Why I wouldn't buy that 9.8

I remember talking to another collector and he mentioned to me that if a modern age book is anything but white pages then they don't want it. If I am not mistaken someone even wrote a Journal about why they wouldn't want a CGC graded comic book. Currently two of my 9.8's have off white to white pages, both of them are part of the signature series. I still bought them, although to be honest I overlooked the page quality. It never bothered me till that conversation and I don't know why, it's not like I'll ever open them up.

What bothered me before that conversation was (and is) the covers with UPC codes when (and only when) they could have had a picture in the box. More times than not this picture was Spiderman's face, this was also considered a direct market edition. If a graded copy of a book has the UPC code instead of Spiderman's face on it I will pass on purchasing the book. This of course is only true on those books where I have the choice.

Issue number 17 of The New Mutants was sold by WorldWideComics.com. It was a 9.8 and had white pages but it also had a barcode. Bagofleas, the current first placeholder of the complete New Mutants set purchased it. He bought it before I had the chance and I wonder if I did have the opportunity would I have bought it. At the time it was the only one.

There are five others, to my knowledge, and all owned by the same guy. He had them for sale on eBay for a price I thought too high. There have been other books I have seen online that I wanted to purchase but I didn't because of the UPC code on the cover. On the new books if the cover only has the barcode I understand there's nothing I can do about it. I like the more recent covers and how they have the UPC even smaller then before but look forward to the day that they place the UPC on the back of the book. (Is someone from Marvel reading this?) There are other things that might make me stop buying a graded book but the lack of Spiderman (or some other character) looking at me is my biggest deal breaker.

Thanks for reading

Lee

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