Qalyar

That said, the pink copy in the other thread linked above was from a poster who only ever made those 2 comments, but who said they were going to submit the book. So I wouldn't be surprised if at least one of those 9.6Q or 9.8Q books is that one, green-labeled from the printing error. And honestly, there's no telling how many of these there might be. It's not a valuable book by default, and the pink version doesn't look wrong the way the FF 110 swapped color plates does. I can't say with any certainty that I've never seen a copy like this. I don't think I would have recognized it as wrong in isolation. The best scenario, for owners of the books anyway, is that this is rare but not near-unique, because that gives the best odds that CGC and the community would eventually recognize it as specifically collectible (Venom: Lethal Protector black, I'm looking at you here). If it's just an oddity with one or two out there, it might be worth a premium, but it won't be nearly as hot a commodity.

Whether we want to debate the precise grades some of these books might have earned on one day or another... at the end of the day, this is a generationally remarkable collection. I really think some of these books are going to the moon in this auction; a lot of these issues just do not come up for sale often at any grade or price. And an unbelievable number of them have literally never been available in this condition. This, for example. Slightly off-topic, but Phantom Lady's numbering is one of my all-time favorite peculiarities of the way GA publishing worked.

Actually, Diabolik #1 (Scorpion Productions) is a digest-sized book that reprints, in English, the Italian-language Diabolik v35 #8. So it seems possible... But I bet that's not how they'd label it if anyone submitted one for grading.

I wonder if "U.S. Edition" would be "technically" correct under their current label system for a US reprint of a book first published in another country? I can't think of any such books off the top of my head, but I'm sure there is one somewhere.

It is entirely possible for individual collectors to invest in some machinery and learn to press. Most of the independent pressers in operation did that. But it's a skilled trade. If I give you the keys to my father's wood shop and access to Youtube, could you build cabinetry? Eventually, I'm sure you could; there's no really great secrets to woodworking. But I bet you're going to go through a lot of lumber before you make a presentable cabinet. Pressing books also isn't magic. But it is a process that yokes moisture and heat -- two of the greatest enemies of comic book preservation -- in an effort to improve the condition of a book. Which means there's more ways to screw it up than to get it right. If you press enough books, you can of course make back the investment on machinery. And the cost of dozens or hundreds of dollar-bin reject books that will die in your name as you practice the craft. And that doesn't account for the time involved, of course. But honestly, pressing services aren't very expensive, so unless you expect to squish an awful lot of your own books eventually, you may not find the math works out quite so convincingly in your favor.

I don't consider Borock's opinion here to be reliable, because he has a vested financial interest in his current company. In any case, neither company has hermetically sealed cases (nor should they). And, in fact, there's very little distinguishing CGC cases from CBCS cases from the standpoint of a archival chemist. Books can still deteriorate after encapsulation because time is still the enemy of paper, especially if not kept in controlled conditions. In fact, some of the processes of paper decomposition (in particular, the oxidative decomposition of lignin) are autocatalytic. Absent some sort of suboptimal environmental exposure or damage to the slab, the only chemical motivation for scheduled reslabbing would be to refresh the microchamber paper to combat the acid hydrolysis of cellulose and lignin. CBCS does not have some "magic" form of microchamber paper that is immune to saturation. But, honestly, storage conditions matter more for most books than renewing the microchamber paper. I'd only consider scheduled reslabbing (with the consummate risks from transportation) on books especially prone to acid hydrolysis (high-lignin paper already demonstrating some signs of acid, oxidative, or photocatalytic decay -- in other words, primarily GA books with lower page quality). And even then, I'm not sure the dangers of physical stress from shipment aren't a bigger concern. I don't want to imply that you aren't capable of accurately grading your own books. On the other hand, just about everyone can claim to be accurate graders of books; not everyone, well, is. One of the primary advantages of 3rd party encapsulation is that the book receives a grade from a recognized, neutral agency. That doesn't mean all the grades are perfect, because no system of grading will ever be flawless (and no human process without human error), but it means that a neutral party with a demonstrable history of expertise, has made a grading determination. That doesn't mean it is sacrosanct, but at a minimum, it is free of transactional bias; the books I want to buy and the books I want to sell are graded without regard to that exchange. A lot of collectors don't care. Which is also fine. Collecting is about choosing the books you want to collect, and the way you want to collect them.

Wow. Just based on the first 20 books (the ones in the same submission lot as this All Select 3), this collection is going to be bonkers. "What's this stack of books?" "Oh, that's just a big pile of top-pop grade L.B. Cole covers and some Timely keys..."

If you decide to become a collector of Fawcett ephemera... There are a whole BUNCH of "Well Known Comics" promos, for a pretty good swathe of their titles, all in that weird large size. Some are (much!) more common than others. It's generally established they were marketing giveaways. I honestly can't tell you how many, because I've never seen a list that I really believe to be comprehensive. Only a few have been graded (and CGC sort of made a hash out of their treatment of them); no issue has more than a handful slabbed. For the record, neither the blue nor red Hoppy appears to have been submitted to CGC yet.

That Hoppy the Marvel Bunny promotional comic is a nice find. Comes in both a blue version (which you have), and a red one. Neither is exactly common, but my perception is that the red edition comes up more often. Either way, fun book, and not an everyday encounter. Condition looks relatively good, too. The large size really works against the quality of a lot of surviving copies.

I'm going to say 6.0 Qualified... assuming CGC identifies the clipped back cover as being the equivalent of a cut Marvel stamp. You may want to contact them ahead of time if you submit this one because the Qualified label is probably preferable to what the back cover cut would get in a blue label.

I mean... Jaxxon did also get a cover appearance in 2015 (technically two of them, because there's also a black and white variant of this variant). And yes, there are about eleventy thousand variants to the 2015 Star Wars #1, and the Launch Party ones don't crack the top 10 in terms of value, but that's hardly the point here, now is it? I don't expect the character to go anywhere, but let's be honest, there are dumber things in the original Star Wars canon. Outside of the original two droids (which are really Laurel and Hardy expies), Star Wars does not have a good track record with comic relief characters. But it isn't entirely inconceivable that they could use Jaxxon as an action character with a little levity (because, again, green rabbit), not screw it up, and have him go somewhere. First appearance is Star Wars #8, which is still pretty cheap as a raw book and not entirely unreasonable up through 9.6 at least. Star Wars books in 9.8 are gonna Star Wars books in 9.8, apparently. If you're into variants and oddities, there is the usual no-date diamond-price box (aka "Whitman", even if that's a pretty imprecise use of the term). On the normal issue, there's also a somewhat elusive half-page centerfold insert, advertising Pizzazz magazine. CGC won't categorize those separately, but does note the insert on the case, like with MJIs. I'm pretty sure these were regionally distributed, but it was a pretty big distribution; they're uncommon but not really rare in the traditional sense. However, they're pretty much impossible to spot without opening the book (much more so than MJIs), so there's certain to be a large undetected population of them out there... ...if, you know, you're into production variants of comics "renowned" for their introduction of giant green rabbit men. It's okay. I collect weird stuff, too. No judgment.

I'm not sure the AACC ever did much if any grading for the general public, but I do know their grading committee was outsourced for grade determinations by Sotheby's for a number of years. In general, the AACC and its successor orgs were an effort to create an American Philatelic Society equivalent for comic collecting. But the effort to build that sort of decades-long establishment by hand on the quick never materialized for lack of effort and funds, and eventually the whole idea of a dues-paying collectors' organization for comics proved financially implausible. Which is something of a shame, because I think we'd benefit from a fully-formed APS equivalent; I just don't see any way to get from here to there without a magic wand. As for 3PG... This was apparently 3PG, which I didn't ever know existed until it showed up in the list up there and made me Google.. As far as I can tell from the fading echoes of their web presence, they were more or less the personal project of Donald Garofalo (formerly of Don's Comics and Cards in New Jersey, but at least he apparently wasn't running a store and a grading company at the same time like half these guys did). They graded only 1975-current books, but unlike several of these tiny grading companies, did actually put books in slabs, with graders notes on the back of the label. Which was kind of cool. Although I guess there were some concerns about the potential for SCS from their well design and a possibility that their label might be able to be removed without visible slab damage. Which is kind of not cool. Also, they seemed to me to be fairly loose graders, based on surviving image examples. But they tried harder than a lot of the small companies did.

Wouldn't hold my breath for either. Witchblade had a two-season TV adaptation and a licensed spinoff manga. Efforts to revive it on TV (at NBC) or adapt it to film have failed repeatedly, and there's been no movement on the property in years. Even a video game adaptation failed to release. Witchblade could see the big screen alongside the Darkness but Darkness film plans have been radio silent since way back in 2012. The 2017 Witchblade relaunch had zero market impact, and I don't expect much from this year's announced re-relaunch. Even if I'm wrong and this property takes off again, there are over 400 9.8 slabs of Witchblade #1, and there would be a LOT more if it were worth more; this is not a rare book even in grade. Gen 13 is even less likely to get a modern adaptation. There already is a feature length animated Gen 13 film, with a great voice cast including Mark Hamill, Flea, and John de Lancie . But Buena Vista (= Disney) has the US distribution rights, an arrangement that went into place before Wildstorm was sold to DC. As a result, Disney shelved the film indefinitely, unwilling to promote a competitor's product. That's even more true now that Disney owns Marvel. Meanwhile, Paramount won the international distribution rights, and the film did release in Australia, parts of Europe, and Russia. Regardless, with the existing film in rightsholder hell, no one is going to rush to license this property again.

I think the labeling is a lot more prone to CGC weirdness on the older foreign material reprinting SA books. Although if they try to go with a strict "number is based on US title covers", then we'll have a problem with the Reprodukt Black Hole run (not least of which is because that would put them out of order). I'm pretty sure I'm not getting 9.8s on the Black Hole 5 and 6. Reprodukt originally issued these books singly, then after all 6 were available, also sold a slipcased complete set (as best as I can tell, there's nothing distinguishing slipcase copies from the single releases). Anyway, the last two books apparently sustained some corner damage during the slipcase packaging. I think the worst of it will press out fine especially for #5 (hoping to squeak a 9.6 post press), but I'm not going to leave the run hanging over the cost of the #6 slab, hunting for a nicer copy that I might not find. We'll see how it goes. I also own a full run of the Spanish version of Midnight Nation. Unfortunately, they're nowhere near a grade I'd be willing to slab, notwithstanding the fact that Midnight Nation isn't a financially-appropriate book to submit in the best of times (my graded run-in-progress is for personal reasons). Frankly, between Spanish Midnight Nation and Spanish Black Hole, I've got a lot of real beaters. I don't know if they're just harder on comics in Spain, of if the tough love copies are all that emerge from local collections.

German convention edition of EverQuest: Ruins of Kunark and the full run of the German publication of Black Hole (5 and 6 won't be back forever because they need a press due to some corner stress, sadly). The EverQuest book uses the same Jim Lee cover as the US original, but was a limited run of 999 copies sold at Erlangen. It's a weird book I never expected to own a copy of, but instead I wound up with one that has a real shot at 9.8. Reprodukt's edition of Black Hole reprinted the 12 volume series in 6 double size books, and did... odd cover tweaks. Several of the issues had the title re-styled in different fonts or colors, and #1 used the cover from the original #7 because reasons?

I have a handful of more recent foreign reprints in for grading now, and I'm interested to see what labels they come back with... For my part, I think these books should get the local title (where possible; I'm not sure CGC labeling is prepared for titles with different alphabets), local publisher, and actual publication date. A note indicating where the material (and cover, if different) first appeared does seem appropriate though.

Media mail exists to provide a low-cost shipping rate for the transport of educational materials. The regulation establishing the service requires that the printed matter be free of advertisements (except for "incidental announcements" of other books or audio recordings in a work of the same type). In part, this was to prevent advertisers from shipping pamphlets of promotional material under the guise of being legitimate educational content. The vast majority of comic books include advertisements, to the extent that USPS even clarified that they are not eligible under the media mail regulations. Yes, lots and lots of comic books get shipped successfully via media mail. It's a lottery you don't want to win. Postal regulations state that the USPS may open and inspect media mail at any time, and may refuse delivery of improper contents, or hold them for postage due. Postal inspectors aren't dumb. If you're getting (or sending) obvious comic book shipments at the same time as media mail packages, sooner or later, they're going to start inspecting your media mail. Wish shipping costs were lower in general? Everyone does. Wish comics qualified as media material for the lower-cost shipping rate? So does everyone else who has material they want to ship that isn't eligible for the media rate. It seems silly that people still complain about it. It's like speeding. It's nice to get to where you're going faster than you should be able to. But that's not what's permitted, and if you get caught, there's a cost to be paid. What sucks with misusing media mail is that the USPS often tries to collect that cost from the addressee rather than the shipper.

Unfortunately, not everything is worth money. The problem here is going to be finding someone who wants to pay for this. There is essentially no market for coverless comics from this time period. The only coverless comics that hold any value are from very rare early comics, where intact copies are both very expensive and not readily available. More recent coverless books are generally viewed as damaged, incomplete, and unsuitable as collectibles. For the sake of argument, and without getting into the details of comic grading, let's say that a coverless modern comic is worth 1% of the value of an intact book in generally the condition it was in when first issued. In reality, they are probably worth less than that. These ABS/UBS comics don't sell very often, because there's not a lot of demand for them in general, but the ones that are currently available are mostly priced between $5 and $10. I think those prices are high for most of these books, and that's why they are still available for sale! Maybe for some of the very low-print run language variants. But Moses #1 was one of the higher print run issues. I think intact copies of Moses 1 in nice shape are probably worth $2 or $3. But most comic book dealers would probably put such a book in their "dollar box" (that is, sell it for $1) because demand is very low; people sometimes buy unusual books out of dollar boxes as curiosities. But that's for intact copies. Not coverless ones. Whether we price a complete copy of Moses 1 at $1, $3, or $5, it is clear that your coverless copy is worth pennies at best. After you factor in shipping, transaction fees, and the literal time it would take to try to list this, there's really no way to make money by selling this. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

My fragile little mind is unable to comprehend this horror.

Speaking of cards, and given the card folks we share the forum with these days, when I sold out of Magic: the Gathering, I got the then-criminally outrageous price of $25 each for my Unlimited/Revised dual lands, and $40 each for my Beta duals -- I was mostly a control blue player, so I only had the blue-producing duals in Beta. For the non-Magic folks here, that means I got $40 apiece for four Tropical Island ($3500ish each now), four Tundra (solid $3000 each), four Underground Seas ($5000+ each), four Volcanic Island (probably closer to $6500 each). Counting everything, I got something around $3000 cash money when I sold off. Conservatively, that collection would sell today for more like a quarter million bucks. Oops.

Ah, yes. ACE bit the corporate bucket long enough ago that I'd sort of forgotten it was ever a going concern. ACE did actually slab books, though. But like a lot of these little grading companies, it was largely dedicated to the dealer-owner's own books. Others I know I skipped: The Pacific Comic Exchange, which wasn't a traditional grading service. It sort of a weird escrow sales site with its own internal grading service applied to the books. I don't think PCE slabbed books or even put stickers on bags. One party sent a book to PCE to be held for sale, PCE assigned it a grade and listed it for sale at that grade, and then -- presumably -- someone eventually bought it. I forget how the offering prices were worked out. I never really understood why anyone would do this. I don't think it lasted very long, so maybe no one else did, either! Rob Gustaveson's "Paper Mountain Comics". As with so many of these, a dealer offering his own grading service. I don't know that he offered any sort of encapsulation. I think you just sent him a book and five books and he sent it back with a number, although I could be wrong there. Again, I don't think he did much grading business. Pop Culture Certified did do a sort of encapsulation. They graded books, and shipped them back in a Mylite, sealed with a PCC grade sticker. As I recall, you could pay more for a COA that they'd slip in behind the backer board (and that was supposed to be linked to an online index, like a clunky version of the CGC census). I don't know if the online index ever existed, or indeed, if there were ever more than a handful of books handled there. I've never seen one. None of them, including ACE, made it to 2010, so I doubt that there are extant slabs (well, "slabs") from any of them. Maybe a few ACE books?

PGX is nowhere near the bottom shelf, anymore at least, although I don't believe I'd ever forgive them for some of their prior decisions. Also, seriously, (almost the) ugliest labels you can find on a slab. As for their competition, although several of the real shady graders are now out of business: CBGC was shut down by CGC's lawyers, although I'm not sure precisely why (guessing trademark confusion, but who knows?). I'm not sure they ever graded more than a handful of books. 6DGrading / 60 Day Grading was a basically Canada-only grading service that stuck a sticker over the flap of a bagged and boarded comic then slipped it in a Mylar. As with many of these companies, the owner used his own service. Quietly went out of business somewhere around 2016-17. Vault did put books in slabs, to their credit. On the other hand, a lot of those books belonged to the company's owner. Also bit the dust in the 2016-17 period. Midwest Comic Grading is still around with their ... unusual grading scale that includes hundredths-of-points of grade. See an 8.55 on ebay now! Expert Grading Service is also still around, and still using Comic Skin kit-cases (although they no longer seem to advertise the value of having easily-opened cases, so I think they may be getting a better quality product from Comic Skin these days). They now have a rainbow variety of label color choices, and allow for custom art labels, thus allowing them to beat out PGX for ugliest labels possible on a currently-available slab. I have no real opinion on the two very much non-North American graders (Halo in Australia and EGS -- but not the EGS above! -- in Europe). Both of them have been in business for quite awhile now, so they probably serve a niche market for regional collectors. Wasn't there a service that advertised that they would only grade individual comic book pages? I have to assume they've gone away, right? Right??

Yep. That's a coverless copy of Moses #1, published by the American Bible Society. That 1983 date sounds about right. There are 3 issues of Moses and a whole lot of other Bible comic adaptation with that distinctive yellow frame cover (well, not on your copy, but...). Later titles were published by United Bible Societies (the same actual group of people was responsible, obviously), well into the 90s at the least. I'm not sure where the Moses series was printed. In general, UBS comics were printed in Hong Kong, Malasyia, or Indonesia, for distribution in southeast Asia as a sort of missionary outreach. Most of them are in English, but at least some of the books exist in localized translations (I know there are Tagalog, Malay, and Lao books, at a minimum). I strongly doubt that all titles exist in all languages. Zero idea how many issues there are total, either. I know of no comprehensive index to them, nor have I ever known anyone collecting them. Offhand, I'd guess somewhere between one and two dozen. At one point, I think I was told average print runs are around 20k. Survival rate of distributed copies is probably grim, but there are warehouse copies out there for -- well, since I don't know how many issues there are, I can't say "most" of them -- but for a lot of them. Obviously, of course, the coverless copy isn't ideal for collectibility (and neither are the hole-punched copies in that video -- the books were not released punched like that).

"Pre-screening", the thing where you tell them not to slab stuff less than a desired grade, is not going away, although the reject fee is increasing from $5 to $8. "Screening" is the CCS service where they determine whether a book is suitable for pressing; that is going away for Modern comics, all of which are assumed to be suitable for pressing.

Labyrinth: Under the Spell, Jeremy Bastian (obviously) variant. This is actually a little more scarce than might be expected. It was a 1:15 incentive variant, but a whole lot fewer stores ordered 15 copies of Boom-published Labyrinth spinoffs than they do random Marvel books. Comichron shows a little under 10k orders for the book overall, so somewhere in the 500-600 range for distributed copies of the variant feels reasonable (with the eternal caveat that more may have been printed and distributed off-channel). In any case, there aren't piles of them sitting around, especially if you exclude copies with ridiculous price tags! Also, Bastian's work is fantastic both here and in general, and I suspect his fans have snapped up quite a few of these. Extremely happy with this one.