I don’t know, while I always bet on Cover A, I’m sitting here looking at my Detective Comics 1000 variants from both Alex Ross and Artgerm still holding their values for the most part. I would not have heard of these if it hadn’t been for CHU, so there is that. I don’t know if Artist Variants count as “store” variants but those seem to do better than the others.
I kind of like some of them, I just don’t hard spec on them and stick em in the PC cus sometimes I like the purdy covers!
I think most collectors do not lump artists stores or con exclusives in with the same group as store books, and i agree with you that the artist (and con) variants are decent investments, especially when compared to the excessive amounts of store books that are constantly on the market.