namisgr

Also, shoveled the three inches of snow that fell overnight.

Read some more Manga my son gifted me during the Holidays.

I can see your viewpoint.  But we don't yet have an answer to a key question that might make many of those concerns go away.  Are cases that have been tampered with and resealed indistinguishable from untampered cases?  Because if there's tiny but discernable damage to the top or bottom edge, whichever was opened, or one or both of the corners that were opened, then careful examination of slabs by sellers and/or buyers will identify books that are likely to have been tampered with.  If true, this should also be applied going forward by CGC when performing reholdering, and hopefully it will.

A second checkpoint comes with careful inspection of the encapsulated comic front and back covers.  While it can't find books with clipped coupons or other damage to interior pages, a book that looks much worse than the structural grade assigned to it is suspect, and worthy of avoidance whether or not it may have been tampered with (another way of saying 'always buy the book and not the label').

The encapsulation business has never been foolproof.  It's over two decades now that we've seen comics with green or purple labels get regraded with blue labels, and vice versa, or comics that someone bought off the rack and never manipulated being graded as having been trimmed, or comics change two or even more grading units after regrading without any cleaning or pressing having been done, or the page quality being mislabeled for a book, or gentle whitening techniques used to remove stains or dust shadows while retaining blue labels, and on and on.  But overall there are many fewer 'shenanigan' comics being sold that have been checked for restoration and graded by CGC than there are raw 'shenanigan' books never undergoing the process.

I was around a 4.5 to 5.0.  I could be more certain if I knew whether the interior covers were in nice near white condition or they had edge tanning that is not uncommon with comics this old.  It's a very acceptable copy of an early Silver Age Marvel.  With that said, I'm not sure you would recover the fees to have the book professionally graded, compared with selling it in its current state.

Another example can be found in the FFs.  Ish 121 is a white cover often found to have toned a bit.  But the other FF issues with white pages, such as 129, are commonly glowing whitey-white.  These were all scanned and image processed by the same method, and while their cover whites are close, they're distinct both in scans (comparing slabbed with slabbed and raw with raw) and especially in person.  It's especially interesting to compare the two slabs, as despite both being from the very same collection, the front cover paper looks markedly different.  I guess it's from the very different qualities of the cover paper stock:

There's something (extra gloss?  higher quality paper?) on Hulk 159 that makes the covers easy to find in whitey-white shape, unlike many other picture frame Marvels with white covers.  Another example comes from Marvel Team Up, where ish 5 is super common in glowing white but number 2 isn't.

On 1/9/2024 at 8:45 PM, Closet Avenger said:

CGC's current holder is completely compromised and need a total overhaul. Until then, why would anyone submit books?

To get them graded, checked for restoration, and either sold or added to one's collection.  I don't see how having other books in other people's inventory or collections being possibly tampered with changes that at all.

I also never saw a machine like that.  But the look and materials fit for a mid-60s contraption, at a time when plastic parts were just beginning to be incorporated routinely into devices, machines, and appliances.

Very nice haul!

On 1/7/2024 at 7:17 PM, mrd160 said:

Right now this seller gets no benefit of the doubt

Here are the high resolution scans of the front and back covers of your FF #2 taken by ComicConnect at the time the book was first sold 10 years ago.  That should give you a solid foundation to look for any potential differences with the book you have in hand.  As for the book being unrestored/untrimmed, CGC has already given it the blue light once, and at a time long after the Ewert scandal when they were forced to increase their sophistication and diligence detecting microtrimming.

https://www.comicconnect.com/item/534150

On 1/7/2024 at 3:38 PM, BlancoBros said:

Cut similar, but different books.
Few differences.
On the HA book, you can see some of the white of the spine. Below "begin the saga of thor.." You can't see the tops of the windows on the other copy you can. The staple placement on the HA copy is going the the guys head.
 

Yeah, it's clearly not the same book.  It's being shown to illustrate how different the cover wrap is with the copy under discussion despite them both having a right edge cut that goes through the comics code stamp.'

But in the early SA days of Marvel production, there was a lot of chipping and also variability and anomalies in cover cuts.  So it's hard to conclude on the basis of a scan alone whether that JIM #83 does indeed have a trimmed right edge or not.

On 1/7/2024 at 11:26 AM, lizards2 said:

Bob Hope nose.

Both!  

On 1/7/2024 at 11:10 AM, FoggyNelson said:

The always drew Nixon with a giant ski slope nose🤣

Pinocchio nose.  

For Bronze Age issues, it's often easy to find non-pedigree examples that look as nice or even nicer than several pedigree copies.  To my way of thinking, that doesn't justify paying a premium price for an equal or inferior quality pedigree copy.  

With Silver Age comics, some of the finest known pedigrees are remarkable for the consistent superiority of their eye appeal and/or page quality.  It can be especially rewarding to own several examples of a particular pedigree from a single title, knowing that all of these copies came from the same original owner and the same collection.  This can hold true for extensive pedigree runs of Bronze Age books, too - for me, it was a special part of my Bronze Age collection to own a continuous 60 issue run of Master of Kung Fu from the Western Pennsylvania pedigree.

Opinions will certainly differ among collectors on this matter.

Richard Koos/Danny Dupcak.... wasn't he from around Forest Hills?  

On 1/5/2024 at 3:20 PM, THE_BEYONDER said:

Why submit the green label 181?

It'll be switcherooed into a case sporting a blue label.

On 1/5/2024 at 2:56 PM, THE_BEYONDER said:

Were he swapping books without reholdering them, I would think someone would have noticed the discrepancy between the book they received and the scan of the book on the CGC database.

That would be useful for the small proportion of slabbed books that have been imaged and uploaded into their database.  Unfortunately, rather than doing this archiving from the time they opened, it's been only a very recent undertaking.

On 1/5/2024 at 2:20 PM, LordRahl said:

While not impossible, it would be VERY difficult to prove he never sold swapped books without first going to CGC. Easy enough to prove he did if one or more are found but not the other way around. 

Agreed, which is why I think that everything the perpetrator offers for sale or has offered for sale in the past should be regraded.  The problem is far beyond just a few hundred comics the perp had reholdered.

I'd feel differently if it could be established that when the perp opens a slab and switches out the book and inside holder there is a small bit of damage to either one or more edges of the outer case or the re-connected posts.  Then the hobby could tell from careful inspection of the holder rather than needing the book to be regraded to discern if tampering has been involved.

Another May cover date issue that kept the starburst design but increased the price: