Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-28152133-20160407163518/@comment-61022-20160407173430

1) Counterfeits are -- to the best of my knowledge -- are rare. The only one I can think of that comes to mind was a counterfeit of . I've never personally seen it, but it was reported constantly in Wizard Magazine's price guides throughout its publication. It was identified as having a black background. At the time it was nearly worthless, but I would suspect that if anything a notable counterfeit would actually be of value now... At least to somebody...

2) Reprints seldom resemble the original publication themselves. Marvel has usually been consistent with publishing reprints under alternate titles (Marvel Tales, X-Men Classic, etc) or at the very least with an alternate cover or some kind of marking on them that indicates that it is a reprint. Usually you should be able to tell the difference by checking the indica inside the comic. That's the fine print that is usually on the bottom of the first page. It has the copyright notice and all the legal jargon that needs to be in every publication. Usually it will identify a story as a reprint there. The copyrights should also be updated in a reprint, identifying the original year of copyright as well as the year of publication.

3.) I presume you mean the colored bars that sometimes appear at the top of the page of certain comics. That was a industry standard for newsstands. Basically a newsstand would get thousands of copies of magazines that were supposed to go out on specific dates. It also identified the time frame that a newsstand could return unsold copies back to the publisher. It was eventually phased out due to the collectors market and the computerization of the industry.

The other thing you should be aware of are multiple printings of books. The printing of a book is of a finite quality. In some cases certain books would sell out and there would still be a demand for that particular issue. As such a second, third, fourth, etc. printing would be issued due to the demand. In the early days that was identified in the indica (where it will say "SECOND PRINTING" somewhere in the copyright info) sometimes there were noticeable differences in terms of variance of the covers.

For example (the first appearance of Cable) had two printings. The original print had an orange background while the second printing had a gold one. Subsequent printings can sometimes be of less or more value depending on the rarity. These days most comic book companies produce variant covers when it comes to second printings to capitalize on people collecting variant covers (I remember Dreamwave Comics was notorious for that when it published Transformers comics back in the early 2000s)

I assume that you are asking these questions to determine resale value of comics. Most of the prestigious price guides will give a breakdown for reprints, variants, second printings, and identify notable counterfeits. Outside of that (although this is expensive to do) is to ship off your comics to be CCG graded. An expert will determine the status of your comic (original, reprint, second printing etc) appraise it and then vacuum seal it in plastic for preservation to maintain its value. But that's not very cost effective unless you're incredibly serious about collecting comics for the after-market value.