MAY1979

I have books in 1st and 2nd gen CGC slabs that I feel are 9.6's at best. I have books graded in 2021 I'm positive should have been 9.8's and others I only expected 9.6 and received 9.8s Not defending CGC in this post as I do feel standards are lower now for 9.8's based on my personal grading. Yet others think it's too strict now. I feel what changes over time is how CGC penalizes certain defects. Since we are not privy to the internal working it seems arbitrary. Currently color breaking seems to be more important than sharpness and spine ticks for example. At one time imperfect corners were harshly treated now they seem ok-ish. All depends on what the hot defect of the moment is to CGC and the graders. IMHO grading standards should be immutable but they are not. Bottom line when purchasing, the cliched "buy the book, not the label" applies. When submitting results can at times be puzzling and have been in the 21 years I've been sending stuff in. P.S. What concerns me most with CGC, outside of absurd TAT's due to tiny staff, is careless Handling and lack of QC. Wreaks of low rent Corporate penny pinching to me.

Image of some dude with a cell phone on both front and back covers, I don't recall seeing that on any other copies of the book. Is it a rare Variant or a Counterfeit? P.S. its called humor people

There are internet forums for which posting/writing that phrase will get you heavily flamed and or banned, be glad this ain't one of them. On some of those forums the only accepted usage is when used in reference to:

A 1990's raw purchase from Motor City. I submitted to CGC almost 20 years ago and still think it deserves a 9.9. Book is razor sharp front and back with flawless spine and surface. If it was as easy to take pics when I sent it in late 2002 as it is today, I'd have some of it raw to post.

You struck while iron was hot. Now that's the way to do things! Less than a month later and a 8.0 goes for that amount. My guess is end of next month $500 will garner a 9.0. It's quite plausible by mid-summer a 9.4 may only command $500-$600. I don't think 9.8's will drop anywhere near pre-spike levels but those who forked over $5k or higher be takin' a bath Book b chillin. Even the hyperbolist would be manipulators at gocollect have noticed: https://blog.gocollect.com/coldest-comics-wash-the-spider-out-its-chilly/

At the time 1987 there was Tour of Duty. Well done for the most part with great songtrack but the audience just not there. Perhaps as show on a streaming service? Wonder who owns the rights? Doug? Disney? Some other entity?

@greggy why the confused reaction to my post? Any questions, Please ask away

My favorite Crisis issue as I'm DC Bronze War and Bronze Western fan. Normally these multiple sectioned covers are not my thing, but George truly made it work! Both images were taken using same scanner with exact same settings, really demonstrates the greatly improved clarity of the new slabs.. Although with the older ones Newton's Rings were never an issue... Also interesting the reds on the older slab are much deeper. I see this a lot on late 70's-Mid 80's for which books i have multiple copies

Not sure if Sony has the rights but if yes, then more likley there than MCU. Reason for that is with Werewolf (WBN) slated to appear, Manwolf is probably redundant.

When they fail on their mission, which is usually, I love the sad defeated "wonder twin powers de-activate".

In another thread on this forum someone mentioned the book it truly scarce. Is it? If not my guess is the price brings a lot of them out of the woodwork Books CGC Label CGC Total Avg. Grade 10 9.9 9.8 9.6 9.4 9.2 9.0 8.5 8.0 7.5 7.0 6.5 6.0 5.5 5.0 4.5 4.0 3.5 3.0 2.5 2.0 1.8 1.5 1.0 0.5 1. Captain Marvel 28 (9/73, Marvel Comics) Avengers (Iron Man, Captain America, Scarlet Witch, Black Panther & Vision), Controller, Drax, D Universal 285 8.12 4 27 44 23 32 39 27 20 21 15 9 4 6 4 5 3 2 .

Love the eBay auction description!

All buying the label not the book. All w/more $'s than sense

The now approaching 1 year CGC TAT's do not rewards flippers. From my station that is a silver lining but sure a bunch of u here do not feel the same.

This may very well be my favorite single comic book issue of this century! Great stand alone story, Killing Joke prequel of sorts, it also includes a rather unexpected and funny Star Wars reference.. I've probably read it a dozen times and I almost never watch or re-read anything. As for non single issues here are some my modern (1994-current) DC favorites - Please note I have not been a DC reader since Aug 30, 2011. JSA Darkness Falls Stars and STRIPE 1-14 - Wish the series had lasted longer as the fun aspect of the Character and tribute to his sister has not been captured the same way since. We'll not see its like again as Johns' true hubris eventually took over his writing IMHO Golden Age - James Robinson series Spectre - Ostrander/Mandrake - love the entire series. Martian Manhunter - Ostrander/Mandrake - never liked the Character before this series, since then he's been one of my favorites. #23 with the Spectre is one of my all-time favorite comics and favorite Mandrake Spectre cover image. Entire series is excellent. Starman - Many of the story arch's stand up to the test of time. Oddly enough my favorite might be "Infernal Devices" Birds of Prey - 90's series most of Simone's run is excellent. Sandman Mystery Theater - the Hourman Arc Unknown Solider by Garth Ennis. At moments almost truly captures the horrors of war atrocities

All copies of Vol 3 I recall seeing in person do have Enterprise Logs subtitle. Therefore my guess is without is more rare. Of course I could very easily be totally wrong

Email went out today

I sure do wish that registry set had pictures The Enterprise Logs NN, actually all volumes are just as scarce in 9.0 and above as the 2, 3 photo-back covers. For the reason I mention that see my sig pics

On some of the Comic Book threads on this forum there are folks who have waited 8 weeks for Heritage to ship. Now imagine you waited even as little as 2 weeks to pay them? Heritage would be slinging threats and perhaps even threatening legal action. If they are short-staffed then plain and simple they need to hire more people. Heritage brags incessantly about how much money they are making in their emails, on their website and other advertising. If they are telling the truth about their auction revenues then they can easily afford to hire a few more shipping people so their customers are not waiting a month or more to receive their purchase. OK now its time for all you Heritage lovers/defenders/apologists to launch your attacks and tell us how their customers do not deserve to have the merchandise they paid for and how a Powerful auction house which operates in Texas is entitled to do whatever they want. P.S. My first rule of collecting is don't use Heritage, however last year I did break that for an item and paid for it via wire-transfer first business day after auction ended. I called them after 15 business days had elapsed and stated unless my item was shipped in 48 hours I would be opening a fraud case with my large financial institution (they also happen to be my employer). The item was shipped later the same day. Heavy handed on my part most definitely but well within my legal rights to do so. If more of their auction winners took same type of action then perhaps Heritage might not be so stingy and hire a few more people for their shipping dept?

The preUnity Valiant was excellent. It was like being part of a new universe, pun intended. Wasn't same for me after Shooter was dismissed. Then worse the wizard fan boys and speculating flippers jumped in. Then style over substance ruled. My favorite issues were: Solar 1-10 Shadowman 1 X-O 3,4 Harbinger the XMAS issue i forget the number

Perhaps. Still given your statement what the reason to purchase their slabs? Lower re-sale value? More difficult to sell even with an initial lower cost price tag? I'm looking at 3 of their 9.8 slab's in my hands right now they are 9.4's on good day at best. I want to be wrong as consumers benefit from strong competition but if the books in the CBCS slabs I own will be a difficult lower ROI sale if I ever need to, they why bother with them?

At this juncture however I've not seen that, although I will be very glad if the market ever reflects that. If that does occur I'll be glad to sub them books and again consider purchasing theirs P.S with only 2 exceptions, every 9.8 CBCS I've viewed in hand, at least 150, I've easily found they deserved lower grades. With CGC the thousands of 9.8 CGC's I've viewed in hand I feel that occurs approx 50-60% of the time. Which IMHO is still far too much. Still as mentioned I welcome a paradigm shift.

Yeah my speling sucks... You must have field day with "kav" I truly wanted them to not only succeed but take the lead. It will never happen. Perception among collectors is their grading is very lenient. I agree with that although over least 5 years CGC perhaps has started to seep closer to their level. That type of perception is virtually impossible to change. The only way would be for the other outfit to do that is to make a drastic and ruthless changes in grading. Drastic to the point that 9.4's would in effect become the new 9.8, with 9.8's being a difficult grade achieve compared to CGC (or in effect what PSA now does to their non-large submitting entities and non-sister businesses) . That will cause a loss of business for quite a while as perception very slowly changes. They will never do that! Nope I'm not an insider however does not mean I'm not insightful....I've interacted with Borock (happy with that spelling?) enough times over the past 23 years to see that perhaps he should be doing other things at cons other than trying to or bragging about a quick flip of an art piece or comic for a few hundred dollars. I truly hope one day there is competition that creates a paradigm shift in Comic Book Grading. Borock's current outfit had their chance and IMHO blew it. Whatever they have now or had already reached is their high water mark in terms of hobby perception.

A good example of this comes from Trading Cards. For Trading cards the early 90's was the "Junk Wax Era" for Comics it was "The Glut" which in effect was a "Junk Comic Era". Junk due to huge press runs, not in term of production or artistic quality although all could apply on some books. The 1990 Fleer Jordan PSA10 hit a pandemic high of $1000 it's now down to 275-325 and sinking. Will likley be under $200 by end of year and could even approach $150. Sure card dealers are still happy to get $299 for a high pop previously low demand card issue of which they are sitting on stacks of, with many more in the PSA queue, however those who purchased it at 500,600,700,800,900,1000,1100 are fiscal losers. Many of those who purchased the 1990 Jordon the last 18 months, by most accounts, were novice card collectors. I see 1991 X-Men #1 (and Spawn #1 and X-Force #1) as same thing as the 1990 Jordan, if you got 'em sell, sell, sell now to the rubes before they eventually view a population report or notice how many are always concurrently up for sale on eBay.

"I'm not a Boy Scout..." -Bill Mastro, 2021 You are a convicted felon! Literally a criminal. My only question for Bill Maestro is how the prison experience was on his hole that begins with an A