James J Johnson

Right edge has a "scalloped" (almost like art-deco, decorative molding or the fluting on the edges of 1940s photos attached to a booklet) cut.. It's on many, manufactured this way, if not most of them. The main thing that concerns me are signs of what looks like possible color touch to me, back cover spine, black areas. It needs to be checked for that, I'm 50/50 on it based on these images with a slight lean toward it being color touch rather than not, I hope I'm wrong and it's the lighting, rake, and resolution giving it that appearance.

Not going to help that top right corner. Exposure to heat or possibly heat and moisture for no reason. Its a 9.4 or 9.2 on a bad day whether there's a little non-color breaking bend or not. And it looks to be the kind of book that can go back and forth between 9.4 and 9.2, flip flop when resubmitted. 9.4 on Monday, 9.2 on Tuesday, that top right corner makes it a "tweener". At any rate, the quality of the book speaks for itself. It will bring a good sized premium over the technical grade it receives based on its exceptional quality. It's unmistakably one of those books that spikes GP, leaving hobbyists to wonder why there was suddenly a spike in the price of an X-Men 56 in NM or NM-.

In this area of the spectrum, I doubt the sticker will have any detrimental effect on the grade. Especially that the sticker is perfectly placed, not partially torn off, as many are with stickers in an attempt to remove them, and the design of the sticker is attractively interwoven with the artwork! Because it's not a high grade book, I think that the history it adds to this enhances the desirability. I don't like stickers and stamps, I'm critical of them when adding a book to my collection, but would not mind this at all.

I concur, with an upward lean, more towards 3.5 than 3.0. If those wrinkles can be pressed out, even to a noticeable extent, might make a 4.5. Beautiful pulp-style space-adventure cover, in the style of the great sci-fi pulp artists, Paul, Fuqua, Brown, Schomberg, etc., etc.,

How much spine-splitting is there? And is that a tear or just a scoring of the front cover through the two guys getting the beat down?

With nothing more than this to go on, and based on all around minor edge defect, the creases at the bottom right corner being the most serious of them, 6.5 is my estimate pending and subject to revision based on more scans that will be requested and probably forthcoming.

With regards to the spine and top spine corner area, from what I can see of it, and I wish I had as good a close up of the bottom half of the spine as I do of the top half, it's an 8.0 at best. Couple that with the right edge defect and we're in the 7.0 area, again at best. The stain is going to impact that, so although it presents much nicer than the typical 6.0, IMO, that's about where the CGC cookie will crumble on this one.

That's a beauty. It's an "exceptional" as well. Without those two right edge corner, it's a 9.6 any day, maybe more as I don't see any flaws. Thankfully, the corner chip up on the top corner and slight fraying on the bottom corner do not appear to be echoed on the pages or back cover, the back cover appears to be square on all four corners. I've seen CGC graded books grade from 9.0 to 9.4 with the corner chip, similarly with little to no other defect. I can't say I recall ever seeing a 9.6 with a corner chip, but I may have on a Pedigree copy. This certainly looks like any of the better Pedigree copies from the standpoint of quality, so I'm going to venture that even with the chip, a strong likelihood of a 9.4, grade a book on its whole and it's strong enough to get that, if not, a 9.2. I'll go 55/45, 9.4/9.2 on the outcome.

Bingo Bango eight O

A thermostat. Heating in the winter, cooling in the summer. That's one essential macro-factor to a favorable storage environment. Preferably, the middle floors, in the 66 to 72 degree range; not the basement, not the attic, and in an area that offers the least amount of temperature and humidity fluctuation. No prolonged, direct exposure to light or in close proximity to the heating/cooling elements/ducts.

What's this? "Her" pleasure, "His" pleasure lingo? I thought 2018 was the year of nonspecific gender? No more his and hers, men and women, etc., etc., and other sensitivities related to gender that may confuse some people?

God bless you, your heart donor, and the second chance they've given you!

There's more. Something Stan has never done. His most consistent feature in all of his signatures over the past 40 years is missing. I refrain from mention only because I don't want to help the forgers correct their mistake. Every signature, even by the same hand, has variations. Look at Wrightson's. Miller's. Stan's has those variations as well and his signature has changed some over the decades. But one can pretty much date Stan's signature by its characteristics that remain close to unchanged. Each signer produces a track with its own unique architecture. Base-line, skyline, and letter to letter proportions. Like Walter said to David in Alien: Covenant, "one note ruins the symphony", and that's the case here with all of these, and why they're clearly identifiable as spurious.

5.5. One too many creases for a 6.0.

https://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=turtlecrazygirl1999&ftab=AllFeedback https://www.ebay.com/sch/turtlecrazygirl1999/m.html?_trksid=p3692 Six to a dozen every few days, starting bid $19.95!! IMO, they're being signed by the same hand as this familiar seller, also with 3 to a dozen spurious Lee signatures closing every few days, mostly for $25.00 on similar bargain box dreck. Only problem is, though by the same hand, that hand is not Stan Lee's. Compare to Tonfulle-84's spurious Stan Lee signatures: https://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=tonfulle-84&ftab=AllFeedback https://www.ebay.com/sch/tonfulle-84/m.html?_trksid=p3692 How can they let them go so cheap!

7.0 or 7.5. Many spine stresses + top right corner ding, bend/crease.

2 "pernts", because it's a JIM 83. 1.8 otherwise.

Oh rats! I tend to agree with Murphman. A 6.5 to 7.0 book, with a back cover tear that lowers it 2 tics. 6.0. Might get a golden age bump to 6.5.

I don't see any chipping, hanging chips, or pre-chips either. I see edge tears; on the top due to excessive overhang, and on the reading edge, due to aggressive thumbing. It's got the creases and cover wrinkles as well, and the spine stressing is fairly invasive, and even though it appears to be a solid copy, tight as it were, due to the amount of defects, 4.0 may be a stretch. I think 3.0 is a good grade fit for this one, maybe 3.5 on a good day. With bold, in-scuffed colors, no staining, no toning, no tape; it will sell for more than its similarly graded brethren that have those defects accordingly.

Some damage to the paper at the bottom staple's lower hole and multiple stresses. I've seen many 9.2s of this issue with similar traits, but none that I can recall 9.4 or better. All in all, you got what you paid for. An ebay NM. Or what passes for 9.4 on ebay raw books. I've seen worse.

Without accounting for the missing corner, the foxing and tone will lower the grade ceiling for this book to 8.0 maximum. It's Bronze age, so defects like tone and foxing aren't as often encountered as on Silver age, and quite common an occurrence on Golden age, so my feeling is that the grade will be skewed slightly down on Bronze to a greater degree than on Silver and Gold. If of 9.0 to 9.2 quality, which it appears to be aside from the piece, the missing piece would probably downgrade it to 7.0 territory, so the 8.0 or so it appears to be, factoring in the piece, I think we're down into the 6s. But the eye appeal is much better than that. The heart of the book, the spine, will give this book a very high grade look in the slab, so like some others mentioned recently, even graded 6.0 or 6.5, the sale price should reflect a book with much higher grade attributes than the technical grade.

Bob's right. Of course the toning on the covers, inside and out affect the grade. Most of the Mannarino collection CGC 8.0s have very little defect other than the moderate to severe tanning of the cover margins, inside and out. In the above post, I was referring to the "paper" with respect to the misfold. Thinking we were still debating that subject, I didn't notice that we had moved on to a different aspect.

It doesn't affect the grade. I've seen worse, and folded/cut way off to boot and seemingly, that was not a factor in the CGC grade. Production rarely does, unless it's a production defect that compromises the paper itself, like chips, tears, etc. Even paper pleats (what most call printing creases) since the ream of paper fed into the machine already has these pleats/tight folds, doesn't affect the CGC grade unless at the tippity top end of the spectrum. I can't tell you how many AS 66 and AS 67s I've seen that were CGC graded 9.2 with one or multiple paper production pleats on front and back covers. AS 76 is another one that seems prone to having been printed on largely defectively produced paper.