Cream to Off-White pages irrelevant now?

[supapimp]

DD 158 CGC NM 9.4

[BachelorOfComix]

The stigma of cream pgs is overrated. Sometimes you submit a book with white or offwhite pgs & you get cream pages on the label.

 

They can be great bargains IMHO.

[r100comics]

The stigma of cream pgs is overrated. Sometimes you submit a book with white or offwhite pgs & you get cream pages on the label.

 

They can be great bargains IMHO.

 

I have to disagree BOC. The page quality shows the internal health of the comic. A book that is structurally perfect but with poor page quality, is like some huge bodybuilder who cannot walk two steps because of his joint problems. (not a nice image but apt). Page quality is a pretty important factor for me when buying, and I think it is for a lot of the market. (particularly on Bronze and Modern).

[Silver Surfer]

Cream pages from a 1979 book is not an attractive selling feature.

[Murph]

I've said it before, I'll say it again. Too many people buy the label and not the book, and that means page quality too. Copies labeled "ow" have the same creamish color that some C-OW books do. If people are going to be foolish/dumb/uninformed enough to classify ALL books with a certain page quality in the same boat and simply let those go for low prices that's fine. I'll simply enjoy stealing books for far less than what you are paying for your "ow" books.

 

Brian

[DoubleCovaBrotha]

I have to disagree BOC. The page quality shows the internal health of the comic. A book that is structurally perfect but with poor page quality, is like some huge bodybuilder who cannot walk two steps because of his joint problems. (not a nice image but apt). Page quality is a pretty important factor for me when buying, and I think it is for a lot of the market. (particularly on Bronze and Modern).

 

While I understand the analogy, I believe it is a bit extreme. Some of these prices that are realized for Cream or C-OW pages are absolute steals compared to their White Pages counterpart. It is definitely an important factor for most of the market, but I would gladly pay 20 - 25% less for a book with C-OW pages. To me, it is like the same difference as paying insane prices for a 9.9 and 10.0 for defects that are not noticable to the naked eye.

[BachelorOfComix]

I've said it before, I'll say it again. Too many people buy the label and not the book, and that means page quality too. Copies labeled "ow" have the same creamish color that some C-OW books do. If people are going to be foolish/dumb/uninformed enough to classify ALL books with a certain page quality in the same boat and simply let those go for low prices that's fine. I'll simply enjoy stealing books for far less than what you are paying for your "ow" books.

 

Brian

[Jgel]

I just won a Wolverine Limited #1 CGC 9.8 that I have been looking for. I wanted one with White Pages, but got one with Ow-W pages. I got it for $160 and not the $240 that one with White Pages goes for. I feel it was a good deal??

[BachelorOfComix]

Great deal. All else being equal, who wants to spend an extra $80 for a 1 notch page quality upgrade? Those with too much money to spend or with the desire to own the "best".

[Murph]

It's always interesting to see the ppl who make the arguments that it's hard, if not impossible, to tell the diff in grades between certain ranges to then tell you that white pages should be worth more than ow or ow-w. I'd LOVE to see someone try to make the distinction..

Paying extra money for white pages is like buying ultra high grade moderns.

 

Brian

[tth2]

I guess I approach things from a slightly different angle. The starting assumption for any modern comic should be that it has white pages, and the price should be accordingly lowered for any book with lower page quality. Given better storage conditions and better paper quality for moderns, there's really little reason for any book to have less than OW-W pages.

 

As for whether I could tell the difference, I have never cracked open a slabbed book, so I couldn't tell you how accurate or inaccurate CGC's page quality grading is (although some prior examples of PQ changing for re-subs leads me to wonder). But every book that I've ever submitted to CGC (SA, BA or modern) that I thought had exceptional page quality has always come back as W. In my mind, there's definitely a difference between a W book and a OW or C-OW book. Again, I would therefore expect a discount in the price for the modern book with lesser PQ.

[fantastic_four]

Paying extra money for white pages is like buying ultra high grade moderns.

 

That's an exaggeration. It's more directly similar to paying extra for the numerical grade, i.e. a 9.6 as opposed to a 9.4. The numerical grade is also subject to a margin of error.

 

Page quality fetched premiums long before CGC, although it has gained a much wider notoriety since CGC started putting it on the label. One of the most common characteristics of the major pedigrees is that they typically have exceptional page quality, and this is the quality that has made many of them more famous than others. Part of the reason the San Francisco pedigree ranks so highly is because the pages are usually white.

 

Cream pages are closer to being tan than a book with white pages. Would you make the same argument that PQ doesn't matter for books with tan pages? How about brittle? It's a continuous spectrum from newsstand fresh to crumbling decay, and cream PQ is closer to the end of the line than white.

[blowout]

Too many people buy the label and not the book, and that means page quality too. Copies labeled "ow" have the same creamish color that some C-OW books do. If people are going to be foolish/dumb/uninformed enough to classify ALL books with a certain page quality in the same boat and simply let those go for low prices that's fine.

 

But you have to rely on the label in the case of page quality as you can't see the pages through the slab. I'm not follwing your point at all.

[Murph]

So which book would be worse. A book with white pages with a tanning strip along the back of the cover.. OR a book with cream to ow pages and no tanning? The fact that you can have "white" pages while there's noticable tanning on a book speaks volumes to me.

 

You really think the difference between ow-w pages and white pages is noticable enough to be comparable to a 9.4 versus 9.6 difference? I certainly don't.

 

Regardless, the point remains that if CGC can be off on a grade why can't they be off on PQ? For ppl to dismiss all of a certain book because of what the label says is silly.

 

Brian

[Ares]

Sealed in a holder what difference does page quality make?

No one can see it anyway

[fantastic_four]

So which book would be worse. A book with white pages with a tanning strip along the back of the cover.. OR a book with cream to ow pages and no tanning? The fact that you can have "white" pages while there's noticable tanning on a book speaks volumes to me.

 

Separate issue. Their current policy, if I understand it correctly, is that the tanning is factored into the grade and they don't note it on the label. Before they did away with the label comments, they used to note it.

 

I'd say the book with the tanning strip (not sun or dust shadow, but actual tanning, which is MUCH less common than sun/dust shadows) is worse since that part of the comic is closer to decay than the rest of it, whereas a book with cream-to-offwhite pages is overall further away from decay and this process can be slowed to almost nothing if proper storage techniques are used. I do see why they note it separately from the page quality descriptor; it's a very isolated part of the book and not distributed across a large surface area like normal tanning. I think they should note the page quality something like this--"WHITE Pages with VERY MINOR TANNING". Not noting it is definitely a bad policy.

 

While on that topic, I don't think I've ever seen a book with isolated edge tanning AND white pages. I've seen them with cream-to-offwhite and just plain offwhite pages, but never white pages accompanied by isolated tanning. I don't think I've seen a book with offwhite-to-white pages with isolated tanning, but I don't remember exactly and I could be wrong.

 

 

You really think the difference between ow-w pages and white pages is noticable enough to be comparable to a 9.4 versus 9.6 difference? I certainly don't.

 

Why don't you? I can tell the difference. The difference between a 9.4 and a 9.6 is often one or two defects measuring around 1/8" to 1/4" in length/area, whereas off-white discoloration often affects every page for a surface area ranging between 6" to 24" or more.

 

 

Regardless, the point remains that if CGC can be off on a grade why can't they be off on PQ? For ppl to dismiss all of a certain book because of what the label says is silly.

 

This effectively is an argument that third-party certification is worthless if it's not 100% accurate. How often does CGC misjudge page quality? You make it sound as if they never get it right...I haven't seen evidence to suggest they screw up the page quality any more than they screw up the overall numerical grade.

[Murph]

The idea here is that ppl aren't buying C-OW pages because they're close to tan. Meanwhile, they're buying these same white or ow paged books that can have tanning on the book itself. And if you haven't seen a book with white pages and tanning, I have one to show you. Once again, buy the book not the label that is the ONLY thing I am saying here.

 

Do you honestly think that the difference between ow-w pages and white pages should be a differentiated value? What realistically is the difference? That one book is two days further away from deterioration then the other? Meanwhile a difference in grading is, in theory, a step up to a better book with less flaws. I don't see the correlation.

 

Brian

[fantastic_four]

Do you honestly think that the difference between ow-w pages and white pages should be a differentiated value? What realistically is the difference? That one book is two days further away from deterioration then the other?

 

More like 10-20 years in mediocre storage conditions, or 50+ years in an ideal environment. Pages don't go off-white in days, weeks, or even months unless they're left in extremely hot and/or humid conditions; typically it takes 10-20 years unless heat/humidity are high. The time it takes pages to age isn't as simple as time passage, either, since there are many environmental variables which factor into the aging formula.

 

The distinction between ow/w and white pages is noticable, so yes, it should be a distinction. Is it an easy distinction? Not unless you've focused on learning how to judge PQ. Distinguishing between 9.4 and 9.6 is JUST as hard until you've spent a lot of focused time studying the differences, and even then, it's entirely debatable even amongst grading/dealing professionals. So I really don't see much difference in splitting hairs about structure as compared to splitting them about page quality. It's all splitting hairs.

 

Can you post a scan of that book with white pages and tanning? I do mean tanning...not a sun/dust shadow. Dust shadows are mostly about aesthetics, whereas tanning compromises structure.

[Murph]

Here's the best I could do. It's from my last submission, I no longer have a scanner so I can't touch it up at all.

It looks like tanning to me, and CGC noted that that is what it is on their grader's notes.

 

Tanning w/ white pages

 

Brian

[BachelorOfComix]

 

I'd add that I think the pages can deteriorate in the slab if the comic is improperly stored. So you may buy a CGC'd book with white pages BUT the previous owner(s) may have stored it in adverse conditions, turning the white pages to offwhite or cream. Out of sight, out of mind I guess.