Silverfish Assassin

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).

As usual, I both appreciate and loathe your assessment. That's 3 new flaws you've made me cognizant of...

Front cover: mildew, bleached spine, silverfish chomps in upper left, wrinkles/creases across blue bird. Unsure about triangle in upper right (might be extra paper from a neighboring book). Back cover: small chips/tears along upper edge. Cover seems well attached for having only 1 staple. I fought the urge to wipe off the mildew as I normally would (with distilled water and cotton swabs) because I'm new to comics and don't yet know the rules.

I'm glad you posted that census data, because I was having trouble locating it in the database. And I investigated the back cover - turns out the "triangle" is a big damn hole. Luckily no paper is missing, but it's still an ugly tear. I spent about an hour unfolding the tear/flap as you see but I couldn't get that last little bit to unfold.

Probably my best comic. Pages are surprisingly white. The spine should start to flatten now that I've got it bagged with a piece of rigid cotton museum board.

After thinking about this a lot more, I've realized something - the encapsulation of comics and coins is tolerable because it doesn't visually impede the most interesting parts, which are the outer faces. This Disney Retrospective is the exact opposite though, with amazing, full color pages, and dead/boring covers, so I think it'd be a shame to encapsulate it.

I'm more interested in the one sold by Van Eaton in 2018 for $968... That was the only other copy I've seen that matched mine on condition. Usually the covers on these are destroyed because they're essentially made of wood, which is even worse than pulp paper in terms of acidity/longevity.

I have no idea if this is a gradable thing, but at least it's something new for you to look at. Apparently my artist ancestor worked on "Fantasia" according to his pencil ramblings on the last page.

Wow, an 8.5 sold last year for $7k...

I'll try to choose my words more carefully! That reminds me - what does one do with a Mickey Mouse #8 from 1940 that might've been a grade 7 except the back cover has been cut off?

A bit dirty with a sun-bleached spine, but holy cow is this a desirable issue.

Assume I know nothing about the comic industry or it's lingo/abbreviations btw... Normally I'd Google it, but "CP" is... Well I'd rather not Google it. I'm assuming you're referring to paying someone to clean/prep the book prior to grading?

Dang, you guys don't mess around... Okay thanks, I'll work on processing all that info. I don't remember the cover feeling loose when I was bagging it, but I'd have to double check. The latest comps on WP show a 4.5 @ $427 and a 6.0 @ $1,025; between that and your help you've given me a pretty good ballpark estimate on value. And I'm glad you liked this one because there's funner stuff to come. Btw, these were all purchased from a newsstand that wrote the arrival date on the covers, so typically you'll see something like "A 12 6" if it arrived Dec. 6th. I've no clue why this one has the "A" but no date.

After 52 years of procrastination, I'm finally going through the stack of "mint condition" comic books that an artist/animator relative left behind when he died. Not so mint after 25 years in a garage by the beach (which caused the mildew/foxing on the front cover) followed by 25 years in closed PP/PE container that trapped all the acid. There's also some blackish fingerprints courtesy of the insufficiently_thoughtful_persons from the moving company. I'd appreciate a ballpark grade since to my eye everything from a 4 to a 9 looks the same.