The Black Hand ®

Airboy's fun to collect.

I remember Matt Nelson saying that compression was good but that books needed to breath a bit, and not just a pinhole's worth.

So are the books stewing in their own juices so to speak. Buy a book 10 years after it was slabbed and what do you get? Crumbly, brown little pieces?

What a great blend of comic and pulp art. Those are covers to die for!

Action 1

Were I selling that Detective 3, I wouldn't have the nerve to call it a 4.5. 3.0 at best. IMO. I'd take the 39.

Oh it certainly would.

I was all gung ho on this last night, but now I'm feeling kind of bad. I'm wondering if we could find an honorable way out of this bet for the new guy. Sometimes the momentum on these boards can move a bit fast. I'm in total agreement with filter and I'm hoping we can get this back to the discussion level. If I'm out of bounds here I'll shut up. Any thoughts?

So.... is the bet on?

My money's on filter if I were a betting man.

I'm going after some uncertified ones, any thoughts?

Very nice! What do you think of the Crippen books?

More Fun....

I believe water cleaning to be restoration, so I would always like to know if that has been done to it and then I'd like to see it priced accordingly. It's a lot like what faults bother a particular collector. One man's vg is another man's piece of trash. There are certain faults I don't like and others I can put up with. I don't like sun shadows, I can't stand them, rather not have them, but spine rolls don't bug me anywhere near as much. Some people feel that way about cleaning and pressing.

I whole heartedly agree with everything you've said. I'm sure I've asked this before, but does CGC consider watercleaning to be restoration? If they don't then why not?

Why do certain people get upset when cleaning and pressing etc. and resubmissions get pointed out? There are certain people who jump all over it, trying hard to point out that it's either an isolated incident or that CGC doesn't regard it as resto etc... you'd think everyone would be happy to have this info so that they can make a more informed choice when purchasing books. It makes one wonder that's for sure. Just keep it in a blue label and note cleaned and pressed for more profit.

Marvel 1, that chunk out of the Detective bothers me. Having said that, I must also say that the average price I pay for books are between 150.00 and 250.00. I could never afford either of those books, I would lose my wife if I dipped into emergency savings or any other savings or real estate or whatever. This exercise is about like asking if I'd rather be able to fly or be invisible. Still fun, but I don't have enough investment money for large, high end comic purchases.

Did someone erase something on the Larson?

What about if it's amateur? I'm sure we've all had books where some kid took a color marker and filled in a spine scuff mark or something like that. Would that bother people as much as a professional color touch?

Isn't that Zip a gerber 8? Nice pickup! Montana did a lot of my favorite MLJ war covers.

Even though it would kill me, since I bought AF15 off the stand when I was a kid I would still choose it, over graded or not.

Boy it's a toss-up for me. I like both covers a lot but I think I might be swayed by the PQ on the Action 6.

I love thos KDF covers but I've never read one. How are the stories?

God.... that's a beautiful book!

Detective 31... I just can't take my eyes off that cover.