scburdet

Also coming back from Frank. Place your bets

Submitted to Frank Miller & should be back soon. I posted a different copy several months ago, this is a new one. Place your bets

Forgot to post my not traditional "alien waits for claw" GIF, but this went off to Frank Miller & should be back soon if anyone want to take a stab that missed out before.

Forgot to post my not traditional "alien waits for claw" GIF, but this went off to Frank Miller & should be back soon if anyone want to take a stab that missed out before.

According to the book, staple tears come between 7.0-9.6. I have two graded books at 8.5 & 9.0 with barely noticeable staple tears. These are much worse. Theoretically, a press can take out a lot of that spine roll, but I'd be worried your tears would become detachments (I suspect a press-related detachment happened with 2 of my books at CCS). It would definitely be interesting to see what CGC would do to this book if pressed to near flatness. Would they give it a 7.0? I'll say 6.0 as-is.

6.0/6.5

5.5

4.5/5.0

9.0/9.2 after a press. Mine was nearly perfect & came back 9.4 & I can see a small crunch here. I think they're harder on recent books that had huge print runs & they see all the time. Almost 15K copies on the census. Not worth grading at current FMV since you could probably buy a graded copy for not much more. The Jim Lee covers on this V2 or X-Men are great though.

6.0/6.5 The back is grungy, my gut says this isn't going to be that cleanable, but maybe gets to 7.0 if I'm wrong

>9.2 is greater than 9.2. ≥9.2 is 9.2 or greater

Always tough to tell if there are "color breaking" defects on a white background. I'm much more optimistic about the color rub based on examples I've seen. 9.0/9.2

IDK if those are scratches or creases along the spine. Looks like some color rub around the bottom of the spine and a slightly crunched top corner. Magazine grading is tough b/c the standards are less clear than comics. I've got a 9.0 & I'd say this looks only a little better, so 8.0/8.5

>9.2 CGC defines Modern as 1975 and later; Vintage as before 1975 (as of a few weeks ago). This is different than how a comic historian might break eras down (Platinum/Gold/Silver/Bronze/Copper/Modern). For CGC it's for division of labor–who's doing the grading, what they watch out for & how much they charge. Older books take more time to examine & grade properly. There are multiple different groups at CGC who work separately. They're on a large campus, so the people doing Signature Series are in a different building than the people doing Moderns & so forth. Unless you're talking about fee structure and submissions to CGC, I'd default to the historical definition of eras. Then you can argue when the Modern Age really began, which is sometime between 1991 & the early 2000s, depending on who you ask.

I'd really like to examine the apparent color rub along the spine and other possible color-breaking defects that might look worse in the light, or be from the glare. Pending an in-hand examine, I'd guess 7.5/8.0

9.2-9.6. Hard to grade higher NM grade books from just photos. That one corner on the back will mostly likely preclude a 9.8. Pinned down, I'd say 9.4

Posting this now before someone goes over the top on me with a 9.8. Census has not been updated to show any sig books of this one yet.

Thanks. I'd seen that one before, but I'd "lost the thread" so to speak

Posting this now before someone goes over the top on me with a 9.8. Census has not been updated to show any sig books of this one yet.

I will emphasize the "max" in my grade. CGC is on a mission to penalize stains & it's one of the defects where there's the least clarity (IMO). The book says 1.0-9.8, so they've literally only eliminated the grades for perfect & nearly destroyed comics. I've got a 6.5 with a small light stain, looks more >7.5 otherwise, and a 5.5 with a similar (probably a little less) cumulative area of staining as your book, but it's quite a bit lighter. So, I imagined my 5.5 & shaved off a few grades for the darker appearance I'd be interested to see this graded if nothing else to expand my mental database. It might still be a question of ROI with grading fees on a book that might fetch $100 in the current market.

GA books remain a bit of an enigma to me, but 3.5/4.0 as GAs seem to be graded on a slightly different scale. I believe it's the cumulative area of missing pieces out of the front cover that sets the ceiling. Plus the long creases and little tears all around make it hard to see it higher (I've been surprised before tho). A skilled C/P might make it look a little better. Mostly by taking of any soiling and maybe getting the curls out of the tears, but I don't think it will impact the grade. The risk would be structural damage by handling/pressing that could lower the grade

Max 4.0 IMO b/c of the staining. It looks pretty soaked through, so I doubt there's much that would help that look any better.

more in the 6.0/6.5 camp & I'd lean lower b/c it comes from the eras where more books were taken care of. C/P might have some minor aesthetic improvements, but to be effective you either need visible surface soiling (don't see much here) and/or non-color breaking defects. All the little stress lines I see on the spine for example, are white. Pressing can't fix damaged paper or ink loss.

That's a gripper hole/tear. The CGC book says 8.0-9.8 so they give themselves a lot of leeway to grade on number/severity. I see something going on on the BRF edge in the gray rocks, which looks like a piece missing, but I assume it's something else? That seems to be more the determining factor here

@LowGradeBronze @Mars76 Coincidentally, a copy came up for sale overnight on ebay at 9.0 (graded last month, no grader notes). You can see multiple defects (excluding what appear to be two scratches on the holder) that, to my eye, should land it lower. I do suspect there are different standards for indy books than the big publishers analogous to GAs/SAs/moderns. That or the grader had a bad day.