I’m visiting friends and family in the land of maple syrup and hockey. At my mom’s house, in Toronto, I found a stack of comics that I purchased back in the day. Going through the comics, I see that a lot of them were bought at newsstands (this was fairly common in the 1980s). I also notice they have the usual barcodes in the bottom left-hand corner and are otherwise unremarkable. One detail, however, catches my eye: the prices. Some have cover prices ranging from 75 to 95 cents. Some of the annuals, I see, have the price of $1.60. Occasionally, just under some of these weird prices, is printed “Canadian”. I start to smile.
Yes, indeed, I’m holding in my hands some very well preserved Canadian variants.
Canadian variants were comics published by DC and Marvel that appeared between 1982 and 1986. They were sold only at newsstands in select areas (Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver). Appearing at the same time as their direct sales (non-returnable) edition counterparts that shipped to specialty comic shops, these comics can be considered among early examples of the variant cover phenomenon. The variant cover, of course, is something quite prevalent today. Before variant or alternative covers, there were alternate or test price variant comics. These were published because, after staying stable for decades at ten cents, at a certain point, comics began to become more expensive to produce. To compensate for the rise in paper prices, the selling price of various comics needed to be raised. Occasionally, before just suddenly jacking up the price, a limited number of issues – of, for example Star Wars #1 -were published with a higher 35 cents price, instead of the more common 30 cents, price.
We all know how valuable the cover price test variant edition of certain key comics have become (and just look up the difference between regular and variant priced editions of Star Wars #1 or Iron Fist #14 if you don’t believe me).
What about these latter day cover price variants known as the Canadian editions sold only at selected newsstands north of the border?
The good news is, first, they are indeed price variants and so these later Copper age comics are sought after by collectors. Second, they do fetch higher prices, especially if you can find them in a higher grade and less worn out condition.
All of the available data would seem to confirm the above. Taking a look at only two Canadian price variants, let’s see the difference in returns as compared to the more common American newsstand and direct market editions.
Marvel Super-Heroes Secret Wars #8 (December 1984) -Canadian Price Variant Edition
A 9.8 version of the Canadian variant sold in June of 2017 for $349.99 and in January of 2017 for $450.00. Returns on the few higher graded copies sold are currently down, but the difference between these sale prices and the regular edition of Marvel Super-Heroes Secret Wars #8, are still striking. A 9.8 copy of the non-variant currently fetches an average fair market price of $220.00. The last two sales were on July 3, 2018 ($239.00) and July 2, 2018 ($214.50). Almost half the price of the Canadian variant.
To take another example, let's look at: Batman #369 (February 1984) - Canadian Price Variant Edition. The last two sales are recorded at GoCollect.com as $250.00 (March 16, 2018), and $149.99 (December 29, 2016), this gives it an 8.3% return on investment. Compare this with the non-variant edition. The last two sales on 9.8 were for $58.00 (May 6, 2018) and $34.00 (April 08, 2018). The variant is worth about four times as much.
What's the lesson here? If you see Canadian price variant version of a comic, at a reasonable price and in good condition, pick it up. And if you have Canadian friends, ask them if they have any old comics they want to send you. You never know, you might end up with some of these Canadian treasures.
