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Something a little different tonight. I first learned about this "Black Panther prototype" sometime when Boseman's T'Challa appeared in the MCU. I recall the auction prices went a little nuts. I lurked around for a long time, and grabbed this one when prices came down. Wish I could remember what I paid. I think that I got a "store stamp" discount b/c this is a pretty nice copy. I looked around a little and all/most of available copies/recent sales are pretty ugly. Maybe people are sitting on the good ones waiting for Wakanda Forever. Not sure I buy the prototype here. The name and costume are similar, but there doesn't see to be anything in the Lee/Kirby kerfuffle over creation credits about this character published a year before, and there's no overlap in creative teams on this and FF52. And the character is white and in the whitest comic I can imagine. Of course, I am willing to indulge in the prototype narrative if it increases demand for this book.

3.5. Also one of the only DC books on my want list.

I'm on the 7.5 train actually, but I'll say 8.0 b/c no one else did and winner gets the book, right?

I've got this at 4.5, but I can make a case for 5.0. So it will probably be a 3.0 🙄

3.5±0.5. If the grader has a good day, I can see a 4.0

You have successfully made your first post without any faux pas I see the outer corners have gotten a little bent at some point. As is, you're looking at an 8.0/8.5. If the comic was pressed. which is common these days, you might eek out a 9.0. An essentially perfect (CGC 9.8) sold on ebay recently for $100 with 1 bid. I'm old enough to remember when this series was one of the hottest in comics, but the market has changed a lot since then. I wouldn't call this a good pressing/CGC candidate b/c you're going to invest as much, or more, into that process than the book would sell for. In raw form, you might get $15-20 for it, but probably less. You can search recent ebay sales or online price guides like comicspriceguide.com or gocollect.com to get some idea if other books in your collection are key issues that have increased in value more.

3.5±0.5. That chipping/missing pieces are going to keep you a little lower than what an otherwise quite attractive book like this would grade. Still very nice.

I can see them now on my big computer screen. I would say 8.5±0.5 is safer

I'm glad you posted this book. I doubt that I got it for the Conan prototype specifically b/c I bought the whole CoD run (along with Chamber of Chills and a few others around the same time). I had it separated from the other CoD b/c of its higher value, but forgot why that was. This is the kind of book I should send for signing even if it's not in the highest grade. GoCollect says only 6 sigs exist, 4 in the CGC census. I'd argue Conan might be Roy Thomas's most important contribution to Bronze Age comics and I'll bet he doesn't get this prototype book to sign very often. It would be a cool piece of comics' history to own. Too late for this year, but hopefully he'll have another in-house next year. Yours is definitely a grade or 2 above mine, and you can have the RT signature idea for free 🙂 Edit: one of the SS CoD 4s is up for auction on ebay right now (6.0), which is signed by Stan Lee. There are way too many books out there signed by Stan Lee

5.0±0.5. Definitely looks a step or 2 above the other one you posted. I feel like there are certain books that just took worse beatings than others: war books, westerns, romance. Surviving this long in this condition is an accomplishment

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.