Newbie - How do I learn to judge the quality of a comic book? 1 1

[Neuberello]

I apologize if this question has been asked and answered before.  I did a search of the boards, but couldn't find anything.  

After years of ignoring my comic books, my son recently got me interested in collecting again.  I'm now trying to fill in the gaps in my collection, but I don't have the hang of judging the quality of what I'm looking at.  I don't want to over pay for a book because I can't tell that it is in Good condition, rather than Fine.   I've found some general descriptions of the defects that might affect the quality of a book, and I get the obvious ones.  For example, I can tell when there is a tear in the cover.   What I'm lost on is more subjective things like how sharp corners must be to get an 8.0 versus a 7.5, or how does the position of the staple in the spine affect the grade/quality, or, hypothetically, how long a tear can be before it moves a book from a 4.0 to a 2.0.  

Is there a book or web site out there that explains grading and quality in simple terms for an inexperienced collector and has pictures of defects that help understand what affects quality?

Thanks for your help.

[Alf Pogs]

I like EtaNick's grading tutorials on YouTube. There are lots of guides published over the years also like Overstreet Grading but Nick's videos are the best. They are fun to watch and have great books.

[marvelmaniac]

I found this to be very helpful...

https://www.gemstonepub.com/en/the-overstreet-comic-book-grading-guide-3rd-edition

 

[AJD]

16 minutes ago, marvelmaniac said:

I found this to be very helpful...

https://www.gemstonepub.com/en/the-overstreet-comic-book-grading-guide-3rd-edition

 

Yes, it's a great start. Another excellent resource (and it's free) is to sign up to Heritage Auctions (ha.com) site and browse hundreds of thousands of high-res scans of pretty well-graded comics.

[Neuberello]

On 3/21/2018 at 6:57 AM, AJD said:

Yes, it's a great start. Another excellent resource (and it's free) is to sign up to Heritage Auctions (ha.com) site and browse hundreds of thousands of high-res scans of pretty well-graded comics.

Thank you all for the ideas.