Stefan_W

Thank you for this! I pressed and sent in my comics (Modern tier) for the first time with a received date of 11/15/21, so I will start checking more closely a couple of months from now.

The 48 looks like the money book in this bunch, although the 52 could get a decent price as well.

Some have gone down a touch on Ebay, but a lot of books on sites on Heritage and Comic Link are going above GPA. Silver age raw keys seem to be going for more than usual right now, and that market is exceptionally hot. A lot of us were waiting for a dip in prices, but I haven't seen anything like that. Maybe in a few months as this drags on things will drop, but who knows. Having a lot of people who are locked down with nothing to do but buy comics seems to be having the opposite effect at least for now.

I typically select book that look like they have never been pressed before for a crack and re-submit, and so far I have only had books either go up or stay the same. I am pretty sure I will have a book drop eventually. The most stressful one was an X-Men 101 that was graded at a 9.4. It looked like it hadn't been pressed, and the price on the book was booming at the time so I figured it was worth the risk to try to get it higher. When my presser cracked it he discovered small flaws that I couldn't see through the old slab, and I was sweating until I heard back that it maintained a 9.4. Still a small loss, but at least I avoided a horror story.

I have complained a couple of times about books that had undisclosed flaws that pushed them well below the grade I bought them at, complete with pictures. When I brought up that they were worth hundreds less than what I paid I was offered $20 in compensation since I am cross border so returns are really tough to make. Good getting them to make it right. Hopefully you do better than I did.

Not really since the books I have seen clearly say they are restored, not conserved, on the slab. The issue is limited directly to the new slabs with the superhero themed graphics. I cant see how this is an error since it is limited to those series, and all of the restored in those series are treated in the same way.

The amount it costs is related to the value of the book. If you are pressing and submitting books that cost a couple of hundred bucks it is different than having your Amazing Fantasy 15s pressed, cleaned, and submitted.

I always have my books pressed prior to submission. Not doing so leaves cash on the table, and if I am going through the process I want to maximize what I get out of it. The trickier part for me is that I use a third party to press and sometimes clean, and they send the book in to CGC for me. That means paying for shipping to the third party, paying for the clean and press, paying for shipping to and from CGC, paying for slabbing, and then paying for the finished slabs to come back to me from the third party. This means planning an order of about 16 books to minimize the shipping fees per book. I've found over time as the pressing fees have gone up that I am getting priced out of this type of process. I bought my own press and now it is a matter of practicing and getting good at it before doing a submission as a trial run. I may leave a bit on the table because I wont be as good as the guy I was using for pressing, but I still may come out ahead at the end of it from the amount I save by doing it myself.

After seeing this multiple times I am betting what we are seeing with the new labels all being blue is not an error. If I see one of the new Spiderman series, or whichever other, with a purple or even green label it would change my mind, but that hasn't happened yet.

These two Spotlight 5s just closed on Comic Link. The top one is a blue label with the new graphics restored, the bottom is regular blue label unrestored. They closed only 50 bucks apart, and they were sitting at the same amount until I tossed in a bid on the unrestored one toward the end. I think the person who bought the restored book and ended up overpaying quite a bit (based on GPA) is going to be pretty upset when he takes a closer look after the book arrives. Without meaning to beat a dead horse, this is a real problem.

A few people in this thread have suggested it is an error or a one-off, but I have now seen a half dozen examples of this. Some others also put up pictures from Ebay of other cases where the restored slabs under these new labels are blue. It isn't an error. I honestly think the issue is with design where they would have to print up different color labels with the new superhero images, and because the superhero images are in color someone along the way decided it was not worth doing. That is just a guess, of course. In any case it completely sucks. I know to watch out for this and I almost put in a really bad bid on a restored book because I let my guard down for a second. It is a menace.

I have seen this a couple of times now so I don't believe it is a one-off. Restored books that have been slabbed with the new superhero design are still blue label. While I get that it would be difficult to create different colored labels for the new Avengers, ASM, etc, series, I find this really confusing. The color coding helped me to identify whether or not a book was restored at a glance, and I came very close to overpaying big time for a restored book the first time I ran across this. Posting this as a heads up more than anything else. The snip is taken from a book that is up for auction at Comic Link right now (yes, it is described as restored in the form).

For sure. This copy is about an 8.0, maybe 8.5 tops so it isnt worth sending to CGC. I just want to make sure I am getting it right when I sell it because I dont want to accidentally rip someone off (or undercharge if I decide to be cautious). Just trying to cover my bases to protect me and any potential buyers.

I cant see any evidence that the staple was pulled up, but that does not mean it didnt happen. The insert started this way, otherwise there were be a second fold. When I think about it, a key bit of info that would be helpful is whether the inserts of FF 252 or the other books that had these inserts look like this one. That would be a dead giveaway that it was a replacement Tattooz insert. Otherwise it could just be a weird think that happened in a part of the print run.

I am hoping to draw upon the experience of people on this board. I bought an ASM 238 with Tattooz, and the good news is they are there (held it up to the light). The odd part about the book is the insert is upside down and backwards, and it doesnt look like other copies I have owned or photos I checked online. That made me worried that the tattooz may have been poached from a different book. Has anyone else seen this?