Why are there higher prices on certain newer books on the wall? I've had this question asked a lot lately, especially on the X-Men Messiah Complex comics, and thought I could cover it here for all of our customers to better understand our reasoning on why some newer books are priced over cover-price. Once in a while, a book is under-ordered by almost every comic retailer (Messiah Complex comic series, Hulk #1) and it is SOLD OUT the day it hits the comic stores. We then have to find more copies for people that missed it. I do usually recommend that a customer should go to another local dealer to save on shipping costs they would pay for books found on internet comic stores. After Diamond Comics announces a book is out-of-print and no additional printings will be made, we then contact over 20 dealers to help us get the books we need. These dealers do charge us more for this service as the books we need are no longer made, and demand for the comics needed is normally very high. Dealers don't normally sell new books to other dealers unless they have too much of them (hasn't been happening lately across the USA either). We usually end up paying cover price or higher to replenish out-of-print books. Once you add the cost of shipping the books from the dealer to us, the price will be higher than cover price, and sometimes seemingly outrageous (Wolverine #42 1st print $15.00) . Please get on our subscriber service if you know there are books you really want to collect and read. Our sell-through has improved greatly, which means there are less books in inventory to sell and put in backstock (my ultimate goal). I hope this breakdown of why we charge higher prices on very recent hot books makes sense. We order up to two months in advance before a book is released so nobody's order can be perfect, but we are getting really slim on extra books lately on the wall. Who knows how big Captain America #34 (Marvel discloses the identity of the NEW Captain America) will be? How does one know how to order for this book? We didn't go crazy ordering on this book as Marvel has downplayed this book in their solicitations. Of course, Captain America #25 didn't get much hype until AFTER it came out... Variant hunters - we cannot let people pre-order variants unless they are willing to order the necessary copies of a book to get an ordering incentive variant comic book (Amazing Spider-Man #546 Sketch Cover, 1:100 copies) or pay a realistic price that can be found on ebay, but I'll write that in a blog later. Thanks for reading, Rocky at Goldmine