Daredevil CGC Census Results

Most of my new additions this week were hard to find raw books to be sent for grading -

Ultimate Spider-Man #1 - German Edition

Daredevil Newsstand Marvel Unlimited #17, #18, & #19

Der Tod Von Captain America - German variant of Capt. America(v5) #25

I did pick up one CGC graded book which I couldn't resist at a nice price, the McGuiness variant to Capt. America #25 9.8

The thrust of my focus this week has been around the Daredevil complete set, when I start collecting a CGC run I like to check and catalogue the census results for the books in high grade - 9.4 to 9.8 (or higher if available)

For this set of books I have decided to collect #100 - #500 first, maybe throwing in a couple of pre #100 issues if they can be picked up at the right price. The first section of analysis was from #100 to #168, and it threw up some interesting and unexpected results:

If you take out the main keys #131, #158 & #168

*7 issues with no 9.8's - #102, 106, 116, 119, 121, 124, 156

*10 with only one 9.8 - #103, 104, 105, 112, 120, 123, 125, 128 133, 137

*28 with two to five 9.8's - #100, 101, 107, 108, 110, 111, 113, 114, 115, 117, 118, 122, 126, 127, 129, 130, 132, 135, 138, 140, 141, 142, 143, 146, 148, 150, 151, 154

*13 with six to ten 9.8's - #109, 134, 136, 139, 144, 147, 149, 152, 155, 162, 163, 165, 166

*6 with over ten 9.8's - #145(11), 153(16), 157(13), 161(18), 164(24), 167(19)

That's 338 non-key 9.8's between 65 issues, not many at all in this age of manic grading, so does this mean that there's a lack of high quality raw issues or that there's not much demand in the high grade Daredevil market?

Before you answer you should know that in the same amount of issues (65) there are 1093 graded at 9.6, over three times the amount, and most of those people were hoping for 9.8, because in reality who sends in a middle run book hoping for a 9.6?

Also we find 959 at 9.4, which strikes me as slightly unusual, as I thought there might have been more, but specalist submitters are probably getting better spotting the higher level non-key books, because when it comes to the keys, everyone is looking to make a buck rather than horde away -

#131 - 9.8(13), 9.6(58+1 SS), 9.4(99+2 SS)

#158 - 9.8(40), 9.6(102+1 SS), 9.4(178+2 SS)

#168 - 9.8(47), 9.6(164+7 SS), 9.4(312+3 SS)

There are two high grade monsters:

#157 one book graded at 10

#161 one book graded at 9.9

Interestingly there are also only 3 Signature Series books outside of the keys and two of them are #157 & #159 (snugly around #158)

So if you get a 9.8 outside of the key issues hold and cherish it, a 9.6 might just be the best you can ever do and a 9.4 you may have to live with..