Gonzimodo

I still have a full run of Wizard. Man, I loved that magazine. Sure, it could be a little juvenile at times, but it was always in good fun, and they did a good job making you feel like a part of their stupid little "cool nerds" club. It was always the first thing I read when it came out, and I have them to thank for my love of the original Valiant comics. My best friend and I had a blast trying to find all the items for one of their annual scavenger hunts, which was pretty difficult in the pre-internet age. I mailed away for most of their "1/2" issues and still have a all the cards that came with most issues. Good times. I think it lost a lot of its magic when it went from the thick, squarebound comic size to the regular magazine size. It just didn't seem as cool or special for some reason. Funnily enough, I stopped buying it about three months before it stopped publication, so apparently I wasn't the only one who had given up at that point. When I discovered that they had ceased publishing, my OCD self had to buy those final issues, of course.

BUY THE LABEL, NOT THE BOOK!!!

And yes, every time you drive by, you think, "Meanwhile, at the Hall of Justice..."

This place is really cool in person. It's a natural history museum with a five-story OmniMax theater. They show only educational movies in that format, but they are breathtaking.

FTFY

Yeah, probably, although when I went back and rewatched parts of the video, they aren't magnified that much... I think I'm just being too harsh. Someone must have peed in my Cheerios that day.

Cool, thanks for the clarification on that. I know I'm too clumsy to wear gloves while handling comics (which that post indicates is pretty common), and I seem to be a freakin' greaseball, so I usually wash my hands after reading only a couple comics at a time.

I'm even more confused now after watching the video. There still appear to be obvious color breaks, blunted corners, and/or bindery tears on the 9.9s and 10s. Of course, the video is magnified quite a bit on those closeups, but even so, they just don't look to me as though they should be 9.9s or 10s. The 9.8 he highlights at the end shows a really ugly, blunted corner. I know certain defects are allowed at that level, so I'm probably just glamorizing the 9.8 grade too much. I don't know, though. Maybe I'm crazy in thinking that a 9.9 or 10 should, you know, at least appear to be perfect to the human eye. He seemed to indicate at the end that they were going directly from his prescreen to encapsulation, but maybe I misinterpreted that. So no interior checks for loose centerfolds or printing errors or a second set of eyes on them at all? I was also expecting him to be wearing gloves if he's prescreening for cream-of-the-crop 9.9s and 10s, and I really did not expect to see the books handled so roughly in their stacking and sorting, especially when he straightened the one stack by standing them upright and pounding/ruffling them on the table after checking them for blunted corners. This video was informative to me, but probably not in the way CGC hoped it would be... Am I being too critical here?

@mycomicshop is always buying collections, and they have great consignment and auction systems, too. So you could consign or auction the more valuable books as you see fit, and MCS will probably buy the lesser-valued stuff that the big auction houses may not even look at. Or they may just buy the entire collection outright if you don't want to deal with the hassle. I see @shadroch has suggested some other big names to check out.

Yeah, I just went and read the original story, and these appear to be going exclusively through the direct market. I guess nothing's stopping retailers from ordering a ton of these and doing as you say, but is the shipping on them free? And how many retailers have time to do even more free promotion for a company who doesn't seem to give a rat's patootie about them most days?

"...iconic issues that spotlight the Marvel characters and comic book series currently at the forefront of pop culture."

(Yes, I'm quoting myself. ) Here are some comparison shots of the old card and the newer, sturdier cards. I don't know how well it shows in the pictures, but the new card (on CC) is much thicker and sturdier. It feels like a classic/standard action figure card back and doesn't curl up like the older ones (Snake Eyes).

Yes, the next waves of them will be on a thicker, more typical style card back. This was confirmed in one of Hasbro's product reveal videos, and the Cobra Commander that came with the HISS tank is the first one they've released like that. It's a HUGE improvement.

Yes, I bought a Flagg on eBay a few years ago, and it came in a rather large, heavy box. Everything was packed well, and nothing was damaged. It also included the original box, which was mailed separately, broken down flat and protected by large sheets of cardboard. Other than the conning tower, the Flagg breaks down pretty well, though. The Terrordrome would probably be fine in a large enough box with just a few parts removed. I don't have a Defiant launch complex, but from what I've seen, it looks rather large and fragile, so I wouldn't want to ship one of those.

It feels somewhere between the cover of a typical wall calendar and the cover of a Prestige format book like Dark Knight Returns. Very flimsy for toy packaging.

I got very lucky and mine was not mangled somehow. My Zartan and Destro were, though.

I love this thread. It's almost as entertaining as updates from The System.

I'm with you. I've been holding off on submitting books because of all the craziness with QC issues and scandals, and it's reaching the point where I may not ever submit anything now. In the list of books I want to submit are ASM 300, Hulk 181, ASM 194 (newsstand), and NM 98 (MJI). The ASMs are really nice and could potentially hit 9.8 (potentially...), but they'll be staying raw for the foreseeable future. I'll just keep monitoring the boards and hope things turn around.

Somewhat on a related note, I recently found some old backing boards that were stamped by a local store that hasn't existed for many years now. I happened to visit another store on the other side of town and found that former owner working as an employee at this newer store. The next time I was there, I brought in a couple of those boards, and it started a really fun reminisce-fest. Weird stuff like that is just another reason I love this hobby.

This is one of my biggest pet peeves in life. Someone will say "about" or "approximately" followed by a very specific number. JUST ROUND IT SO YOUR STATEMENT MAKES MORE SENSE!!! Sorry, everyone, back to business...

It looks as though this is just supposed to be a funny reaction of Todd seeing the stack of books he has to sign. As you say, it would then make sense for the comics to be on a shelf with casters so CGC can move everything to the signing area all at once. There probably was some kind of security watching them, and they just stepped out of frame to get this picture. (First time I've seen the picture, so I'm probably being Captain Obvious here... )

And now I'm going to be singing that all night...

With access to official CGC equipment, labels, etc., who knows how much damage a dishonest employee could actually do? Back in high school, there was a kid whose mom worked at the state license bureau, and he had a sweet gig creating fake IDs for people. He'd steal the keys to the place and make "real" fake IDs on the official State equipment. No idea how he never went to jail for that...

Okay, my reading comprehension skills are apparently nonexistent today. They're stealing people's books. I get that part. Then what? Were they duplicating labels, so there could be two books out there with the same certification number, or were they waiting for a book to be graded, then stealing it, putting a lower graded book into that case, and taking the higher graded one? All of this? None of this? I'm probably overcomplicating this in my head...

My answer to this question is always GI Joe #7 (my profile picture), but now I'm kind of questioning that. I remember exactly where I got it (an IGA in a small town near the farm where we lived), but now that I think about it more, I'm pretty sure I had to badger my mom for the money to buy it. However, she was always way behind on paying us kids our allowance, so I'm going to say it was my money, anyway.