Daredevil #1 has returned

I filled out all the paperwork on-line for CGC and took my 10 books in for the last day of ECCC. Not being sure what to expect from the CGC receiving crew I headed there first and was able to hand off my books in about 10 minutes while all the I's were dotted and T's crossed.

My copy of Daredevil #1 was the highest price paid of any book in my collection a present from dad in 1989 for a great year of grades in high school. It was bought in a now defunct San Francisco store called Don's Com-X Exchange or something like that. I think $250 dollars was what he paid and it's always been my prized possession. So I submitted it as express and anxiously monitored the submission tracking link. I dropped it off on March 3rd, it was listed as received on March 6th and arrived back here on March 16th. Of course I didn't have the willpower to wait and be surprised and checked the grade as soon as the website would let me. Of course I saw the flaws, the small stress creases on the spine and the corner on the back but not having gone through this before I had no idea what the grade would be. I started worrying about overwrap and underwrap and rusty staples. In hindsight I probably should have taken the book out of its mylar before I dropped it off so I could see the page color and taken some photos. Alas I did not.

I think 9.0 OW/W is a fair grade it's not jumping for joy great, but it's respectable. When it arrived at the door I tore open the package and turned it over and around and then I said what is that bubble? On the backside there was what looked like a kidney shaped bubble that refracted the light in a way that I couldn't tell if it was pressing into the back cover of the book or simply distorting the text. I kind of just brushed it off for the day happy to have it back and happy to be able to let people see it with out worrying about them ruining it. When I took pictures of it the bubble started to look more obvious and ugly so I tried to research through the chat rooms to see if anyone else had seen this before. Couldn't find anything so I posted on the ask CGC registry and after 4 days of no response I tried one of the other forums and got good suggestions to contact CGC. Duh, right?

CGC responded to the contact email very quickly and said, "That is a by-product of the injection molds used to manufacture our inner wells and is more cosmetic than anything. That will not affect your book in any way." So I did feel better that it wasn't going to hurt my book, but worried that if mine was the only one that looked this way then someone might hesitate buying it especially if they only saw the pictures on ebay. So I wanted to wait until some more of my books arrived. 4 more arrived today and to some degree they all have a similar bubble in the back. Once again I felt better and worse at the same time. What do we pay CGC for? To give prospective buyers confidence in what they are buying, to protect the books and to enhance their value by making them look nice? Well this seems to me like a bit of a "fail" on 2 out of 3. Not sure if we have an alternative but I can say this doesn't thrill me at these prices. I hate to say it but I hope a bunch of other people are seeing this in their books as well so future buyers are prepared and don't ask what is that weird bubble?

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