Kirby_Fan

I agree. And the staple indentations are mild in comparison to most. Typical on even the otherwise highest graded issues is to see the staples indenting the back cover aggressively enough to actually puncture the cover to varying degrees. I imagine it must be a combination of the pressure exerted on the book in production as recalibration becomes necessary and probably the biggest factor, stacking pressure; the amount of weight on top of a particular book in storage.

I don't recall ever seeing a pre-1946 DC comic with that back cover.

Although I'm of the opinion that bushels of wheat would be in demand as collectibles if some grading service labeled them 9.8

Where do all of these jungle lasses buy their beauty supplies?

Tree-fiddy

Sort of. In the example you give of your Avengers #4, the revision entailed placing the fold of the spine back into the position where it was originally located. Due to the roll, the spine fattened and the pages fanned out, however, on the example I cited, and many more like it done by the same crew, the spine was completely re-located by pressing the book flat while opened up to the centerfold and refolding a new spine in a shifted location! This placed what was the spine to the right side of the back of the book! This was not done to correct a spine roll. The book was not rolled to begin with. This was done to reposition the wear on the spine, stresses and fractures to the spine area of the back cover, where it had a diminished effect of wear!

Mastro did not cut and separate the card from a sheet or strip. The Wagner was already a single card, not one card on a strip or sheet, prior to Mastro's ownership. When the card was initially being shopped around among parties that one of the middle-man, a Mr. McAvoy, thought would have interest in purchasing it for $20,000, I'm not sure if the card itself was physically in the middleman's possession as he was using sending a very low resolution B&W Xerox of the card to prospective buyers not in his area. This Xerox showed that one margin, I believe it was the right side of the card, was both oversized, and not well cut with a wavy edge. Later on, the card was submitted to PSA with the wavy, oversized edge manipulated into a thing of beauty, enough so to get an 8 NM/MT.

And the advantage of having someone else in possession of your collectibles is what?

Does the owner of this one happen to have a last name with 6 letters, 2 of them vowels?

I agree. They're too late by about 24 years. Gutsy move though, expanding in a diminishing economy and contracting marketplace with a major competitor who has a 24-year lock on the grading game. Interesting to note that the first item that PSA ever graded, the T-206 PSA 8 Wagner......................................................................................................was trimmed (no mention of it being altered on the label), and most astute hobbyists were well aware of it long before it was graded, except for PSA. There's a book about it that exposes hobby corruption at the highest level.

The Avengers #1 he's referring to is the one with the completely shifted, refolded spine, to reposition wear on the spine to the back of the book by creating a new spine due to refolding the entire book, a neat little trick that I believe CGC red-flagged. Unfortunately, this causes the second half of the book, from the centerfold to the back cover, to jut out markedly beyond the level of the right edge of the cover to the centerfold. It's no surprise that these weirdly folded books were all coming from the inventories of three dealers all bearing the same last name. I believe a member of this forum named "Master Chef" started a thread about that maybe a decade ago showing before and after images of the repositioned/shifted spines. How'd you like to be a major dealer and have your mom or dad grading your inventory for you, no conflict of interest of course, honor system and all.

This right here. 7.0 as is, 7.5 with a press, which won't revise the color-breaking spice fractures, but will remedy a few other smaller defects.

Another one of my Comic hobby buying philosophies can best be described by this tune, if you replace the word "Smile" in the lyrics, with the word "BUY".

I have 4 parts to my collecting philosophy: Nothing exceeds like excess. Anything worth doing is worth over-doing. Less is not more. He who dies with the most toys wins.

Only the top two images appeared on my device. I didn't realize you had a board of some type under the front cover alone. The board blended into the background and it looked like the entire book was chewed through, the paper eaten away from front to back. I just reviewed the rear images and yes, they are chips, agreed.