Tony S

Graded books total sales value eclipsing raw? I'm confident that is not true. I've been a dealer (mail order) for decades. I typically have my best books slabbed. A good buddy owns a LCS. I'm there on Wednesdays as a cooperative good for both our businesses thing. He gets his best books slabbed - which isn't at all common for LCS. The other two LCS in this town slab nothing. For me and for my friend, all those $5-$50 raw sales add up to VASTLY more money that the good stuff that gets slabbed. The good stuff getting slabbed is sometimes very profitable. The good stuff slabbed is much more liquid. I do agree that very high value transactions is where slabbed books show strength. The more expensive the book, the more comfortable buyers feel in buying when the book is third party graded and encapsulated. But even with the high dollar books plenty do change hands raw. Because the buyer trusts the seller. Bob (blazingbob) sells lots of expensive raw books. So does say MCS and Metropolis Comics. Customers trust them.

Shill bidding isn't the potential problem with show dealers and LCS reporting. I'm a comic book dealer as well, so I'm not throwing shade on any particular person or way of selling comic books. . But LCS owners and dealers at shows have their favorite books. They have books they are deep in stock with and would like to sell and they have books they believe ought to be worth more. Dealers sending in printed lists of books that they say they sold and the price might be rock solid and might be completely made up numbers. Numbers harvested automatically and electronically from live auctions I have a lot more faith in. Yes. GPA only captures data from one part of the market. Which is why successful sellers don't just use one source (like GPA) for pricing information.

There is a fundamental error in what you say above. Slabbing has not "taken hold". Grading has NOT been "taken over by a third party". Here on this board, surrounded by people that like CGC's product, it is easy to forget that 99.9% of comic books are sold raw. Just go to any comic book convention. Go to any comic book store. A comic book store might have 100 professionally graded and encapsulated comic books for sale - out of an inventory of 100,000 comics. The comic book store owner or employees grade and price all those raw books. So to all the raws for sale on eBay, Facebook. Even among the very elite, most expensive comics it's hard to say with any certainty that most have been professionally graded and slabbed. The Dentist has never sent in his Mile High books for instance - and the Action 1 is believed to be the very best copy. Here on this message board, it's easy to forget that our playground is really very, very small. GPA is useful enough as is. I am 100% opposed to trying to expand the number of reporting sources - especially to the local comic shops and those selling at comic cons/shows and on Facebook. There is simply way too much temptation to manipulate data. So let GPA harvest data out of the real time online sales. Current data is largely"clean" and obtained without any human involvement. Yes, it misses all the private sales, all the sales at comic book stores, the sales at conventions. But those are the sources might have an agenda other than providing their sales information for the good of all. And a final comment=== like others have said I find the new site slower than the old. Slower to respond, data is spread out and seems to require more clicks to drill down to information I want than the old. But it's certainly usable and George is I know open to suggests for improvement. I've emailed him several times now and he's quick to respond.

Marshal Rogers Batman - and even Mister Miracle - pages are rarely ever sold. The covers to Detective 475 and Mister Miracle 19 would have to be pried from my cold dead hands if I owned them

The book will get a green, qualified label grade unless you specifically ask for blue. Don't ask for blue, the book would get .5 incomplete. The entire purpose of the green, qualified label is to ignore one defect - like a missing page or cut out coupons - and otherwise assign the numeric grade the book would otherwise get. BUT with a green label that makes it clear it is a QUALIFIED grade. Label notes will say that pages 9/10 are missing a large piece that affects the story. Hulk 180's and 181's do better sales wise as Qualified books than most other issues. As 181 has gotten really expensive, so to has 180. Send it in and get the green label. it will sell for more $$. More $$ than what grading costs you.

Your question covers a lot of ground. Professional restoration is really expensive. The few places doing professional restoration recommend not restoring books past the early silver age and that the books being restored should be worth at least a grand as is. Purple labels negatively impact the value of a book - by a lot. So most believe that restoration should be avoided. CCS (the in-house pressing and restoration service of CGC) spends more time REMOVING restoration than they do restoring books. Pressing is not considered - by itself - restoration. The bottom line on pressing is that on the right books with the right (good) defects pressing can improve the appearance and grade of a comic. But there is no point in pressing a comic book that doesn't need to be pressed. And no financially sound reason to press a comic book that might look a bit better after pressing but will not improve in grade because of the existence of defects that will hold the books grade down.

Looks really nice at first glance glance with great color, gloss and structure but I believe all the color breaking wear and creases along spine, bottom of front cover and top right edge of the FC will drag the book down into the 7.0-7.5 range.

CGC states prescreen adds to the TAT. How long varies over time just like normal TAT does. This summer prescreen was adding over a month to the TAT. Right now they show it as adding a week or so. If you sent your books in around mid-October, you may have well sent them in at a time prescreen was adding 2-3 weeks to TAT.

Expanding on what others have said: The graders know nothing about the books they are grading. They don't know who submitted the books. They don't know if the book was previously graded and what grade was given before. You say this book - which was just supposed to be a reholder - was in with a "batch" that is to be pressed and regraded. So if it helps you sleep at night I think your odds are fairly high that if CCS unslabs and presses the book it will remain a 9.8. If you paid to have your books screened by CCS before pressing there is a good chance they will contact you and tell you improvement is unlikely - or just send it over for reholder. . The screening is done with the books still in the slab.

A few of us care. Matt Nelson - back before his business was purchased by CCG (parent company of CGC and others) used to have a detailed article with graphs showing how there OUGHT TO BE more 9.9's and 10's than we see. They should be expected to be seen in some predictable ratio to the other better than NM grades. But they were not. When he got owned and moved in house with CGC, that article went away. In the absence of any logic or expected ratios of 9.8 to 9.9 and 10, it sorta looks more like (winning) lottery ticket's than grades. Just sayin. And something I find even more.....interesting.... for lack of a better word is that all the 9.9's of the older vintage books were handed out in the first couple of years CGC was in business. Then never - or almost never - again.

The overall ramifications and implications escape me. The customer knows what books they sent it. They did the submission online. . So you send in 20 books and get an email back saying "these four books didn't pass the pressing screening and will not be pressed." It doesn't take a lot of brainpower to understand the other 16 books will be pressed. Efficiency is generally good.

It would actually be a good thing - for the longevity of our vintage newsprint comic books - if the hobby could reach a point where the use of buffering agents to neutralize acidity in newsprint was accepted. There have been lots of discussions and debates about the use of micro-chamber paper. Does it really help? Does it need to be periodically replaced? Voldy doesn't use it for instance. There is no debate about micro chamber paper in the library science field. Because deacidification of paper (books, documents, etc) by applying a buffering agent (that is to say spraying the pages with something like Wei-To) is the GOLD STANDARD for conservation/preservation. In the library science field, the only thing micro-chamber paper is ever used for is to make stinky books and magazines smell better. Trapping and removing odors. But right now, spraying your comic books one page at a time with a buffering agent (that is to say wetting them down with such) would earn you a conserved label/notation from the grading companies. So if or until public opinion changes, the best we can do is keep our books in climate controlled darkness. Which fortunately in developed countries is easy enough to do. If you heat your house in the winter, cool it in the summer and keep you books in boxes with lids then you are preserving them as well as can be. But if you are hot and sticky in your house, so are your precious comics.

Cleaned or new staples will not detract from (or lower) the assigned numeric grade. If sent to CGC, a book with cleaned or replaced staples - minus any other work that counts as restoration - will get a conserved label. Collectors greatly prefer unrestored, blue universal label comic books. It's unclear right now if collectors are more accepting of conserved books over restored. Many of us believe that in time collectors will view conserved books as more desirable than restored books. But the universal blue label, unrestored is always going to be the most desirable, worth the most $$. Below is a couple of links to CGC articles/news releases on restoration and conservation standards. You might find these helpful https://www.cgccomics.com/news/article/4030/ https://www.cgccomics.com/news/article/4083/

Some replies have been along the lines of "I think". So I'll post up with what I know. Unwitnessed signatures on the front cover get a green label from CGC. On the interior they get blue label. You can if you wish request a blue label for most defects that normally get a green label and take the numeric grade hit instead. In answering the OP's question, I - and many other collectors - are OK with green labels for unwitnessed signatures IF said signature(s) look legitimate. I won't pay any premium price for a green label CGC book that is a result of unwitnessed signatures. But neither do I expect to buy it cheaper than blue label. Voldy does not have a green, qualified label. Nor a Purple restored label for that matter. Any such issues are text on the label. Voldy offers a signature verification service. Where a signature expert looks at the book and says "yes or no" to if they believe it is an authentic signature. IF the signature fails authentication or IF the submitter chooses not to pay for the service (and it isn't cheap at $25 for one signature) then the "writing" on the front cover is treated as a substantial defect. I've seen a fair number of such books and 6.5-7.0 seems the highest possible grade if the signature cannot/is not verified. Like CGC, unwitnessed signatures on the interior of a book are treated as a minor defect if not witnessed or authenticated.

I've submitted - for clients - a good number of signed on the inside of front cover TMNT 1's. One graded 9.8. There have been several in the 9.2-9.6 range. So while unwiitnessed signatures on the interior of the book are treated as a defect, it is a very, very tiny defect. With minimal impact on grade. If your book graded "very low", there are other defects - maybe lots of other defects - that is affecting the grade.

Well, that could be. But the thicker holder is - as near as I can tell - simply a different, deeper back half of he slab. It appears CGC probably has several - maybe more - back half of the slabs in various depths to accommodate thicker books. So same front half of the slab, backs of different depths, all the same materials and design. I don't believe there was any materials change until Barex - the plastic CGC (and PGX) used for the inner holder - became unavailable. Which was around the time of the new holder. Ineos, the maker of Barex, closed the only plant making the plastic sometime in 2015, I say sometime because the date the plant actually closed is hard to nail down. It was announced they were closing the first quarter of 2015, but there were also reports that upon that announcement they had an influx of orders as businesses that used Barex made orders large enough to give them time to find alternatives. Which resulted in the plant in Lima Ohio staying open longer than originally planned. Voldy started out in 2014 using PETG - and everyone in the comic slabbing business is using some version of polyester film (PET) now for the inner holder. I don't believe CGC has ever actually stated what plastic is used for the outer holder. I worked a few years in the plastic industry and I am 99.9% certain it is common and inexpensive high impact polystyrene. Which is used in packaging all sorts of stuff that values rigidity, potential clarity and low cost. It's the same stuff that is used to make clear CD cases. Like you can purchase in 50/100 packs at Office Depot super cheap. So think of your CGC outer holder as a larger, thicker CD case. A bit of blue tinting added to give it the premium, glass like look that the marketing types love.

If this is so I'm unaware. I've unslabbed hundreds - maybe close to a thousand - CGC graded books. Any difference between the holders from the very first to April 2016 isn't obvious. Just changing the appearance of the labels (you mention "old label gen 1") wouldn't mean anything as far as the holder goes.

Mystafo had the correct reply. The OP's book currently sits in a Generation 1 (the original) holder. The Generation 2 holder that caused waves was only used for a few months - April 2016 to June 24, 2016 . There is NO REASON to believe the CGC case is causing waviness in the OP's book. The book could be reholdered for a modest fee ($15 plus shipping). But IMHO, the best route with this book would be: 1) Send it to CCS for pressing evaluation (screening) . If CCS says it's a good pressing candidate, go for it. If they say no, then get the reholder. For a book at this price level, the evaluation will be free IF the book is subsequently pressed. But if you are categorically opposed to pressing, just send the book back in for reholder. It's cheap, the new holder looks nice. You could even ask for and pay the extra $5 for the Captain America label.

Absolute, best comment I've read in months. .. Being old has a few advantages, right?

There is nothing in my collection I have not read. Even the encapsulated books I've read the stories at some point in time. I also purchase very few new comics and what few I do buy I read.

CGC's stance on tape is that adding tape can never improve the grade. So the question becomes "why is the tape on the book? If the tape is sealing a tear, CGC will grade the book as though the tear is still there. If tape reattaches a cover or a piece of the book, CGC will grade the book as though the cover or piece is detached. If the tape doesn't "fix" something, then the tape itself is treated as defect and the grade is affected. Your question was which is better, tape or a tear. If the tape on the first book is sealing a tear (and it probably is) to CGC when grading the book there is no difference. BOTH books have tears. Collectors generally dislike tape - and for good reason. Over time it will slowly damage the paper. But personally the first book - the one with some tape - has much better eye appeal. Stronger color, little creasing and wear. If they are about the same price I'd want the better looking book. Even though it has a small amount of tape. Welcome to the boards.

Cool resource. Thanks!

D'em Marvels going to sit me back more $$

Nice resource. This might not be so bad. i have a number of the DC books for Sept 1963

No, but dang....Now you have me thinking. Superman Annual 7. That would be cover date 9/63. I have that book. I have an Avengers 1. This will be a bit expensive unless I load it up with Charlton Romance and War titles BUT....Spinner racks are hard on comic books. I like this idea, but I think it like it better with pictures of said comic books placed in backing boards and bags, or mounted to an art type board. But it would be a very cool display/man cave thing. So thanks for the suggestion Kav!