Silverfish Assassin

So how do I figure out how much CGC would charge to grade this? Only WP comp I see is $1,673 for a 9.0 back in 2009.

I assumed one staple was due to war rationing.

See, that's all I'm trying to avoid - I don't want to be the chump who gave away tens of thousands of dollars. Not again. My attempts at selling have mostly gotten nowhere though. Feels like this whole industry has gotten fat and lazy since COVID, now everyone expects to do none of the work and take (collectively) half of the profit. Coming from a background that's more conservation than comics, I can tell you that conservators the world over are pressing paper, but the standard practice is to rehydrate it and let it dry for a day between two heavy sheets of glass. I've never used a heated press to flatten paper. The process of adding heat and moisture to unwashed paper is how I'd describe rapid artificial aging btw.

Included 2 photos of front cover - one shows the faint date stamp (center), the other shows where a drop of solvent landed (just below date stamp). First pic was also before I unfolded damaged corner (bottom right)

Yikes, does this forum not allow you to delete your own posts?

The census tally for these is 28, which is 5x less than issue No.1. So... why don't they seem to be worth anything?

Who'd buy a comic with that little flap sticking out... It drives me bonkers. Maybe because I'm OCD. And something tells me the demographic I'd be selling to doesn't enjoy a lower than average incidence of that particular affliction.

2 virtually identical copies (same history, same storage, same condition) which is kinda fun because you can compare colors and any differences are probably as-manufactured. Like Mickey's foot, which is brown on one and reddish on the other. One whole cover looks red-shifted actually.

I'm starting to become disillusioned with the idea of grading... I would've expected the grade to be based purely on things that can't be changed. Either that, or I would expect the grading service to do the changeable things themselves, to both set a standard and dissuade pre-grade monkeying.

Well, I got most of the curl out.

I'm not entirely sold on the idea of heated pressings... Do they steam the paper first? Because adding water is damaging to old paper unless you immediately rinse away the acid it creates (hydration of atmospheric sulphur/nitrogen dioxides creates nitric and sulphuric acid, two of the most embrittling/hydrolyzing acids).