Hot Comics EXTRA:
Focus on Canadian Price Variants

Canadian Price Variants are a fairly obscure but growing niche in the hobby. Click to search for Canadian comics on Goldin

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What Are Canadian Price Variants?

From around 1983 through 1988, Marvel and DC re-priced some of their comic books for the Canadian market.

Most Marvel comics published during this period either had US cents prices only, or US, Canadian and UK prices all together on the front, something like this:

US price box on Amazing Spider-Man 252 with regular price of 60c

Quite often, you'll find books with US, Canadian and UK prices all together on the front, something like this

Regular Marvel price box with three different prices for different markets

The prices on the covers of Canadian price variants are always higher than the standard price on the cover of US issues.

Canadian price box on Amazing Spider-Man 252 with new price of 75c

Bar Code, Not Spidey Head, at Bottom Left of Covers

You can also tell Canadian issues, because they always have a bar code (UPC) at bottom left of the front cover rather than Spidey's head.

Direct edition of Amazing Spider-Man 252 with Spidey's head at bottom left

Canadian price variant of Amazing Spider-Man 252 with UPC bar code at bottom left

Newsstand Variants: US Marvel Comics with UPC Bar Codes

US newsstand variant of Amazing Spider-Man 252 with UPC bar code at bottom left AND US price

There are plenty of US editions which have bar code UPCs at bottom left as well. These are also a much-collected niche (known in the hobby as newsstand variants).

DC Comics Canadian Price Variants

Canadian price variants of DC Comics have different (higher) prices than their US edition versions of the exact same issue #s. The word CANADIAN is also printed below the price, sometimes. (But not always!)

Here is Batman #357 to illustrate this.