Happy Noodle Boy

So I'm looking for an Amazing Spider-Man 39 and came across this little dot that looks like a pen mark. Many copies have it, but not all of them. What could it be? Fueling my OCD is the fact that for one of the copies (the first pic, the 8.0 copy) the CGC graders notes mention "writing left bottom of front cover." Other than the little dot I can't see any kind of writing on the cover of that copy. Could the CGC grader have assumed it was a pen mark like I did at first? Any ideas? Maybe some dust got on a printer's plate or something?

LOL I know...tiny! Not many comics either, just a few longboxes and one "special" longbox behind the counter with books in plastic bags that cost a few dollars each. But that store introduced me to comics collecting. I was maybe nine or ten when I started visiting it; one of my friends had told me they had Superman #1 there. So I went over there and asked Mr. Giarla: "Do you have Superman #1?" And he said, "Do you have three-thousand dollars?" Then he directed me to the Famous First edition copy he had hanging up on the wall and I bought that. I ended up going there every Saturday (it was only open on Wednesdays and Saturdays) for years. Mr. Giarla and his,,,brother, maybe? There were two men behind the counter and I always got the impression they were related...introduced me to concepts like comic book condition, the Comics Code Authority, the different comic book eras (just Gold and Silver back then) and the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, which I bought from them every year. Good times...

Namor is "Roman" spelled backwards. Did everyone but me already know this? (I'm also that person who pronounced Namor's name as "the Sub-Mareener" until I was twelve and the owner of a local comic shop corrected me. Thank you, Mr. Giarla of Giarla's Rare Coin Studios in Boston.) And to make this CGC related, there's been a copy of Mary Marvel #1 up on ebay in a 7.0 for just $1998 but it's a PGX and it's been sitting for months and months and months. Pretty nice-looking copy, at a super nice price. I'm assuming it's been sitting so long because people are worried about PGX missing restoration? Meanwhile a CGC 3.0 copy is priced at $2300...that PGX discount is very real.

Let me rephrase: what I meant is that with color touch there are parts of the book that are not original. With a trimmed book you can't say that. Yes, a very, very tiny percentage of the matter of the book is missing, but the 99.9% of the book that is left is all-original. I wouldn't buy a trimmed book where the trim affected the cover art. If the art extended all the way to the edge of the cover and the cover was trimmed I wouldn't purchase it. But a back cover ad? I can live with losing 1/4 inch of that. We all have our preferences...

I agree with this; in fact it is by definition restoration. Too bad CGC doesn't give it a purple label as it would save me some money when I buy them!

Thanks all for the very informative comments. I now understand CGC's point of view when it comes to discouraging undisclosed restoration. For myself I hate color touch for the same reason I hate names and date stamps on covers: they're like graffiti on the book. Here's where I bewilder people: I recently purchased a restored Young Allies # 12 from MyComicShop. It looked like a fine or fine minus but was graded at a 3.5 and priced as such because the back cover had some trimming (also a staple was replaced and there were some tear seals to the cover and some interior pages.) The back cover was a full-page illustrated ad that didn't extend all the way to the edge of the page so the trim was 1/4 inch of essentially blank paper. I scooped the book up in a second. The idea of being able to own a Schomburg Young Allies cover in apparent Fine condition was incredible to me and I never would have gone after one otherwise. If the book had color touch I wouldn't have purchased it. Because for me color touch means the book is no longer all-original. With color touch, the book becomes a "Schomburg + Some Guy" cover.

So, about restoration... A hypothetical: you come across two copies of the same raw silver age book; let's say Daredevil #7. Both appear to be in Very Fine condition. For the sake of argument let's say they both pretty much look identical. But one copy has some slight color touch--someone filled in a couple of spine ticks with black marker. The other copy has someone's name written in black marker on the cover. Why is it that the book with some slight color touch is considered less valuable than the same book with someone's name written on the cover? Both books have technically been defaced, but one has far less value in the hobby once CGC affixes its purple label of doom to it. I understand that for CGC, trying to deduct for a name written on a cover would be subjective, but it still seems very strange to me that of the two hypothetical books, both of which have been defaced, only one is being singled out for it, and that one (to me at least, I know some collectors find names written on covers to be charming) is far more aesthetically pleasing than the other. It seems to me that the INTENT (i.e., restoration) behind the damage done to a book should be irrelevant to CGC's grading. Both books have been written on and both books should be marked down for it.

I posted it in Comics General, it was an ebay auction I was interested in. Seller pulled the listing after I pointed out the error.

Just wondering how this happened. The issue number is pretty prominent on the cover. There were something like twenty people watching the auction. Seller ended the auction when I pointed it out; you'd think someone would have mentioned it earlier.

Thanks! That's actually what I was thinking too. I missed out on a book from them when I asked for a back cover scan and the consignor simply never provided one. This time I took a chance because I really want this book in high grade.

Yeah, I've made my peace with the book. I'm going to join CGC so I can get grader's notes on any slabbed book I'm looking at online from now on.

Thanks for letting me know! That makes me feel better.

Come on, man. Actually I assumed there were cover creases that weren't clear in the picture, and I'm still learning about grading.

Yeah, I've just gotten back into comic collecting and especially with golden age I have a lot to learn. It honestly hadn't occurred to me that I could join CGC for grader's notes and then just look them up for every slabbed book I'm interested in on ebay. So I'll do that. Thanks for the advice!

Thanks. I don't know...part of me is (sort of, maybe, on a probationary basis, and perhaps I'm just rationalizing) starting to think Elaine Rosso's name on the book actually IS sort of charming. I'm picturing this little girl reading the book 74 years ago, unaware of the fact that a 53 year old dork will own the book 74 years later and encounter her name. In a way it's the best of both worlds when it comes to a name on a book: it's not in writing so it doesn't detract from the cover art; but the tracing is legible enough to actually read her name. But, probably, I'm just rationalizing. From now on I'll definitely ask specific questions about writing and tracing when I'm buying slabbed golden age books.

Thanks. I was very disappointed for a second when I saw the word "tear" until I remembered the area I'm talking about isn't the left bottom of the front cover. I found the tear the grader mentioned and it's hardly noticeable; a jagged gray line that ends up looking like detail of the desert terrain. So that's good. Unfortunately I just found the tracing and it's on the "R" in "Rangers" and I don't love it. It looks like a tracing of someone's name, "Elaine Rosso". Better than actual writing at least, but I'm not one of those people who finds names on a book charming. Since the seller (all sellers, pretty much) doesn't allow returns on graded comics I'm going to have to reassess how I buy slabs on ebay. Should I ask for graders notes on all slabs? The tracing is only noticeable when you have the book in hand because, of course, there is no ink, just impressions left in the paper. And the pic the seller included was 800 x 1066, not tiny or anything. Maybe I should insist on very large, heritage-size scans on all slabs from now on.

Thanks for the grader's notes! As I surmised, they didn't mention my issue, which I hope means that it isn't a full-on tear? The book looks great to me anyway so I don't mind much, but it's still something I've never seen on a comic before.

So I bought a slabbed copy of Rangers 36 on ebay (picture attached), in 6.0 universal grade, and saw something I hadn't noticed in the photo in the listing, which is a a strange white streak down the bottom of the woman's left thigh. On the one hand the color makes it look like a tear in the cover, but on the other hand the way it follows the line of her thigh makes it look like...well, I'm not sure what it looks like. I looked at scans on Heritage.com of other copies of this issue and instead of the white streak they all have this bluish shadowing in that area (CGC old-style label, picture attached.) I'm not a member of CGC so I can't check the grader's notes for the book and paying $25 just to look at the notes for one book seems expensive, especially since I don't know if the notes would even be helpful. Could it be that the printer didn't pick up the bluish tone in that area and just didn't print the color correctly? I'm just really really hoping this isn't a tear. Can anyone alleviate my concerns here?

Thanks for the help!

Although the girl on the cover looks like Romita to me, the cover itself, taken as a whole, looks...like Romita had a bit of an off day maybe? So maybe it really is Lieber/Giacoia? It will save me some money if it is. If it's Lieber his style has come a long way since that crappy Spider-Man annual where Spidey and the Torch fight a giant mechanical ape.

How do I do that? Sorry, newbie here.

Well it sure looks like Romita to me, but then I'm no expert on Larry Lieber.

So I was looking for a Tomb of Darkness #9 because I like Romita covers. And I found two different CGC copies (one with a crazily exorbitant asking price on ebay but that's neither here nor there), and...the two labels have different artist info. Does this happen often?

Hi, I've read that it's risky to trust Metropolis on raw grading, and I'm not the best grader myself. I'm interested in this book they have for sale, which they're calling a 9.4 It looks good to me, but what do you guys think?

Just wondering--is there something cool about the K I'm not aware of? Like, have you seen that mark on other books? I've also seen it on a Captain Marvel Adventures holiday book I wanted--the K was unfortunately written right on Cap's cheek. If there's some secret cool thing about the K I could potentially pick the book up. I think it's probably a distributor's mark?