Tony S

There is a permanent "sticky" thread on detecting restoration. I should count as an experienced collector, but I completely suck at detecting trimming. Old books were printed cheaply and miscuts were common. So unless it was a six year old with a pair of school scissors, I'm useless at spotting trimming.

These two - Along with Steranko's books - are great overviews.

As others have said, it's extra added staples. As defects go, rather common actually. Kids added staples to make sure the cover stayed attached. Or because the cover was loose to reattach it. Or because they just bought a new stapler and were walking around the house stapling every piece of paper they could find....It was tough in the late 60's finding things to do for fun. No cable TV, no internet, one phone and it was on a cord . A new stapler provided hours of entertainment.... Were this book sent to CGC for grading, the label would note "extra staples added, not manufacturing". Given the overall condition of the book, I doubt the extra staples would have any effect on the assigned numeric grade.

Listed grading TAT's have been - overall - fairly accurate. I say fairly because with the Value and Economy tiers the TAT's for some of my submissions have grown literally weekly. They are accurate now. But the Value tier Submissions I did in March did not indicate four months. Back in March I think it was three months, maybe 2.5 months. Anytime you add or submit for pressing you increase the chances greatly of TAT's only being rough estimates. Graders can speed up a bit, write down fewer notes. Staff in encapsulation and shipping can work an extra few hours. But cleaning and pressing books is skilled labor and exacting procedures. You DON'T WANT the people cleaning and pressing your books to hurry the F.. up. So with pressing it is very much an estimate. If they get a big bunch of additional books in it's going to take longer. Because they can't just throw more people in and they can't just hurry up and clean and press faster. The receiving thing is the only one that really causes me any - and it's minor - annoyance. Three out of the five Saturdays I've received notices of books received. So CGC has the receiving staff working OT trying to get boxes opened and books into the workflow management system. I sent in a box of books in today. Sorta cringe at how long it might take with SDCC for them to get opened and moving. But I mean what can I or CGC do? The books were ready to go. My package will arrive Friday the 19th. But I just know that there will be a mountain of submissions that come in on the truck from SDCC on Monday or Tuesday. So I'll just have a drink a chill.

There's a reason everyone here likes you Sharon. Not only did you go out of your way and take action to help someone - you are careful to give credit to others. And are humble about what you did. If what goes around comes around, then you are well situated.

THIS: The BIG BIG guide is much easier to read. A pdf copy could be easier to read if you still use a computer and have decent size screen. Not sure how it would work with those that have ditched computers and live their digital lives on a smart phone. Responding to a few other comments. The OPG isn't the Bible of the hobby like it was decades ago, but it is still a useful tool - one of a several useful tools - that serious hobbyist's and dealers would be wise to have access to.

I think you are going to be disappointed on the length of time it takes for the books to get back to you unless you - and the others - all used a fairly expensive grading tier. A minimum of Standard tier ($65 a book) or Economy Fast Track ($48 a book) Those tiers take about 5-6 weeks to be completed at CGC. Less expensive tiers are taking much longer. Months longer. The other thing is "everyone going together". That is a good way to cut down on shipping costs to CGC. But saving on return shipping costs ONLY works if everyone is submitting their books under the same CGC tier. CGC does not combine shipping of different tiers - the different tiers have different turn around times and CGC ships when stuff is done. It's also worth noting that CGC cannot fit more than 25 slabbed books in a single box, so anything past 25 starts another box. Below is a link to CGC's various tiers, costs and Turn Around Times. As you can see, the only books likely to be back in a month are any modern tier submissions. Unless you paid large for grading older books https://www.cgccomics.com/submit/services-fees/cgc/

You will want to take some time to familiar yourself with CGC's different tiers. Right now all of your books were published before 1975. That's a good start. The tiers also have value limits. $200 Value, $400 economy, $1000 standard, etc... There are no grading discounts for shipping multiple books at a time. But shipping can get expensive. The Golden rule of shipping is the first pound (or in this case book) is the most expensive. Two books can be shipped back to you for a couple of bucks more than one. Five books a few bucks more than two. Ten books maybe ten bucks more than five. And CGC does shipping in blocks. 3-5 books is the same price. So to 5-10. So if doing four books might as well do five. Doing six might as well shot for 10. With return shipping, you can spend about $30 shipping one book - or $55 and ship ten. This is only coming up as part of the discussion because you have eight books you want to grade - and wanted to break them into a couple of different submissions. You'll save some cash on shipping if you do all eight at once. As for your original question: if you are going to break up the submission, send in your favorites first. You have them listed in the order of my favorites, with MTU 1 being placed above Defenders 1.

In this forum, go to comics general. At the very top are several listed sub-forums, the first one is about this issue. It's referred to as Newton Rings by most. It also goes by prism effect. Where the two plastics (inner and outer holder) touch an 'oil on water" visual distortion can occur. No one likes the appearance of Newton rings, but they are not considered a defect by CGC and they in no way harm the book. https://www.cgccomics.com/boards/topic/440951-newton-rings/page/19/?tab=comments#comment-10763436 Welcome to the boards.

Back in the day kids used scissors on comics all the time. A corner cut off a book is unlikely to get a purple label. As comicginger mentioned, corners get folded and fall off on their own all the time, so that is a possible direction as well.

Few people would want to go to the expense of reholdering books just because of the microchamber paper showing. It will not harm the book in any way.

Many collectors - myself included - actually like neat arrival dates. They settle discussions of when books arrived on the newsstand. Distributor ink lacks any such meaning. And a neat arrival date is way less noticeable than even a modest amount of ink overspray. As for Overstreet Grading - an interesting discussion that has happened many a time before here. The bottom line is that CGC doesn't exactly follow the OPG grading guidelines. I could make a list of differences. Examples include CGC allows better grades with spine splits than OPG. CGC hasn't adopted the .01 and .03 grades. CGC doesn't allow staples to be cleaned nor replaced with vintage staples. CGC's stance on tape is different than Overstreet's. As for Overstreet grading and distributor ink, obviously at some point it has to make a difference. I owned for years an FF 45 that was clearly NM or better that graded 8.5 because of ink overspray. It was all on the back cover - but a good amount more than your book. Your example is a pretty book, but graded over 9.4 would seem excessive to me. The purpose of Professional grading and encapsulation is to remove the subjectivity of grading from the equation - once graded. The grade assigned was done by humans and so is inherently subjective. But CGC serves as a neutral, professional third party whose purpose is to eliminate the subjectivity of condition for future sales. Someone that isn't bothered by a bit of distro ink on the back cover might well pay a premium above the assigned grade for the book. And someone that is bothered by distro ink might want to pay less or walk away. But the grade - for the most part - is settled as long as the case is intact.

Yes, the declared FMV limit is the amount that that CGC - or USPS - would be responsible for should something happen while in the possession of CGC or shipped back to you by the US Postal service. Because the declared amount is also the insured amount when being shipped back to you. I mention USPS specifically because while UPS and FedEx are return shipping options, those packages are only insured for $100, period. Regardless of declared value. The expectation by CGC is that anyone using FedEx or UPS has private shipping insurance. Otherwise CGC uses registered mail. As secure and safe as it gets. I will disagree with a few others though on the likelihood of being "bumped up". CGC seems little inclined to argue about the FMV of books submitted. I've seen books submitted under the Value tier (FMV limit of $200) that after grading were worth 3-5K. No bump. And CGC's own webpage - in announcing that the modern tier was rolled back to 1975 (from 1980) pictured a Giant Size X-Men 1 CGC graded 9.6. That books is worth many multiples of the $200 FMV limit of the modern tier. So really it comes down to insurance coverage in the event of a problem. Problems are rare. But as the saying goes - "the odds being one in a million doesn't mean much to the one" AND also turn around time (TAT). If you list the book at $1750 and pay the express tier price, the book will be done and on it's way back to you in a week. The economy tier will be done in about four months, Economy three months, Standard tier in about six weeks.

Distribution is not the same as production - and distribution defects do not and should not "get a pass". If it were, then we'd see lots of bent and impacted corner 9.8's because that's the condition they arrived from Diamond Comic Distributors. A result of their packaging and handling. I'm not sure how we'd judge the "Most comics from that era had at least a mark across the top". Where I lived - in Southern Indiana - distributor ink did not start being applied by the local distributor until about 1973-74. Just from buying and selling comics for decades, I see more arrival dates on Silver Age and older books than I do distributor ink. But again, could be based on what part of the country/who the regional distributor for periodicals was.

That's fair amount of distributor ink overspray. And defects on the back cover count in grading. As a buyer, I'd be put off by that much overspray on a 9.6 or better book, so I believe CGC got it right at 9.4.

That's longer than even the new "normal". I'm usually seeing it take a week to get logged in. In fairness, every week for the last four weeks I've received emails of books received in on Saturday. So they have the staff in receiving working overtime. I called a few times about the long wait in receiving. I was told that CGC is getting around 300 packages a day and they can't keep up in receiving.

Finite yes - but finite in a meaningful way? Vintage comic books sold in vastly larger numbers than comic books do today. In the 40's and into the 50's there were titles that collected a million dimes a month. When I was collecting starting in the 60's 100,000 copies a month circulation got you cancelled. Today 100,000 copies a month has you in the top 2-3 in circulation. I get it that there is a lot of moderns submitted. I don't get why a tier like standard - that costs over 3x more than modern and has a value limit of $1000 - is SLOWER than a tier with a value limit of $200 and costs far, far less. There is no way standard tier should be a weak slower than modern. And think of it this way. Only an insufficiently_thoughtful_person would send a modern worth a grand and list at more than $200 FMV. Because the reward for being honest about the value is paying lots more and waiting lots longer.

A lot of people apparently want to be charged right away. The place that used to be in a nearby town started out charging when books entered the grading room. But then quit and started charging when received (like CGC does) because they had lots of complaints. Apparently a lot of people don't watch their debit card / credit card balances and spend $$ if it's there. When a grading company charged people's cards 2-3 months later, it put them over the limit and incurred overage charge fees. That other place actually ran a poll on their FB page asking people to vote on the change. I watched in astonishment as the OVERWHELMING vote was to charge right away. And this wasn't anonymous. People's names were with their votes.

Yeah, I get that. But how does the explanation that "Value, Economy and Standard tiers have gone way up in TAT because we have received and exorbitant amount of modern tier submissions" make MORE SENSE than saying "TAT on modern tier has gone way up because we have received an exorbitant amoutn of modern tier submissions?

I've mentioned it before - and now it's gotten worse so I'm going to comment on it again. I'm not one normally inclined to "criticize" TAT's. I remember the dark days of a decade ago and six month waits. It's still much better than that time. But my observation is that CGC's current TAT's MAKE NO SENSE>>>>> CGC is sacrificing everything but WalkThrough and Express to keep the Regular Modern tier at about a month (currently 22 business days) But how does it make any sense for Standard - which costs $65 - to take a week longer than modern that costs $20? Pay 3.25x MORE $$ and wait a full week longer? (27 days Standard, 22 Modern) Economy tier ($38) is at 58 business days and Value ($27) is at 82 business days . The basic idea is supposed to be (I thought anyway) that "the more your books are worth, the more it costs to get them graded. But the faster they get done". But the current prices and TAT's suggest instead "we'd rather grade inexpensive modern books over anything else. So we do them much cheaper and much quicker. Please don't send us your old books."

#1 and most keys have been slowly loosing ground for a couple of years - basically tracking the show's ratings slipping. I doubt the comic being cancelled (ending) will have much of an effect on the value of the books as long as the TV series keep going. What is interesting to me is that Kirkman felt the story should end with Rick's death. AMC clearly doesn't see it that way.

Good question. No, the evaluation of the book is done with it in the slab. If it doesn't pass prescreen, they ship the book back to you still sealed and encapsulated.

That's kinda sad. I love my kitties. Not sure what I would do if I became allergic. Look into allergy shots probably. Along those lines, pressing comic books also tells us if comic books / magazines have been in smoking environments. And I've ran across a few books that smelled like they were stored in a French Bordello.

The difference between a 9.6 and 9.8 is going to be a few very small defects. Very difficult to tell from pictures. I can't really see anything in the way of defects on your copy pictured here. There are no grading notes for this issue, so no help there. So it's going to take an in hand assessment of the book by someone familiar with both pressing and CGC grading to make an educated guess as to good or bad CPR (Crack, Press, Resubmit) It looks like the book takes a healthy jump in price from 9.6 to 9.8. About $160. So potentially it is worth it. If you want to pursue this, your best bet - since you have no experience with pressing - is to send it in to CCS (the in-house pressing service of CGC) and pay for their prescreening the book. That way someone with experience at CCS will look over the book and make a decision on if pressing has a good chance of improving the grade. If they say yes, you pay the costs of prescreen, pressing, regrading and shipping back to you (least expensive options about $57), cross your fingers and wait about five months. Passing the prescreen is no guarantee of the book upgrading, you could wait five plus months and be out $60 and not get a grade improvement. But you've increased your chances. If CCS says "no" to the prescreen they ship the book back to you. You're out about $25.