Mr. Zipper

RE: Jack KIrby Dynamic Forces signatures Thanks for the info. I agree that the Dynamic Forces signatures are carefully done and not as fluid as con sigs you'd see from the 60s and 70s, but I attributed it to the fact that he was old school and getting paid to add his signature. And he was getting up there in years. They don't appear any more "rigid" than the signatures I've seen on signed art prints, etc. from the early 90s. I would have assumed Dynamic Forces would have brought the items to him and supervised the signing. Dozens of cases of Marvel Milestone FF #1s and X-Men #1s seems like an awful lot to ship him and ask him to do them himself - and then ship back. While I wouldn't 100% rule out Roz because crazier things have happened, it would seem a stretch that she would have the skills to replicate his signature this closely. Even the best proxy signers take years to perfect the signature and there are still tell-tale signs. Despite being "careful," the formation is spot on and there are no signs of hesitation. Marker on comic covers is totally unforgiving... any hesitation or course correction would stick out like a sore thumb. Interesting discussion though. Feel free to PM me any details you haven't shared previously. I'll also take a fresh look. Regards, Steve

I understand that sometimes "bindery chips," -- i.e., chips from rough cut corners during production process -- will get a pass. This appears that it may be that type of chip. That said, it is a bit extreme. I'm surprised a chip this large, regardless of origin, could get a 9.6.

I completely agree on the alleged Lee and Ditko signatures. They appear to be stiffly drawn and malformed. Not even debatable IMO. I am curious however, @James J Johnson why you consider the Dynamic Forces Kirby signed Marvel Milestone books "questionable."

Nicely done.

I don’t think so. Maybe a green label if it was otherwise very high grade, but not in this grade.

Years ago I purchased a VF range Avengers 16 from a boardie. When it arrived, it had obviously been squashed to death and over heated with flyaway corners. The pressing was undisclosed at the time of sale. It looked okay in a Mylar, but it was a total amateur hack job. I sent it to Joey and he did his thing, which I assumed included humidifying to breathe some life back into the paper. He did a great job of fixing the previous amateur press. He saved the book. As a side note... i haven’t been as focused on the hobby for the last few years. Catching up on these boards, I am shocked at what a cottage industry pressing has become. It seems as if every other collector has a press in the basement. To the point where there are entire Facebook groups dedicated to pressing techniques? ?

I don’t think a sticker would further reduce a 3.5 - 4.0 unless it was a large sticker. I suspect you are better off leaving the sticker on. If removed, there would probably by an oily adhesive stain that looks worse than the sticker.

It's a cool place in terms of sheer size and volume of material. Mostly moderns, TPBs, toys and "stuff." But you won't find much in terms of GA/SA or BA. I would visit once or twice a month when I worked on 46th and 6th 15 years ago. Cool way to spend a lunch hour. I saw Mark Hamill there once.

Sleeping Beauties by Owen and Stephen KIng. It's ok, but not exactly a page turner you can't put down. May need to extend with the library to get all the way through this one.

Looks like some light black prints in the yellow coupon. If it was in the white area it could probably be dry cleaned... not so sure about in the yellow area.

In my opinion, pressing is restoration. But I am a realist and understand 95% of the hobby doesn’t give a damn about my opinion. No sense in arguing “settled law.”

Definitely distributor spray. Looks like they soaked it good. This is a somewhat extreme example.

Not unheard of. My Superman 11 is blue label with a "very minor amount of glue." It appears there is a tiny dab of glue on the tear bottom front cover. It really doesn't fix anything or improve the grade. In my opinion, this makes more sense than mindlessly PLODing low or midgrade books for tiny amounts of marker hit or glue that do nothing to improve grade. They should be considered flaws and graded accordingly at that level.

It does not appear to be color touch... rather looks like some schmutz smeared. Secondly, color touch is usually is an area of flaws, e.g., spine creases, staples, corners, etc. It doesn't make much sense to have a color touch in a central area where there doesn't appear to be a flaw to "fix." Not sure about possible trimming. My sense is it may simply be a bad production cut common in golden age books, but I'm not sure.

Ugh... slab inflicted damage. Sorry.

I haven't been as active here in the past few years, but I see the same points / counterpoints from 10 years ago. CGC's definition of restoration is a politically convenient one that was concocted with the input of their most valuable stakeholders. You can choose to buy it as gospel or not... but it's a moot point. It's the business reality of the hobby, like it or not. In terms of "what is really restoration," I will share one of my pet peeves... Why do they PLOD mid to low grade books that have small marker hits or glue when the "restoration" does NOT improve the grade of the book?

This is spot on. To kids today, the Marvel characters are all about movies and video games. There is ZERO connection to the books. My children love the movies; they couldn't care less about the comics. Without that foundation of nostalgia from childhood, I can't envision them spontaneously wanting to pay big bucks for Silver Age books 20 years from now.

You're the exception to the rule. Most sellers will satisfy reasonable requests... especially for multi-thousand dollar items.

While amusing, the whole argument that the competition went "belly up" is based on a false premise and the wrong metrics. You can share stats that show CGC slabs sold for x% more from now until doomsday and it doesn't matter one bit. If that was a meaningful metric from a business success/fail perspective, PGX would have gone out of business 12 years ago. (NOT that I am comparing the credible competition to PGX is any way!) The metric that matters is the P&L statement. Given the competition has been in an expansion mode with hiring and has a decent market share given they are still relatively "new," I think their P&L sheet looks just fine. I suspect their investors and Beckett feel the same. The notion that investors are analyzing spreadsheets detailing the price of slab x vs slab y for comparable books is absurd.

What CGC slabs sell for vs distinguished competition is a red herring. People can cherry pick stats either way to make an argument. The salient point is that the competition did not "go belly up," was/is not failing, etc., etc. That is dishonest spin... in other words, #FakeNews.

The sickly green ink signature makes the disaster even worse. Ends up looking like a UV faded black signature.

This surprises or stuns you? Across all fields, there are an alarming number of collectors and dealers who couldn't care less about the actual grade, authenticity or existence of restoration. To them, all that matters is that **someone** "certified" it.

In my view, this is another move consistent with what appears to be Beckett's strategy to diversify and expand their base across collecting fields. Last fall, Beckett opened an autograph authentication division by poaching the well-known head authenticator from PSA, Steve Grad, to lead it. (The autograph guy who appears on Pawn Stars.) This move is essentially the same. In one move, they acquired an established turn-key comics grading division. If anything, I think this would speak to the positive attributes of the distinguished competition, NOT that they were in any sort of trouble.

Sorry you had to sell. Hope things turn around for you.

I've tried to introduce my son (9 years old) to comics, and it's been tough. Kid's today have video game attention spans. The contemporary drawn out story arcs with little forward movement from issue to issue are terrible for kids. In fact, I would not recommend any story arcs old or new to introduce comics to kids. I've had some limited success with single issue self-contained stories, e.g., Marvel Two In One, Marvel Team Up, etc. I'll typically grab beater issues of books like this from the dollar box for my son. He'll read them, but doesn't seem to have the passion. While my kids are voracious readers of "chapter" books, I don't have much confidence they will click with comics in any meaningful way. For visual entertainment, it's all about video games or TV.