Tony S

The short answer is "probably". The long answer is that if the books are not expensive, it would be more cost effective to go purchase copies of the books on eBay or a comic shop that don't have labels or similar defects. CCS lists "restoration removal" as a service (which removing a sticker probably is) starting at $5 for an assessment and $12 for the service. This for books published 1975 and after worth $200 or less. Older and more valuable books cost more. Plus you will have your shipping costs to CCS and the shipping costs of having book(s) returned to you. You also have to be a Collector Society Member or a CGC Dealer to submit books to CCS. If you have a local comic book store that has a CGC Dealer account, they could submit the books for you. Otherwise the least expensive Collector Society Membership with submission privileges is $39 a year. If these books have sentimental value to you, I completely understand and you should send them in for a screening to see if CCS believes they can safely remove the label. But otherwise it is likely going to cost less just to buy nice copies on eBay or a comic book store.

Over hydrating a book - like your question of 4-8 hours - will not cause mold growth. However, 4-8 hours is a ridiculously long time. Over hydrating a book will cause other issues, most often waviness with the book once pressed and done. Water spots and stains become a risk too. People experimenting with pressing ought to - IMHO - spend a lot more time thinking about HOW professionals are likely pressing books and do some basic research on paper conservation. Do you think that CCS spends 4 to 8 hours hydrating a book before pressing? At the $12 fee they charge for moderns. $24 for value, that would have them making $1-$4 an hour. They would need hundreds of humidity chambers. Dozens of employees to keep track of them all. Obviously - with a bit of thought - this is not how it's done. Comic books should not be be humidified for half a day or longer before pressing. But it is also a big mistake when people wave clothes steamers at them for 30 seconds. That represents way too aggressive humidification. Which will also cause waviness and risks spots and stains. There are no how to videos on pressing comic books that are worth a sh.... The FB forums and the people there discussing pressing are offering 90% bad advice. Because they all went simple answers and how to instructions instead of research and basic knowledge. But the Library of Congress, the Northeast Document Conservation Center and your local library all have information on the conservation and treatment of paper, including flattening out documents with humidification.

Grading notes - and the grade assigned - will not be available until the books show shipped. That is because the grade is not final until it has passed through QC. Welcome to the boards.

I suck at detecting trimming But the book doesn't look trimmed to me. Looks like a slight spine roll or miscut at printers.

CVA is GREAT service. For the blind. No one else could possibly need it.

eBay hides bidders identity. Only the seller sees the real ID of bidders. Bidders nor people just browsing see bidder's ID's. Except their own. If you click on the link above of feedback of this buyer, bidders ID's are disguised. c***i. h***r and so on. From eBay's privacy page..... "We'll share your personal information with other eBay members only to facilitate transactions and to allow members to contact you when you’ve completed a transaction together. Email addresses are only disclosed to members involved in a completed eBay transaction. We disclose limited personal contact information to verified requests by law enforcement and government officials who conduct criminal investigations. We require a subpoena for additional personal information, in accordance with our User Privacy Notice." https://pages.ebay.com/help/account/protecting-privacy.html

I went a couple of years ago. Had fun. It was hotter than H... though. It looked like a nice line up of guests this year. For those that haven't been, this is a very small town festival thing - but one that gets a lot of notoriety

On a related note..... It has been my experience that CGC's FedEx rate for international shipping is SUBSTANTIALLY BETTER than the rates I would pay if shipped under my own FedEx account. Obviously Yannick/Thomas is having books shipped internationally. I have no idea what FedEx charges account holders in other countries. Maybe it's better rates than us here in the USA. But I've checked this numerous times over the years including just six months ago, and CGC's FedEx rates were a lot better than what I would get from FedEx. The greatest savings would come from Yannick/Thomas sweet talking CGC into holding/shipping all the books back together in one package. What's driving the cost so high is that you have 12 books total shipping international in 4 different packages. At a minimum, those three moderns should be turned into value submissions and probably the Economy as well. Then you'd only have two packages.

eBay most certainly knows who the seller is. Address, Paypal account, etc.. I would hope and expect they have procedures in place to provide such information to law enforcement that is investigating a felony. I hope you catch the thieves

I don't mean to engage in semantics or as my mother used to say "split hairs". But it's important to understand that shipping carriers will do just that. I'll link to an article that goes into detail of just how difficult it is to understand the common shipping carriers and their rules on DECLARED VALUE, how DV is different than insurance and all the fine print and sketchy ways they try to get out of claims. If you don't want to do a lot of reading (since I ship a lot of packages I have) then just take it on faith that Registered Mail is the gold standard for secure shipping of valuable items. First - there is some difference between declared value and insurance. People think they are buying insurance where really it's just declaring a higher value. There are things with each carrier that the declared value does not provide insurance. FedEx specifically limits liability for collectibles and antiques. They don't say "comic books" but they do say "collectors items such as..." and then also say "anything where age or rarity contribute to it's value" UPS doesn't mention comic books either and do NOT have a general a statement on collectibles as does FedEx But they do specifically exempt coins, postage stamps, artwork and "media". Media could cover a lot of ground, including pretty much any printed items like books and magazines (and comic books) If you ship a lot of expensive stuff, get a private policy - pay extra for the dealer policy. If it's expensive and you want to know for sure it will be handled with great care and security and can be INSURED for what it is worth, register the package. It is worth noting on my Dealer Policy with Collectibles Insurance Services that I have the HIGHEST COVERAGE LIMITS with them when I ship REGISTERED MAIL Why? Probably because claims are virtually non-existent. https://www.scribd.com/document/67664895/A-Look-Inside-UPS-FedEx-and-USPS-Declared-Value-Policies-for-the-Parcel-Shipper

It is hard enough to see some defects - in hand - once a book is encapsulated. It's impossible from pictures of many a slabbed book.

It's an interesting thought , but would not work. For one, the grading notes are NOT a complete and absolute record of every single flaw on a book. They are nothing more than the defects the graders felt like writing down A good number of 9.4-9.8 books have no grader notes. Then of course you really can't see a lot flaws once a book is encapsulated.

You can use most any suitable box to send something registered mail. Including USPS Priority Mail boxes / USPS flat rate Priority mail boxes. Registered Mail has special packaging requirements. You cannot do the postage on line - it has to brought into a post office. The box has to be sealed up with brown paper tape - all seams covered up. (the postal clerk will give you tape to use) Then the postal clerk will hand stamp the USPS seal along all the tapped up edges. This to prevent any tampering/opening of the box. The base postage of RM is Priority. However, it travels slower than Priority Mail. Sometimes a lot slower. This because it travels separately from other classes of mail, when not traveling it is locked up and anyone that touches it has to sign off. Insurance coverage is available up to $50,000. Compare this to a maximum amount of insurance of $5,000 on Priority or Express mail. And as I mentioned earlier, at around $1000 insurance it is actually less expensive to Register the package than it is to buy more insurance on Priority and Express.

Your own answer is the correct one. Registered mail is your best choice USPS on Priority mail offers up to $5,000 insurance coverage. But once you cross about $1000 in insured value, it gets cheaper to Register the package instead because insurance becomes much, much less expensive FedEx and UPS don't much like shipping collectibles and limit the amount of insurance you can purchase.

And grading is NOT just mathematically deducting flaws. If it were someone would make a grading program and all you would need is a good scanner and a computer.

I sense you are angry... I actually understand. But your anger won't help you. People here have only shared knowledge. The "you guys are apologists doing damage control for CGC " is silly, In fact I think most of us that have commented thus far submit books to the other guys too. You....cannot...change....how the grading companies grade. With experience, you'll realize there are no apologists doing damage control because there is no damage to control or apologize for. You don't like the grades you got. Your name is Legion. But you cannot change the grades you received and no amount of posting and lawyering the grading notes will change how CGC grades next month. What you can do is what most do. Try to learn from this experience. You now know that fingerprints, finger bends and very small stress lines have bigger than you would have expected impact on the grade of a comic book. And that modern books with their glossy paper and inks are much more prone to such defects. There is no knowledge that is not useful - and most knowledge costs something . Use that knowledge going forward when purchasing raw books and/or considering what raw books to send in. You might also - for your own piece of mind - send a couple of the books you are unhappy with to that other grading company. If they get better grades you can feel vindicated. If they grade the same or worse - which is the likely outcome - then you'll have more reason to accept that agree or not, this is how the professional grading companies grade.

The 1968 Marvel "first issues" were my brother and I's first purchase of multiple copies.

I think Bomber-Bob must have meant for his post to have gone on some other topic LOL.... WHY the new boards do not allow us to delete comments is hard to comprehend. The short answer is the grading companies do grade more lenient on older books. The longer answer is the grading companies don't really talk about that much. IMHO it's reasonable to grade older books more leniently. The books were printed on paper and quality control was more a vague theory than any actual standard. Take Marvel chipping as an example. What kind of grade would you get on a book printed three years ago with a bunch of pieces missing from the outer edge?

Lots of people are unhappy with their early submissions. There is no asking "why?". CGC is harsher on fingerprints than they are on small bends and stress lines. I tend to agree that fingerprints are indeed a bigger defect than stress lines and very small bends -which finger bends usually are. But there is no real purposed in arguing it. Another thing you allude to is a common misconception about grading. Collectors ask routinely "how much would xyz defect deduct from an otherwise 9.4 book?". That isn't an accurate way to think of grading. Defects are NOT all listed in a book somewhere with a "minus value" assigned to them. Instead the more accurate question is "what is the best grade a book could get with xyz defect?" Then the next step in understanding grading is the lower the grade, the more defects allowed. So once a book has been a fingerprint that limits it to a 9.4 grade - it can most likely have a more than one fingerprint and another tiny defect and STILL stay a 9.4. But the first fingerprint probably limits a book to no better than 9.4 I understand your frustration. We have all been there. But that other grading company wasn't going to be any more generous (or reasonable, given how you are feeling now) on the grades. They downgrade for fingerprints too. . And it bears keeping in mind that the reason that other company has enjoyed a good deal of success is because of who owns and runs it. Steve Borock was chief grader and President of CGC for their first eight years so it should come as no surprise that grades from the two companies are typically very similar. Someone else mentioned it. If you feel you need some minimum grade to make submitting the book worthwhile, prescreen is the way to go. You had a enough books (25 or more) for a prescreen. Of course if you had prescreened at 9.6 you wouldn't have received many slabbed books And no - those 9.8 silver age keys don't have fingerprints on them. And those Silver age keys are a lot less prone to fingerprints than the Walking Dead books you sent in. Moderns with their higher gloss papers and over saturated inks are far more prone to fingerprints.

Several things would work equally well The soft cloths made especially for eyeglasses Screen cleaner that is sold for cleaning computer monitors and cell phone screens. Which also works great on glasses. Use a soft cloth For light existing scratches spray on furniture polish and a soft cloth will often make them disappear Welcome to the boards

If just thrown in loose, what would keep the mask from just falling out at the printers, at the newstand? The mask was attached with a little bit of adhesive that was supposed to easily come loose. The belief that the mask was loose is probably based on the fact that many may have come loose from the adhesive over the years. Being attached "too strong" is only going to be a problem if something was done to it AFTER printed. So if there were collectors that were gluing the masks back inside the book with some Elmer's glue or whatever - that could be a problem. If CGC believes the book has (only) glue added, it should get a conserved grade. Quality control on the printing of comic books until the last 25 years or so was just kind of a vague ideal. Comic books printed in the mid 70's IMHO had some of the worst quality control. Publishers were struggling with rising paper and printing costs and sales were slumping. So it would come as no surprise to me that the Captain Britain mask was SUPPOSED to be attached with a little bit of adhesive - but some got a lot and some got little to none. The general rule is that printing defects have much less of an impact on grade (often times none) than defects that occur from handling and storage after sold. So if your copy got a glob of adhesive instead of a dab at the printers, it will likely have no effect at all on the grade.

CGC does not slab "loose" items. If items like masks or trading cards are attached inside the comic, they are encapsulated. You can find CGC graded copies of your book for sale on eBay with the notation the mask is included. Universal blue label unless there is some other issue

It is possible. You send the book to NY Comics - still slabbed. NY Comics cracks it, gets the additional signatures and then sends it to CFP (Joey) for pressing. Joey then sends it to CGC for regrading as an authentic signatures for the yellow label The important thing to make this work is everyone has to be authorized by CGC to do their part. The person/business that cracks the slab open has to be an authorized CGC signature facilitator. The pressing service has to be approved by CGC to handle signed books and retain the yellow label. CFP is the only pressing service authorized to do this besides CGC's own in house service CCS. NY comics is an official CGC facilitator. So you arrange this ahead of time letting NY comics know you want the book(s) to go to CFP for pressing afterwards. NY Comcis will advise you of any problems or special procedures with what you want to do. Having the comic pressed as the final step before grading is best een

CGC graded and encapsulated this issue does seem to be selling for a lot more than when sold raw. You can buy raw, appear to be high grade copies on eBay for $20-$40. If you send your copy in to CGC and it gets a 9.0 or better you should make more money than selling it raw. If it gets 9.4 or better maybe a LOT more money. HOWEVER, I would not wait until around Christmas to sell. Playboys of this vintage are plentiful. Their circulation was in the range of 3-5 million copies per issue. And men saved their Playboys magazines. Right now, there is a nice premium associated with the issue being CGC graded. If lots of copies get sent in for grading, that premium may well start to evaporate.

I use these. I also rarely use them "bare", but instead slip them into a Priority Mail Flat Rate legal size envelope. They fit perfectly. I much prefer these "flasH" or "flip and ship" mailers over the boxes have mentioned. The flash/flip & ship mailers have a cardboard overhang of .5 to 1", which better protects the books. With the boxes the comics are right up against the edges of the box. http://mattsbaseball.com/store/product/8916/CSP-COMIC-BOOK-FLIP-%26-SHIP-BOX/