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"Distributor RETURN Spray" ????

Started by garthgantu,

11 posts in this topic

garthgantu

garthgantu

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Well, I thought I'd seen most everything in the way of comic book blemishes, defects, printing errors etc. - until I saw this.

 

I picked up a handful of nice SA books with what was described to me as "distributor return spray." This is one of the nicer books I got:

 

621932-DLofPS-frontcover.jpg

 

As I understand it, some books, when returned to the distributor, were sprayed with a light (watered down?) ink, to establish them as returned copies. I think the idea was to get enough blue (in this case) on 'em so that it would be readily apparent to anyone doing a sneak inspection of a newsstand or (more likely) used mag/bookstore or whatever that might consider buying these on the cheap and re-selling.

 

Some of the books have small amounts of water or moisture damage, although that water/moisture doesn't seem to be from the ink, since the only parts of the books exhibiting the blue are the very edges, with occasional bleeding into the covers. This one's fairly representative - I passed on some others that had more 'bleeding' of the blue into the front and/or back covers; one or two seemed to have the blue ink very lightly covering half the cover or so - as though those copies might have been on or near the top of stacks that were sprayed, and gotten the brunt of the ink...?

 

Anyone ever seen this before? Equally important, anyone have an opion, or know CGC's opinion, of how this affects grade? The structure of the book seems unaffected - staples are clean, paper fiber that absorbed ink seems firm and intact.

 

Help me out here!

621932-DLofPS-frontcover.jpg.a615101b34003ca84e6c83c2faf7e38a.jpg

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garthgantu

garthgantu

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C'mon, peoples! You've gotta have some opinion on this! Ever seen it before? How does it affect grade? There are a lot more where this one came from, and I'm debating buying any more.

 

The seller's giving them to me for 40% of guide, and we've mutually agreed to lower the grade fairly significantly beyond the apparent grade, due to the overspray...but I wanna know what the collective intelligence thinks about this and how it affects grade... confused-smiley-013.gif

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FFB

FFB

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C'mon, peoples! You've gotta have some opinion on this! Ever seen it before? How does it affect grade? There are a lot more where this one came from, and I'm debating buying any more.

 

The seller's giving them to me for 40% of guide, and we've mutually agreed to lower the grade fairly significantly beyond the apparent grade, due to the overspray...but I wanna know what the collective intelligence thinks about this and how it affects grade... confused-smiley-013.gif

 

Depends on what grade the book is to begin with. On a 9.4 or 9.6 book, I'd say that overspray all the way around the book like that would drop it to 7.5 to 8.0. But on a VG or lower copy, I don't think it affects the grade much, if at all. In between those two points, I think that a 0, .5, or 1.0 deduction would be appropriate, depending on how severe the overspray is. For overspray as severe as is on the book here, I'd go with the maximum deduction.

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garthgantu

garthgantu

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Thanks, Scott... just to be clear, you're assessment is more or less entirely based on personal preference/interpretation? Or are you suggesting that this is a broadly-held view? I've never even see this sort of overspray before, so I'm coming to this with only a semi-formed opinion. I'd tend to agree with you, but I wonder if CGC would? I've seen some weird stuff on some slabbed HG books, and CGC allowing a fair amount of this type of overspray wouldn't shock me...?

 

Anyone else ever seen this, or just have an opinion? I can pick up a lot more of these books, or I can steer clear of 'em...I'm undecided...

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divad

divad

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Thanks, Scott... just to be clear, you're assessment is more or less entirely based on personal preference/interpretation? Or are you suggesting that this is a broadly-held view? I've never even see this sort of overspray before, so I'm coming to this with only a semi-formed opinion. I'd tend to agree with you, but I wonder if CGC would? I've seen some weird stuff on some slabbed HG books, and CGC allowing a fair amount of this type of overspray wouldn't shock me...?

 

Anyone else ever seen this, or just have an opinion? I can pick up a lot more of these books, or I can steer clear of 'em...I'm undecided...

 

GG,

 

Steer clear of them, you'll have a hard time selling them, and only a fool would send a book that looked like that into CGC for grading - I can only imagine how much they would trash it. Buy only the major keys if you have to buy anything.

 

Trust me, you'll be sorry. sumo.gif

 

Except . . . if they're all 10-centers like this one 893scratchchin-thumb.gif I guess I might consider anything pre-1964 hi.gif

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awe4one

awe4one

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C'mon, peoples! You've gotta have some opinion on this! Ever seen it before? How does it affect grade? There are a lot more where this one came from, and I'm debating buying any more.

 

I have a bunch of high grade comics with similar, but not as bad, inking. Usually I grade them down .5 to a point depending on the severity of the problem. I've also seen CGC comics with light inking get as high as 9.2...

 

Jim

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garthgantu

garthgantu

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Excellent info, Awe4 - thanks!

 

And Diva, you're strongly ambivalent response was invaluable as well stooges.gif

 

Bear in mind, I'm picking the stuff that's in the FN+ - to - VF range, *except for* the overspray. The seller and I are then dropping the books down 2-3 grades and THEN I'm paying 40% of guide... 893scratchchin-thumb.gif

 

So it's not quite as easy a deal to pass up as you'd ordinarily think...

 

I guess I'll try to talk him down further on the % of guide paid AND the grades, and see what happens...!

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garthgantu

garthgantu

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Bear in mind that structurally, the overspray doesn't seem to have adversely affected the books - unlike most water damage. The books all have very nice gloss, many are very clean in terms of creasing, etc.

 

It's still pretty ugly, though, I'll be the first to admit it! When I said this was one of the nicer books, I meant the book/title as much as the amount of overspray. There are plenty of lesser titles with no 'bleeding' from the overspray - just a little along 1, 2 or in some cases all 3 edges...

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