Guess the grade, part IV: Bronze

[namisgr]

OK, for round IV, have a go at this Bronze Age key. Here, we address the question of whether/how the CGC standards for Bronze books may differ from their grading of Silver. This is another blue label, with OW/W page quality. Good luck to all I'll post the grade sometime on Wednesday.

 

 

[Aces]

9.2 Dirty back and all.

[Ajax]

8.5

[nik]

9.0

[arexcrooke]

9.2

Is that foxing or dirt on the back cover?

[namisgr]

Is that foxing or dirt on the back cover?

 

It's a scanning effect, actually. There is a very minor amount of soiling along the back spine in two places, and my use of Photoshop to make the whites on the scan look like they do on the book brings out the contrast disparity.

[burntboy]

i'm gunshy after that wild grade on the Hulk #6.

 

can't seem to find anything wrong with this book, other than the minor soiling which you maintain looks worse due to scanner artifact. so i'll go with 9.4 - corners are all sharp - no visible defects - perhaps some very minor spine stressing in the white miswrap.............

[Silver Surfer]

9.0

[jbud73]

9.0

[sterlingcomics]

9.2. Clean that back cover!!

[namisgr]

9.2. Clean that back cover!!

 

It IS clean!

 

Thx for all the opinions. There's still time to offer a guess...

[FFB]

9.2

[jbud73]

9.2

 

[CW]

9.0

[Foolkiller]

8.5

[supapimp]

8.0/8.5/8.0

[FFB]

9.2

 

 

We're .2 apart.

[davidking623]

9.0

 

Davidking623

[verygoodplus]

9.0

[namisgr]

And the answer is.....

 

YOU GUYS ARE GOOD, but I suspect for the wrong reasons! The ASM 129 was graded 9.0. I don't have the label to post, since it was thrown away in disgust. This is one of my prized Bronze books purchased off the rack, and I remember very well how shocking and controversial this storyline was at the time.

 

Special congrats to Nikos for being first with the correct grade, surely redeeming himself from previous rounds. Yes, there is a very minor amount of soiling near the back of the spine, but the scanning and image processing accentuate it quite a bit. This is one of those books with a 9.6 front cover and a 9.0 back cover (I thought it would receive a 9.2 when I submitted it). In addition to the very minor soiling, the back ULC has a tiny bit of ruffling and a barely perceptible non-color breaking indent, that can only be seen at an angle. CGC seems to hate these barely detectable indents, and sometimes treats them like color-breaking creases.

 

Here is another look at the back cover scan, with no photoshop processing - because the overall whiteness is blinding, it still makes the edges in general and the spine edge in particular seem alot less white than they truly are, and all I can say is that you should see this book in person to truly appreciate the back cover.

 

 

And here is a closeup of the offending corner, in which it is still virtually impossible to see the ruffling and tiny indentation.