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CS vs. SC


Fred Slota

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CS = Collector's Set, 144 issues

SC = Special Cover, 617 issues

 

I think there are some incorrect assignments of Special Covers as Collector's Sets (all are given in the original, I think incorrect, assignments)  It's a completely different question of whether these really should be Special Covers instead of Regular Issues, or Variation A, or something else.  Some curation might be useful.

 

As some examples:

 

Action Comics #687/CS

Adventures of Superman #500/CS

Avengelyne, Bad Blood #1/CS & #2/CS

Batman #500/CS (note says Collector's Set, not sure if it really is)

 

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The Collector's Set designation is generally used when there are additional items included with the issue.  In the case of AoS #500/CS, I think that the issue was polybagged with a trading card.  Batman #500/CS had several items included in the polybag such as postcards and a poster.  In both cases, there were non-bagged versions of the comic that did not come with those extras.  Similar situation for Superman (2nd series) #75.  

In the case of Action Comics #687/CS, I don't recall anything different with that issue except for the die-cut cover.  That probably should have been indexed as AC #687/SC (special cover) or AC #687/A, but so much time has passed that HC might be reluctant to make a change to the database on that one (when possible, HC prefers to avoid making variation changes to older mainstream comic issues in the database so as not to mess up the longstanding inventories of ComicBase users).  I'm sure Mark or Pete will weigh in on that particular issue.  

Note that the CS designation was used back when HC was more inclined to go with "descriptive" variant designations (e.g., "gold cover") instead of "variation A."  It is used sparingly (if ever) for newly released comics.  

There have been a few cases where trade paperbacks of a series get the CS designation.  I don't recall specifically which titles that happened with, but it was instances where there was already a tpb series indexed under the same title, and the Dlx designation was not deemed appropriate.  I *think* this happened when an *older* tpb collection was not in the database prior to indexing a more recent tpb collection with different contents, and the older collection needed to be retrofitted into the title.  This is done only rarely, however.  

Finally, CS has been used in a few situations where a set of comic issues were released in a single package.  Here is one example of that: https://atomicavenue.com/atomic/item/250265/1/Daredevil-The-Man-Without-Fear-Collectors-Set-1

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