Axelrod

Back to my favorite series. Formerly the "New" Teen Titans, now just "Tales of." This is probably the only other Titans book I have (after #1 and #2, and DC Presents 26) worth considering for grading. Corners look good. Definitely would want to try and have the white areas cleaned if I was going to do it. Maybe if they ever actually make that Nightwing movie....

Couple more books today that I think would need to grade high to even be worth considering slabbing. First is this Punisher 1. I have no idea why I bought this mini-series. Punisher was never a character I followed. Maybe I was just on a "buy all #1 issues" streak, which mostly resulted in gems like "Lords of the Ultra-Realm", but I guess every once in a while, it worked out.... This copy seems pretty clean, but for a tiny crease in the top right corner. How much of a ding for that? Thanks!

These guys are notoriously tough

It is pretty subtle, but I happen to have a 1st and 2nd print of this issue and I took these pics to try and show the difference. First is the covers side by side. I noticed that the 1st seemed to have darker reddish hues, but that could just be a manufacturing thing and not representative. On the interior, the 1st print "greys" between interior cover and first page match more closely than in the 2nd print. Sorry if the lighting isn't great. Based on this, seems like you could have a 1st?

Next I have this Omega Men 3. Seems pretty good. Has probably held up better than most of my books, probably because it was printed on higher quality paper to begin with? Assuming that back could be cleaned up a bit, maybe the only real ding is some wear on the spine edges? What do you think?

I'm back! With a couple more books I own, which seem like they could be worth getting slabbed - provided they would grade high enough. Most of my books are kind of borderline, I think. But that's where you guys come in! First today got this X-Men 221, which seems to be heating up a bit lately. Thanks for looking.

Is it this book by any chance? https://www.ebay.com/itm/183653199895

I’d say the novelty for me of having a “10” of anything, PGX or otherwise, would outweigh the value of reholdering in a more desirable case, and losing the “10”, which it almost certainly would. It might be worth more in a CGC case, but that only matters if your plan is to sell it. And I don’t think that book is like, stupid money, even in 9.8, so I don’t think it would be worth it to me.

I always thought the fixation on "white" pages for a comic book that was sealed in plastic and therefore said "white" pages were never going to be seen, was a bit silly. It's like, I guess if it makes you happy "knowing" that those are white pages in there and you really got the best...? Really, the cover is all that matters when it's sealed up anyway. Makes much more sense for the people who plan to crack the book out of the case (which is a whole other thing I don't understand, but, whatever).

Yah, $1000 as what constitutes "valuable" is an insult to us mere mortals. If my book is worth over $100 I consider it valuable. I like the thought though. I think there should be a qualifier for number of issues too. Like, a series that went at least 50 issues without any of them being worth anything? I'm sure I collected a bunch of those in my day.... Alpha Flight anyone?

Here's another fun one. You had to buy a Magic novel and clip out the coupon to redeem for it. There were several of those promos I got, but this was kind of the only one that caught on.

I started playing during Revised, so I missed out on all the "Power" (I mean, those Moxes were $30.00 to buy as singles, and a Lotus was something like $100.00. That's crazy money. For something that just makes Mana?....) I never collected, just played for fun, but I managed to randomly accumulate some stuff. These are my Revised Duals

I have another noobie question, but I was thinking about it. I keep reading about people who crack their graded books out of the cases, to resubmit, or resell or just because they like it better that way. But doesn’t that mean that the CGC numbers for “graded” books are off? They might be counting the same book multiple times that’s been resubmitted? Maybe this doesn’t matter in a practical sense, as if anything it seems like the true numbers would be lower, but I was thinking about it. I see people talking all the time about the number of books in a particular grade like it’s very significant.

Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask this, but I was wondering if there were any plans to open a Trading Card Market sub-forum here, similar to what exists for comic books, for collectors to sell/trade their cards on these boards. I feel like a lot of people would like that if it were available.

So, when I was growing up, all I knew was that "air" was bad for your comics, which is why you want to put them in a plastic/mylar bag. After recently re-acquiring my collection, and seeing what I thought were the results of the comics not being tightly sealed enough (slight yellowing of pages/covers), I got a little obsessive trying to seal every opening/gap with tape. Now I understand that comics produce gasses and if they are in a completely airtight environment, it can actually be bad for the comic. How bad though? Are CGC cases supposed to be airtight? Or is that wrong? Is it okay there because they put the special paper in to absorb the off gassing? Wondering how important it is to go "free" some of my comics and leave some kind of "air" gap. Is the seal you get with regular scotch tape even "airtight" enough to worry about gasses being trapped? Thanks for any insights.

I also look forward to missing on every single grade! Picks: 1. Thor 337 3. Avengers Annual 10 6. ASM 210 8. Sheena Queen Of The Jungle 3-D (double cover) 12. She Hulk 1 13. Marvel Spotlight 28 14. Avengers 196 15. Secret Wars 8 (origin black Spidey costume) 18. X-Men 129 19. X-Men 130 Finally from the 7 listed below (the big boys category), pick the 3 you would like to see graded! 2. ASM 129 3. Fantastic Four 49 5. Captain America 117

Oh man, the memories. These were some well-loved books in my youth. But from them I totally got my appreciation of the history of all the characters.

People being snarky aside, I think it is "worth it" if you can reasonably expect the value of your comic after grading to be increased by more than what it cost you to have it graded/shipped. You can get a pretty good idea of what the values of graded comics are from a number of sources. It might also be worth it to you personally if you have comics that you just want to be protected/be shown off in a nice display case and the cost isn't really an issue. Seems like those are the main possibilities.

I mean, guys, he's not wrong. Newbie here, and never sent anything in to grade yet, but if I sent off 10 sets of books/cards for grading, all about the same quality, and got 9 sets back in a reasonable timeframe with a certain spread of grades. But 1 set out of the 10 is lost or delayed for months. And then, after a complaint, the set instantly appears, but some of the cards are damaged, and the grades are distinctly lower than the grades from every other set I sent in from that same timeframe. I would probably call foul too....

Is the concern that CGC - seeing the grade of the book that the other company gave it - would be unduly influenced by that grade? So if you are hoping to get a higher grade you crack it out and don't let them know what grade it previously received? Is that the same thing people do when they resubmit books directly to CGC that got a CGC grade they didn't like? Crack it out and resubmit, just hoping that this time, maybe with a different grader, in a different mood, it will get a different grade?

Pretty sure Book 1 says 2nd printing if it’s second (I have one of those). So, maybe that’s a 1st? If there are “grey” issues with the 1st, I don’t know about them.

As I recall, the issue with that series was the second issue, where the fact that is was a second printing was not stated in the book. And the way to tell the difference between 1st and 2nd printings is that the greys on the inside cover and first page match in the 1st printing, but they are different in the second printing. I don't know if that is issue 2 you are picturing there, but those greys do not look the same from that angle at least, which would make me think 2nd printing.

It does seem like they ought to let you know that it has been restored before they do the final encapsulation. So you could decide if you even wanted it anymore. Especially since they also offer an "unrestoration" service that you might have wanted to use. Rather than just surprising you with the label. Maybe that's too much to ask.

Don't forget the first "Maxi-series!" Or, do forget it. You know. I thought it was cool. I was young.

Yup. It's rather discouraging to see a book that - for a minute - seems like it's worth something, and then realize that that is only for a CGC graded copy and the raw copy I have is basically considered "bulk." Everywhere I read it says "comics from around 1980 and on - with certain exceptions, of course - are usually not very valuable...." When did I start collecting? 1980. That's actually seems pretty close to what I was imagining. Thanks!