Tony S

Lots of new comics arrive from the printer wavy. I believe it's too much ink and not thick enough paper. Because it's the way they are printed, CGC seems to mostly give it a pass. I've sent such in and received 9.8's.

What comipop says. A local comic book store did this for the books they sold for .25-50 cents. Their reason for doing so is they did not want collectors building their collection with books bought out of the cheap boxes. If you wanted NM, you paid the NM price. If you wanted a reader, you got a copy with red ink marking the book on the Comic Code box. It's not practical to remove pen or marker ink. It would take solvents which would 1) be expensive 2) May well remove some of the ink on the cover and 3) likely earn a restored, purple label from CGC

The extra staples are not restoration. You should only have the glue removed and leave the extra staples. Removing them will leave holes, which are more unsightly than the extra staples themselves

Here is an article on protecting articles from light damage. They recommend not displaying light sensitive collections for more than a few months and at very low light levels. The last few paragraphs sums it up. "All light is energy and the energy that light provides fuels destructive chemical reactions that contribute to the deterioration of collections in libraries, archives, and museums. Light also damages bindings, photographic emulsions, and other media, including the inks, dyes, and pigments used in many library and archival materials. While all sources of ultraviolet light should be filtered, and the exposure of collections to visible light should be strictly controlled, the guidelines in this leaflet will allow institutions to take these factors together and make informed decisions reconciling the needs of their collections and their exhibitions." https://www.nedcc.org/free-resources/preservation-leaflets/2.-the-environment/2.4-protection-from-light-damage

Yes. All light will damage paper. UV light is just at more energetic wavelengths so does more damage and faster

Light damages paper. All light is harmful. UV light is the most destructive, but all light is bad for paper. So the best thing for your comics is to make color copies of the books you want to display, frame them and keep your comic books in nice, dark boxes. This is the why of all the faded "wall books" in comic book stores If you are determined to display your comics, then keep any windows covered so as to not let in sunlight and install LED lights in the comic room. Not only are they energy efficient, LED's do not emit any light in the UV wavelengths.

Not origin retold...Origin relived. Or maybe this...

My Comic Shop, Super World, Metropolis, Comic Link Cloud 9 comics come immediately to mind There are a number of others that have websites but are not true "onine" stores. You can't finalize an order on the web. You call at some point.

I understand the perspective of the OP's post. MCS isn't alone here. ComicLink and their Exchange are the same way. These businesses allowing people to list comics for sale at prices they will never get is certainly a waste of customer's time searching listings. IMHO some "sellers" are not at all and they just like seeing their books on the websites. It's a free display. Or maybe their spouses are nagging them to get rid of some comic books . "Look -I have it listed for sale". One would think it a waste of MCS or CL's time and server storage. But perhaps it is not. MAYBE MCS and CL benefit from what appears to be a much larger number of items for sale. I just don't bother with the Exchange/Buy Sell sections much. I buy from both places. I sell with both places. In their auctions. The nice thing about MCS auctions is you still get their strict grading but closer to market prices. I say closer because lots of buyers assume books to be undergraded and bid accordingly. If you are a seller that wants to move better books, this can also work out well for you. With the prices so inflated by most, if you price a better book at FMV it will oftentimes sell quickly

As Stormshadow notes, CGC doesn't grade Treasury size books. They have no holder big enough to fit one. If this were a regular size comic book or magazine then the notation on the label about the signatures would be "Stan Lee and John Romita written on cover". And the label would be a Qualified Label - green in color. Not the blue Universal label nor the yellow CGC witnessed the signature label. It is a cool book with a great back story. Just bag/board it and enjoy as is.

That went well.. Welcome to the boards

Last GPA recorded sale on this book in 9.4 was $35. 12 month average $32.

I'll just be the dissenting voice.... There are LOTS of creators with crappy looking signatures. Unreadable signatures. Lots of writers, most celebrities but some artists too. Stan Lee at least has a good excuse. He's really, really old. The rest? IDK if you want a pretty signature, get Steranko to sign. Otherwise - at the end of the day - IF IT SAYS "SIGNED BY STAN LEE" ON A CGC LABEL THAT IS ALL ANYONE IS GOING TO CARE ABOUT.

Yes, it was months. Two months exactly according to a post by another boardie that saw the initial post on Facebook. The OP has TWO posts here on the boards. They showed up, made this complaint and have not been back. Other long term boardies have vouched for the character of the store owners and pointed out we are only getting one side of the story. And there are holes in that story. Things that don't make sense I choose to remain skeptical until more is known.

IMHO it falls into a gray area. It's not right that the LCS sold them knowing they were stolen. But it's not right either that they are expected to guard and keep safe said property for months. The OP's story was that the comic book store called the police multiple times asking about the status and received no reply. If the police want the stolen goods looked up for safe keeping for months, they should have taken said goods and put them in the police evidence lock up.

As I said, I cannot say I know 100% for certain. But there are different size inner holders. They may need the flaps on some inner holders to make ASM 300 fit just right - and not on others. Also with vintage comic books many varied considerably in actual size. Which is why measuring a comic book is not a reliable way to tell if it has been trimmed. So there well be a need for those flaps because the same book can vary by 1/4 inch or more in size.

CGC encapsulated books consists of two separate holders.... The exterior holder is the thick, rigid plastic holder. It's purpose is to keep the book from being damaged by handling. It also just looks nice The inner holder is softer plastic - basically a sealed, heavy plastic bag. It's made of archival plastic that is also used to package food and sometimes medicines. A polyethylene most likely like PETG. It used to be Barex but that is no longer being made. I cannot say that I know 100% for certain the purpose of what looks like flaps in the inner holder. I know that inner holders are manufactured in various sizes and I have always assumed the flaps are often used to keep the comic securely in place in the inner holder. So it won't slide around any - which if it did slide around might cause damage to the book. I've unslabbed hundreds, maybe over a thousand of CGC comic books and I've never seen one that had any damage from these "flaps"

As long as the weight is being supported by the box and not by the slabs, all should be fine for stacking 2-3 high. That means the box should be taller than the slabs Boxes designed specifically to hold CGC books should be a bit taller than the slabs.

Something not mentioned by the OP is just how much time expired between the call from the comic book store saying they had the books and then the comic book store selling them. Days? Weeks? Months? Years? It took time to get reciepts. It took time to get a new Detective. How MUCH time? The only time frame given here was "it took some time" for a new detective to be assigned. If the comic book store sold the books a few weeks later, it sounds as though they were trying to unload the books and not be out the money they had paid for them. If it was six months later after the comic store made repeated unanswered attempts at contacting the police about the status of the alleged theft and investigation, that has a a different feel to it. If the police wanted the books for evidence, why didn't they take them? And if the police only said "get together receipts and take them to the comic book store to pick up your books" - and the comic book store was informed of that - then why did it matter if a detective was currently assigned? Couldn't the OP just go to the comic book store with said receipts? I'm saddened when anyone's books get stolen and even more saddened when the thieves get away with it. If only a few weeks passed before the books were sold, that sounds bad. But if it was months then are business owners somehow required by law to be unpaid depositories of stolen goods while things drag out?

There is long, long thread here on the boards about scanners for encapsulated books. Basically you want a charge coupled device (CCD) based scanner, not a Contact Image Sensor (CIS) scanner. CIS scanners have no depth of field - the sensor can only "see" what is laying flat on the glass. CCD scanners can "see" about 3/8" past the glass. Since comic books are about 1/8- 1/4" inch away from the glass once encapsulated, you need that depth of field of the image is all fuzzy. A fuzzy image from being past the depth of field cannot be fixed via photo editing software. Virtually all new scanners that are large enough (legal size paper or greater) and cost less than a grand are CIS scanners. Because CIS is cheaper and smaller. What this means is older scanners on eBay and Craigslist are your friends. What I have is an HP Scanjet 8300. The HP 8000 series scanners are popular because they sold really, really well to businesses and government agencies. The last forever and for the most part you can nearly always find a few on eBay. Because they are government/business oriented, HP keeps the drivers up to date on their website. They work just fine with Windows 10 and the current Apple OS. There are other choices. But I have always found that the HP's are easiest to find and work with virtually any version of Windows and Apple OS

The short answer is no. It is more involved to CPR (Crack, Press & Resubmit) than it is to just submit a raw book. At the CGC submission portal, you are going to be selecting that you want to send the books to CCS for pressing. I would suggest paying the $5 extra for evaluation. CCS will look at the book and see if they believe it would improve from pressing (there is no guarantee of improvement. Just their professional opinion. If pressing is deemed beneficial, they will schedule it. Once pressed (several months unless you pay for faster service) they will then send the book over to CGC for grading and encapsulation. I do suggest you send already graded books in still encapsulated. The slab provides some protection during shipping and CCS does their evaluation with the book still slabbed. If they decide a book is not a good pressing candidate and you decide not to send it in for regrading, then they can ship you the book back still CGC graded.

Having seen pictures of the books, I don't believe the labels will have a big impact on the assigned grades. Some impact of course, but not a lot. Given these were books from your childhood - that you picked off the spinner racks and then labeled, I believe - as sorb3t mentions - that you should consider grading them as is. They have a great story and history

Many thanks to Ben (Odin Secrets) for the great gifts. Very generous and I LOVE them all!

I think some people are misunderstanding. CCS is the in-house pressing and restoration service of CGC. When Ovrclck says he got a signature and sent it to CCS, that suggests that book was pressed. Nice book. Hey Ovrclck, you a computer enthusiast too? Into overclocking?

You are 100% correct that Overstreet has Hulk 181 in 9.2 at a higher value than Cerebus 1 in 9.2. And Overstreet appears to be accurately reporting the market with those valuations. You present no facts whatsoever that in 9.4 or better that Hulk 181 is/would be more valuable than equivalent graded Cerebus 1. The facts support otherwise. There is are only two copies of Cerebus 1 in 9.4. One half of the total population of 9.4's have been sold in the past couple of years. Two years ago one of the two Cerebus 1's in 9.4 sold for double what Hulk 181 does in 9.4 If both copies sold would that somehow be more authoritative? There are ONLY two copies. You cannot have more data. Scarcity in collectibles does matter. What value scarcity has is speculation until sales occur. So you speculate a 9.8 Cerebus 1 would sell for $1000-$3000 more than the one 9.4 that sold. And I speculate it would sell for 3-4X the 9.4 price. WE will probably never KNOW who is right. But who knows, maybe a 9.8 Cerebus 1 will show up someday.