overstreet Advisor and proprietor of pnjcomics.com, October 2019

“If you can achieve being first to market with the highest certified copy of even a semi-key book as a Canadian Price Variant you can almost set your price and it is likely to sell.”

The copper age offers a unique collecting niche that is catching collectors’ attention and subsequently the prices are soaring on many issues. I am referring to the Canadian Price Variants, which I’ve discussed at length for years in many of my previous Overstreet Market Reports, and here online in my report last year entitled A Common-Sense Approach To Understand Canadian Price Variant Scarcity.

In last year’s article I talked a bit about the history of Canadian Price Variants:

I also walked through how I think about Canadian Price Variant scarcity, using Batman issues #357-402 for the example and concluding that realistically, there would be 60 to 80 copies of each of these issues in 9.2 or better if we assume 20% were returned by the stores to the distributor to be destroyed.

There are many key and semi-key Canadian Price Variants where there are no 9.8 copies on CGC’s census yet to date, including Batman #366 and #404 just to name two. Sure, census numbers will not always reflect the true population of graded books due to labeling errors but common sense will show it is certainly less than 10%, and in most cases, less than 1% or even 0 percent of the census population of graded books.

Which brings me to what I have noticed time and again this past year: If you can achieve being first to market with the highest certified copy of even a semi-key book as a Canadian Price Variant you can almost set your price and it is likely to sell. We have witnessed record breaking prices for Canadian Price Variants and have seen a huge increase in the interest of these books.

Grading companies such as CBCS and CGC have also acknowledged that this market can no longer be ignored and fortunately both have changed their respective labels to reflect these books in their own way, now both using the phrase “Canadian Price Variant” on their labels (shown below) which marks a great step forward.

2019 Canadian Price Variant Sales at PNJ Comics (USD)

Here are some recent sales highlights for Canadian Price Variants at PNJ Comics:

	Batman #362 CGC 9.4 = $90.00
	Batman #384 CGC 9.4 = $93.00
	Batman #378 CGC 9.4 = $85.00
	Marvel Graphic Novel #4 CGC 9.8 = $1105.00
	Power Pack #1 CGC 9.4 = $127.00
	Spectacular Spider-Man #85 CGC 9.8 = $180.00
	G.I. Combat #288 Near Mint = $70.00
	Sonic the Hedge Hog #1 CGC 9.6 = $265.00
	Thor #337 CGC 9.6 = $350.00
	Spider-Woman #50 CGC 9.8 = $205.00