RhialtoTheMarvellous

My two copies of the Killing Joke were in the first batch of comics I had slabbed. My Batman Year One set is probably not going to make a 9.8.

People put NM all the time in auctions for books that are no where near it. Always get a good picture. People love posting blurry shots of books on ebay.

I've also seen a seller on ebay list something as NM 9.8 in the title and the condition is listed as Fine 6.0 - NM 9.8. Book looked like a 6.0.

Unless it is in high demand you're probably wasting cash. Yeah, if it gets a 9.8 there might be some folks out there wanting to complete a set, but you're shooting for the moon.

On 8/15/2020 at 6:27 AM, telerites said:

If you were born in '74, you certainly began buying off the stands at a young age in the 70s.  I was pretty steady buying through the 70s (early 70s was mom-funded since I was nine when she bought that Defenders 2 for me) but then I started digging through trash cans for pop bottles and did get an allowance and mowing yards so could buy on my own.  

I have two indelibly bad comic memories from the 70s - 1) seeing GSX 1 on a spinner rack and thinking it looked cool but I could buy two regular sized comics instead one so I passed and 2) buying Hulk 181 at a con for $1 and then selling at the same con for $3 - I wasn't a Hulk fan and who cared about a corny Wolverine plus think of the profit I made in about an hour 

More like whatever I begged my Dad and Mom to buy me off the rack. Probably not until 79 or so.

On 8/16/2020 at 2:14 AM, divad said:

So that's a no? don't bother? 

 

Sorry, about the lack of response. Busy week. I'll be happy to take a look at 24 or 25 if you have either or both. I haven't got particularly great copies of either.

I wish some of my 70s off the stands stuff was worth submitting as I still have all of them, but given I was born in 74 it wasn't gonna happen.

11 hours ago, divad said:

So which one do you need? #24 or #25? I can't tell . . .  I may have one for you. 

I've got all of them at this point, it's a matter of whether I want to upgrade the quality of some of them to get everything up to a NM+ level. #24 is not a bad copy, but it's not quite there.

2 hours ago, EC Star&Bar said:

For the #3 you own, likely the ink you mentioned on the top is distributor's ink, sprayed on the edges of stacked copies for their coding purposes.

I can still recall buying my copy of #1 off of a spinner rack in 1977 (edit - actually Nov. 1976, when it went on-sale).  I was pretty much a DC-only buyer, but this was a notable exception.

That sounds about right on the ink, it's too often seen on the book to be anything else. That's cool that you got to buy #1 off the rack. I was two years old when it came out. Younger folks right? I know how you feel though when I look in the copper section and see people enthusing over getting a copy of ASM #300 when I bought mine off the rack.

Buying comics off a spinner or at a newstand was always so random, but at the same time as a kid really magical.

I'm thinking 3.5, that spine and the super big creases at both corners are big drops.

The CGC grading seems to get pretty harsh with evident defects. Without the color breaking crease and the cut the book still has a very evident issue at the spine bottom corner that shows front and back. That alone would probably bump you into the 8.5 range. 

The big color breaking crease and a cut are rough ones that will bump you down to the 7s.

8.5-9.0

It's always hard to see creases that aren't color breaking on dark areas of books. Basically deduct .2 off the score for every one of those if they are there.

It's got a touch of bend that you can see at the back that runs evenly up the area next to the spine. You should just be able to do a home press under some heavy books and that will even out. Not too heavy though.

It looks like it has the tiniest amount of color breaking spine tick on the front cover.

7 hours ago, KCOComics said:

does it have mild spin roll? 

I'm thinking 6.0. 

IMO, not really. This period has bindings that look like that on mint books. It does look like the spine has damage in some areas though. From the back it looks like the spine is heavily abraded from the top down for several inches. There looks to be more edge wear on the spine further down that is less significant.

I'd lean towards 5.0 because of that and the other more minor defects.

It's got a color breaking crease, corners are all worn or crushed (very minor crushing). It looks like there is some writing in the upper left corner of the cover. If that's just a date stamp that is worn off then it could be okay, but if not that's no good. Looks like there is some amount of bleed through into the cover from the interior pages.

Thanks you! I have no further questions.

The extras have definitely piled up. I'm at probably 50+ extras and that's after keeping a second copy of each issue as a backup (though in some cases it's because I'm having a hard time telling which one is better quality).

I'm sure this has been asked, but does CCS Pressing have any specific Status information under the Submission Tracking option? I sent a book in for pressing followed by grading so I was just wondering if there will be an indication when it is done pressing and moved to grading?

Rough, sorry to hear that.

Yeah, I just searched around and a 4.5 CGC Universal is going for $2500 and a CGC 4.5 Restored Slight/Mod (C-2) is priced at $550. That second one would be the sort of thing I would look for if I was going to do a pro restoration.

1 hour ago, D84 said:

Ah. I missed that part and was looking at the picture on my phone. 

Well, then I'd wouldn't pay more than $350-$400 for that copy.  That spray paint will have definitely bled through to the interior cover and possibly the pages, making restoration a lot more complicated.

Either he overpaid for it, it's in much better condition than I think or he doesn't want to sell, because he wants $3500 for the book. I'll have to go take a look at it in person, but no matter how you slice it that's too much.

2 hours ago, comicginger1789 said:

Suppose I pay $1000 for a book that is around a 1.0-1.5 grade wise. I know that I can dump money into it and get it to 6.5-7.0.

What I would do is see what a regular 7.0 copy of the issue I bought sells for. Then I take that and cut it in half. This is what my restored copy is worth. If the money I dump in exceeds this value, I wouldn’t bother unless the book was for me and unlikely to ever be resold.

It's a good point. Although I feel like there is some merit in conserving / restoring these books just to keep them alive.

39 minutes ago, Will78 said:

He said the entire spine is spray-painted black.

Right. If you look close you can see the mask line where they put something over it before they spray painted the spine.

I'm talking with a restoration service and they say they do have a way to fix the paint issue. Now, whether that is cost effective is up in the air though.

It's this.

5 minutes ago, James J Johnson said:

Oh Pa-shaw! Sure there is. Where there's a Will78, there's always a way! How about Mr. Bean's approach to paint removal and re-touching? I wonder if Mr. Bean restored comics? 

 

Get the thinner!

Other than that and some more conventional issues like tape and wear it doesn't look too bad though. I guess it all depends on what the guy wants for it and then what a restoration place says they can do with it.

Looking at online sales data it's a $10000 book or around there at 8.5.

1 minute ago, James J Johnson said:

     Sorry to hear he's gone. But the upside is that you had him for 13 years! A friend had lionheads. Messy. And the wild growing of the teeth, not just the front ones but the molars too made dental work necessary. But not only are their jaws very fragile but they have a hard time tolerating anesthesia., I don't think any of them made it much past 6. 

And on a similar note, buying Fair/Good 1.0 to 2.0 range restored books and having a seasoned professional work them up into apparent higher grades will probably cost the same as buying them already in the higher grade than spending for the book and the work (which could wind up costing more than the book itself) combined. I'd look for books in the 3.0 to 5.0 range. My guess is the cost will be about the same as for a 2.0 + many hours of intricately involved resto by a professional operating at the high end of the per hour pay scale. 

I might be grading it too harshly, but at the same time someone spray painted the spine area on the cover with black paint to "repair" it at some point so I don't know that I'm that far off.

6 minutes ago, Will78 said:

That makes sense. The Restored label has been around for 20 years so I was like wha?

My question does seem kind of stupid in that context. I guess I was just trying to see where people are at on it at this point. Are people still slabbing rare books for a .5 blue label rather than restore them?

1 minute ago, James J Johnson said:

 

A belated WTTB!!  

Is the Bunny's name Rhialto? 

 

It's Bunsen actually. He is an ex-bun at this point unfortunately. Lived till 13, but he lives on in our memories.