Tony S

There might be more, but I can only think of maybe three reasons to get comic books professionally graded and encapsulated. 1) For protection of the comic book 2) For resale. Slabbed books generally sell easier and oftentimes for more $$. 3) Aesthetics. One likes the way the books look encapsulated. It's difficult to answer the question "would you recommend slabbing it?" without knowing if any of the three things above apply to or interest you. This is not a particularly expensive book (though expensive is relative to one's income bracket) In the $150 range. It's not likely to be worth substantially more slabbed, but it would sell easier because of the restoration check done by CGC. The flag cover is kinda cool though. If it were mine, I might think in terms of getting it encapsulated some day because the cover is cool and I like the way books look slabbed. But it wouldn't be a priority.

Just like grading, a proper evaluation of pressing potential needs to be done book in hand. That said, I think your book here is a marginal pressing candidate. I see some spine bends that a press could improve, and maybe a bend to the back cover on the left top. But I do not believe that the overall numeric grade of this book has much chance of improving from a press. You have long'ish color breaking creases on the right edge and bottom of the front cover. Significant wear and rounding of the bottom right corner. Those are the major defects on the book and they won't be helped by a press.

Funny.... I thought about recommending to the OP that this book and maybe others might be a better fit for Comic Link, Comic Connect or My Comic Shop. But there are a lot of pros and cons to all so I decided to limit my answer to only the question asked. Some things not mentioned in comments here when choosing to use one of the sites I've just mentioned. CONS TO OTHER SITES (over eBay) 1) The OP said there is only ONE graded book. MCS is the only site that really does much with raw books - and as most know, they are brutally harsh on grading raw consignment books. Considering that the OP has thousands of books to sell, I'm not sure it's really worth the effort to turf out one book somewhere else. 2) eBay does have a maximum fee of $750, so even with PayPal fees added in if this book sells for over $10K the total eBay fees are no more than say Comic Links 10% 3) eBay gets you paid much, much faster. PROS TO OTHER SITES (over eBay) 1) You do eliminate any chance of getting scammed or dealing with returns. 2) It can be simpler depending on with whom and how the books are listed. If you send in the books to the auction house, they will take care of scanning pictures and doing the listing. But each place has different ways of getting books listed - and they are not without effort on the sellers part. Personally, if I were trying to sell thousands of books on eBay, I'd probably list the FF 1 that is CGC graded as a BIN with best offer on eBay and let that book attract eyes to my other, ongoing auction listings.

PayPal does not a hard and fast rule about $10,000 spending limit. In fact the 10K isn't a spending limit. It is - for some PP accounts - the amount of money that can be sent in a single transaction. But this is based on the individual account and is determined by PayPal. And even for those that might have a $10,000 single transaction limit, there are ways around such. They can call and ask it be waved on that transaction. They can do an eCheck where the money is withdrawn from their bank account (PayPal will tell you as the seller not to ship until eCheck has cleared) The actual limit sending money on PP is $60,000.

You make good points and I agree with many. But the grading companies are not going to do a guide with much detail because the don't want to be caught up in endless arguing with their customers about the grades assigned. That's it. That is the overriding reason, the elephant in the room. Overstreet publishes a grading guide with detailed pictures and examples (which I don't believe anyone has mentioned) But they can do that because Overstreet isn't grading books as service they make money on. They are only offering guidance on HOW TO grade. What's the adage? Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. I'd also point out that people on these boards forget how SMALL a part of the hobby graded books are. There are three comic book stores in my town. Only one has any graded books. They have maybe 100. And probably 30,000 raw comics. Walk around any convention. What's the ratio of graded books for sale vs raw? The vast, overwhelming majority of collectors own no graded comics. The very best, most expensive books in the hobby have not been graded- the Church copies of Action 1 and Detective 27. CGC and graded books are important to us here. But in the scheme of things the hobby existed and was healthy long before 3rd Party graded and encapsulated books. And it would still be here if the grading companies closed tomorrow. I'm not running down professionally graded and encapsulated books. I own a bunch and I send in a lot. I love the way books look slabbed, I love the extra protection and the professional restoration check. I appreciation the near universal acceptance of grade. I'm just saying we need to keep in mind that while the people here are very knowledgeable and passionate, it's a very small part of the hobby. We don't have to have a detailed grading guide from CGC for the hobby to thrive and be here 50 years from now.

The long and short of it is that no grading company is going to publish a detailed grading guide with examples. Because they do not wish to spend all their time debating and lawyering grades with those that are not happy with the grades received. It may seem unfair, but if they did what some people are suggesting they ought to do turn around times would be much longer and customer support impossible to get through to as everyone unhappy with their grades called to argue their book and the grading guidelines. It's the very same reason grades are NOT AVAILABLE until after the books have shipped. Because if if the grades appear before shipping, they get swamped with calls that say "my book(s) are way to low, someone needs to look at them again!!!!" The longer and more books I send in, the more firmly my opinion has changed on a few things I believed early on. Grading notes are almost useless except for the legally blind. A detailed CGC grading guide would be a disaster. For CGC and customers.

This is why pros DO NOT answer questions. It's just more and more and more questions. "Explain why this is wrong" is just another way of asking "how do you do it right?" No one is going down that road.

0.5 is a grade assigned to incomplete books - or beat all to heck but complete books. So it's not unreasonable to call it incomplete and grade it 0.5. But it's also not unreasonable on the sellers part to VALUE Key issues missing an ad page at higher than the 0.5 price. A Key issue graded 5.0 green label is going to sell for more than the 0.5 price. There is no "formula" for such. But just one example. An ASM 1 qualified incomplete 4.5 sold for $2750 in 2017. In 2017 0.5's of the same book were averaging $1800. Common, "run" type books missing an ad page have little value. But that is not the case with key books. Good luck. Hope you can negotiate a price acceptable to all.

Professional comic book restoration services include CCS - the in house restoration and pressing service of CGC - https://www.cgccomics.com/ccs-pressing/ Eclipse Paper Conservation - http://www.eclipsepaper.com/services.htm Hero Restoration - http://www.herorestoration.net/ The Restoration Lab - https://www.therestorationlab.com/ Any of the above will do professional work. My first choice would be Mike at Hero Restoration. In the past he's done great work for me and the cost was a little less. Second probably CCS. I'm seriously skeptical of a "local guy" idea. The problem being that MOST collectors wouldn't recognize the difference between professional restoration and decent looking amateur. But there are significant differences in materials used and techniques applied between pro and amateur.

CGC will grade the book as a Green, Qualified label book. If it LOOKS like a 5.0 overall, it will get a 5.0. But with a Green, Qualified label that notes the missing ad page. If you specifically ask that it be graded as blue label - or send it to Voldy who does not have a green label - the book will be considered incomplete and be graded a 0.5

Every professional presser no doubt started out to some degree as a DIY presser. Because there are no college degree or even classes on pressing comic books. However - there are college degrees and books on library sciences, paper conservation and restoration, book binding and related. There is the library of Congress website and the Northeast Document Conservation Center website. William Sarill - who brought professional level restoration to the comic book field in the late 1970's - was an engineer by trade. But he spent years studying paper and conservation techniques and applied those to comics. Which is the difference between most of the "I want to learn how to press comics" and the smaller number of pros. Not one pro to my knowledge ever became a professional by watching YouTube videos or posting up questions on social media "Would someone please write down for me step by step how to press comic books?" Why would someone who put the years in doing the research and practice answer that question - and the near endless questions that will follow for a year or longer as they encounter all the various different books, paper, construction and inks? It's not some cult of secrecy. It's a matter of there is no good reason to spend the time answering the questions. You want to learn - learn the same way. Using the resources mentioned. You want a pressing for dummies - well - it's out there. And it is mostly dumb advice.

As others have noted, the book doesn't have a spine roll. It was printed with a misaligned spine. And FF 48 is notorious for poor cut and alignment. There are lots of copies where the M in Marvel is not fully visible on the front cover. That part of it is on the back cover. The stickers are a bit of a controversy. If the sticker was left on the book, you would have received a green, qualified label from CGC when graded. IMHO and some other collectors, that doesn't seem right. The sticker was placed on the comic as part of the original distribution. It was common practice at bus stops, airports, gift shops in hospitals and similar to put a 15 cent price sticker over the 12 cover price. Because these places had a more captive audience and they wanted to make more than 2-3 cents on comic books. To me and others this is little different than arrival dates being added by retailers. Or the star stamp for copies sold at military PX stores. Yes, the sticker distracts more than arrival dates or the star. But the rational for giving arrival dates/PX stamp a pass as far as grading is the same as giving price stickers a pass. It was a common practice in the distribution of comics. Now arrival dates were much more common than price stickers for sure. But not so much less common than the PX stamps.

It's not bold or inaccurate, especially on higher grade (9+) books. Grader's notes on high grade books make the book "look" like more is wrong with it than maybe should be. My opinion has long been that the only beneficial graders notes on slabbed books are for those defects no longer visible due to the slab. Interior defects mostly. And collectors need to be aware of one simple fact. Grader notes are not an exhaustive list of every defect on a comic. It's the defects the graders took the time to write down. Nothing more.

It's butt-ugly and I don't think it's going to grow on me. But as I find where they moved stuff it's workable.

Yes, that's the tape I spoke of. And yes, I have seen books with a small amount of archival tape on the inside cover or interior of a book come back blue label from CGC. If you decide to tape loose piece back on, it's going to be tiny amount of tape. Again, CGC's stance on this is a little hard to interpret. And they generally don't answer "what if" questions.

I'll be in the minority here. But saying "it would only be for the aesthetics" is like saying "it's only for love" . Aesthetics, appearance matter. I would neatly tape the loose corner back on from the inside. With archival document repair tape. LINECO brand from Blicks for instance. I don't believe it will get a purple label from CGC for that - although I will say CGC leaves blue or purple in such situations in question. It MIGHT get purple. Which is why if it was my book I'd tape the corner back on with archival tape and I'd send it to Voldy, who uses CGC's old stance on tape and says outright if you tape, use archival. I also hate the thicker Mylar bags, just for this reason. I'd rather just change out bags every 3-5 years then risk damage like this.

Obviously how good a nationally provided service is can largely depend on if the branch of that service near you is ran well. The employees that work there. However - IMHO - UPS has a business model that inspires more confidence than FedEx. The person driving the brown UPS truck and delivering your packages is a UPS employee. He/she has a decent job and they are represented by a Union. The person in the FedEx truck and delivering your packages works for a 3rd party contractor. The company he works for has a contract for a certain number of routes or an area. Probably the lowest bidder. They are most likely making a few bucks less an hour than the UPS driver on the same route. They have no union and if a couple of years from now some other company bids lower, they will be out of a job. How much you pay someone, how much job security they have, is no guarantee of having an honest and dedicated employee. But it helps. All packages shipped by CGC by any of the three carriers are supposed to require a signature. Sometimes the employee making the delivery screws up. But a signature is supposed to be required.

The flip and ship cardboard mailers work great inside Legal size priority mail prepaid envelopes. They fold all around the books and the cardboard of the mailer extends about an inch on each end of the book. And one reason they work so well is that these flat rate priority mail envelopes travel with letters (flats) not with the boxes. I order about 50 at a time and they run about 50 cents each. Work great for maybe eight comics or less.

revat's advise above is good and I'll add a few things... If the seller did not disclose the crack, most would want he/she to take care of the full costs or take the return. If the crack occurred in shipping, it's worth pursuing a claim with the shipping service and splitting costs seems mostly reasonable. FedEx and UPS have $100 worth of coverage and USPS has $50 if the shipment was by priority mail. The shipper applies for and starts the claim process and if the claim is paid, the payment is to the seller. The reholder service isn't expensive ($15) But the costs are driven up by shipping and the $5 invoice fee. You have to get the book to CGC and the least expensive option back is FedEx or UPS at $14. WITH the $100 of insurance I mentioned earlier. That's all that is available with those carriers from CGC. If you paid substantially more than $100 the book will travel under insured. Loss or damage is uncommon, but can happen. Registered Mail will cost 2x that much. $30-$32, cannot find the postage rate chart. So when you add all the costs up, shipping to CGC, reholder fee, invoice fee, shipping back - that $15 charge has grown to $45. You say this is your first book, so what I normally do wouldn't work for you - at least not yet. I hold onto cracked slabs until I have 4-5. Then I send them in. Because the golden rule in shipping is that the first pound - or in this case book - is the most expensive. Two books only cost a few dollars more than one to ship - and five books only a few dollars more than two. Welcome to the boards.

Well, I don't think CGC can have it both ways. You can't have loose periods and tight periods AND have consistency. I might be quoting something you have said in the past Bob. I don't care where the goalposts are at. I care that I have a good idea of where the goal posts are at. Quit moving them. Consistency is far more important to me than any particular grading standard I would also point out that the current way over the top strictness is not just an occasional worn corner. CGC is now much stricter on foxing, treating it essentially as a stain. Stricter on stains, including sun shadows. CGC appears - IMHO - to be completely obsessed with "light bends" and "light spine stress" Sometimes it's "very" in front of both sentences. It's like if they decide a book isn't a 9.8 and they want to give it a grading note and there REALLY isn't anything worth mentioning as far as flaws then it has "light spine stress" or "light bend to cover" . It's like they just cut and paste. Because often times you sure can't see those flaws. A 9.8 is not perfect. If it is there is no need for 9.9 and 10.

Just for clarification, the book is not suspended in a Mylar bag. It's suspended inside a Barex inner holder. Barex is no longer manufactured, so now CGC uses PETG

The book looks plenty white enough to me. Covers and interior pages can be lightened (aging/discoloration removed) by washing with solvents or bleaching. This would be considered restoration and CGC would give such a purple label. CCS - CGC's in house pressing/restoration and restoration removal service does offer this service. It would be expensive and you would be turning an otherwise very nice unrestored copy into a barely nicer restored copy.

I have used un-du to remove ComicLink labels from slabs without any issue. Goo Gone and un-du have the same main ingredient - Naptha (lighter fluid). Sometimes referred to as Petroleum Distalates - Hydrotreated light. Sometimes I just use lighter fluid as it's cheaper (like for wick lighters - Zippo). But un-du has the handy little plastic scraper thing attached to the bottle just for removing labels. ALL should be safe to use on plastic so I'm not sure what happened to you and your slab.

I agree. But that is not what I said originally. In some fields of collectibles, that fact that an item is rare is what makes collectors want said item. In the comic book hobby, rarity alone does not impress near so many collectors. And yes, price wise it is always supply and demand. But rarity alone does not make collectors want a comic book.

This thread has been good for some laughs. I mean are people really challenging and accepting challenges on who has the best stuff? The best stuff is 99% income. If Bill Gates decides to collect comics, all of us won't have mess to compare. Just sayin... But anyway, here is my two cents - and I think it's an important two cents. . Stan Lee was the ultimate showman and huckster. Let's be honest and fair. He was in fact a great storyteller as comic book writers go. But he was also great a promoting whatever he was selling and at taking credit for other people's work. He was ultimately an excellent businessman. I'm 100% confident that Stan would heartily approve of people selling books he signed at this moment, at what appears to be inflated prices. He'd have done the same. As for the OP's perfectly reasonable question that has been by some sort of beat up, I think the honest answer is "we don't know'. Stan Lee ha signed more books than anyone else - probably on orders of magnitude more. But then there is no one else like Stan Lee that signed comic books. Because of his shameless self promotion, he is the absolute Godfather of comics. And while he's signed more comic books than anyone else by far, he isn't signing anymore now. Comic books are an odd collectible. Rarity is NOT the prime driver of value. Demand is the main driver of value. If this were not so, New Mutants 98 would be a $5 book. Because there is certainly no SHORTAGE of the book. So the bottom line is that if lots of people would like to own a comic book that Stan Lee signed, then the price for such will not be cheap. And I suspect as the years go by, lots of collectors - maybe even non collectors - will want a Stan Lee signed comic book. If I were to try to guess at the future, I think that vintage books that Stan actually worked on will be more sought after. Right now you see a lot stuff selling at what seems high prices that Stan had no real creative hand in. But I could be wrong about that. I might well be that people just want his signature and it doesn't matter other people created Venom. I mean again - that's classic Stan. Don't do the work. Get the credit.