chrisd1

On their way home... The X-Men Annual with the Gambit sketch came back graded on the low end of what I thought but since it was my childhood copy from a time when I don't think that I even owned boards yet... I probably can't complain. It's interesting that he colored in the sketch for more pop (admittedly over Ahab's head, since the cover doesn't give him a ton of room... you can still kind of at least see Ahab's face a little. No big loss.) The Fantastic Four was a big surprise at a 9.8. I was very pleased with the Wolverine sketch, and appreciated him coloring that in over the caption box for some pop. If I'd known more about the potential for a bigger/more-detailed sketch a year ago had I sent in a blank cover book, I probably would have thrown one of those in too. That said, the entire situation still greatly exceeded my expectations when I was packaging them up a year ago.

UPDATE: My Hulk 345 was indeed signed 'Todd McFarlane' like the examples I'd seen on eBay... maybe turning into more than a coincidence. My ASM #300 was a 'T. McFarlane'

I'd had the #300 graded 5 years ago (the most expensive comic that I'd ever bought as a kid... $30 around 1992) and it came back a 9.2 at that time. I'd never had it pressed though, not realizing at the time that that was a 'thing.' So this time, I paid for the 'press and clean' service hoping that some very minor defects might get removed and the grade bumped up. There was the note of a 'smudge' on the prior grader notes (and in this new set of notes too) that spooked me though (that black back cover and fingers was trouble), especially given talk in the past year of modern stuff getting graded harder... I figured 'What the heck, you only live once' and it worked out! The Hulk 345 was a 'raw' copy that I had around and I had hoped for a higher grade.. no grader notes, unfortunately. No shame in a 9.2 though. Love the cover on that one. One oddity on that Hulk issue... I was looking at recent eBay sales (around 5 copies) and every single one of them had the full 'Todd McFarlane' signature on them. It made me wonder if he made a point of signing the 'long name' on that issue for some reason or if it was just an odd timing coincidence with the sales. I'll see what I end up with.

So yeah, I think that I jinxed myself by making this confident statement a few days back... I had sent in a previously-graded "Wolverine" 27 9.6 to get signed by Jim Lee at CGC and I was surprised today to see that it was re-graded a 9.4 after the signing. Grader notes were included and said 'scratch on back cover.' I'd had it pressed/cleaned (which presumably would have done nothing for a scratch) but obviously this experience just raises questions around if 1) The book's original grader had somehow missed the 'scratch' and/or was lenient OR 2) CGC somehow introduced a 'scratch' during the handling of the book for the SS event. It could have obviously been worse situation - this isn't a particularly rare or expensive book even in high grades - but it was certainly a reminder that re-submissions can go sideways.

I'm curious as well... I'd seen mention in some past posts where CGC confirmed that the graders do have access to the prior grade as a reference. If anything, it's hard not to assume that they'd use that as a past precedent and not want to deviate much either way. My personal experience was the opposite of late... I had two books that were both 8.5 and (I thought) good candidate for a press/clean to get a better grade after being signed. Neither was changed from the 8.5 and, oddly enough, the grader notes are copy-paste identical on the new signature series listings for the books.

A followup on this feedback - it took over a year but CGC just provided the grade on this book: 9.0 Needless to say, I was quite pleased given that it was my childhood 'reader copy.' The stain on the back cover that people had pointed out (likely from a backing board) really spooked me but it somehow didn't completely deep-six the book. I did have CCS do a clean/press on it and I'll be curious to see if the book looks any different when I have my hands on it. Thanks!

I bought a very nice condition Voltron 1 at a con for $1 in 2013 to use in a binding project, filling out some childhood comics that were otherwise all in rough shape. I love the resulting book but having that single issue in there looking otherwise pristine haunts me a little.

Sorry about that, here's the back. One thing to point out about the front cover... it's not obvious in the scan but there are a couple of notable intentions up by/in the X-Men logo, probably cause by my thumbs/fingers when I was eagerly reading it as a kid. I'm assuming that requesting the CCS pressing service might be worth it just to see if that helps shape up the book in any way.

By coincidence, I just posted on the same issue a minute ago... I had noticed that on mine the lower staple is hanging out a little bit - funny to see that yours has the same 'hanging out there a little bit' thing going on.

Newbie question... I've tried reading up on spine stress marks that break color and have found conflicting examples/opinions. I grabbed a comic from my collection that I've been meaning to have graded but had held back on due to the spine stress marks and my assumption that it would plummet from those. If you were able to zoom in, there are 6-8 such color-breaking lines on this cover (some more obvious than others)... other potential defects aside that might not be obvious from a scan, how badly would these stress marks hurt the grade right out of the gate? Thanks.