scburdet

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.

There's always been a bit of nostalgia with Abomination b/c we had the Power Records book/45 vinyl that was a reprint of Hulk 171. Nice book. Has a date stamp in the "H". Little bit of internal page overhang or whatever you call the pages not being stacked perfectly

I've got plenty more

Kind of like my Luke Cage 1, I pulled this off of the pile of shame for a 2nd look. It also seems like the prices have spiked since the last time I checked in. I've tentatively identified the yellow on the top left corner as overspray, but would not assert that with a ton of confidence. I suppose it could have been next to a book with yellow ink, it just doesn't look like color transfer to me based on location, etc. The defect that really was bugging me is the split in the spine. I tried to show that without exacerbating the problem. It's small, stopping just above the price box. It does not seem like there is reason to believe the spine would more readily split below that more so than any book this old. The rest of the defects are pretty standard fare.

Thanks all. I really appreciate the feedback on this one. I had to reassess my priors on this one after hanging out here for the last few weeks. I had initially relegated to the pile of disappointments despite really liking the book.

My (limited) experience is that the shipping out of Sarasota is managed by these guys. Takes like 3-5 days to start heading out of Florida. I've been looking at a book sitting in GEI for over a week now. First time something turned over to that status and didn't get pushed forward within 48 h. Not sure if that's typical or if the postal people have taken those open jobs at CGC.

4.5±0.5

Yes. Apologies. I meant to mention that this looked like overspray to me.

Book that got bumped for a Strange Tales post. My Spider-Man collection is pretty lacking due to poor decision making over 30 years. This is the oldest.

Wait for a 2nd opinion, but you might only get a 0.5 bump up. As has been discussed with several issues, once you get an accumulation of other defects a detachment doesn't detract as much.

2.5±0.5. IDK about the staple placement vs. detachment. Seems like the manufacturing standards were not the greatest or consistent in those days, and kids beat the books up too. Hard to parse the reasons for structural integrity.

9.0-9.2. Top corners look a little blunted. Top edge appears to have something that looks a little white. Hard to do much better with the ≥9 books based on photos since so many little defects don't show up very well.

4.0. Every time I want to bump it up, I find another little defect that keeps it there. I'm always a little shocked by how "affordable" some of these old books are. They all should get a few hundred dollar bump for just making it 60 years. I'm pro-encapsulation to protect these old books. Based on a few ebay sells, you might get it done economy tier, which isn't a huge investment.

+1

b/c of the large-ish missing piece, you probably can't do better than 2.0/2.5. Use ebay to search for sold books in the same, or close to, the grade. That's the best way to set an expected price since the market can be volatile

TIL you the word ldlot is automatically changed to "insufficiently_thoughtful_person" on this board even if you're referring to yourself