A measurement taken on a single day describes no trend, but it describes a dispersion very well — and that's what the market state of this series in 2026 reads like.As of September 6, uncertified copies of the fourth issue were priced from $4 to $300, a ratio of seventy-five between the least expensive and the most expensive of the same issue. The third showed a ratio of sixty. Such a spread means that what sets the price is not the issue but its condition, and that a buyer who compares amounts without looking at the descriptions is comparing noise.
What a single measure allows, and what it prohibits
The word « tendance » assumes at least two points. A reading taken on September 6, 2026 provides only one, and no manipulation will transform this point into a trajectory. Comparing these figures to others, gleaned elsewhere and obtained with other filters, would produce a gap measuring the difference between two protocols, not the movement of a market.
Once this limit is set, the single measure is not sterile. It describes a structure, and a structure can be read at a given moment. Three sizes are available: the number of ads available per number, the median display level, and the range between the cheapest and most expensive ad. The first two have been covered elsewhere. The third is the subject of this article, and it is the most neglected of the three.
A dispersion is read without a temporal point of comparison. It says, for a given issue, to what extent the sellers agree with each other. A market where everyone asks for roughly the same thing and a market where prices vary by a factor of sixty are two different situations, and this difference is observable today.
Reports taken on September 6, 2026
For each issue, in uncertified copies, the ratio between the most expensive and the least expensive ad is established as follows. The fourth booklet displays the largest ratio, from $4 to $300, or seventy-five. The third follows, from $5 to $300, or sixty. The second goes from $3 to $100, or thirty-three. The sixth, from $4 to $125, or thirty-one. The first, from $11 to $315, or twenty-nine.
At the other end, relationships become closer. The eighth goes from $4 to $94, or twenty-three. The ninth, from $6 to $94, or sixteen. The eleventh, from $8 to $94, or twelve. The seventh, from $5 to $58, also twelve. The fifth, from $6 to $60, or ten. The tenth, from $19 to $94, or five. The twelfth has the narrowest ratio, $11 to $20 — but in only three listings, which means nothing.
Ranking by dispersion does not overlap with ranking by price. The fourth issue, whose median is $15, presents the widest spread of the series. The tenth, whose median is the highest after the first, presents the narrowest among the correctly filled numbers. Price and dispersion are two independent axes.
The fourth — seventy-five times
From $4 to $300 on 94 listings. Such an amplitude on an issue with a median of $15 can only be explained by the cohabitation of very damaged copies and almost new copies under the same denomination. The number is not expensive; some of its copies are.
The tenth — five times
From $19 to $94 on 20 listings. This is the tightest range of usable numbers. Sellers are largely in agreement, and the high floor indicates that no degraded examples were offered that day.
The first — twenty-nine times
From $11 to $315 on 43 listings. A booklet at a median of $60, the bottom of which is $11: the bottom of the range necessarily corresponds to very used copies, which nothing distinguishes in a list of results sorted by price.
The certified segment — another scale
The first certified fascicle ranged from $89 to $6,000, the fourth from $30 to $4,900. These upper limits are isolated announcements. They do not move the medians of $250 and $88, and one should be careful not to read them as a market level.
Dispersion is the only one of the three indicators that is sufficient in itself. A workforce is compared to other workforces, a median to other medians; but a ratio of seventy-five between two announcements in the same issue, on the same day, says something without any term of comparison being necessary.
What he says is in one sentence: on this issue, the state weighs more than the identity of the number. All the value is in the description, not the title.
What dispersion means for a buyer in 2026
The practical consequence is direct and goes against the most widespread reflex. Sorting advertisements by ascending price, a universal practice, returns to these booklets to sort by descending state without knowing it. The first ads on the list are the most degraded copies; the buyer who takes « la moins chère » is not getting a deal, he is choosing the worst copy available.
Useful reading consists of discarding the two extremes from the outset. The bottom decile brings together copies whose condition justifies the price, the top decile of sellers who are hopeful. The middle of the range is the only area where comparing makes sense, and this is where the median becomes a benchmark rather than a decorative number.
On numbers with narrow dispersion, the reasoning is reversed. When the ratio is only five, as on the tenth, the price difference between two listings reflects a modest state difference. Comparing the amounts becomes legitimate again, and the cheapest is probably a real second-hand rather than a damaged copy.
Take a point for a curve
No development can be deduced from a single measurement. The numbers in this article describe September 6, 2026 and nothing else; their interest is structural, not chronological.
Trier par prix croissant
On a booklet with a range from $4 to $300, this sorting classifies by state without announcing it. The first line is not the good deal, it is the most worn copy.
Read the maximum as a level
A $6,000 ad is an ad, not a deal. It doesn't move the $250 median or say anything about what a buyer would pay.
Forget that these are requests
All these amounts come from current announcements. A wide dispersion can also reflect poorly informed sellers as well as truly different states.
Interpréter les petits effectifs
The ratio of 1.8 observed on the twelfth is based on three announcements. At this scale, dispersion measures the chance of sellers present that day.
Mélanger les segments
Raw and certified ranges do not compare. Adding them together would produce an artificial dispersion, born from the coexistence of two distinct markets.
Why does the dispersion widen in the middle of the series?
The broadest reports focus on the third, fourth and sixth fascicles — sixty, seventy-five, thirty-one. These are also, with the second, the numbers with the most abundant supply: 109, 94 and 67 advertisements. The coincidence is not one, and it can be explained without adventurous hypothesis.
The more a booklet is offered, the more the diversity of sellers increases. A market of a hundred advertisements brings together professionals who describe precisely, individuals who empty a box, shops which sell old stock and occasional sellers who reproduce the price seen elsewhere. Each brings its own pricing policy and its own state vocabulary. The spread therefore measures the heterogeneity of sellers as much as that of copies.
Conversely, a low number offered mechanically concentrates the offer among more informed holders. Twenty advertisements on the tenth issue, with a ratio of only five: those who hold this number obviously know what they have, and no one sells it off through ignorance.
This reading has a counterintuitive consequence for the buyer. The easiest issues to find are those where the risk of a bad deal is highest, because the dispersion hides very different states. Rare booklets are expensive but rarely surprising: you pay a low price for a copy whose condition corresponds more or less to what is advertised. The difficulty and the risk are therefore not in the same place, and a collector benefits from knowing this before deciding where to turn his attention.
What it would take to really talk about a trend
The question deserves to be addressed head on, since the title of this article calls for it. Establishing a trend on this series would require at least two surveys separated by several months, carried out according to an identical protocol: same source, same filtering by number, same exclusion of lots and reissues, same distinction between raw and certified copies.
Three quantities deserve to be monitored over time, and not just the median. The workforce first: a supply that becomes scarcer often precedes a price movement. Dispersion then: a tightening indicates that the sellers are converging, a widening that they are diverging. Finally, the floor, which turned out to be more informative than the median on the tenth issue.
This work is within the reach of any methodical collector, provided they note what they observe on the day they observe it. This is precisely what this survey constitutes: a first point, published with its date and its numbers so that a second can one day be compared to it.
This statement does not allow us to say. It describes a single day, September 6, 2026. Any assertion of an increase or decrease would require a second measurement taken with the same protocol, and comparison with a figure from another method would only measure the difference between the two methods.
Because the condition varies greatly and the ad name does not reflect this. On the fourth issue, this difference of seventy-five times coexists with a median of $15: the majority of copies are ordinary, a few are in remarkable condition, and the list presents them side by side.
On a number with a wide dispersion, rarely: the bottom of the range corresponds to the most degraded examples. On a narrowly dispersed number like the tenth, whose ratio is only five, the price difference reflects a modest condition difference and the question is posed differently.
They are valid as information about a seller, not about a market. The first certified fascicle peaked at $6,000 and the fourth at $4,900, while their certified medians were $250 and $88. These upper limits are isolated announcements and do not indicate any level of exchange.
Three, recorded at regular intervals with the same protocol: the number of advertisements available, the range between the minimum and the maximum, and the floor price. The median alone reacts late, while a shrinking workforce or a rising floor are seen earlier.
A first point, so that there is a second
My Comics Collection records each estimate with its date, number, and range — the three elements without which the next measurement would be comparable to nothing.