Sauce Dog

The trick is to nab all those 2.0 books that only graded that way due to a detached cover. My favourite grade/defect combo to buy

Even though nobody in their right mind should believe the offer, apparently the owner of the internet famous ASM #14 that was defaced by an angry girlfriend (CBCS 1.8) was offered 100k for it at a con recently and turned it down. If you do believe such 'credible offers' that are only substantiated by a random witness posting it around (who knows the owner) and no actual names given for the buyer then I would like you to know I have an ASM #2 CGC 1.0 that Sylvia Plath was reading on her death bed in 1963 fresh off the rack. It's true and I was just offered 300k for it by a very legit buyer, but I refused...but I am happy to make my fellow board members a deal and sell it to you for 100k.

The great part of Custom Sets is how wide a net they can cast on which books to include, so you do you and jam pack it with everything you love. Unfortunately those will make most people just scratch their heads and think "okay, you listed everything in your collection...but why should I care again?" I myself prefer a hyper focused, weird, and very niche goal oriented custom sets, like thusly: https://comics.www.collectors-society.com/WCM/ComicCustomSetView.aspx?s=28969

The book is designated Apparent SA, apparent slight amateur, so it isn't guaranteed to come back Conserved as the quality of the work (and the materials used) might be very poor and not up to the standard necessary (in this case the adhesive used might not be archive safe, or applied in poor manner which makes it very apparent). Also keep in mind the 'slight' part of the designation isn't the best to use when assuming the amount of work done, especially on older slabbed books - it might not be slight in nature. I have a book that was sent for conservation, and the pro working on it consulted with CGC every step of the way to confirm it fell within their guidelines, but when it came time to grading CGC felt the amount of conservation (tear seals / reinforcement) was a tad too much to be safely considered conservation and so they gave it a RESTORED (sp) label. If you want to be sure, cracking it open prior to grading is the best way to inspect it.

Here's the thing with all these new people trying out these techniques, they are only learning them from other comic fans and 99.9% of the people jumping into stain removal are only reading a certain book or visiting a select few FB groups...none of them are trying to actually read the academic industry stuff on actual conservation. What that means is you have all these people explicitly doing 'conservation' that only amounts to short term visual changes in order to get a grade bump and then flip the book (and make no mistake, they ain't aiming for conservation - they all talk about dodging that designation and getting a universal blue label). NONE of them actually know the essential treatment parameters to consider when using hydrogen peroxide that would actually CONSERVE THE BOOK. Few are doing work that will conserve the book for the longterm - they just want that grade bump in the CGC case and once its in there who cares what happens to the materials down the years. The majority of actual paper conservationists (in museums and other institutions) do not typically use bleaching agents on materials, those that do use hydrogen peroxide (the most popular bleaching agent, followed by light bleaching and then sodium borohydride) use a concentration between 0.5 and 3.0% (I've seen some comic people talk about using up to 20%!). However, the one thing the vast majority of them agree on is pre-treatment and post-treatment steps are mandatory! These are two things I have never seen brought up in any of the comic resources on stain removal (I have the books and am part of the groups) - the comic amateurs are just doing peroxide treatments (either full or localized via the HOP method) and leaving it at that! No deacidify, no resizing, nothing...so you now have paper that looks better but is going to be susceptible to the common concerns in the industry; brittleness, iron ions, short fibre pulp, sizing loss, lignin, color reversion etc... I experimented with lightening/peroxide as well, but I also made sure to read as much actual academic work on the matter as possible and found it was WAY out of my pay grade to do correctly if I was going to be honest about it. This is literally stuff best left to pros. I can still do actual conservation, but I limit myself to the stuff I know 100% is not going to damage the book down the road - I aim for an actual conservation label in my work, not try to game the system. As Helen Burgess said (the conservation scientist, not the actress) regarding such bleaching agents:

Ah nuts to it, bump and a one time price drop (making it $65us less than GPA)

Please no hall of shamers or probies. We will ship anywhere in North America, shipping will be a flat $20. Price is in USD, and I only accept Pay Pal (or e-transfer for fellow Canadians). No returns on graded books. Check out my kudos thread for my history of selling/buying - I'll treat you right! First timestamped gets it over any ongoing PM offers.Just one book today but it is impressive. Book has been signed by the entire creative staff in bright vivid neon inks (with no smudging). TMNT: The Last Ronin #1 IDW Publishing, 1/21 White pages Third Print CGC 9.9, Signature Series ( Sextuple signed: Kevin Eastman, Ben Bishop, Luis Antonio Delgado, Esau Escorza, Issac Escorza, Tom Waltx) SOLD to Bobbyusc

An 'average' movie to me is also a 6, where I find the experience overall enjoyable and the flaws with it did not stick out as much to the point it got me thinking about them during or after the fact. Nothing great, but certainly not bad enough to be bad (but also not something I'm not making plans to revisit) I see Black Adam as a 5/10, as the faults really took me out of it and made the entire thing as a whole a poor film (even though I loved scenes and the execution of certain ideas).

Yeah, I kind of want to bid on that because it was a book I was looking out for already and if I can get it for FMV but with a 'pedigree' label that would be fun. I'm also interested to see if GPA will flag it as that pedigree in its records later

While it is sad to see one of the few good superhero shows cancelled, I think this is a decent place to stop. We got a pretty good series and the writers have been given ample notice to wrap it up with a proper ending (something many shows don't get), and it leaves us on a high note rather than risking diminishing returns in quality for a few more seasons. The other plus side is this might open up many of these JSA characters to be considered by execs/writers for larger adaptations in the DCEU, especially Stargirl and Hourman, since a general audience is already somewhat familiar with them and shown to have an active fanbase (making them a safer bet to bring into a JSA movie or cameo)

5/10 is pretty much where everyone I've seen it with put it at, basically "it wasn't bad...but it wasn't good". I think most of the positives feelings we held did not come from seeing it as an overall film, but rather a few specific decent moments (and having them done right for the most part; Doctor Fate, costumes, action). The one thing we all agreed on was the first action set piece was the best of the film, and after that the slow motion felt over used.

Oh, in that case leave it as is - Conserved is all good (so long as the seller was being honest and it is professional/slight work done on it and won't get the purple label)!

That looks pretty fair for the grade as it is, so I think all things considered it is best to keep it as a 5.0. Conservation might take it slightly higher, but considering the book I think it best to leave it Universal.

Just so I'm clear, it's currently a purple label restored book, correct? This really depends on how much work will be involved (as I'm sure there are other things to address than simply just removal of a spine repair - there always is) I personally would have the restoration removed, as there is far more of a damaging stigma around that if you ever try to resell (if that is your end goal), and honestly spring for Conservation (which shouldn't be that much. I had a complete spine split cover repaired for a golden age book, with other repair work done, and it cost me a total of $270) since the stigma for 'blue' conserved books I feel is lessening and people are far more open to having those in their collection with higher grades.

Nothing in those notes screams anything that requires 'restoration' work but rather just 'conservation', and this really depends on the book and how it already looks (as 5.0 might be as good as it gets, so no sense doing any work).

4.5. I had a similar looking book that presented great and would have been an otherwise 7.0-8.0 if not for serious staining like this.

I always pegged this as the one to get as it felt like the actual important first for the team as the previous issue was them just sitting around telling stories. I much prefer the cover as well (that and I actually own this issue since #3 is far out of my budget. I hope to upgrade my copy before it gets really expensive)

and to add to this, since most people seem to be getting into Doctor Fate the one series I'm highly recommending to everyone new to the character, or overwhelmed on where to start, is The Immortal Doctor Fate; a three-issue reprint series published in 1985 yet is fairly easy to find online still today and not at all expensive (you can pick em up for $6 each off of Mycomicshop, but can be found for cheaper elsewhere. I bought a few sets of them from MCS before the movie for much cheaper and have been giving those away to those interested). It features good contained stories with great art (including a great showcase of his trippy powers), including his origin, as well as some reprinted Golden Age stories from when he first debuted. I also find people love it since it isn't a 'modern' book and has at least some feeling of digging up something from the past (even though it is just copper age) It makes for a VERY easy starting point to anyone looking to get into the character, and from there can honestly branch out to any iteration (including the new 52) with the core concepts and lore established.

Yup, and bonus they are some of the only GA books that can still be picked in super high grade for cheap (you can still find top-census / file copies for a few hundred bucks)

Yup, though I've found the ones I've dealt with actively don't want sexist or problematic books, avoiding ones that outright depict sexual harassment or problematic dynamics, but rather are 'spicy' and enjoyable in their own right (barn make out sessions, fun text). I do think the prices are still high for many of these books and do see them correcting, but the demand is there so perhaps it will enough to sustain it at more reasonable price points.

Same, I think the vast majority of GA books are over priced and have questionable demand as it is within the hobby, but when it comes to good girl art that is something I find is the easiest to move and has the most universal demand. That cross hobby demand is key factor, as the people I personally know who want GGA are NOT exclusively comic book collectors, but rather its a venn diagram of art collectors, history nerds, writers, graphic designers...specifically women - the vast majority being who I sell to and have asked for specific GGA books for display (and are also hunting down Pulps for the same reason, though most of seem to be ao3 writers and other spicy OA content creators, most interested in vintage Enoch Bolles art). Most women I've sold such things to are well under 30/40, and they typically would never flock to boards like this or even Facebook comic groups (so the visibility of the demographic is often ignored by your run of the mill comic collector)

There is also one other alternative if you are planning on submitting it to CGC anyways but don't want to invest in money to conserve it for a possible higher grade... ...send the book to me and let me use it in my Conservation experiments. I would repair the entire cover split and detachment for free, and possibly improve the tanning/staining to the cover with a wash. I do freebies like this for other board members occasionally in order to get access to key books I can photograph for my growing conservation portfolio (specifically those graded after so people can see that my work is accepted by CGC), and this one sounds like something I can expertly do already. Examples of casual stuff I've done for fun: https://www.instagram.com/p/CfzNx3guCRy/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CZpkuN_uAuH/ and check out my CGC journal here that shows the entire process on one of my books

Like many others here I cannot narrow it down to a single favourite character, as that often depends on my mood I do however have a very specific pantheon of characters I love above all others, and so decided to create a mini-display to showcase them. I tracked down the matching Heroclix figure for my favourites (that looked the closest to my favourite versions, though some I needed to do repainting on) and for the few that didn't have any figures I had them custom made. The plus side to using Heroclix figures, as opposed to statues or action figures is they are fairly cheap, with a large range of figures from many companies, and small enough to easily ship and display The display case is a simple acrylic one you can find on Amazon. Bolded names are my top three. Top Row (left to right): Hellboy, Archangel, Swamp Thing, Iron Man, Mysterio, Batman (Gotham by Gaslight version) Middle Row: Brain (GeneGrafted version. Custom), Arsenal (Custom), Doctor Fate, Sandman, Hourman, Stiltman Bottom Row: Blazing Skull, Iron Man, Batgirl, Moon Knight (Fist of Khonshu version), Scarecrow, Donatello I only included Batman there because this version is closest to the one that appeared in my favourite DC TPBs ever, JSA: Liberty Files, which features his team up with Hourman (and others). I personally find the Bat-family far more interesting than Batman himself (and really often wish he was done away with completely, existing only in legacy stories/flashbacks/myths). Gene-grafted Brain had a single comic appearance in JLA: Year One #6 but is basically one of the most perfect DC comicy-comic-books ever and so must get honoured for that.

Sad spoiler: I think for the vast majority of us here prices are always going to be too high