scburdet

Looks like he did a great job.

That sucks. I have had a book sitting in Mechanical Error Scheduled for Grading for 5 months now. You had this pressed I assume? By someone other than CCS?

Yes. Just inner wrap & 1 staple. Their book is (intentionally?) ambiguous about this. They're fairly clear about fully or partially detached covers & detached wraps (centerfold). Fully detached cover max 7.0. Fully detached wrap max 7.5. For staple detachments, which covers partially detached wraps, the range is 5.0-9.0, so I deduce the range for a partially detached inner wrap would be between 7.5-9.0, but again, it's a little ambiguous. The good news is it's still pretty structurally sound. Not sure how you detach a staple at an inner wrap without messing up the pages or the other staple.

Printer's crease or vein. Both acceptable at a grade one automatically lands when a shadow sets the ceiling IMO

This is among the many comics I photographed last summer. I kind of wrote it off b/c of the shadow around the edges. After seeing that Avengers 48 get an 8.5 in the grading contest, I thought it would be good to revisit. This shadow is much less obtrusive in my estimation. A little spine/stacking roll that needs pressing, but otherwise quite nice for these white covers, which tend to get dirty or dark. This is part II of a story that starts in X-Men 45. I had the Marvel Triple Action reprint of the X-Men & never knew how that situation was resolved until I got this many years later.

I don't think flattening changes the grade which is capped by the missing pieces. I would be a tad concerned that doing anything drastic would make the cover detachment worse. My gut feeling is that if you put this in a proper bag/board and store it in a comic box with other comics, the curvature would gradually flatten out enough that it wouldn't be offensive. Maybe one the the heavy duty mylar sleeves if there's one that's the right width for these thicker books.

I lean toward 2.5/3.0. Lower end if the pieces out where on the front, there may be a little forgiveness since the larger ones are on the back.

The piece out on the bottom corner is probably large enough to go below 4.0. I'll guess 3.5.

7.0/7.5 with c/p

Pressable to 5.5, maybe even an outside shot at 6.0. I still don't have proper calibration on magazines which are viewed differently.

9.2/9.4

presumably reholdered b/c that doesn't look like the 1st gen slabs at all

CGC books says 3.0-5.0 with most falling between 3.0-4.0. I would put this at 4.0 b/c the rest of the book looks around that. Somewhere in this forum was a recent post about hole punches, where a Qualified AF15 was brought up. I think it was >8Q

9.2

1.5/1.8 The stain is probably enough to drag a very creased copy down a notch or 2.

1.8/2.0

+1 That's generally how ties shake out. If two people tie for first in the Olympics, there are two gold medals, no silver, and a bronze. By extension, a 3-way tie would mean no other medals (I have no recollection of a 3-way time in the Olympics, but I assume it would work this way). Golf works this way too* *except for the overall win, which is a playoff. Tied below share get an equal share of the price money for the combined for the number of places tied.

7.0

I'd have to agree with this as my earlier Grader Notes post will attest. I will take that ASM16 at 3.0 over the Action Comics at 4.0 all-day, every-day. I would assume a grading error if I was considering buying a 4.0 that looked like that. The ASM is one of these books I can back calculate how a CGC came to that grade regardless of whether or not it matches my standards. The ASM is quite attractive as long as you don't look at the reverse. In addition, I suspect there's some combination of evaluation of a) the tear is one major defect (i.e. each wrap is not counted as an additional defect) & b) the long tear sets the grade around 3.0 and the inner wrap tears are "allowable" in a comic graded at 3.0. Kind of like the Avengers this round. CGC's states shadow is a 8.0-9.8 defect depending on severity. I thought it was bad enough that the overall appearance merited a lower grade than 8.0, but I can see how someone got there with CGC's standards (the name of the game is guessing where CGC lands, not someone else's grading standards). That Action Comics is not attractive with all the creasing and ink loss on the bottom right. No amount of mental contortion gets me to 4.0. You have to assume that the creasing, which is really severe, lowers to 4.0 & the ink loss (and other decfects), which is not as severe, doesn't result in additional deduction. I don't quite buy the 4.0 floor stated in the CGC book for creasing. This would suggest that no matter how many creases a book has they would never go below 4.0. The Grader Notes for the Action Comics, the Batman (round 3) and JIM (round 2) are similar. I don't see how this is internally consistent. If anything, the Action Comics presents closer to the JIM, which I already felt was a charitable 3.0.

Yeah. CC almost always signs over the titles regardless. I generally prefer the signer to be good a picking spots, but I'll take a CC signature over the title over a Stan Lee signing over the most important art any day of the week.

Well, that helps explain the disparity. Thanks Mike! Good to know for next time. I think the scanner made that Action Comics like a spot on 2.0 too

I think the Wow in the holder looks almost like a different comic. It appeared dark in the scans to my eye. That was a big reason I went with the lower end of my range. i saw a 5.5 for sale somewhere that had a very bright white cover, and I couldn't see this "dark" book coming in 1 grade below.

You're welcome to join my class action lawsuit

Yeah, there's always stuff in the scans that's hard to evaluate. I looked hard at that corner. It's a case where having the book in hand would make it a lot easier to decide.

To the bitter end. I'm out surely. The Wow looks much better in the case and I was afraid it would come in higher than it looked to me. I don't see how the Action Comics came in higher than the other low grade books from rounds 1-3. This seems like a very charitable 4.0. I at least spent a lot of time fretting about the Avengers b/c shadows are apparently treated more leniently than their appearance. It at least falls in the range the book says is allowed for shadows.