The Lions Den

That's what I was referring to...the interior cover, not the page quality.

First of all, pressing is not considered restoration by CCS or CGC. Maybe other folks think it is. The thing is, if it's done correctly, it's virtually impossible to detect. Second, the people who run CCS are some of the top restoration experts in the country. They've been doing this for a long time and they have a very successful formula in place for their various procedures. Third, spine stress lines are generally not removed during the typical pressing process. Other methods must be utilized to remove spine stress lines. Fourth, the CGC graders have a lot to deal with. They're some of the hardest working people on the planet, believe it or not. Sometimes they're grading at shows, where the conditions can be difficult to deal with. They grade more books in a week than the average person grades in a year. So if the grader notes aren't super-specific, there's a reason. This especially applies to higher grade books where the only noticeable flaws happen to be a few tiny spine stress lines. Last but certainly not least, inform yourselves about this subject. Read. Learn. Grow. And don't let your expectations exceed reality.

You can certainly have CGC take another look at it (at your expense) or you can be happy to have a beautiful copy of a book you enjoy owning. Remember this: Every time someone handles your book, it becomes more likely that some type of damage will occur. I hope this helps...

As a lifelong magazine collector, I'm very saddened by this---just a terrible situation. I do have a theory about how this could have happened, however (see the posts directly above). Even though this seems implausible, I do believe it's possible for a box containing slabbed books to be damaged without any real damage to the box. It's a bit like seismic shock; objects contained within the box are damaged even though the box itself remains virtually perfect. This would explain the damaged edges and cracked cases which you've shown in the photos. Unfortunately, the books were also able to move around in the inner holder which ultimately resulted in severe damage to the edges of the magazines. I honestly don't believe anyone at CGC would purposely damage your books, though I do believe the postal service could be the culprit on this one. I would certainly file a claim with them and notify CGC to see if they could locate comparable replacement copies of the damaged books and have those graded and encapsulated. In the meantime, try to determine the extent of the damage done---the number of books damaged, the number of cases that need to be replaced, etc. I hope this helps and good luck...I feel your pain, brother.

Very nice run...thanks for posting!

And here's another thing you may not be aware of: If a book gets the Cream to Off-White designation, those pages are usually pretty cooked. That might actually be one of the reasons it graded as an 8.0---many times the interior cover will be age-toned as well.

Hi Bolton! Here's my advice, for whatever it's worth: Sell the book at a reasonable price. Expect to realize about 50% of what an unrestored copy would go for in the same grade. Keep in mind, this is a low grade, restored copy with diminished eye appeal (lots of creasing that breaks color). Hopefully you'll get back what you paid for it. Good luck and have fun...

The grading of a comic book is actually quite an arduous process. However, a few simple tips may help: Tears are bad, especially on the front cover. However, the rest of this book looks pretty solid. I look at it like a series of positives and negatives. Good eye appeal? A positive. Tight spine and staples? Positive. Nice color and gloss? Positive. Clean pages? Positive. Tears on the top edge? Negative. Creasing and wear that breaks color? Negative. Spine stress that breaks color? Negative. This book appears to be better than a Very Good but less than a Fine. So 5.0 - 5.5 as long as there are no pages missing, coupons clipped, stains on the interior cover, chipped or torn pages, rusty staples with rust transfer, foxing, etc. I hope this helps...

And, believe it or not, the CGC labels actually come from a printer...

Well, my friend, that's a pretty minor flaw you have there. If it's a printing flaw (which it appears to be) then there are probably several thousand more copies floating around with the same flaw. If you've ever been to a printing factory then you'll understand how minor this is. My advice? Keep the book and enjoy it. If this continues to bother you, look around for a copy that doesn't have that particular flaw. Good luck and happy hunting...

Please bear in mind that a seller can ask whatever he wants for an item he owns. But if you want to see really crazy prices, check out some of the listings on Amazon...

It is possible to just have the label replaced, but they will have to crack it open to do so. I would suspect they will charge you the standard re-holder fee for this procedure. I hope this helps...

Please bear in mind that CGC grades thousands of books every week and occasionally something will slip through the cracks. They are, after all, only human...

In my experience, the top and bottom are generally sealed tighter than the sides. If I'm cracking open the outer shell, I always start from the side because there's usually more gap there. I've never cracked open a case by starting at the top. I hope this helps...

As you may or may not know, miscuts and manufacturing errors are much more common than most folks realize. The real problem is that it takes the graders longer to grade the book because they have to figure out the extent of the manufacturing flaw(s) before they can even think about grading the book (I remember grading a book that took at least an hour to evaluate due to an extensive amount of manufacturing flaws). In addition, the book will likely receive a green label, which makes it less desirable to many collectors regardless of the grade.

Here's the thing: The names could be the signatures of the folks involved with the creation of the book, such as "Stan Lee" and "Jack Kirby", but CGC won't verify that because they're not in the signature authentication business. So you might have something that's truly cool and unique or you might have something that isn't. In my experience, many creators signed comics on the first page for fans; it's not uncommon to see some very well known signatures on the cover or first page of a comic book or magazine. Since it received the grade it did (9.6) it's also interesting that the book didn't receive either a downgrade due to the signatures or a green qualified label---generally writing on the cover or interior of the book is considered a defect (although it depends on different factors such as placement, type of ink used, etc.) My feeling here is that either CGC felt the signatures didn't adversely affect the grade OR the book is so nice they still gave it a 9.6 even with the signatures OR no one selected the "Qualifed" field when entering the book into the grading system. My question to you is this: Is this an older label book or a newer label book? (The old label was in very small print compared to the new label)...

Yes my friend, that's a pretty severe crack. The seller should reimburse you the cost of getting the book reslabbed. A friend of mine recently had this done and the total cost ended up being around $35. I hope this helps...

OK, then I'm at 2.5.

I don't like higher than a 4.5 on this one...

Likely 3.0 - 3.5.

This is a nice mid-grade book. My grade would have been 7.0.

Wow. This is the kind of book that makes graders put their head down on their desk and whisper to themselves: "Why? Why? Why?" Seriously, this is a tough one. I can see a few different possibilities here, but they're all in the VG range.

That's a good grade for this book. I would have been at 8.5 except for the tanning edges (which are likely on the interior cover as well). And the "bondage cover" designation was probably due to a certain grader that had a bit of a fixation on anything remotely resembling bondage...

A solid copy...5.0

I'm in agreement with the 3.0 grade if the spine is not split (very common flaw on these squarebound covers)...