Low Pop for Value CPVs
| By Benjamin Nobel, June 2026 |
Something we're commonly asked by readers is, “which CPVs are the most rare?”
A tricky subject to approach, with interesting thought angles. For instance, if a given CPV has zero copies on the CGC census, can we conclude it is rare? Or is it just an issue nobody cares about, so nobody has ever sent one in for grading?
For example: a rare find mentioned by the late Bill Alexander in his final market report: Archie's Activity comics digests which aren't full of stories; instead they have activities like word searches. The whole idea is to write in the book. As Bill put it, “Just try to find one of these four digest CPVs without one page marked up inside, it is near impossible...”
Here Bill identified a CPV with extraordinary low supply in high grade. The problem? Where is collector demand going to come from for high grade Archie activity digests now that Bill himself is no longer collecting them?
There are countless examples — especially among the Riverdale-focused Archie comics in our guide — where the census counts for both the CPV and the regular edition are zero. Today's grading cost is $30 plus round trip shipping... so to justify the grading expense and actually show up on census, a comic has got to have some real value.
What people really mean by “Rare CPV”
The reality is that when readers ask about rare CPVs what they are really asking is which high value / high demand issues are hardest to find?
There are a number of ways to approach such a question, including ways that have been discussed many times in past articles:
- We can look at top census grades for key issues — for instance Blip #1, Vampirella #113 and Batman #423 are among the top high-demand keys that have still yet to see a 9.8 CPV hit the census as of this writing (Swamp Thing #37 and GI Joe #21 finally achieved that coveted 9.8 grade after all these years).
- We can look at print runs for important issues like Paul did here, pointing out that Batman #357 to #402 had approximately 75,303 to 97,741 copies per month of each issue in total, and how that extrapolates to precious few CPV copies.
- In his amazing advisor notes throughout the guide, Doug for years has pointed out how final issues tend to be more scarce and also highly sought; lately, the market seems to have caught onto issues like Elvira's House of Mystery #11 and TMNT Adventures #72.
- We can listen to what people have to say about issues that are particularly tough to find in the wild, based on their personal CPV hunting experiences.
The approach you're about to see
For this page, I approached the question of CPV rarity as a value:population ratio among high valued CPVs (where the value of the issue justifies spending to have CGC grade them).
I ranked our guide universe by this metric and as a safeguard I imposed a minimum regular copy count on the CGC census (because truly in-demand issues should have a fair presence overall).
My resulting list of 50 lowest population to value CPVs seems to have been a compelling screening method because the issues “we all would have guessed” sure enough filtered right to the top of this list, confirming to me that this was a valuable study to have undertaken.
Here's the list!
Vampirella
Several Vampi issues would have ranked highly on this screen had I not imposed the minimum regular census count; but the most compelling Vampirella issue of all — and also the very top of the screening result — was issue #113, the first Harris issue, featuring a low print run and just 21 CPVs on record as of this writing.
Pause to ponder that number: Among the whole universe of newsstand and CPV collectors out there who would love to own a CGC-graded copy of this important issue, there are just 21 to go around... think about that: it is kind of nuts!
TMNT Adventures
Issue #23 (first Slash appearance) as well as the low-print final two issues #71-72 showed up on the screen; while it didn't make the list the final Special #11 is another in this title I'm keeping a sharp eye on.
Blip
Long-time readers may remember that our very first guide edition didn't even include the Blip title because we looked at newsstand copies, saw their dual US/CAN pricing, and thus didn't expect that the CPVs even existed. After all, if “regular” newsstand copies already covered Canada then why on Earth would they even need single-price CPV copies? Yet they exist — what a surprise that was — leaving a mystery over what purpose the CPV served, what market size it even reached, and how many were created?
Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer
Both Sal and Angelo have mentioned this book in past articles, and Doug's advisor note says “low print and rare” — so it is not surprising this book ranked so highly on the screen.
Beetlejuice
Another comic highlighted by both Sal and Angelo in past articles, and boosted in market value by the movie sequel.
Elvira
Both the first and last issues of Elvira's House of Mystery ranked highly on this screen, and both have truly stunning covers, don't they? Below you'll see the small thumbnails but click through to the full issues if you're not already familiar with these gorgeous covers — by Brian Bolland on #1 and Dave Stevens on #11.
Sonic
Published way out in 1993 when Marvel and DC were long past the point of their CPV windows being closed, Archie was still going... Issues #0 & #1 of the mini-series, and #1 of the ongoing series both ranked highly on this screen.
GI Joe
A number of GI Joe books ranked highly on this screen, including the famous “silent issue” #21 (first appearance of Storm Shadow).
Batman & Detective Comics
With the low print run numbers mentioned earlier, and a CPV window for DC that lasted until 1988, it was no surprise to see Batman (and Detective Comics) keys dominate an out-sized share of this screen... with Todd McFarlane covers being notable visual standouts, along with some issues with key 1st appearances.
Swamp Thing
Four Saga of the Swamp Thing books showed up on the list, with #20-21 marking the beginning of Alan Moore's historic run, #25 the “controversial” (still-not-CGC-recogized) true 1st appearance (in cameo) of John Constantine, and with #37 marking his undisputed first full appearance.
Superman Annual #11
The only Superman book to make the list, Annual #11 features the first Black Mercy appearance, with story by the highly talented Alan Moore.
All Star Squadron #47
The demand for this book is arguably artist-driven, featuring cover and artwork by Todd McFarlane.
Marvel Movie Showcase (Star Wars)
Two Star Wars books showed up on the screen — issues #1 and #2 of Marvel Movie Showcase, which collect the “New Hope” movie adaptation.
Star Comics
The Star Comics imprint from Marvel was targeted at kids, with titles like Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake; and Star Wars books like Droids and Ewoks. The #1 issues of these four Star titles screened well on low population for value; clearly the kids who bought these did not do so to preserve them, generally speaking.
Cheryl Blossom
The big Riverdale character with a 1st appearance CPV is of course Cheryl Blossom, and perhaps like no other character in our guide, collectors seem to covet a wide range of early appearances — not just 1st or 2nd. Four of these early books made the screen, while a few others came very close but were inched out.
Groo
What a fun character: Groo the Wanderer is the brainchild of Sergio Aragones and was published under the Epic Comics imprint from Marvel.
Dinobots
The Dinobots made their first full appearance in Transformers issue #8, which made it onto the toplist with its strong value against just 26 CPV copies on census as of this writing.
Spectacular Spider-Man #101
To me this one came as a welcome surprise, because I wouldn't have expected any of the main Spider-Man titles to show up on a screen like this given their broad popularity among collectors; and I absolutely love this iconic black costume cover by superstar John Byrne. I've heard from many a collector that it marks their single favorite Byrne cover of all time, which suggests collector demand for this book has a strong artist-driven parallel to Batman #423 (often cited as a favorite McFarlane cover). [Side note: Byrne revealed his own personal favorite cover he's ever done, and Spectacular #101 wasn't it... that trophy goes to Alpha Flight #3 — although similarly a super-cool black-and-white work of art].
My Collection & Watchlist
Did you know we released a new CPV Price Guide website feature this year, called “My Collection” where you can keep track of your CPV collection (and also separately maintain a watchlist)? Let me show you how it works real quick, with the above Spectacular #101 guide row as an example.
Click (or tap) the row right now and it will expand without you leaving this page — you'll see the expanded Notes, followed by Featured Characters (from our new characters page) and Featured Creators (from our new creators page).
Beneath that, a Noteworthy Sale from our database will load in when found, together with current eBay availability (via a live lookup). And then under that, are the new buttons that I'd like to draw your attention to:
To the right of the button to open the full Spectacular Spider-Man #101 guide page (which features a large cover scan, full creator and character guide tags, charts of values and census numbers over time, and more) you'll see "Add to:" and then our new “My Collection” feature.
You'll find those buttons throughout the guide, and you can use them anytime you want to add an issue — either as an owned issue (after clicking you can select the grade of your copy), or add the issue to your Watchlist with a single quick click/tap.
Then later, over at the My Collection area, you can view collection-wide values and track your Watchlist issues. What's especially neat about this new feature is you don't need to create any kind of “account” on our website in order to set it up — instead, we built this to use modern browser local storage features, meaning that all the data you enter lives on your device only.
[That also means we're not backing up any of your data — you have to do that yourself if/when you want to (there is a button to download a spreadsheet), or whenever you move your information to a different device or browser.]
The final cool feature I'll mention to you about My Collection is our automatic Top 100 tracking — you can even click a button to print out a checklist on paper in case you're planning to attend a con where you might not have reliable cell phone service!
Happy Collecting! 😊
— Ben