Guides

Variant covers on eBay: ratio variants, virgins, second printings and how to title them

By Winston, Comic Collector Enthusiast. 26 September 2026.

A comic shop can have half a dozen versions of one new issue on the wall: the regular cover, two or three alternates by other artists, a cover shops could order only by buying a stack of the regular one, a version with the logo left off. They are the same story and different items, sold at different prices to different buyers. On eBay, the difference a buyer searches for is a few words in the title, and a listing that gets them wrong is either invisible to the buyer who wanted that cover or sold to one who did not. This is what the common kinds are, how to tell which one you are holding, and how to title it.

The kinds, in the words buyers use

• Cover A, Cover B. When an issue comes out with several covers at once, publishers and shops letter them. Cover A is usually the regular one and the rest are alternates, often by other artists. On recent books the letter is how most buyers tell them apart.
• Ratio variants. A cover a shop could order one of for every so many copies of the regular cover it ordered: a 1:25 variant is one for every 25. The ratio is part of the cover's name, and you will see it written 1:25, 1/25 and 1 in 25.
• Virgin covers. The cover art with the logo, the price and the rest of the printed text left off. A virgin is often a ratio variant too, and then both are part of its name.
• Second and later printings. A new print run after the first one sold out. It usually says so on the cover or in the indicia, and it sometimes has a new cover of its own. Collectors often pay more for the first printing, not always, and a buyer who wanted one and receives the other has a fair complaint either way.
• Newsstand and direct editions. Two editions of the same issue from the years when comics were sold both in comic shops and on newsstands, usually told apart by the box in the bottom corner of the cover. The key issues guide says more about them.
• Foil, sketch and blank covers. A foil cover has foil stamped on it. A sketch variant usually shows the artist's pencils without the colour, and a blank cover is left plain white, made to be drawn on.
• Facsimiles and reprints. A facsimile edition is a new printing of an old issue, cover and all, and it is not the original. Name it in the title, so nobody takes one for the other.

Telling which one you have

Look in three places. The cover first: some variants name themselves there, and a virgin is one you can see. Then the indicia, the small print of publishing details, usually on the inside front cover or the first page and sometimes at the back, which is where a later printing usually says so. Then the barcode: on many comics the small five digit barcode beside the main one carries the issue number in its first three digits, the cover in the fourth and the printing in the fifth, so 00111 would be issue 1, first cover, first printing, and 00112 its second printing. Not every publisher lays it out that way (Dynamite and BOOM! Studios put the issue in the first two digits), so read it as a clue and check it against the cover and the indicia.

How to title a variant

The variant goes right after the issue number, before anything else. That is where a buyer comparing two listings of the same issue looks, and where a long title is least likely to lose it. Name it the way a buyer would type it: the letter, the ratio, Virgin, 2nd Printing, Newsstand. The word Variant on its own tells a buyer only that this is not the regular cover; it does not say which one, and there may be ten.

Here is one comic from this store's own boxes, titled with each of those typed after it. They show the shape of each title, not covers that exist for this comic:

Two covers of one issue listed under identical titles look like the same listing twice, to a buyer and to any duplicate check you run, which is the other reason the variant goes in the title and not only in the description.

The item specifics have no variant field. C:Variant Cover is a column name people invent, and a C: name eBay does not know becomes a custom field that no filter reads; the item specifics guide lists the real ones. The item specific that does touch one is C:Features: this store's ordinary copies say First Printing there, and on a later printing or a reprint that is a claim the comic contradicts, so change it.

Describe it, photograph it, price it as itself

Say in the description which cover it is and how you know: the letter, the artist, the ratio, or the printing line from the indicia. Photograph the front so the cover can be compared at a glance, and on a later printing or a newsstand copy, the indicia or the corner box that proves it. Then price it against sales of that cover: put the variant's words in the sold search, and leave out sales of the other covers of the same issue, as the pricing guide describes for any comic.

How Point and Sell handles a variant

You type it. Each row on the review screen has a Variant (in the title) box on its second line. Nothing fills it in for you: the cover, the printing and the edition are yours to read off the comic.

What it writes. What you type goes in the title right after the issue number, as in the table above, and after the issue number in the headline of a single comic's description. It is part of the head of the title, with the series and the issue number, and when a title runs long the rest of it gives way first. A title you type yourself in Title on eBay is used in place of the built one, so the variant is in it only if you put it there. The item specifics are the same as for any comic: there is no variant column, and C:Features is what the Features line in your Settings says (blank on a new account) unless you type the row's own in its Features box. Typing 2nd Printing in the Variant box does not change it.

Two covers, two rows. The review screen does not suggest that two rows of one issue with different variants are one comic split over two rows. The duplicate check still names a live listing of the same issue whatever its cover, so you see it, but it does not offer your row as more quantity on a live listing whose title names a different printing, edition, ratio or cover letter, or names none where your row does. The duplicate listings guide covers that choice.

The price guide chip. The PRICECHARTING chip reads the Variant box, and it is strict about it, because another cover's price is worse than no price:

• A row with the Variant box empty takes only the regular record. If the guide has only a newsstand or a variant record for the issue, the row gets no chip.
• The words that change which printing it is have to be on both sides or neither: virgin, newsstand, direct, foil, sketch, blank, facsimile, reprint, signed, holographic, chrome, ashcan and trade dress, any printing number such as 2nd, and any ratio. A virgin row does not take the record for the cover with its logo, and a 1:25 row does not take the regular cover's.
• Some spellings are read as one: Second Printing as 2nd, 1/25 and 1 in 25 as 1:25, Textless as virgin, Holofoil as foil.
• Past those words, when both the row and the record name something else, an artist or a shop, say, they have to share a word; when both name a colour, the colours have to agree.
• A Variant box that says only Variant, or Variant Cover, names no record and gets no chip. Nor does a row with no year, or a row that two records fit equally well.

What it does not do, as of today. It does not read a variant, a printing or a cover letter off the photograph or the barcode: the Variant box is yours, and a row left empty is titled as the regular comic. Nothing checks what you typed against the comic itself, so a Cover B typed on a Cover A is a Cover B listing. It does not change C:Features for a later printing. The key-issue check ignores the Variant box, so it never calls a ratio or a newsstand copy worth more than the regular one. And the price guide chip is blank far more often on a variant than on a regular cover, on purpose, because a blank is its answer whenever it cannot be sure: measured, it matched 30 of 140 variant rows from this store's own listings, against 135 of 200 regular covers.

Try it on a box · Key issues in a long box · More guides

Sources

The kinds of variant, where a printing is stated and how the add-on barcode is laid out are general collector knowledge; the Dynamite and BOOM! Studios layout is one the product's barcode reader already handles. C:Variant Cover becoming a custom field and this store's C:Features value are as this site's item specifics guide describes them. Primortals #4 is from one of this store's own boxes, where two covers of it once went up under one title. The titles above are generated by the product's own title builder on the day this page is served, and the edition words are checked against its price guide matcher on the same day. The 30 of 140 and 135 of 200 are the matcher run offline on this store's own saved lookups on 24 September 2026. Everything else about the product is its code on the day this was published. How to title and price a variant is one working comic seller's practice, not a rule.