Marvel doesn’t set the ratio premium prices though, that’s retailers. It’s not on Marvel’s hands but Diamonds or whoever is dumping the extras.
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Also, this likely proves one thing though, when Marvel sends orders to the printers, they’re likely doing a minimum number that makes it worthwhile. Imagine a book that has a 1:100 or 1:500 that only ends up having enough orders for say 100 copies of the 1:500 cause most stores just won’t order 500 copies of a title, only the heavy hitters.
We all know you get bigger discount on quantity ordered. So if Marvel only had 100 copies they needed to fulfill to retailers who qualified for the 1:500 ratio but it costs them more for such a lower number to get printed, we all know they’re likely putting in an order that saves them money by just printing more to accommodate damages at distribution level and so on.
Just like when I ordered CHU swag, getting 10 pint glasses made was expensive when broken down to price per pint glass but when I bumped it to 75 or so, the pint glasses became dirt cheap cause I was ordering in higher quantities.
Makes one ponder how many of those high ratio variants are printed up and either sit in boxes somewhere or handed out later on or sold in Wally World value packs… This is why print runs will always be guesstimates. Take them all with a very small amount of grain of salt.
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I seen someone state on a stores page that if a total order for an exclusive is 4k/5k add on 10% that Diamond produces for damages that they keep. So I’m assuming were seeing the 10% dump. 
Printers always print overages. It’s not like your printer at home where you want 10, you print 10. I’d guess print shops always do X% over to cover printing errors, ink issues, miscuts, etc. They then end up with a small stack of extras.
I’d much rather have these extras thrown in Walmart packs than tossed in the recycling bin. But, since so many people screamed about this, I’d guess we’ll be back to the trash B covers they couldn’t sell.
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I would as well and that’s one of the many reasons I don’t spend a lot of money on ratio variants. Most of the time, if I can’t get it at cover price, I just don’t even bother.
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Went to another Walmart and they wouldn’t let me look at then unless I paid for them. I couldn’t even step to the side 2 feet away and flip through the box or pull them out to check out the spine.
I get it, but at the same time why cant I take two steps to the left and not hold up the line?
No thanks! Someone else can deal with that. I’m out!!
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Some sellers on Whatnot are offering these up for sale now. Essentially a bit of blind bag purchase. You can buy one for $30 and they open it up live on the program/you get whatever it is. Just one I saw, others doing it as well for varied amounts.
So now comics are joining the sportscard breaking industry? Now I’ve seen everything!
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You talking about 9thWonder. Hes doing it this Thursday.
I think you are spot on - I have books printed as part of my day job and volume discounts can be staggering in terms of cost per item.
However, when offering retailers a book based upon meeting stringent conditions (you must buy 1000 standard books for one of these special items) there is an implied contractual position. The end consumer assumes this is a contractual position which will be complied with - otherwise why pay $170 to $1000 or more for a rare book?
Marvel are responsible for holding the position, not the distributor. It’s their product, not Diamond’s. They need to control the terms of supply. It is in their interest to do so. I suspect that lots of people speccing on high ratios will get cold feet if they start thinking the same book might be available for $1 within a few weeks!
The contract is based on rarity and price. It is very dubious to then change both terms within a short space of time.
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not sure why anyone is shocked, weve always known the minimum print numbers, and we have seen nearly every store variant use the wording “limited to” instead of saying the print run. they do this for the purpose of misleading their customers and making the comics appear more rare than they are
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This still falls on Diamond or the distributor. If the terms are, you buy 100 of this issue, you can buy 1 of this 1:100 ratio variant. Once it leaves Marvel’s hands or printers and Diamond purchased them, then it falls on Diamond/Distributor for not holding true to the buy in ratio terms if they’re selling them or any extra after the fact. The bottom line is, Diamond or the distributor could have X amount of leftover copies for numerous reasons and if they already purchased them, that makes them the owners of such books and them releasing them still falls on them, not the publisher. Publisher only prints to order from the distributor (unless of course they’re printing X number that’s not being shipped to the distribution chain).
The other thing to realize is, yes, retailers are bound to if you buy X amount of cover, you can now qualify for Y variant but no where in any terms I’ve never seen is where publisher claims the amount of Y is limited to X orders. That falls on the consumers with wishful thinking that a 1:100 is truly printed to the number of X copies ordered that qualify for such variant. If that makes sense.
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I just wonder how many of TFAW customers were shorted these very books now showing up in 3packs! 
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Too much salt in this thread 
glad we don’t have Walmarts here, would hate to see how ravenous the few might become.
All the books in these bundles are crap anyway or rather the ones I’ve seen I would pass even at cover price, maybe $1-2 I might get tempted. Rarity does not equal value, that comes with a combination of things which all these books lack.
@SpideyHunter516 Yep…he’s a good seller. I’ve bought an absolute ton of books off of him. Lots of great stuff. Will likely make a “what you got online” post relative to the truck load of whatnot books I’ve bough in the last few weeks.
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So I took the plunge and went to Wal-Mart…Only DC packs left.
Now off to take a shower and to get a tetanus shot.
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So just a newb question - does this mean that they (Marvel/DC, etc.) print the ratio books before they get an idea of how many regular copies are sold ? Initially, I thought ratios were printed based on the total regular ordered/store, then I thought it was just based on the total regular overall. But your comments suggest that they just go ahead a print a bunch of ratios, in anticipation of a certain no. of sales. This last part really affects the idea of rarity of the ratio variants, if true.
Better get another round of COVID vaccine as well… 
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My assumption is, they likely base their print numbers on actual orders but I’m sure there’s room and margin for additional copies to replaced damages, etc. It wouldn’t surprise me if they’re just going ahead and printing the min number of copies ahead of time just to get the best price from the printers.
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This. They print the order number plus comps and 5-10% extra for damages. Most likely