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What is a qualified comic??

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Hello. I thought of asking a question that might not ruffle feathers this week grin.gif

What is a Qualified comic when graded by CGC??? confused.gif

I have seen many goldenage books graded QUALIFIED because some pages were missing or a centerfold was married ect>>>>>> If you have a book that has pages missing is this not a low grade book?? or if you have confused.gif a maried centerfold is this not restoration???? Why qualified and why are these books not graded as restored??

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My take is that a Qualified book is one of the "otherwise" books. For example, say you have a book that is Otherwise NM but it has a subscription crease. Well, that can downgrade the book to a VG, but since is the only defect in an otherwise very high grade book, how do you really grade it? Because a VG can have that subscription crease along with lower page quality, folds, writing on the cover etc. its structural integroty, ink density, gloss etc is going to be less than that Otherwise NM book.

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That's CGC's general idea, also. Here's a link to their definition of the "Qualified" grade: http://www.cgccomics.com/glossary.htm#q

 

I don't agree with using the Qualified grade this way. If I take one of the NM books from my collection and fold it in half to make it look like a subscription crease, it's "Qualified". If I make a 4" rip in the back cover, then it's "Qualified." But if I only fold or rip 1/4" on the corner, then that smaller defect isn't "Qualified" and does detract from overall grade? Why should larger defects be somehow more acceptable than smaller ones?

 

To be fair, I haven't seen CGC use the Qualified grade much for these really large defects on an otherwise NM book; has anyone else? Very early in CGC's life, I saw an X-Men #1 CGC 9.0 with a 4" rip on the back; I wonder if that was the book they used as an example for that description of the Qualified grade linked to above. I mostly see Qualified used for books with unauthenticated artist/writer signatures on the cover, covers detached from the interior at one staple, clipped coupons from the interior, and for "Married" comics.

 

To most of the anal high-grade guys, the "Qualified" grade is something they shy away from as much as the "Restored" grade. I've even seen a few people resubmit Qualified books and ask CGC to just incorporate the "Qualified" defect into the numerical grade. It appears that the market doesn't agree with some of the uses for "Qualified" grade any more than I do. It's a useful grading category, but not when you mix the comics with 4" tears together in there with the signed comics; those are drastically different qualifications! They should be separated from each other by either adding another category or two or by taking some of the worse "Qualified" grades out of that category and sticking them back in the "Universal" category with the defect(s) factored into the numerical grade.

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I don't agree with using the Qualified grade this way.

 

I agree with the idea of Qualified in one instance: if a book contains a single defect that is only allowed several grades below it. For example, A NM book with a 1/4 fold I would NOT use as Qualified but would garde it is a NM- or a VF etc. But if the book is truly, for example, NM and has only a single defect allowed in fine or below, then I would consider qualified. But only a single defect and only if the rest of the book were true to its qualified grade..

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The main use of the qualified grade is to compensate for truly unusual flaws that would otherwise result in a grade not representative of the book.

 

I submitted a copy of TTA 35 for a customer of mine that appeared to both of us like a VF copy. It came back Qualified 7.5 (pieces cut out of page 8). When we called to get the info, we found out that someone had cut Ant-Man's head out of two panels of the book. Normally that kind of defect would suggest a copy in good, but to certify the book as a 2.0 would just confuse the next owner. So it received a Qualified grade instead, saying "this book is a VF-, except for .....", which is a far more accurate description than a blue-label 2.0 would have been. BTW, the book sold on eBay at a price comparable to a VG/FN...

 

As sellers, we all know that a book with great appeal and a strange flaw will sell much better than a book for which that flaw is typical of grade. A nice Hulk 181 missing its stamp sells like a VG+ or so, not like a Good. That was true before CGC and it's still true now... By using qualified grades, there is room for a price difference between a copy that looks Fine with a missing stamp and a copy that looks NM- with a missing stamp. If CGC just slapped both books with a blue 2.0, they wouldn't be accurately describing the books.

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Overstreet has never gone into much detail on grading the interior. Neither Ant-Man's head cut out nor a missing Marvel Value stamp prevent reading the story, and as such I think those books should grade much higher than Overstreet's guidelines permit.

 

The entire necessity for a "Qualified" grade makes me suspect a weakness in the grading standards. I don't have a better set yet, but it makes me ponder an alternative...

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