Tony S

To begin with, you ask questions that don't necessarily have hard and fast answers. There are principles, guidelines. Applied by human beings. Tape has a long history in comic books and there is no perfect answer. Regular scotch type tape - even a lot of it - is not considered restoration. But it is a defect and affects the grade. Sealing of tears and reinforcement of covers and interior pages with glue and or glue and repair papers is going to get a restored label, maybe conserved if not much else is done to the book. It is a gray area as far as archival quality tape goes. Might get a conserved/restored label. Might get blue. Probably depends on how much. Finally, some older books - at CGC's discretion - may be allowed a blue label even with a bit of glue. The label will always note the presence of glue. A kid with a marker just coloring on a book is not going to get restored. it will be blue - and it greatly and negatively impact the grade. A kid with a marker ONLY coloring in areas where there are creases and color breaks/scrapes is trying to make the book look nicer. That's restoration, every day. Last, restoration does not make a book grade lower ("bring the grade down") . Restoration gets the purple, restored label. The Restored, Purple label makes a book worth LESS MONEY. Sometimes a LOT LESS money. But being designated a restored book does not lower the numeric grade assigned. Restoration is not treated as a defect in assigning the numeric grade. Restoration itself is somewhat "graded" in that it is assigned Professional quality to Amateur (A-C) and the degree of restoration is noted (very slight to extensive / 1-5) Hope this helps. Welcome to the boards

The CGC holder provides great protection for a comic book. Rodents and insects cannot get to the book. It's not advertised as water proof but probably will protect against a leaky roof. And the comic is protected from damage by handling..... BUT... there is nothing about the slab that slows down or stops aging of the comic book. Slowing down the natural aging (and decay) of the paper is really about proper storage. Which is up to the collector. Don't expose your comics to light. Keep the temperature and humidity at comfortable levels. CONSISTENTLY at comfortable levels.

Stuff like this is just personal preference, so all opinions are equally valid.... BUT...for myself...I found value to the Stan Lee label - as it was only available on books Stan Lee had signed. And I found a little bit of value to the Walking Dead label - the zombie one - because there aren't enough zomibies on the cover of a lot of Walking Dead books. But if I'm sending in say Captain America comic book for slabbing, HOPEFULLY the comic book has a lot nicer cover than whatever drawing they squeeze onto the much smaller label.

What Greg said.

I would send pictures to a couple of restoration services for estimates. I think the book could easily improve well past 2.0 with professional restoration. The question is the cost. It is entirely possible that it would cost more to restore it to a middle grade than a middle grade restored is worth. But you won't know until you ask for estimates. I am not certain that it is true that you cannot "fix" the trim with restoration. The book could be leaf-casted to replace the missing paper that was trimmed off, color touched and re-trimmed to the original size. It would be - fundamentally - no different than replacing the missing cut out coupon or any chipping from the cover. I've used Mike at Hero restoration and was very happy with the results. And there is of course CGC's own in house restoration service CCS. Other professional restoration services include the Restoration Lab and Eclipse Paper conservation. The real issue is cost, not what can be done. Ask the professionals for their opinion on what can be done and cost.

No, it would not be eligible for crossover grading. Books have to be still fully sealed in the outer and inner holders from other companies to qualify for crossover grading. It's the same standard as submitting CGC graded books for reholders. Slab intact and sealed.

Karl suggests another standard. What super villain is best known to the public? Most recognized? I propose no one comes close to the Joker on the standard of "most recognized"

To each their own....Batman has an incredible rogues gallery and Rhas is one of them. All those great villains are what makes Batman so great, popular and enduring. But the Joker wasn't "another one in a long line" He was the first.

Joker defines Batman. And that is what a truly great villain does. It's easy to create "heroes". But heroes are only made great by their villains. Batman and Joker defined forever that inescapable fact that great heroes are only made by great villains. They are truly the opposite sides of the same coin. It's historic. It's iconic. It set the model for every hero/villain to follow. No, the Joker doesn't have super powers. Neither does Batman. Both endure because they are perfect together. AND because they achieve super human results through extreme effort and determination. Which makes them the most "super" of all. As I said, it's easy to create all powerful beings. Takes no effort and little imagination. Call them god and be done. Complex villains that are a perfect match to the hero is where the heart lies. And Joker did it first and best.

If by greatest we mean most iconic, historic, defining I do not believe it's possible to argue against The Joker. If by greatest we mean powerful who knows? Ten year old's can dream up someone more powerful than the last most powerful hero or villain.

It's hard to say on the "worth it" side. The difference in price between 9.2 and 9.4 is like $15 right now. $100 between 9.2 and 9.6. You won't get rich, but you might cover your expenses depending on if the book improves enough. And sometimes it the principle, darn it! I'd also mention that I have seen lots of 9.6's with a notation of a "bend" somewhere on the book. And finally - as I've mentioned lots of times before - grading notes are nothing more than the defects graders took the time to write down. They are not an exhaustive list of every single defect. Repressed and regraded maybe it will come back a 9.6. Maybe it will come back again as a 9.2 with a different defect noted.

I don't believe anyone else has mentioned this.... Fragile books can get damaged during grading and/or encapsulation. For books with weak spines and staples just barely hanging on, perhaps the most risky grading step is the restoration check. It's impossible to check for restoration without completely, fully opening the book and page by page examining closely the interior paper at the staples and spine, where glue, tape or repair papers are likely to be employed. There is no way to do the restoration check, the page count and grading without some stress on the comic. If the comic is fragile....well.... paper can split, pieces fall off, staples pull thru. No enthusiast wants to hear about books being damaged in a process that we hope helps protect them. But every book does have to go through the entire process and fragile ones might get damaged.

CGC grades books that were manufactured with only one staple. Manufactured that way on purpose or as a printing defect. Like most manufacturing defects, the impact on grade is minimal. I've sent in at least one Uncanny X-Men 266 that was manufactured without a bottom staple, The book graded 9.4 or better, I forget. It was a few years ago. The missing staple didn't seem to affect the grade. The label notes said something along the lines of "manufactured missing bottom staple" or "missing bottom staple - manufacturing". Like I said, been several years. Note there is a difference between manufacturing and something done after manufacturing. Books that have had one or both staples removed after they were manufactured will normally get a green Qualified label.

I would call. It's been a full week which is long enough to want to check. I have only sent in 3 or 4 cross over grading submissions, so it's hard for me to remember exactly how it went. You receive an email with their assessment. That email might be sent out before they actually enter the book into the system. IDK for sure, can't remember. But calling would be wise. Maybe they emailed you and have the wrong address. Maybe it went into your spam folder.

If you lie they put your books in the cafeteria for a week and everyone reads them before they are entered into the system

Timmay, I'm sure your package will be just fine. It arrived too late for there to be anyone in receiving to accept. The OP's situation sounds like a rare goof. I've been sending packages to CGC for many years and none have ever come back as undeliverable. There is probably some reason - but it might never get figured out. Check the address. Create and Print a new label on the off chance there is something wrong with the barcode on the original label/package. However, with careful reading the note from USPS on Timmay's post above illustrates something I learned just last week. And explains the "how do they get all those packages in a PO Box?" jokes. Packages don't. Get anywhere close to the PO Box. CGC gets so many packages that USPS loads them up on skids and BRINGS THEM TO CGC. Everyday, often more than once a day. I was told that on Monday's CGC can often get several hundred packages. So we are mailing the packages to CGC's PO Box - but the USPS loads them all up on a truck and delivers them to CGC's physical address at 5501 Communications Parkway Which brings up the other thing I learned that some here might find useful to know. Packages received on the super busy Monday will often sit a few days at CGC as employees get them opened and comics entered into the system. I called about a walkthru that had been sitting for three days. SOOOO. If you have walkthru or expedited books in a box, mark all four sides of the box either WK or EX with marker. Then the employees in receiving will grab those boxes first.

There is no rule you can follow on the value of restored books. No math formula. A few guidelines that overall hold true... Key books restored books bring a higher percentage of blue label value than do common books. If a book costs $200 in 9.4 blue label, no one is much interested in a 6.0 restored. The value is less than the cost of grading and encapsulation. But a $20,0000 book is a different thing. There is a sort of inverse, linear scale to restoration and grade. Low grade restored books (keys that is) bring a higher percentage of the unrestored book value. But the higher the grade, the more that percent of value shrinks. By the time you get to NM and better grades, a restored copy might sell for 10% of unrestored in the same grade. The reason why is simple: What unrestored grade could a person purchase with the same amount of money? Let's take Amazing Fantasy 15. Eight years ago, an unrestored 9.6 sold for 1.1 Million dollars. Seven months ago, a restored 9.6 sold for $85,000. That works out to a restored 9.6 being worth about 8% of unrestored.. But at 2.0, the last unrestored copy recorded sold for $15,000, while a year earlier a restored 2.0 sold for $10,500. The logic here is overall price. You can still purchase a nice looking copy of AF 15 for $85,000. If there was a "formula" that said restored was worth 1/2 of unrestored - than you would have a ridiculous situation where people were paying half a million plus bucks for a restored AF 15 in 9.6. When half a million would buy a unrestored 9.2.. Or kick in another $150K and buy an unrestored 9.4 People on the boards could offer better counsel if we knew the exact book. Because prior sales can be researched.

I'm sure others have stated all these reasons, but for me and in the order of importance. Why I don't buy or read new comics: 1) Lack of continuity. The constant reboots, re-imaging and abandonment of what happened in the past begs the question: If publishers have to keep reinventing their characters, origins, identities and past --- WERE THEY EVER selling anything I should give a spoon about in the first place? 2) The price. Comic books no longer represent a good entertainment value. For the price of three comic books that would take me an hour to read (if I read really slow) myself and entire family enjoy hundreds of hours of entertainment from Netflix every month. Free Comic book day and the occasional promotion stunt suggests that publishers COULD be profitably making comic books in the $1.00 - $1.50 range. But they would rather milk a slowly shrinking base of collectors rather than do the hard work of attracting new readers. Even free comic book day - supposedly to attract new readers - is a rip off of retailers. Everyone else in the pipeline is doing their part at cost. The comic book store spends actual money to give the books away. 3) Variant covers. The blatant money grab bothers me and long term IMHO it's bad for the collecting hobby. People spend good money on these "collectible, rare variants" only to find out some years later that maybe 1 of 10 retain any collector value So there you go. I still buy comics. OLD, vintage comics.

There is no price on the cover. More likely the Golden Record Reprint. Though it could be a photocopy of a GRR copy

She's an undisputed restoration professional. But we can't see her face, she doesn't have a name. The good news is that at least in this video, we don't actually see her do anything to a book.

Original Comic book art is a really hard to pin down as far as "value" goes. Unless you have been deeply involved for decades. The best way for the average person to acquire or sell OA is via auction. Basically if you buy from or sell to an experienced OA collector or dealer the average person has no idea if the price is fair and represents market value. Auctions help with that. I too would suggest just consigning them to ComicLink. Their auctions are well followed and you will get 90% of the whatever the highest bidder was willing to pay

It looks like there is a long, light bend on the bottom right of the FC. At least five inches long and doesn't break color. This isn't mentioned in the grading notes. Combine that with the warping of the back cover, one would hope for a decent chance at a grade improvement. But just looking at the pictures and the grading notes, it seems unlikely to go up to 6.0. Such would be more luck than skillful planning. But the big issue with pressing the book is also in the grading notes. A small tear at the bottom staple, a recessed staple and a staple rusted. All of these things weaken the paper where the staples are at. One would have to see in hand to be for sure, but this sounds like a higher risk press, with a small chance of the cover detaching from a staple. Given that 5.5 is a wash financially and 6.0 seems unlikely, this appears on the information available to best be left as is.

I have never seen the term used either. It suggests as others have noted that the books cover isn't smooth - having a canvas like texture to the surface. But CGC already has a term for that - pebbling. Where the book was improperly pressed and picked up the texture of whatever it was squished up against during pressing. The person should just call CGC and ask. The customer service person that answers the phone will go ask a grader. Or maybe even THE grader that made the note. And of course they should stop what they are doing until they figure it out.

Sent to CGC, the book will receive a Green, Qualified label and grade. That means the numeric grade will ignore the three hole punches. So if for example CGC believes the book otherwise looks 8.0, it will get an 8.0. But the label color will be Green and the grade will be a "Qualified" grade. 8.0, but with three binder ring holes through the book. Restoration would be extremely expensive as the restorer would be replacing/filling in paper on every single page. In general, most restoration experts recommend a book be worth at least $1000 before work is done. I would consider restoration out of the question. Sending it to CGC is a different matter. You might well be able to sell it for more money as a CGC green label than it would sell for raw. Green label I could see the book getting in the VF range. Raw a lot, maybe most collectors would consider the books condition poor to fair. Welcome to the Boards!

Looks more like the first Man-Bat