scburdet

4.0±0.5. I want to go on the high end of that range or even entertain a 5.0, but IDK if the volume of color breaking defects will allow that. Good to see old war books get some love.

So, this is the book I foreshadowed in my PGM Tales o Astonish 90 post. I had initially pulled this one out thinking about a Roy Thomas signature, but ultimately balked b/c of the condition. There are a few creases and so forth that are pretty common and easy to imagine how they will impact the grade. However, there is a bend on the one corner that goes through the whole book. I tried to highlight on both front and back covers. There's some glare in the front corner pic, but there's minimal color breaking. Maybe just a little at the top. I ask about this one in particular b/c it's the most severe example of this kind of thing and IDK how well/if pressing will flatten this out. I have 2 or 3 other books with lesser versions, so any information will be broadly useful. @joeypost

Was just sitting down to do that! Don't have to ask me twice

>9.0. Hard to be more accurate w/o handling the book. I can't see the ticks, so I presume they are small and non-color breaking (or my eyes suck). If you're grading, I encourage pressing b/c they seem to pick up on things like "finger bends" that may not be easy to see. The cost for a book of this age/value shouldn't be prohibitive (perhaps look for an authorized CGC dealer who presses instead of using CCS)

>9.0. My standard disclaimer is it's hard to assign the higher grades based on screen photos b/c the little bends and whatnot are impossible to see. Things that might show up when a grader sits there with a magnifying glass and a light. I don't think the staple defect would count against you. Sort of the thing that can happen when these are produced IMO.

I'm 8.5±0.5 b/c of the abrasions/blunted corner and I feel like 8.0 is more likely than 9.0 in that range. CGC would give it the green label anyway and the signatures wouldn't be visible in a holder, so probably one to put in a protective case and call it a day.

9.2±0.2. I see some imperfections around the edges of the back cover. Maybe improvable by press. Otherwise about as nice as you can expect

Do you press things, or just have experience sending books. My untrained view is that the misalignment in this one will not be helped. I do have another book to share that I'd like a "presser" to give me their expert opinion.

2.5±0.5. I had/have the Marvel Tales reprint and would love a copy of the original. I just can't quite make the leap to spend the $$$. TBF, my Marvel Tales is probably in about this condition since it was a book I read a lot when it came out.

Now that you've probably turned in your contest grades, step up to a real challenge. Personally, I was wavering between 2 numbers on all 5 and I guarantee I went the wrong direction on every one. This is one of the odd bronze age series I didn't know about during my late 90s/early 00s buying spree, and when I finally went looking for it, there weren't a lot of good looking copies out there. Doesn't look like that's changed too much⁠—lots of beat up copies and not a lot for sale in higher grades (more than a couple overpriced mid-grades tho). I think the stuff going on around the bottom right corner kind of dooms this one, but still curious. Maybe the entry of DD into the MCU will bring Linda Carter along and inflate the price of this book to something ridiculous.

If you scroll through the last 4-6 weeks, you can find several posts of my various square bounds and see the whole catalog of common issues specific to this binding method. I think this is just the direct edition vs. the newsstand. As far as I can tell, there isn't a Whitman reprint of this book. For a lot of Whitmans the UPC box is blank, or it says "reprint" somewhere. The crossed out UPC is a common direct version before they figured out they could make graphic "UPCs". I think there's some color rub due to the staples on the cover. This is common in sq. bounds. These some minor edge wear and bends, hopefully the latter can be pressed. I think 8.5±0.5, especially if they treat the color rub with a little bit of square bound leniency. Too bad it's the reprint of you'd be 🤑 for a book in this condition.

I collected this, and many other silver/bronze Marvel horror books in the late 90s/early 00s. A lot of them are really great. Some underappreciated stories/art and some reprints of stories that were hard to come by (at least until everything went digital) I can see this at 8.0±0.5. I see light edgewear and some small spine stress lines. How that grades would have a slight dependence on if some age/era consideration is made. You appear to have some indentations on that back cover corner that would be my biggest cause to pause. IDK how well those would press, but I have a vested interest since I have 3-4 books that have some indentations that don't break color, but are visually obvious. If they can be pressed out, then it ticks toward the higher end of the range.

At long last, this is probably the last Silver Age key or semi-key book I have worth soliciting opinions on. I have another semi-unique one worth sharing, but I doubt anyone would call it a key (spoiler alert). You can also argue with me that MODOK is not an important enough character to call this a semi-key book, but 5-ish year-old-me who first encountered MODOK collecting dinosaurs in the savage land (MTU104) will have nothing of that. I didn't become a paleontologist as planned back then, but I did manage to track down this book in pretty good shape

7.5. Mine is terrible so...

Are you factoring in the muted color into your grade? I can't imagine something like this doesn't impact it if CGC handles it. I'm guessing there are other examples of this phenomenon in books from my collection that just escaped my notices (or I memory-holes them). The color is mostly disappointing b/c Tiger Shark has such a vibrant outfit, even by the standard of comic book characters.

Thanks. For reference, here's a panel of a book I pulled off ebay images. The colors inside are bolder:

9.2±0.2. Corners seem a little blunted. Maybe a little dirty on the back, or it's my laptop screen.

So, it's like too hot to do anything so I'm spending a Saturday afternoon scrolling CGC boards. I pulled this one out last night even though it's never been on my grading list to get some experienced eyes on it. The early Sub-Mariners have these great Buscema covers and this one looks like a decent enough grade. The the annals of guidelines to buying online, one should expect an internal pictures too. When I got this, I thought the internal ink looked too light. I probably should have sent it back or at least complained. Only the 2 photos of inside pages, but it's consistent/uniform throughout the book. I feel like for regular fading or bleaching the cover would take a hit. This cover looks bright though. Is it possible this was just at the end of a print run and the ink was running low? I'm hard pressed to think of how this would happen by natural fading over time, especially without some lighter/darker pages throughout. Curious if this is a known phenomenon.

In +30 years of collecting, I've literally never sold a comic. I have long boxes of books I *should* sell, but haven't done it 🙄 WWBN1 is one of a few books that I'd prefer to have something nicer, but seem a little pricey for something that's not a first appearance or other significant landmark other than 1st self-titled issue. Maybe if the market self-corrects at some point

This is the non-nefarious explanation for a lot of what people see as inconsistency. When you have a lot of work to do, no matter what the job, you look for ways to take shortcuts. If there's something that happens a lot (small tear) it's more mechanical to just stamp a standard number on something than to spend another 10 min or more on the job. I'll bet it's a lot "easier" to grade mid and low grade books b/c they can list a bunch of defects to justify the grade. High grades are going to require a lot more effort to eliminate possible defects.

Found another one. Wish I could remember if it was disclosed as a MJs when I bought it since it I didn't record it as such in my app. A semi-key with the 1st app of Razor-Fist, who just screams the 1970s

Alternating between nice looking silver age semi-keys and some bronze age books I'm less happy with. I had this one with the Ghost Rider 1 in the pile of shame, but I pulled it out for a 2nd look. Maybe I'm weighing the spine the stress marks too heavily. What say you?

Let me throw my 2¢ that no one asked for and probably isn't worth 3¢, even with inflation. I also sent a book CC signing, X-Men 94. I posted about this in the grading issues forum. It had some color touch on the cover, which I knew about when purchasing (why it sold for a price I could live with), but the seller missed a clipping of an ad inside the book that didn't impact the story (how I got a partial refund that came close to covering the SS/grading cost). CGC caught the color touch, but either missed the clipping or didn't put it in the graders' notes (https://www.cgccomics.com/certlookup/4030430001/). Feel free to reject any or all of my hypotheses. Graders are human and as susceptible to mistakes as the next person. As perfect as I am (), I occasionally make mistakes in my work and catch them later. That's not an excuse, but there's inevitably going to be a rate of failure >0 at CGC. I think it's possible that once a significant defect is found—color touch or back cover tear—there may be a tendency to jump to a grade. Your book front could have been a >9.0 on first look and a tear automatically drops it to 8.0. There isn't as much incentive to scour the rest of the book so something like a page tear or clipping could be missed. It's also possible that a single tear that goes through multiple pages could be considered collectively and viewed less harshly. I do think the default should be for more graders' notes, but I'm sure that has something to do with volume of work. It could also represent a disagreement in different grader's assessments (i.e. only consensus defects go into notes). I can't see how a tear could be ambiguous, but on the other hand it's visible in the holder unlike an internal defect or maybe light creasing. My understanding is that the SS process is completely separate from the regular grading, so when people are generalizing about grading, they're potentially talking about two separate business units with different staff, etc. An outside hypothesis would be some sort of leniency for MJs copies. I see the belief that there are different standards for some kinds of books, so it's not too outrageous to think something that came from a newsstand on or near an army base could be treated differently than a direct edition of a book (although XM101 are all UPCs). My XM101 (not a MJs) came back from CC as a 9.0, so I don't want to throw too much shade on their grading.

You did well with the post. Welcome to the loony bin. From the front you have something that is near 9.0. The outer corners are blunted so that would keep it on the lower end of high grades. You are correct that the back is going to be the issue. I'm interested to hear other opinions b/c I have several SM books (not post yet) that look pretty great from the front and have some rear cover stress marks that are moderate in number and degree. That includes my entire run of McFarlane issues that I also bought online, but since it was >20 years ago I've long since forgotten if it was disclosed. Kind of typical for some sellers to sweep easily hidden defects under the rug. I think the rear cover damage here knocks you down to an 8.0, hopefully not worse. It would be less bad if the ad wasn't a dark color. I would call this a good example of "buy the book not the grade". Slabbed or not, this would look great in a collection and most of us spend less than a microsecond looking at Atari 2600 ads from the 80s that make a game look a lot more fun than it actually was.

8.5±0.5. The stress marks on the spine and there are tiny defects around the top corners will be the tipping points. I think these will be treated less harshly b/c the book is almost 55 years old. I have one, great colors but it has a 1/2-3/4" tear in the cover, so this one wins by a mile. Great looking and one of the better covers in the late silver age Hulks.