VintageComics

I don't disagree. And I don't know for sure whether this is the case or not. I'm just hypothesizing. But it is reasonable to assume the the more experienced graders work on more expensive tiers while newer graders would work on cheaper tiers. And this is not a knock on any graders...but it may be something to consider as to why the inconsistency.

I think this is a myth that's been perpetuated. I've been using onsite grading since it's been around and in my experience it's just as hit and miss as Sarasota grading. I've had extremely tight submissions come back onsite where I've had to crack the majority of books and resubmit them and I've had some good experiences as well. In fact my last few experiences were tight in my opinion. I will say that I think Matt has helped consistency greatly - we've had conversations and I think I've noticed more consistency since Matt has been on board. Just an opinion though.

If you have to use a black light to see a defect then I see that as being too tightly graded. It’s one thing to turn the book in 100 angles to see defects but if you have to use black lights and magnifying loops to pick out defects then you are trying too hard to see things. I agree. I've had many books come back with 'finger print' notations and yet when I look with the naked eye, no matter how hard I look after cracking the book out, there are no fingerprints to be found (and I'm using glasses that are magnified stronger than I need and good lighting). I've had many books return with head scratcher comments (usually 'stains' that are not stains) and Joey's explanation of them seeing it under different lighting definitely might be the difference. They haven't been too tight in my experience lately (although I did get a few head scratchers recently) but I generally submit under higher tiers and they likely have different graders at different tier levels. I would assume newer graders work on lower tier levels and if the grading is tighter in those tiers, it may be because new graders may also be more interested in finding defects with an eagle eye than actually grading the book as a whole (I've mentioned this several times over the years). So it would be interesting to know which grading tiers people are experiencing grading tightness as this would probably be a clue that would help identify a trend.

Don't hold back! Pretty sure this was the car we restored for Geddy Lee. A White one with red trim. It was 30 years ago so I start to forget the details. I still have a pic of it buried somewhere. I think Mr. Maxwell had a Mark 4 as well. You're jogging my memory with these stories! Interesting thing, I worked for a Welshman in the early 90's and I learned a lot about English cars with him. One thing he said to me is that many of the problems that we experienced over here with English cars they did not have over there in England apparently. I don't know if it was true or just selective memory on his part but he maintained that back home the weather was much more fair and the cars faired better and that the climate in North America was the real problem for the cars because before globalization they weren't engineered for this harsher weather. But working on English cars was unlike anything else. They had shims for everything. We shimmed interior wood trim panels, ball joints, brake discs. It was the weirdest world to explore compared to German cars where everything was built for precision and fit!

Pretty sure Mr. Maxwell owned an XK-140 and a 150. I worked with a mechanic once who worked for an independent shop that specialized in English cars. He said some of his customers would take delivery of a new Jaguar and drive it straight to his shop to re-do the pre-delivery inspection...the car would then proceed to have about 3 days worth of work on it to make it problem free. Adjust wood trim pieces to align, getting electronics to work, getting windows to go up and down. Yep, they were a nightmare but as Mr. Maxwell said, when everything was working properly there were not enough O's in the word smooooooth to describe how the care felt. And there's a reason we called Lucas (the name of the electrical company that was responsible for all the electrics on British cars) the Prince of Darkness.

I had a customer in Toronto back in the early 1990's (Mr. Maxwell) and he owned about 15 or 20 vintage Jags (they were Vintage back in the 90's!) and they ranged from (going from memory here) the 1950's to the 1980's. C type, D type, E types, you name it he had them. He loved his mid 80's V-12 Vanden Plas so much that he actually had it in his will to be buried in it, sitting in the driver's seat with a smile on his face. True story. I also used to work on Conrad Black's cars (wealthy Canadian who owned the National Post for a while and I think he owned Purolator Courier for a while and tried to buy Labbatts beer back in the 90's. He had a fleet of cars ranging from the oldest vintage models to the latest and greatest. I worked in a mid 90's Porsche 993, a mid 80's Rolls Royce, we installed brake locking hardware on his 560 SEL so that his chauffeur / body guard could perform 'Rockford style' turns and evasive maneuvers if he needed to and the body guard himself had a 1922 MG TA (with a wooden frame and mechanical brakes) along with other cars. Restored a Jaguar E Type for Alex Liefson of Rush and also an older Mercedes SL for Geddy Lee (delivered it to his home myself) In the late 1980's I worked for a repair shop that specialized in hot rodding Porsche 911 Turbos and my boss at the time lost his license so I got to pick up and drop the cars off. It was my 1st time feeling the lengendary Turbo lag that the 911 Turbo was famous for and then the blistering acceleration that followed. There are faster cars today, but in the 1980's there was not a faster car once that Turbo was spooled up. It would almost life the front end off the ground. For a young man like me, it was a wonderful time to be a mechanic and I happened to be in the right place at the right time for a few years.

X-men #102 CGC 9.8 White Asking $800 (shipping included)

Tim, thank you! Gang, I'm going to list an X-men #102 CGC 9.8 White in case someone is looking for a copy.

Giant-Size X-men #1 CGC 9.0 White pages - This is one of those rare copies with incredible eye appeal that shows MUCH better than the grade. This book was a CGC 9.8 candidate (for real - it's stunning in every way) and there is a very small tape pull on the back cover, left edge, about 2/3s of the way up next to the tennis racket. You can't see it in the scan but it's very lightly noticeable up close and in hand (barely). It's stunning. If you have your heart set on a CGC 9.0 copy, you will not find one that looks better in hand. This is a book that looks like a $15K copy. Asking $3500

Shipping: Certified books, shipping is included FREE within North America, ROW we split it. Raw books, include $10 for shipping within North America. ROW I will split with interested parties.  Who wins: Time stamp seals the deal as to who wins regardless of the form of communication (including PM, in the thread, text or phone conversation). A negotiation is not a deal until both sides have agreed on terms. If there is an unconditional posted (or communicated) it will trump all negotiations unless we have already both agreed to terms before the was posted. In that case, the will have been in vain. Except that it will give you street cred and look cool to passers by. No House Of Shame or Probationary members or any others of ill repute. Returns: I am considered a very good grader among my peers ( Here is a link to my kudos thread ) but since even CGC is inconsistent I will not guarantee a CGC grade. I will guarantee to be within one grade increment in either direction - so if I am calling the book a 9.4 it could go 9.2 or 9.6. If it falls outside of those parameters (and it does happen that they go in both directions), I will offer a refund. But I don't expect anyone to complain if I undergraded it. I will accept returns if item is otherwise not as described. Consider all books pressed. Pricing: I try to price books close to fair market value. I am open to offers but it's not very likely I'm going to be accepting offers at 30% off fair market value.

Yep. Also the DuPont registry, which came a bit later. Kids these days will never know what it's like to sit on your bed at night and look through a book or a magazine and then fall asleep and dream about that stuff. I had my whole bedroom lined with a band of pictures around it, about 1 food from the ceiling. All were one page pictures of cars. My favorite was always the 1986 Porsche 911 Turbo although I did also love the Ferrari Testarossa, 288 GTO, Porsche 959 and the Lotus Turbo Esprit.

I was an automotive technician on exotic cars so I know all of those cars all too well and yes, many cars back in the day were 'cheap' but impossible to maintain. I've worked on everything from Ferrari, Lotus, Jag, Rolls, Porsche and even a Maserati Quattroporte and our biggest problem was always that most customers couldn't afford to maintain their cars. We had customers who tried to work on their own cars (like one guy who almost set his own Jag on fire) and then we had to undo the damage. I also used to hotrod and turbo charge Watercooled VW's back in the late 1980's and early 1990's and yes, those pre-internet days were wild to find stuff. It was always from advertisements in automotive mags that you sourced stuff. Fascinating to go back and remember all that stuff again after forgetting about it for over 20 years. This was a great trip down memory lane!

I was telling Gene, I used to try to get in to work at a local Ferrari dealership in Toronto called Gentry Lane in the early 90's and the owner had one. He also had a Ferrari 288 GTO (my fave Ferrari BTW) and he did a charity event where he allowed a professional driver to take people who made donations around the track for a few laps. The driver lost control of the F40 on a lap and crunched the rear quarter panel. Luigi never fixed it because it comprised the entire rear engine cover (it was one massive piece) that cost something like $80K at the time for just the piece. He ended up passing away a few years later and his daughter inherited everything. She ended up selling the business and once Luigie passed, the dealership lost it's attachment to the Ferrari franchise and it went to another company called Maranello. Blast from the past.

Just for you. I saw one on the road today. I'll probably never see another.

I cracked out almost my entire Golden Age collection when I had it. The only books that were not cracked out were the big 5 figure books and I kept those slabbed simply because it was easier to sell if I needed to sell in a hurry. But I've always preferred handling my books.

OK, just going to publicly post here that everyone who has paid me up until this morning has had their books shipped. I would expect delivery within about a week give or take a few days but based on the pandemic slowing things down I would not be surprised if it took two weeks. Please be patient. The list a few posts above on this page is the most up to date list (regardless of what the rest of the thread says) Feel free to message me with any interest. Fair warning, it might be a bit before I can ship again. And I hope to have another batch of books for sale in a couple of weeks. A bit thank you for everyone's interest and the fun and games, which brought back the spirit of the old chat forum that we all so loved. For the newer members, this was a special place once where everyone was like family. Even the weird uncles who got ornery when had one too many beers added something to this place. It sure has changed in the 16 years I've been here.

And the thread and the list above has been updated.

That's it for a while, gang. I'm going to invoice everyone up today and if you want your books shipped by tomorrow I'll need to be paid by then. If you can't pay by tomorrow, that's fine. I just can't guarantee I'll be able to ship quickly.

OK, gang. Everything should be caught up and revised in this thread now. I'm going to add / modify some discounts. Scans can be found on the appropriate pages Group A pages 1-4 Take 25% off these remaining books Amazing Adventures #2 7.5 VF- Asking $350 Classics Illustrated 32 4.0 VG - Canadian edition - Matt Baker cover - Asking $20 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Group B pages 5-7 Take 25% off of these remaining books Amazing Spider-man #187 9.8 NM/M - Asking $275 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Group C pages 8-10 Take 15% off of these remaining books Astonishing #4 7.0 F/VF SA - small amount of color touch on front cover - basically a few dots and touches of black - there is a dot at the top and then some color touch on the horizontal line that goes through the center of the book. A gorgeous copy of a tough book that would probably be worth double what it's worth if it didn't have the color touch Asking $700 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Group D pages 16-22 Giant-Size Doc Savage #1 NM 9.4 - Asking $65 Pages 27 - 37 Joe Palooka Fights His Way Back #nn (1945) NMM 9.8 - Asking $400 Marvel Graphic Novel #1 NM+ 9.6 - Asking $275 Marvel Graphic Novel #4 NM 9.4 - Asking $150 Marvel Spotlight #1 NM 9.4 Number Variant - Asking $40 Our Fighting Forces #71 VGF 5.0 - Asking $75 Sea Devils #6 VFNM 9.0 (might be an 8.5 - has some back cover gloss disruption but the book is structurally gorgeous) - Asking $100 Walt Disney Comics and Stories #162 VFNM 9.0 - Asking $100 World's Finest #183 NM- 9.2 - Asking $75 X-men #126 NM 9.4 - Asking $75

Thank you!

I'll have to check and get back to you.

That's it.

I just want to make sure you're taking BOTH copies.

Only book left.

X-men #266 NMM 9.8 X 2 copies Asking $300 each SOLD!