jimbo_7071

Very large top hat to very small top hat

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The first book in this thread is the most unsettling to me because it leaves the worst details to the viewer's imagination. This one is tame by comparison, but the expression on the hunchback's face creeps me out.

Alien groping a human female to alien ogling a human female

Bound ankles to bound ankles, L. B. Cole to L. B. Cole

I thought about bidding on it, but I wasn't sure about what whitish stain near the top of the spine could be. I wouldn't have bid anywhere close to $3K, anyway (and that was without knowing that it had restoration). If I recall, a slabbed 7.0 sold on CLink a while back...I think it went for about $2K.

Those were my thoughts exactly!

I was watching that one on CLink because I was curious what it would sell for. Richie Muchin had it listed for $450 for a while. I actually made him an offer on it, but he declined my offer and didn't counter.

I don't really collect this title, but I liked this cover.

Worlds Within to Worlds of Fear

Photo cover with a white hat to photo cover with a black hat.

If X were in the company's name, we wouldn't be talking about 0.5- or 1-point differences in grade. We'd be talking about how many books actually had all of their pages.

Wasn't the cover cleaned on the Cap 1? I'm glad it was only a tiny percentage of books that were altered. Does the Allentown Cap 1 have cream-to-off-white pages? I don't think a book with that page quality should ever be graded NM/MINT.

Are they free of color touch and glue for the most part? Sadly, many of the Church copies have amateur resto. I'm not sure who's responsible, but it must be someone who owned a number of different runs.

Jumbo to Jumbo, '42 to '52.

I thought the San Francisco pedigree ended in late '45 or possibly early '46. Are there other books out there slabbed as SF's from '47 or later? This book has the Gilboy coding on the front cover, but not every Gilboy book is a a San Francisco copy. http://www.comiclink.com/auctions/item.asp?back=%2FAUCTIONS%2FDEFAULT.ASP%3FFocused%3D1%26pg%3D21%23Item_1252488&id=1252488&itemType=0#detail

The artwork is very good; I'm surprised no cover artist is noted.

Fantastic 3 only fetches the prices it does because a dealer who shall not be named is hoarding copies.

Greg Manning Auctions used to have an option of a "maximum total spend" for an auction. Once you spent X dollars by being the highest bidder on at least one book, your remaining bids would automatically be capped or canceled.

I guess I'm in the minority that still worries about it. I won't bid on a book if I know it has been pressed, but most of the time I don't know. I do search HA for old scans, and if I see that a book has been upgraded, I won't bid. Most of my books won't be pressed in my lifetime because I don't intend to press them or sell them. The few books that I sell will probably be pressed by somebody else. If pressing isn't going to be considered restoration, at the very least it should be considered damage. A flattened crease that is still detectable should be penalized more heavily than a crease that hasn't been flattened. I also hypothesize that the humidity that books are exposed to during pressing initiates rusting of the staples. I see far, far more books with rusty staples than I did even 15 years ago, and the advent of the pressing craze seems to be the watershed.

I don't own a copy, but this is one of my personal favorites as well. I think it beats any of the other books posted so far. I also like some of the Fight covers; this is my favorite WWII cover out of the handful that I own.

I don't know that I've ever looked at the second one. The first one has been good enough for me for 25+ years. (I'm not crazy about all of the B&W pictures.)

Hit Me Baby - Britney Spears

I have never won a book on Heritage without paying significantly more than what I thought was a fair price. I've bought a few books I really wanted knowing that I would most likely take a loss if I needed to sell them within a few years. I got tired of playing that game and haven't picked up a book in a Heritage auction since 2015.

My go-to guide for grading is the original Overstreet grading guide that came out in the 90s. I don't think either of the companies is as strict overall, so I don't think anybody is undergrading books. My biggest pet peeve is that books with cream-to-off-white pages sometimes get labeled 9.6 or 9.8. That always leaves me shaking my head.