Bomber-Bob

I totally AGREE. Years ago, I enjoyed the Registry in a competitive way. Now, it's just a place to record my collection. There is simply so much wrong with the Registry I totally lost interest. From CGC's viewpoint, the maintenance is very labor intensive. Not much automation, just manual input. If they were to acknowledge Pedigrees, it would mean manually creating new slots for all the permutations of grade, signature, resto etc. I just don't think they are up for the task.

A press will flatten it out a little, make a better presentation but it will not help with a better grade. IMO, those stains will probably keep it at 5.5 levels. Sorry.

FF52 was always a desirable book with the Black cover making it difficult to find in the uber high grades. There are only 5 9.8's on the census. Usually a movie brings out more books on the census but there hasn't been a new 9.8 graded in nearly two years. It's a tough book and I think demand will remain strong.

There's a 9.2 on Heritage right now @ nearly 3,600 with two days to go. I think it will peak out @ 4,500 . The best way to find out about a hot book is to watch the WTB threads. FF 48 was asked about often. This book did shoot up suddenly. In such cases you need to overpay to get what you want before the prices shoot up. Trying to low ball initially will leave you empty handed.

Since they are both very low grade anyway, they are likely to get blue labels with notes on the flaws. However, the piece married from another book may get an apparent label. The staples added gets hit hard on the grade because the staples have introduced 4 new holes that permeate the whole book. The large piece missing from the back cover may put you into very low grade 1.8 territory. We would need to see pics of the books to give a better assessment.

I don't think I've ever seen CGC use the term paint before, usually marker or pen. Not sure but I think they want to distinguish between something that is only on the surface(pen) as opposed to something that is absorbed and probably bleeds through the paper (Marker). Marker or 'paint', it really doesn't matter, both have the same effect on the paper.

I agree, use as much tape as you want on the outer box. However, I think the topic here is too much tape on the inside contents, especially on the book itself.

Restoration is only part of your worries. It could come back incomplete, detached staple somewhere, staples that were replaced. To say nothing about the actual grade itself. The chances of a raw E-Bay item coming back from CGC with the advertised grade is slim to none. Save yourself the aggravation, don't buy it.

Great, if he didn't know a crease hurts the grade, I'm sure he knows nothing about pressing. Get ready for the questions about pressing.

Unfortunately, the Registry doesn't acknowledge Pedigrees, no additional points.

IMO, the biggest factor for shipping safely is to use a large enough box. You need plenty of room on the inside for lots of bubble wrap, newspaper, peanuts, etc. to completely surround the contents. The second factor is to prevent the internal movement of the contents. Instead of a taped cardboard sandwich arrangement, I like to put the contents into a bubble wrap envelope with cardboard, sandwiched but not taped. You can fold over the flap of the envelope to fit snug against the the top of the contents. Comiclink ships like this and doesn't even use cardboard inside the envelope. It seems to be very safe and easy to remove content.

At the time, I went around to all my LCS locations and tried to purchase them. I remember some shops having as many as 4 copies so I think it was based on amount ordered.

Most definitely Yes, the spine creases will knock the grade down Curious as to why would you think otherwise ? Worse yet, they break color, with the crease in the middle of the spine being the worst.

I do think there is an art to packaging securely and still making it easy to disassemble. While I do think a lot of tape on the external package is a good thing, what's the point of so much tape on the inside ? A single piece of tape on the bubble wrap should be sufficient. It's not like the bubble wrap is going to unwind inside the box without lots of tape.

IMO. stay away from it = don't buy it. It is very difficult to put a price on either the touch up or the Stan signature. I am sure the seller has an inflated view and it will be very easy to overpay. Putting a Stan signature on a restored book is an old trick as a Yellow label is much more desirable than a Purple one. Don't be a sucker.

True. And 'small amount' can mean numerous locations.

They are NOT simply going to reslab the book, taking off the other guys label and putting on their own. You will have to submit it for full service grading.

I 100% agree with you, a flaw is a flaw and should be deducted. Unfortunately CGC does not always view it that way and let many bindery issues slide. Things like Marvel chipping, printer's creases, and even these gripper holes get a pass, unless they are severe. It also games the 'system' as attempts are made to get CGC to believe some inflicted flaws are bindery.

He doesn't have the invoice, Paradise does.

At least you are now considering the fact that this is all on Paradise. Here's a couple different scenarios as I see it... - The books have been sitting at Paradise all this time. When the heat came down via this thread, Paradise finally shipped them to CGC and begged to get them quickly graded. - They shipped the books a year ago but did not supply payment. With the heat from this thread, they sent payment and again, begged CGC to grade them fast. DonSal, I think you were sweet talked by Paradise into thinking this was a combined screw up by both them and CGC. To most of us, this is obviously 100% on Paradise.

From personal experience, having a high starting bid is generally not conducive to getting bidders involved. Sorry, between the E-Bay solution and high starting auction bid, I think you are going about this in the wrong way. Your book, your decision but you asked.

Canadians put the day first, then the month.

The problem isn't the time window from grade date to shipping date. He waited a year and a week for it to be graded.

So Brandon191 gave his book to Paradise on Jan 17, 2017 and it was graded on January 26, 2018. A problem with Paradise or CGC ?

Thanks. Grade Date: 01/26/2018