newshane

UPDATE: Today I cracked open box number three. I was very disappointed for a few reasons. First, the books had shifted considerably. Check out this shot!

Could be a fingerprint, dimple...anything really. I'm not very experienced at grading "trick" covers, but I know the heavier paper stock used by the manufacturers are a lot less susceptible to corner damage or rubbing. The corners of your book look perfect to me, but like I said earlier...there is a lot more to a book than the corners alone. Your feelings about that book are similar to my feelings about my Cable 1...which came back as a 9.8. After staring at it at many angles for what seemed like hours, I finally found the flaw. It was the tiniest little edge "push" that I've ever seen! The corners on that book are textbook perfect. Grading IS subjective, as everyone likes to point out. I think comparing the 9.8 slab with the 9.9 slab...and throwing the raw candidates in between for a good eyeballing...I think that's going to help me a lot. It also helps that I'm fortunate enough to own dozens of 9.9 slabs already...but on the downside none of them have been self-submissions.

Not to change the discussion here to grader notes, but it is worth noting... I don't think you can really get them for 9.8s. I ordered some notes for a Wolvie Limited 1 that I got out of a distributors box...thought it was a 9.9 but it came back a 9.8. No notes available and I never did get my money back. Just reminded me...I need to call about that. I am about to crack open a box of raw Spawn 12s. This particular issue is solid black along all edges... Any flaws should show up really nicely. I can also compare the nice raws I find with a graded 9.8 copy Spawn 12 that I already own! THEN...I can compare those against my mint slab of issue 4, which is also solid black along the edges. This should give me the best possible standard for making final decisions regarding the books that make it and the books that won't. I think that would be more informative than anything else I've done.

Hado...that's literally the only flaw on the book and it looks worse than it is because of the way it was pinched, if that makes any sense. A 9.9 can still have a flaw, and of course that is why 10s exist. My 9.9 of issue 1 has a similar tick. I have other 9.9s that have similar TINY flaws. I think the deal is this...it can only be ONE and it must be minute. That would be my best GUESS of course. I'm learning here. *paging Beachbum!*

The book is going out tomorrow. Modern fast track. Like I said, I just want to establish a reference for my own good. I don't really expect this to come back as a 9.9. The good news is that I have another raw copy of the same issue that is in BETTER condition than the one pictured. I will definitely keep everyone updated on the grade. I will also be cracking open a third box this weekend. I won't go insane with the pics from here on out unless I find something truly interesting or different. Stay tuned!

I'd go so far as to say, in fact, that the corners on the raw book in the photograph are better than those on the 9.9 slab! But the slab has a perfect spine. Very little rub at all. It's clearly the product of an OCD collector who, back in the mid 90s (man how I miss those days!) got a distributors box fresh off the press and put his gloved mits on the fresh cookie! The spine rub has me concerned. The photographs really bring them out. The book "presents" better in person...and when I initially graded the books, I didn't happen to notice it as much. I have a 9.9 mint slab of Spawn 1 that shows some evidence of spine rub, IIRC. I remember being kind of surprised at that. I will have to break it out of the vault later this evening. I'll show you guys pictures. I'm glad some of you are enjoying this insane journey of mine! I am really enjoying the hunt and being able to share it with people who understand makes it VERY enjoyable for me as a collector. Basically, I live in the middle of nowhere and I only have one real-life friend that is a comic nerd, and he isn't an insane collector like I am so... Thanks.

I think the next step will definitely be to send it off for grading. It's the only way to know for sure! I don't expect the book in the picture to get a 9.9. I can say the following: You've seen the pics. The corners on the book are incredible! It's the spine-rub that worries and interests me the most! Details you can't see? Well, the book is FLAT. The book has never been touched by my bare hands. I used protection. It has sat in a sealed distributors box for 18 years! VIRGIN. I am personally going to guess 9.8. I'd rather play it safe. So why is this thread in this forum? Because, while I wait for a grade from the CGC, I want to hear YOUR best guess!

...and finally the lower right hand corner. Once again, pretty identical.

Here are two shots of the upper right hand corner. Appears identical. Both books have razor sharp cuts in this corner.

Here are a few pics of the lower left hand corner. This is the better looking spine corner of the raw book. As you can see, it also seems to be better than the mint book in some ways!

This is a really good question, but I'm almost positive that the spine rubbing you see in the picture is enough to downgrade to a 9.8 or even less. Maybe I'm being too picky? I'm really hoping that some of the veterans will chime in with the secrets of the trade. I mean, the corners on this book are REALLY nice. But the blasted spine rub! It's just too much IMHO.

I think the first thing a blossoming grader must realize is this - there is more to a book than the corners alone! In the early days, I made the mistake of giving sharp corners too much credit. I think many people attempt to grade books without ever taking them out of the bag! There is a back cover! Is there excess glue on the staples? Do minute splits exist at the binding? Any sign whatsoever in topographical variation? In other words, does the cover have even the slightest dent or riveting? I put a comic in the reject pile because it has a divot the size of a pinhead on the cover! It's so hard to put an otherwise perfect book into the "reject" pile, but I think that's what it takes. Look at the graded 9.8 slabs that you own. Can you detect the flaw? LOOK! They are there my friend. You must examine in every sort of light and from every sort of angle...at magnification! This is how insane you have to be...to try to sub your own 9.9s. As you can see from my experiment, it's not even as easy as getting a sealed book from the distributor!!! I've went through a few boxes now with greater luck. I keep returning to my "candidates" only to find flaws. I'm no expert. I'm learning as I go along...and I've learned by making stupid mistakes. I remember my first submission! I thought that all the books I grabbed at my LCBS when I was a kid back in the early 90s were sheer mint because I bought them new, bagged and boarded, and they were UNTOUCHED! Imagine the furor I felt when most of them came back as 9.4 to 9.6! Now imagine how stupid I felt when I peered very carefully at the book, only to see the tiny flaws that knocked them down in grade... and the shock in realizing...they noticed THAT? You mean that tiny FLAKE at the top corner is the only reason my book is a 9.8 instead of a 9.9???

Okay gang, I took some more pictures! What are you seeing? The comic on the bottom is our reference. It is a 9.9 mint slab of Spawn issue #4 contained in a Mylar envelope. The comic on the top is one of the best candidates from one of the boxes. It is contained in a Mylar bag with a fullback. First, I am going to post detailed comparison pics of the upper left-hand corner of the book. Notice how promising the top three pics look! Now notice what a difference is made when I take pics of the same corner from a different angle. You can clearly see the rub marks along the spine of the top comic. The bottom comic is not effected in this manner! That, my friends, is one of the differences between a 9.8 and a 9.9. The really disappointing part of this exercise has been the sheer number of comics in ALMOST GOOD ENOUGH condition! I've found many books with absolute perfect corners (this was honestly a surprise). Those same books, however, simply have too many rub marks along the spine. You should be able to tell what I'm talking about by looking at the photographs below. I shall return later tonight and we will take a look at the other three corners. I hope this helps everyone understand the differences between a great book and a truly exceptional one.

UPDATE: Out of the first box of 200, I've found two copies that are solid 9.9 candidates. I just kept narrowing stacks of books down by quality. In my excitement, I forgot to grab pics of the candidates. I will be sure to take pictures if I come across any additional copies.

Continue to wish me luck please! I still have half a dozen other boxes to go through. I may fare better or worse on some of them. My experiment will hopefully give many collectors an idea of how HARD it is to come by a truly MINT book that will stand up the the tightest standards of judgement. Just think of how many times a comic is handled before it even gets in your hands! The people on the press, the packers, the distributors, the comic shop...time itself. I scored sealed boxes from nearly 2 decades ago that have lain in storage and I'm still having a difficult time finding books that would even come close to meeting the standard. That's why I'm truly blown away when I see mint books that are around or over 20 years old. Now there is a market for perfect books and dealers are more cognizant of their ability to squeeze a premium price from the consumer. Just do a quick eBay search for "CGC 9.9" and you will see that a majority of those books are from the last several years (post slab craze). A 9.9 book that is older than your teenage kid? Now THAT is a true rarity.

In the end I'd say mainly VF to NM books. Maybe a few dozen 9.8 candidates..just 8 or 9 that might come close to 9.9 and I am likely going to narrow that down to just 2 or maybe 3 that really stood out as "wow" comics...even then it's going to be a moonshot, but the copies I pulled look at least as good as 1 or 2 of the dozen or so 9.9 slabs that I already own.

The following picture captures something that made my skin crawl. Look at that bulge created by the cardboard! No wonder that murked the first dozen or so copies!

The shot attached to this post should create in the viewer a sense of sympathy. My heart kind of sank when I looked at the spine wear from some of the books that were packed with the spine edge towards the side of the box. Of course, books that were packed edge-wise against the side of the box had other issues, such as tiny folds or impacts along the far edge of the cover. The good news is that, believe it or not, there were still dozens of 9.8 candidates (especially with pressing) taken from this box. The bad news, for a collector like me, is that I found perhaps 2 or 3 contenders for 9.9...but only one that I feel halfway lucky about and even then it is a shot. One out of 200 copies. A .5% "success rate." I'd give this single issue about an optimistic 45% chance of scoring a 9.9.

This is what the contents looked like. I started by removing the books from the top, but I quickly discovered this was inefficient. I could immediately ascertain, for example, that the first several copies were total duds. None of them lay flat. At that point, I decided to carefully slit the box down the sides. This afforded the following view, which allowed me to quickly assess which books simply had no possible shot at a 9.9 (and there were many). As you can see, the contents weren't tightly packed and had shifted around quite a bit over the last 18 ( ) years. I was disappointed at the total lack of padding or protection within the distributor's box.

I cracked open one of the boxes today. I'd like to share the initial result, which only reinforces the reputation of the 9.9 book as a true rarity. I mean, the average collector probably thinks a sealed box of comics from the distributor would contain dozens of perfect copies. This is not so. Thankfully, I realized that finding even a single 9.9 copy, even out of hundreds in sealed boxes, would be a moonshot. Consequently, I wasn't too disappointed or surprised at the things I found inside of the boxes. I will post the full results shortly, with additional pictures...

I am cracking open the boxes this weekend. I'm pretty excited. I will definitely keep in touch! I'm not expecting much...maybe a handful of potential 9.9s. If I can just get one per box I will be thrilled.

Apparently I was wrong? "A forum dedicated solely to asking forumites to guesstimate the grade of book from a scan. NOTE: GRADING FROM A SCAN IS NOT RELIABLE, it's just interesting." I'm sorry guys. Noob to the boards. Don't know if this thread can be moved but...

I was just wondering what everyone thought about my chances looking through a sealed box from the distributor. Is there a 9.9 somewhere in there? I apologize if this is in the wrong forum. It's grade-related so I thought it was appropriate to post here.

From an investment standpoint, it is horrible. I don't collect for investment purposes. I collect Spawn because I enjoy the art and love the character. One man's trash is another's treasure? Like I said, I have lots of cash ready for slabbed 9.9s and would consider raw books if they had an honest-to-goodness chance. So if anyone wants to dump off any "garbage" then let me know. ..and yes, in a pinch these would make great kindling or toilet paper, so I don't feel like it's a total loss.

Thanks for the well-wishes Speedmaster! I know this might turn out to be a colossal waste of money, but I'm not sure if there is a better way to find perfect copies of these books. I guess either way this will be a learning experience for me. Wading through 1,000+ books is going to take me a looong time but I will keep you guys updated. ...anyone care to make an offer on my rejects?