stormflora

At least Good or Very Good, with I believe one of them being Fair/Good (but that still implies no missing pages). None of them were graded Poor, and none of them had any notes mentioned. I am prepared to take photos to show to them to prove it (upon request; it's quite a lot of photos to shoot), so I have nothing to hide, really. For the missing centerfolds, I carefully referenced with the GCD to make sure the page counts and interior stories matched up for each issue. As for the mold, they are not the ones with rust migration, as I have confirmed in another thread here. I don't really mind the misgrading or lack of inspection on these comics, since they are low value/low grade after all. Cartoon comics, not superhero. (As long as they reimburse me for the oversight, of course.)

To clarify upon my experience thus far: I've lost track of how many issues I have on hand at the moment (at least 300+; I made a ton of orders within the last few months and still have more coming in) and found problems with comics from two stores so far. The comics from I received from other stores were fine: complete and without any notable damage (besides rust migration, but that's acceptable). Captive Audience Comics: One comic out of twelve had mold in it; I contacted the store and was promptly refunded for it. All good. MyComicShop: I've ordered 139 comics from them so far, and 11 of them had problems, primarily missing centerfolds or containing mold. I've e-mailed them already, which they have not yet responded. It's probably because I contacted them past business hours, so I'll wait and see whether they do on Monday. If anyone cares about statistics, that's about 8% across those two stores. (But across all of my comics instead, it would be much lower.) Not too bad, especially if they are willing to reimburse me for them. I'll chalk it up to them not really spending time (if any) in inspecting these low value/low grade comics for quick resale.

Sellers have a responsibility to make sure that the products they are selling have not been tampered with/are damaged, but when a company gets larger and they start dealing in thousands to tens of thousands of comics a day, it becomes unreasonable for them to spend too much manpower on inspecting each and every comic they receive in boxes/bins/palettes. They focus on flipping them quickly, as the bulk of comics out in the market are worth only dollars at most, and fulfillment times and storage space are far more valuable to them. So yes, as a buyer, you should indeed by inspecting the products you buy. Why would you buy something and settle with it being faulty in some way? There is no logical reason why you would want a broken product. You paid good money for something you equally expect to be good.

Yeah, the purist mindset. Some people want their comics unadulterated (even though they're willing to accept the double-standard of having drawings/writing or rookie/amateur repairs done on old comics). As time passes and these comics turn 100, 200, 300+ years old, people are gonna be happy of their very existence, regardless of condition. We've seen this from books circa pre-1900 that are already breaking down in various ways, and museums/libraries/etc. trying to conserve them however possible. I've made the decision to replace bad staples for my own collection. The question is, does replacing it stop the rust (already on the paper) from spreading?

Yeah, similar findings on my end too. Buyers hate being "forced" to buy things at certain prices. And the reasoning for that is, majority of the time, the seller thinking something deserves more when it's actually overpriced, but they want to recoup losses. Just set up an auto-renewing auction with a minimum bid OR set a realistic maximum price with best offer enabled, and normal shipping. Let it sit for however long it takes to sell.

Luck of the draw. Also, shipping costs are important, as some sellers try to sneak in a reserve price by embedding it within the shipping so that they can guarantee a minimum whilst also setting up an auction that starts at $0. Certainly, they could just set up a proper reserve price, but bidders don't like seeing that marked on an auction and being pressured by it, and sellers don't want to pay the additional fee in order to set one up. And setting a minimum auction price, although a possible alternative, doesn't look good either to many buyers. I see shipping-embedded reserve prices far more often than proper reserve prices. It's probably only reserved for high value items where the fee is insignificant compared to the overall value of the item.

Is it as simple as replacing the staple? Does that stop the rust from spreading? Yep, they're not particularly expensive comics, although I wouldn't call them "beaters" in my eyes. Just low grade.

Probably depends on what kind of ink is used. Some may resist bleaching.

I did some research online, and apparently rusty staples can eventually corrode the comic. Are you sure I shouldn't replace those staples? Or is it that any significant amount of damage would also need a significant amount of time to unfold, making it a non-issue for the most part? (This is more of a conservation question.) I will avoid moisturizing/HOP pressing these rusted comics, unless it's possible to heat press away all of the moisture with multiple passes.

@Point Five @AJD I suppose whether or not the comic will still have any value depends entirely on what it is. Key issues originally worth hundreds to thousands might take a hit to its final value but would still sell for quite a bit. But on lower priced comics, probably would not be worth reselling at all, or maybe just to someone who wants it as a reader issue with the issue explicitly mentioned. Thanks!

Thanks a bunch, everyone! I'm not looking to resell these comics or anything. Just want to keep them for my own collection. They were typical raw, low-grade comics. But I was worried whether it may have been mold, which is a biohazard I don't want to keep around. I guess that means these three issues are safe to keep, then. Should I replace the staples on these issues, plus on any other issues that have rusted ones? Or what is the recommended approach?

Here are photos of another issue: And here is another issue:

I’ve seen this sort of thing in a few comic issues so far, to varying severity. The photos I’ve attached are of one single issue, on multiple pages. It’s the most conservative example I have. In the other issues, they are larger in diameter or have blotched into other areas as well. But all the same colour and seem to come from the nail. I don’t smell anything in particular but I am nonetheless concerned.

A couple of Tom and Jerry issues. I’ve been double checking with Comics.org and have confirmed two to be missing them so far, interrupting story.

Oof, so not worth anything. Glad I'm planning to replace these then. The only reason why I could fathom a seller omitting this bit of detail is if they aren't even aware of what the comic should include and they never bothered to check, and they secured the comic without the centerfold to begin with.

So I bought a ton of comic issues lately, and after encountering one with an undeclared missing centerfold for the first time, I'm now spending the time to do a thorough examination of each comic I have to make sure no others are missing them as well. I'll try to contact the seller(s) for reimbursement for these issues, and if that fails, I'll resell them with the issue stated and replace them with new copies. In your experience, how often do you end up with comics sold with missing centerfolds that were not mentioned in the listing (perhaps because even the seller wasn't aware)? Are non-Modern Age comics prone to this sort of issue? When centerfolds are missing, what grade does it automatically drop down to no matter what?

The thing is, grading and slabbing a comic only shows a score on the condition of the comic at the time of grading. Someone could accidentally drop their slabbed comic into a pool and pull it back out, and it would still be considered the same grade, even if it's bound to be eventually damaged. The question at this point is whether or not that someone is willing to be truthful about said damage, or tries to sell it without being fully transparent about it. I respect this particular seller for telling their buyers that the staples have rusted. But whether the buyer may resell it without mentioning that bit (for the purpose of profit), that possibility will always exist. Without being able to inspect a comic in person (e.g. eBay), you run that sort of a risk when you buy high graded, slabbed comics.

At the end of the day, it's not one single person working in the grading department of CGC. It's many different people. And everyone has a different eye for grading. Kind of like a driving test examiner. Some might be more lenient, some might be more strict. If you're lucky, you get someone who's lenient enough to overlook some blatant issues and slap on a high grade (not that that is a good thing for CGC, but it is for you xD) As some have said, even if you resubmit the same comic to CGC again, there is no guarantee you'd end up with the exact same grade. Someone who hits a 9.0-9.7 but not 9.8 with a comic might just roll the dice a few times without changing a single thing or acquiring any cleaning/pressing/etc., and eventually hit 9.8 that way. Standards are always going to be a mixed bag, and for cases like these where you "won the lottery" in getting a good grade on a bad test, just take it and quietly move on about your day. @Tom789 I commend you for grading your comics regardless of their worth on the market. You want your comics graded for your own collection, because it looks nicer to you that way, and is also a good way to protect the comic too, as it kind of freezes it in time.

Well, as you said, the comic scene is split into different branches due to there existing different kinds of content and demographics. Any sort of blanket generalization of the market as a whole would not be an accurate indicator of the value of specific subsets of comics. Just like how the S&P 500 or NASDAQ works, they don't necessarily illustrate an accurate picture of the different sectors that they cover. Some may perform better than others. I'm sure someone who has the time and patience could go around making a large summarized tracker of individual key issues for every since comic series, derived off of PriceCharting. But that's a lot of work. And again, results would be obscure due to the existence of different comic ages.

There have definitely been cases of in-person theft/mugging in the past, albeit not necessarily with comics. Back when the PS5 and GPUs around that time were just released, there were many cases in the news of people meeting up with others to buy their (scalped/upcharged) items, and then robbing them armed or with a group. Of course, that's not nearly as prevalent nowadays, but there is always that possibility with high priced items. Thus, whether it is eBay or Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace or whatever, any sufficiently expensive item sold in-person should be done in a location with other people around, or with surveillance.

Oh yeah, I am. I have no intention of doing such a thing. I've participated in other Secret Santa events in the past on other sites, so I know all about making sure to fulfill my end of the bargain Besides, it's a good way for me to part with some stuff that I no longer need, but can't bring myself to simply donate.

Did you just grab whatever rare Whitmans they had in stock? What did the comics average out to, per issue? I didn't really bother looking them up on MCS, only eBay. Wasn't a main priority to me for MCS.

Thanks for the advice! Much appreciated. By definition, would the "crime books" be the Crime and Punishment (obviously) and the Kenny Drake Detective book?

Minor update. It was very, very close, but I managed to nab it for $250 CAD ($184 USD) + shipping/fees/taxes/etc. It came in a lot along with a few other old comics of that era, albeit not horror. May or may not be worth a pretty penny on their own; who knows. But do feel free to give me a guesstimate as to whether or not they have at least some worth (obviously, I'm not an expert in this field):

Yeah... I'd just sell it as-is at a slight discount and hope nobody notices. It's not like you're the one who opened up the case. When buyer asks, just say it was shipping damage. It really is, after all.