Wolverine #145 'Bone Claw' Error Variant

Marvel Comics, December 1999.

For this issue Marvel produced a limited run of special covers with foil embossing on Wolverine's claws to celebrate and emphasise that Wolverine gains back his Adamantium skeleton within the story.

Ironically, there were a number of comics produced without the foil, giving them the nickname of the "bone claw" or "bone white claw" variant as Wolverine's claws are white under where the foil should have been.

It is not known whether these comics were pre-press proofs (a short print run prior to the main print run) or simply errors where the comics had missed out on the embossing process or failed embossing.

Anecdotally small flecks of silver have been observed on at least one of these comics suggesting that the embossing was attempted but probably failed due to lack of foil (normally the printer would have discarded these copies but it seems that some made it out to the public).

CGC have recorded over 20 of these in their grading census. Note that, as this is a manufacturing error, CGC will always give these a qualified (green) label, highlighting the lack of foil.

Above are the standard claw variant, gold embossed variant, silver embossed variant and the non-embossed "bone white" error variant.

Pricing these is difficult as so few are available but they are worth far more than the more widely available Nabisco variant of #145.