Tom789

I remember my first comic books. I was probably 7 or 8 at the time (so 1967 or 1968) and my Mom was dragging me around to a bunch of garage sales. I was bored out of my mind until I saw a stack of comic books at one of the sales. Mom let me pick a couple out and bought them for me - Metal Men #20 and Detective Comics #362. I think I liked the slab of cake on the Metal Men cover and wanted to know why a robot was eating it. For Batman, I liked the idea of a huge, evil Batman stalking the city. When I started seriously collecting around age 20 I picked up copies of these books for sentimental reasons and I've slabbed the Batman, never to leave my possession.

The teflon sheets I've seen pictures of have small lines that might leave impressions on the covers. I use silicone parchment paper as the item touching the comic book cover during a heat press. When I was starting, I saw lots of recommendations to use silicone release paper but my limited search abilities couldn't find any in a size large enough to cover a comic book, although I'm sure they're out there. The silicone paper (do NOT use baking parchment paper) is reusable many, many times and works well for me. Silicone parchment paper on eBay

Ok, I thought that only worked for strikethroughs.

One thing I noticed in Buy It Now auctions is if I put one on a watchlist, get a discount offer from the seller, and accept, the sold listing will show only the original price with no strikethrough. Not sure how to detect when those are sold at a discount.

I have one 9.8 I got back that has a grader note. Paraphrasing - "very light spine stress lines".

I got the shipping notice about 3 hours after I posted. Surely, my post was the trigger

I just won my first auction at ComicLink and I paid with a check. The check cleared 5 days ago, but I've received no communication from them that I've paid in full or that the item has shipped. Is this normal?

Yes, the original is 4x on my smartphone. I can barely see them in the newer photo, but I know where to look.

Here it is. The defect is on the right edge below the yellow text. I didn't mean to imply that this was a defect unique to this cover. It doesn't look to me like a handling defect, so I was just curious how it would be treated. It probably wouldn't get a 9.8 anyway due to the lower right corner damage.

It's under press right now, so I will post a full picture later tonight.

This is from the right edge of a Fantastic Four #254, so late Bronze Age Marvel. I assume this series of small tears is a production issue, so wouldn't count against a potential 9.8? Also, I posted another possible production issue in the pinned production issue thread, but no one has responded yet. If anyone would like to take a look, I'd appreciate it!

I apologize if this has been covered already, but I don't have time to wade through all 34 pages! (I did look at the first few). I've come across several Marvel books now that have a line of raised ridges on the cover. I assume this is an impression from a roller to move the book along the production line, and thus wouldn't count against a potential 9.8. Is this a known production issue?

No, just to the inner back cover. Thanks everyone for your grade estimates, a clear consensus 3.0. I need to get better at estimating low grades!

I don't know why it wants to post these pictures sideways. Haven't had this problem before and can't seem to fix it. - 1" curved tear on front top edge - 1" strip of color lift front top edge near spine - multiple reader creases and spine stress lines - 1/4" spine split at bottom - staples firmly attached, interior complete - multiple stains/foxing on back cover I'm thinking 3.5/4.0?

The CGC grading guidebook appears to disagree significantly with this, although perhaps I am misinterpreting your post: p. 284 describing a 9.0 - "a small 1/4" missing piece is allowed". p. 288 describing an 8.0 - 1/2" x 1/2". p. 296 describing a 6.0 - Accumulation of 1" x 1". p. 302 describing a 4.5 - Accumulation of 2" x 2". p. 308 describing a 3.0 - Accumulation of 3" x 3".

25x Modern Slow Delivered to CGC 2/27 Shipped from CGC 3/2 4 business days

A couple look like they might be fiber-breaking - possibly the one near the top of the S in "Series" and more likely the one across from the top of "even a". Although you can probably press out the 3D aspect of those ticks, the fiber breaks will still be there.

The second to last photo shows some small bumps/protrusions along the right (long) edge that appear to be present on all pages including the front and back covers. I've seen this in some of the Silver Age Marvels I have, so I don't think it's trimmed on that edge.

I bought a lot of 17 The Shadow (DC, 1973) books from Heritage that were described as VF+ on average. But when I got the books, wow. Looks like they were read once, carefully, and then stored away. Perfect corners and spines, a few finger bends. A lot of 9.4s and higher after pressing. Got lucky on this one.

I see one spine tick on the front, and on the back I don't know if those are up to 10 spine ticks or just image artifacts. Also might be some tanning on the top front cover, but might not affect the grade much (I have a 9.8 of my own with light tanning). The rest of the book looks fantastic, though there might be a slight finger bend front center right. 9.6 with the one spine tick and finger bend, 8.5/9.0 if those are ticks on the back.

I'm going through and cleaning and pressing my late Bronze Age collection with the goal of slabbing every potential 9.8 I find. This was one of those at first, but after pressing I noticed a faint reading crease on the front cover, bottom right corner - about 1" inch in length. The CGC grading guide says a 1"-inch crease on the front cover caps it at 8.0, but I think that would be a shame for such a beautiful book. I know it's not a 9.8 and no longer planning to submit, but are all creases created equal and could this actually grade higher than an 8.0? Edit: I apologize for the poor resolution on my camera phone, but there are no spine ticks or stresses and no other observable handling flaws.

Even if pressing can eliminate and reduce certain defects it may not be worth it if there is an overriding defect that caps the grade of the book.

This came as a surprise in a run of Iron Man #1-54 that I bought last year.

I bought this back in the early 1980s when I was quite naive about restoration. I'm 95% certain this book is trimmed on the long edges of the front and back covers, thus making it not worth grading (to me). But I want to make sure it's not some weird production issue, in which case I would submit it if it's a known issue.

This book has a small stain on the front cover. I thought it was an oily stain at first, but it does not penetrate to the inner cover, and I was able to make it fainter with an eraser. It has been cleaned and pressed. The stain is circled in red in the closeup photo - the other specks are not on the comic, probably need to clean the lens.