I totally get where JB is coming from in terms of not seeing its value, having worked through the era.  But there's a big part of me that very much wants to make sure the old production methods are remembered and celebrated - it's really the same reason I hate to see original art hand colored at the request of a later collector.  When it's gone, it's gone.

Let me clarify this: I'm not saying that THIS particular paste-up is rarer than THE specific art from THIS specific cover.  I mean in a general sense, it's probably easier to find comic art for sale than production art for sale from the era.  I could be wrong, but basing it on this thread and the general lack of things I've ever seen people talk about as prized acquisitions, I think the paste-up stuff was thought of as unimportant and of no real value by collectors.

The math I'm using is of the hundreds of comic pages produced by an artist that would have been saved/collected, versus the smaller number of things like cover paste-ups that were more likely to be discarded. Rarity is about what currently exists, regardless as to whether it was more common at one point.  In a way, the general thrust of this thread proves that things like this paste-up are much rarer now and hence have increased in value.  There's one consolidated thread given over to every single piece of art any collector would buy - but a full thread dedicated to this historical oddity.

Am I misreading that the lettering is hand drawn on the piece in question?  The illustration and other pieces (logo, ad banner) are stats, but the lettering is unique?  Obviously if the WHOLE thing is a Xerox then its value is highly overinflated.