There are several facsimiles, true believers reprints and other similar open order reprints of classic books that have seen appreciation on the secondary market
This thread is being created to help identify the ones worth keeping an eye out for and providing updates on them.
First up is the king of them all. AF15 was given the facsimile treatment in 2019, but unlike other Marvel keys (to my knowledge) has not been reprinted since.
This has lead to dwindling supply on the aftermarket and raising prices. It’s only a matter of time before Marvel comes out with a foil variant which is usually accompanied with a standard facsimile.
Look for the $3.99 price tag.
Next up is Tales of Suspense #39. Similar to AF15, this came out and has not been reprinted. Does not command the price the AF15 does, but still at $25 can be a decent flip of found in high grade for cover.
$3.99 price tag. Released in 2020.
One book that has not gotten the facsimile treatment (at least as an open order from Marvel) is Journey Into Mystery #83. It does has a True Believers reprint, and therefore that book currently sells north of $15. Not bad for a $1 pickup.
Here’s an honorable mention. Some may not realize the ASM1 facsimile has a Walmart variant (which came as the front books in three packs), with the bar code on the back (versus the original back advertisement). Makes for a cleaner front cover. Although neither has really taken off, they still sell for $10-$20, with the Walmart variant getting slightly higher dollar value.
Pictures above show the difference in front and. Can covers.
What a pleasant surprise. I bought a copy of many of these earlier facsimiles and just stored them away, not thinking they would do much. It feels like they reprint so many books now I stopped buying them.
Speaking of True Believes, the AF15 and ASM1 still can pull in $15 or more here and there. So worth picking up for cheap in high grade.
Apologies to whomever brought it up recently (was it @D-Rog ?) but the Werewolf by Night #32 facsimile is a $15 book now.
The first printing of Fantastic Four facsimile can still fetch 4x on a good day. The easiest way to descent printings is the $3.99 vs $4.99 (2nd print) price.
Greetings all,
My first post after lurking here for more than a decade!
This topic has finally inspired me to join
I live in the UK so some of these prices won’t be necessarily relevent to the US market
I love selling facsimiles. According to eBay these are ones I’ve sold in the last 3 months for between £12 ($15ish) and £25.
X-Men 266
Wolverine 1 1st series
Fantastic four 2
Fantastic four 11
Batman dark knight returns 1
Killing joke blank
Flash 1
Green lantern 87
Detective 575
Spider-Man noir 1
Batman 9
Fantastic four 50
Detective comics 31
Gi Joe 21
An excellent one but super hard to find is Hulk 182 - I got around £35 for the one copy I was able to find last year.
Tomb of Dracula 1 and especially 10 are worth picking up.
Mad magazine 1 is another hard to find pricey one.
I suspect a few blank facsimile covers could be worth a looking out for in the future. I always pick up the Killing joke and death of superman 75 blanks that I’ve found. I’m kind of assuming the ones that people can do ‘controversial’ sketches on or whatever might be sought after.
Oh last one is Batman adventures 12. Loads of copies were available a month or so ago on eBay UK for cover price but they’ve all gone and it’s now triple cover+
I sell the WWBN #32 all the time for $15. Its ridiculous that AF #15 hasnt had a reprint in 7 years. Marvel could have sold 100,000 of those in that time. Probably more.
But then the market would be swamped and we wouldn’t have them to flip for profit… 
Just Marvel hemorrhaging profit. All they have to do is print it. Nothing more.
Also kind of crazy to not make it available when you have the #1 movie right now with that character.
Gotta think like the masses do and outside your comic book collector/reader mode and realize that not everyone that goes and watches the movies is out seeking the comics and particularly reprints. We’re now on our 7th Spider-Man movie in the past 2.5 decades? I’m pretty certain without any actual facts that the majority who buys facsimiles are avid collectors and not your regular Joe and Sally’s in the world…
Its not. The local store has a section of them and its almost always younger collectors buying them.
Brand New Day is the shot that Disney/MCU needed to get people excited again. Torgo mentioned it’s been 7 years since the last AF15 reprint. It’s free money they’re leaving on the table.
Meanwhile, ASM 129 has been reprinted 3 times in 3 years.
