There’s a thread of comments on the FB group regarding a German copy of Uncanny X-Men 266, and whether or not it should be considered a key. I did a little looking on the database, and it appears that foreign books don’t get key notations for any key worthy content. I only checked a few, but it seemed consistent. I was surprised, since reprints of key books, ASM 300 for example, get a minor key notation, despite the fact that they may be modern reprints. I’d suggest that foreign books receive the same treatment. From a database standpoint, it makes sense to note major content, as the covers are sometimes different, and people may not know what they own. I’ll use “L’Incroyable Hulk #40” as an example. 1st Wolverine in the French Canadian edition. It doesn’t have the same cover as Hulk 180/181, and you wouldn’t know what you have if you weren’t careful. It’s surprisingly expensive…. Anyway, just food for thought. I know the whole foreign book thing is a deep rabbit hole to go down, but if you ever have an intern with time on their hands, maybe this would be a good project. Thanks.
Hi, I’ve seen the post on fb but we will not note foreign books as keys. It’s simply because they’re not printed by marvel and most often printed and published at a later date. This would confuse a lot of collectors that just started so we have to be strict with using it on reprints. And from a database standpoint it would shift the impact of the 1st print. Especially when you add keys that aren’t really keys.
Personally I’m not a fan of having reprints as a minor keys at all. But this was decided a while ago and having to change that now would cause more chaos than it would fix. I’ve pitched the idea of a “non key” which would note something there without it impacting the key statistics. If that’s implemented at some point, I’d be happy to add that to foreign books with that info.