I saw your post on the CGC forums… 
I am curious about the Eastern News barcode…
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Haha yeah, sorry. Real excited about the EN. I’ve been hunting. In the Death/Reign of Superman thread on CGC, it came to light that these exist without the sticker, but finding them is few and far between.
One user who is pretty knowledgeable about these random things said this about it…
“I wonder how many other issues exist with this bespoke Eastern News barcode. If I recall correctly, Eastern News primarily did distribution to mini-bookstores in business areas, like the ones in airports. I have to assume that, however many books were printed for them this way, survival rates are, erm, not gonna be great absent warehouse finds.”
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I’m guessing some business travelers who were also comic collectors grabbed a copy on their trip. As they age on, these are making their way into circulation.
What makes that version real unique is that most of the books Eastern News sold were basically Direct Editions with their sticker over the direct upc box.
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Sold the blank newsstand last week, but this is on its way back to me. Missed some light spine stress in my haste/excitement, but I’ll take it.
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Curious why. B/c of Turner art?
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That and it’s the first appearance of The Darkness.
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I’ve noticed a trend when coming across later release newsstand issues from the 2000s. Whenever I find a few in a box like at a flea market it usually means I’m going to find a honey hole of them from that person. I must have pulled over 70 issues from 2006-2011 out of one vendors boxes over the weekend. Meanwhile I dug through tons of other boxes that day from other vendors and not a single newsie.
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Prior to 1992 newsstands represent the majority of comics produced and directs are the more scarce commodity.
Marvel shutdown newsstand distribution at the end of 1991 so by the mid 90’s most spin racks had disappeared. Thru there to the end of the 1990’s newsstands represented about 1 out of every 10 comics from the era in my collection/inventory.
From 2000 on they are almost nonexistent since by then they were only hitting a few of the book chains and a few grocery chains out west. In those cases, most of the time I find them in collections, it’s big stacks of the same issue that I assume came into someone’s possession from unsold returns and leftovers from whoever was stocking the few remaining locations. If I find a single issue buyer that has them, it’ll typically be in runs since he was buying one issue at a time from the same location with a newsstand display for a period of time.
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Ya that’s in line with what I’m coming across. Even in collections if I find a few I’m going to find a stack of them. Like the person bought them when grocery shopping every week. Typically I find more DC than Marvel. Maybe 10 to 1 ratio…
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I used to work in a local deli and store in the 1990’s the magazine guy would come in every week, count the return comics and then throw them away. I asked if I could have them and he started giving me one of each, later on, he would just call the store and ask for the return numbers. I would bring home every return comic. Some magazines too. It was awesome, I have a pretty deep collection of newsstands as a result.
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Curtis Circulation Company began as the circulation department of the Philadelphia-based Curtis Publishing Company, publisher of The Saturday Evening Post, Ladies’ Home Journal, and Holiday; Curtis Circulation became a subsidiary in 1946.[3]
Besides the publishing company’s own magazines, other titles distributed by Curtis Circulation included The Atlantic and Esquire.[4] One of Curtis’ most notable clients in the 1950s was Classics Illustrated, which Curtis distributed, starting first in Canada in 1948, and then nationally in the U.S. beginning in 1951.[4]
In 1969, Perfect Film & Chemical Corporation purchased Curtis Circulation from the Curtis Publishing Company.[5] Beginning in 1969 (and lasting until 1995), Curtis became the distributor of Marvel Comics[6] (Perfect Film had bought out publisher Martin Goodman—owner of Magazine Management Company, the parent of Marvel Comics in 1968).[7]
1995 appears to match up with the memory of when Curtis Distributing shut down and the spin racks disappeared although Marvel had been gone since the end of 1991 from them.
This link has a lot of detail on the topics.
Comic Book Newsstand Editions: Understanding The Difference | Rare Comics (wordpress.com)
In the story you’ll see references for why DC out numbers Marvel newsstands in the late 90’s on and why Image are so rare. I enjoyed the breakdown of the beginning as well pointing out some of the first Direct Editions as well which should also be as rare as some of the later newsstands. No Marvel’s at all since 2013 which was about the last time I went looking for any at Barnes and Noble.
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Similar to this…I’ve found the same sort of thing with Mark Jeweler’s. I’ll come across a collection with those in it and typically you can assume they came from someone on a military base/collected while overseas, etc. You either find a batch of them…or nothing.
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$9.85, far from a perfect copy, and really difficult with the black cover, but I’m happy. First Dust.
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Trying this out to see if I can post pics.
Always enjoy looking at this cover and first appearance of Harper Row as Bluebird
EDIT: Oh yes. It works nicely 
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That whole run has awesome covers by Arthur Suydam. I forgot about this one, but lady deadpool lookin good
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Some newsstands from my lcs. Don’t really go there often as the back issues aren’t too cheap so these were $4 each
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