Axe Elf

Well, as I said, I'm not going to be selling it, so I don't personally have to fight that battle--and I would never knowingly represent a book as a higher grade than it deserved--but I do identify with WANTING a good-looking book to grade highly, even if it can't technically achieve a high grade. It just seems like the 1 1/2" water stain on the back cover isn't as bad as that nasty ink spray all over the top of the front cover that still got a 6.5. The 4.5 for nothing but a water stain messes with our sense of fairness, even if it's technically sound.

I was trying to search for images of CGC graded books with water damage, and I came across this interesting article. It's wild that a big spray of ink on the cover gets a 6.5 grade as a publishing defect, but any kind of visible water damage grades no higher than 4.5 (at least by the Overstreet/CGC guidelines reviewed there). Water Damage Grades I get the poor guy's moral struggle with wanting to break it out of the case and see if he can fool someone into paying an 8.0 price for it--but that would be wrong. (Right?)

Found this thread in the archive, if it helps any...

Good point. I originally judged it just from front and back cover pics, so I never really bothered to look at how penetrating it is. In fact, it is clearly visible, but fainter, on the last page (before the back cover), and detectable, but almost invisible if you weren't looking for it on the penultimate page. I see no other water damage anywhere on or in the book.

Canadian Dollars Matter

Yeah, at this point I might as well clip that coupon on the back cover to send off for a factory-direct copy of EERIE #17 for 60 cents.

I assume you're kidding. EDIT: Bottom center of the back cover, if you're not.

Big Box arrived undamaged. Unboxing complete. First one posted for PGM...

So I recently purchased almost all the CREEPYs in one fell swoop, after negotiating the price somewhat based on my observations. I think maybe some of the advertised grades had been assigned under less strict pre-2000 grading standards, but I wouldn't think that an 1 1/2" water stain would be acceptably designated as a "NM" copy in any era. I don't really care about the "official" grade, since I'm not looking to re-sell, just to enjoy--but I am curious what effect that one major defect would have on the grade of an otherwise nice-looking book--in the opinion of the experienced graders here. It looks like it would be about an 8.0 without the water stain--but what is it WITH the water stain?

Herd dat.

I wrote the above response while you were posting, which touches on that grading issue. He was selling his dad's collection, and he said he took a lot of the grades from the bags that his dad had bought the books in way back when--so I'm guessing that a lot of them were graded using much more lenient pre-2000 standards. I scrutinized the first 11 issues that he had listed as "VF/NM" or higher, and other than the one with the big waterstain, of course, they were mostly grading out in the 7.0-8.0 range; a couple of them might go a little higher; hard to tell from just a front and back cover. Anyway, it's a nice-looking collection, but I don't think it's the kind of pristine set that @oakman29 and others have assembled. I will probly do some PGM posts of a few of them just to see what everyone else thinks.

Yeah, you directed me to your journals upon my arrival. You really have the better-looking collection(s), putting together your puzzles slowly and deliberately with individual, high-grade copies, whereas I was just looking to get acceptable/readable copies and buying most of them in lots. I guess it wouldn't be outside the scope of my own thread to list the distribution of grades I have assigned to the 140 unique EERIEs in my collection--but I'm guessing you don't really have any that would grade out less than 8.0, if that low. 9.0 - 1 8.5 - 6 8.0 - 10 7.5 - 12 7.0 - 12 6.5 - 20 6.0 - 19 5.5 - 16 5.0 - 9 4.5 - 6 4.0 - 5 3.5 - 8 3.0 - 9 2.5 - 2 2.0 - 3 1.8 - 1 1.5 - 1 I do have replacements/upgrades on the way for the 1.5, a 2.0, a 2.5, and a 3.0 (I'd like to eventually get them all at least 4.0 and up)--but I'm not sure how much of an upgrade they will be because I haven't seen them yet. The guy from whom I bought the CREEPY collection is throwing me four bonus EERIEs from my want list--but they were delayed; they were scheduled to arrive today, but won't arrive until tomorrow now. The CREEPY collection should be a little higher quality overall, although he had a lot of issues graded as "VF/NM" or "NM" that really don't reach that standard. One of them even had a big 1 1/2" water stain on the back cover, and listed as "VF/NM"! But hey, that's why I was able to negotiate the price to some extent, and it's still a pretty nice-looking collection. Even if they're not Near Mint, they look like they will mostly grade out around 6.0 through 8.5, anyway. I'll know more after they arrive tomorrow. The ROOK collection I bought also appears to be largely Fine and up, though nothing in the Near Mint range. Hopefully the CREEPS run directly from the factory will all be worthy of at least 9.0s upon arrival--but then, you know, I'm going to read them. Overall, I bought 363 issues at an average cost of $14.30 per issue, landed (including shipping and tax). Without shipping and tax, they were $12.33 per issue (although in both cases, the $400 value of the slabbed CGC 9.0 CREEPY #1 drags the cost of every other issue up about a dollar, so really, the other 362 issues were $13.24 each, landed, or $11.26 per issue not counting shipping and tax--but that was still $1.26 per issue more than my original goal of $10 per issue--even after using eBay's "Best Offer" feature to negotiate a total of $817.15 off the listed prices--or an average of $2.25 per issue). All in a month's work...

I just got here myself a couple of weeks ago, and like you, it was an EERIE-related post that made me sign up (the "EERIE #23 Club" thread)! Welcome to the Warren tribe...

Touche'! Heh. Well, they almost did...

Can you call a one-shot a "full run"? ;) I din't know Comix International was a Warren thing; just another title I'd seen advertised on DVD in PDF/CBR format. Are there only 2 in that "full run" or does your (2) mean you have 2 full runs?

An accumulation of small ticks and bends with tiny corner folds; I think you could still call it an 8.0.

Looks pretty flawless other than the tiniest of spine ticks on the black back cover, and of course that corner--but that corner... 9.0?

I wouldn't have a problem with 5.5 as is, and with a crease or two fewer it could even be 6.0.

Kind of hard to tell from nothing more than the front cover and your description of the defect, but I'd think you're in the 7.0-7.5 range, barring anything worse on the back/interior.

Sounds like a legit target then. OH! And I'd probly get the 4 Blazing Combats if I ever get the chance, too.

I believe I have heard that as well, now that you mention it. Is there also a "Goblin" mini-run, like 3 issues or something? I might be interested in that, if it's something I axually saw, and not just dreamed... ...come to think of it, I think it was mentioned on one of those DVD listings on eBay where you can get full runs in PDF or CBR format or whatever. They always come up when you search "full run," but that's not exactly what I'm looking for.

Thanks! Yeah, I've never even heard of Help! I know of The Spirit, but it's not really on my radar. If I DO get more, it would probly be starting the Vampirellas, but I wouldn't rule out 1984/1994 at some point either.

EDIT: After you read the story, click on one or more of my galleries listed here to see the books! The Po'Boy EERIE Collection A CREEPY Collection for the Rest of Us The Lottery Ticket VAMPIRELLA Collection Down the WARREN Rabbit Hole Other Warranted Warrenesque Warrenness -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And now, the story... At 12:01am on February 5, 2022, I owned 7 CREEPYs and 7 EERIEs that I had just rediscovered a couple of months ago in a box that had been in storage for about 14 years. I had bought a few issues off the newstand as a teen, and always enjoyed reading them--they were kind of lurid for a teenage boy in the Bible belt, after all. I didn't really take care of them, though; even to my untrained eye, I knew they were in rough condition--but that didn't matter; it made me curious about what the Rook had done in the issues I missed...? Were there any more installments of Moonshadow or the Fallen Angels? I decided I was going to get more EERIEs and CREEPYs. Since CREEPYs remained pretty anthologic throughout their run, while the EERIEs were more episodic, with recurring characters appearing across several issues, it made more sense to try to get the full run of EERIEs first--to get the full story arcs of all the recurring characters--so I started with them. At first I was mostly interested in watching lot listings on eBay, because that seemed like the most efficient way to reduce shipping costs--as well as landing big chunks of the run at one time--and so at 5:41pm on February 5, I made my first purchase--two 13-issue lots. After filling in the pieces around another 15-issue lot and a huge 89-issue lot, I placed an order for #24 and hard-to-find EERIE #17 on February 16, and finally, an order through Amazon for #25 on February 17, leaving only #1 and #23 as the only remaining holes in the full run. My #17 is scheduled to arrive tomorrow (Monday)--the last of my EERIE run to arrive. I'm kind of resigned to the fact that I will probably NEVER have a #1, but that's ok; close enough for rock and roll, if I can just land a #23. And it was in the course of searching for #23 that I found this Forum by way of the "EERIE #23 Club" thread and joined up on February 18. So now I'm hooked... Over the last week of February, I negotiated with a seller on eBay for a near-full run of CREEPY magazines, including a slabbed CGC 9.0 #1--and finalized the purchase on March 1. They are also scheduled to arrive tomorrow (Monday). The guy was so nice, he even threw in four complementary EERIE upgrades as well. Between those 135 issues, the 2 unique issues that I already had (from lot deals for EERIEs), and the CREEPY #32 I found on Bonanza, I now stand 14 issues short of the full CREEPY run as well. (I have #19 and #29 on my watch list; tip of the cap to the "Hardest CREEPY Issues to Find" thread.) So now I'm like what the hell; why stop there? On March 2, I purchased a full run of The ROOK (14 issues + "Wanted"), and on March 4, I purchased a full run of CREEPS direct from the SHUDDER website. The ROOK lot should arrive Wednesday; the CREEPS say to allow 3-8 weeks for delivery. So February 5 to March 4, in the space of exactly four weeks, I came up 16 issues short of acquiring full runs of CREEPY, EERIE, The ROOK, and CREEPS (assuming everything I've ordered actually arrives)--and 48 duplicate issues (8 CREEPY and 40 EERIE) that I hope to re-sell to offset some of the costs of acquiring the collection. I've also gained a lot of confidence in at least roughly grading comics over the course of the month, thanks in large part to the people here on this board. And thanks also for the inside information on some of the Warren publications I've been coveting. I felt like an outsider looking in on February 18 when I joined, but... I'M A COLLECTOR NOW! I'M ONE OF YOU!!! And that full run of Vampirella still sits there on eBay...

Thanks for the info and the compliment, and for sharing the signed bookplate--that's pretty sweet.

I just finished my Fat Freddy's Cat/Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers collection in January, with the addition of FFC #7, although I didn't really think of it as a collection at the time. I'd had most of them since college, not even bagged, let alone boarded. I added a few of the peripheral Rip Off issues, the last two FFCs, and of course the big "omnibus" editions are new. Now that I'm officially "collecting" Warren magazines, I guess I should buy some comic-sized storage equipment for these, too. I have some of the Jay and Silent Bob comics too; are those considered "underground"?