They're Still Out There! 22 22

[The Lions Den]

4 minutes ago, Robot Man said:

But when the professional grading companies are doing it themselves in house...

This would seem to be a very slippery slope...  

[Robot Man]

Can I get opinions on this one? Obviously a bad trim job. Factory? Or later by a human?

This book is an OO copy. From the “Paul” collection. A massive collection. Paul bought these new. He was a reader. He never sold any of his books in his life time. I have owned well over 100 of his books. Never saw any “alteration” in any of them. I doubt he would have any reason to do this. 

Wondering how CGC would grade this?

[Mmehdy]

3 hours ago, Robot Man said:

But when the professional grading companies are doing it themselves in house...

I doubt that the disclosure will be placed on the label as it is not in the cgc's or any pressing company best business interest to admit to this permissible restoration. I know the counter argument, what is the real difference if you put your ungraded GA book at the bottom of the pile of a stack of other GA books. I feel it is the intent, that counts here. It makes  difference to me to me and maybe a handful of other "older" collectors, but is certainly not a deal "killer" as far as not buying the GA comic book itself. You buy the GA comic book, that is the "golden rule" here, and of course you would prefer a untouched GA comic book rather than one with permissible or non permissible restoration.

 

Edited May 25, 2021 by Mmehdy

[Mmehdy]

2 hours ago, Robot Man said:

Can I get opinions on this one? Obviously a bad trim job. Factory? Or later by a human?

This book is an OO copy. From the “Paul” collection. A massive collection. Paul bought these new. He was a reader. He never sold any of his books in his life time. I have owned well over 100 of his books. Never saw any “alteration” in any of them. I doubt he would have any reason to do this. 

Wondering how CGC would grade this?

Great book and cover. I will take a stab at it and say 3.0 including the defect. I notice no major panels from story were really affected which helps with the overall grade. It looks like to me a possible printing defect as the book in the photo appears to be off center. The real issue is will the cgc give it a Blue, Green, or Purple label....

Edited May 25, 2021 by Mmehdy

[N e r V]

6 hours ago, The Lions Den said:

This would seem to be a very slippery slope...  

Sorry ahead of time but you set yourself up for these…

 

[Badger]

9 hours ago, Robot Man said:

Can I get opinions on this one? Obviously a bad trim job. Factory? Or later by a human?

This book is an OO copy. From the “Paul” collection. A massive collection. Paul bought these new. He was a reader. He never sold any of his books in his life time. I have owned well over 100 of his books. Never saw any “alteration” in any of them. I doubt he would have any reason to do this. 

Wondering how CGC would grade this?

 

7 hours ago, Mmehdy said:

Great book and cover. I will take a stab at it and say 3.0 including the defect. I notice no major panels from story were really affected which helps with the overall grade. It looks like to me a possible printing defect as the book in the photo appears to be off center. The real issue is will the cgc give it a Blue, Green, or Purple label....

It is a factory miscut and that is very common on the Exciting and Thrilling Comics. Hopefully CGC would recognize it as such and would give a blue label 3 to 4. Here is a miscut Thrilling that I picked up raw. It has a severe miscut but it does not go into the interior art. It came back a Blue label 7.0 when I submitted it. Structurally, I had it at an 7.5.

[sfcityduck]

1 hour ago, Badger said:

 It came back a Blue label 7.0 when I submitted it. Structurally, I had it at an 7.5.

Geez, you got a Promise(ing) bonus on that one.  Me, I'm the opposite, I had this WDC&S from 1946 as structurally at least an 8.5, and it was bone white.  Here's what I got in 2019:

Hard for me to view your book and my book as the same grade.  Grader notes reflect "light spine stress lines" and "moderate creasing" to front cover (?).  You can't see it in the picture because it does not exist. They must have fired that grader.  Nicest 7.0 white in existence.

[N e r V]

2 hours ago, sfcityduck said:

Geez, you got a Promise(ing) bonus on that one.  Me, I'm the opposite, I had this WDC&S from 1946 as structurally at least an 8.5, and it was bone white.  Here's what I got in 2019:

Hard for me to view your book and my book as the same grade.  Grader notes reflect "light spine stress lines" and "moderate creasing" to front cover (?).  You can't see it in the picture because it does not exist. They must have fired that grader.  Nicest 7.0 white in existence.

Yeah but his is more exciting whereas yours is for the birds…

[Robot Man]

11 hours ago, Badger said:

 

It is a factory miscut and that is very common on the Exciting and Thrilling Comics. Hopefully CGC would recognize it as such and would give a blue label 3 to 4. Here is a miscut Thrilling that I picked up raw. It has a severe miscut but it does not go into the interior art. It came back a Blue label 7.0 when I submitted it. Structurally, I had it at an 7.5.

Thanks. I wanted to know if anyone else had seen a miscut as bad as this. Having worked in the printing biz most of my life, I have seen stuff like this come off a saddle stitcher. Looks like it was stapled and the pages slid on the cutter. I would hope for maybe a 3.0 Blue if I were to ever have it graded. 

[Robot Man]

10 hours ago, sfcityduck said:

Geez, you got a Promise(ing) bonus on that one.  Me, I'm the opposite, I had this WDC&S from 1946 as structurally at least an 8.5, and it was bone white.  Here's what I got in 2019:

Hard for me to view your book and my book as the same grade.  Grader notes reflect "light spine stress lines" and "moderate creasing" to front cover (?).  You can't see it in the picture because it does not exist. They must have fired that grader.  Nicest 7.0 white in existence.

What an Awsome book! Me, I would crack it out of that insulting holder. Funny how grading has tightened up so much after all these years. 

Way back in the day, that would be considered mint. Then the Church collection was discovered and term “mint” was totally redefined. 

[lou_fine]

On 5/24/2021 at 8:22 AM, sfcityduck said:

But, just as comic collectors became knowledgeable about the Japanese internment because of Okajimas, the Promise Collection is, I suspect, going to lead comic collectors to learn about the Korean War in much greater depth.

 

On 5/23/2021 at 9:58 PM, sfcityduck said:

But, I'd bet these books are going to get multiples because of the story behind the collection, especially for the non-marque books. 

 

On 5/23/2021 at 11:51 PM, szav said:

I still see the Promise books getting a hefty premium, or appearing to anyway regardless of the story...the timing is just too good with all this price run up insanity that hasn't quite yet spilled over all the way into GA yet, and seems likely to.

I would definitely tend to agree with both of you that the Promise books are going to be selling at a pretty hefty premium for a few good reasons. 

Although the story is good because it pulls at the heartstrings cause by the loss of war, I feel the two other bigger factors will be the perceived high condition quality of the collection regardless of possible overgrading and the timing of the collection hitting the marketplace at just the right time.  In terms of the back story to this Promise Collection, we seem to only be getting a snippet of it here, and it is rather similar in vein to the Tom Reilly story for the SF Collection.  

[lou_fine]

On 5/24/2021 at 11:02 AM, Mmehdy said:

On 5/23/2021 at 8:07 PM, tth2 said:

Pedigrees for which I would personally pay a premium over comparable non-pedigreed books: 

Church, Reilly, Allentown, Spokane, Vancouver, Curator

 

I will second that, it's just certain pedigrees have a "extra added value" to an all ready great GA comic. book.

I would most definitely agree with both of you in terms of the Allentown books since this is by far the smallest GA pedigree out there with a total of only 135 pedigree books in the entire collection, and virtually almost all of them in HG condition.  

As such, the Allentown's are generally locked away in private collection and hardly ever appears in the marketplace.  In terms of overall condition, I remember taking a look at the early Fox books, and if I remember correctly, every single one of them (save for one) were either tied with the Church or graded higher than the Church copy in a head to head for the ones that have shown up in the marketplace over the years.  

I made the mistake of putting 3 of them up for auction way way back in the big Greg Manning Auction back in 2000 when CGC first opened their doors to test out this new 3rd party independent grading company at the time.  From a strict money point of view though, probably not a mistake since I had picked then up for only 1.5X to 2.0X top of guide a few years earlier and they ending up selling for 3.5X to 7X top of guide.  Still, wish I had the books in my personal collection since there's only 135 of them in existence.  

[sfcityduck]

1 minute ago, lou_fine said:

In terms of the back story to this Promise Collection, we seem to only be getting a snippet of it here, and it is rather similar in vein to the Tom Reilly story for the SF Collection.  

Snippet is right.  The story is much more historically significant than the unverified Tom Reilly story.  I'm sure Heritage would like to tell the full and accurate story.  

[lou_fine]

13 hours ago, sfcityduck said:

Geez, you got a Promise(ing) bonus on that one.  Me, I'm the opposite, I had this WDC&S from 1946 as structurally at least an 8.5, and it was bone white.  Here's what I got in 2019:

Hard for me to view your book and my book as the same grade.  Grader notes reflect "light spine stress lines" and "moderate creasing" to front cover (?).  You can't see it in the picture because it does not exist. They must have fired that grader.  Nicest 7.0 white in existence.

Well, if this book was graded in 2019, it should be pointed out that we are still in the "pressing regime" of grading right now and have been since 2016.  

Although it is probably pretty tough to see the light stress lines and spine ticks by simply looking at the book straight on, have you held it up at a certain angle to the light to see if you can spot any?  Did you also send the book in for a pressing or at a minimum, a pre-screen for pressing prior to having it graded?  I have been told by many that you are pretty much risking a severe case of punishment grading if you don't take the necessary precautions when you send a book in for grading with this current grading regime in place.  

From the scan here, it would definitely appear that the book has been severely undergraded from my own personal point of view, although you cannot accurately grade a book without actually having it in hand.  Just wish that the Promise Collection books all looked as severly undergraded as your WDCS 69 here, but I guess they played the grading game by the known but unspoken rules and took the necessary precautions and got rewarded for it, instead of being punished like your gorgeous book here.   

BTW:  I highly doubt that the grader got fired, as they most likely got a promotion for doing exactly what the CCG ownership wants in terms of identifying additional revenue generating defects which ends up adding to both their top and bottom lines.  

Edited May 26, 2021 by lou_fine

[sfcityduck]

5 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

Well, if this book was graded in 2019, it should be pointed out that we are still in the "pressing regime" of grading right now and have been since 2016.  

Although it is probably pretty tough to see the light stress lines and spine ticks by simply looking at the book straight on, have you held it up at a certain angle to the light to see if you can spot any?  Did you also send the book in for a pressing or at a minimum, a pre-screen for pressing prior to having it graded?  I have been told by many that you are pretty much risking a severe case of punishment grading if you don't take the necessary precautions when you send a book in for grading with this current grading regime in place.  

From the scan here, it would definitely appear that the book has been severely undergraded from my own personal point of view, although you cannot accurately grade a book without actually having it in hand.  Just wish that the Promise Collection books all looked as severly undergraded as your WDCS 69 here, but I guess they played the grading game by the known but unspoken rules and took the necessary precautions and got rewarded for it, instead of being punished like your gorgeous book here.   

BTW:  I highly doubt that the grader got fired, as they most likely got a promotion for doing exactly what the CCG ownership wants in terms of identifying additional revenue generating defects which ends up adding to both their top and bottom lines.  

Except this book was submitted to CCS first as I was thinking of selling it.  I'm glad I hung on to it.

[walclark]

On 5/25/2021 at 11:31 AM, Badger said:

I’m  assuming that's a sun or dust shadow on the back corner of the Promise copy. I miss the days when dust shadows and sun shadows counted as defects.

 

It wasn’t that long ago that CGC hammered this comic book for a dust shadow.  Heritage graded it as a VF+ and Metropolis called it a VF/NM.   Graded in January and the grader’s notes don’t note any hidden defects.  So in early 2021, they did count a sun shadow as a significant defect.

 

[lou_fine]

Just now, sfcityduck said:

Except this book was submitted to CCS first as I was thinking of selling it.  I'm glad I hung on to it.

Absolutely surprised they would miss the light stress lines and moderate creases then.    

Maybe it's all of the inexperienced newbies they have working at CCS since the Master is not longer working on that side of the business to oversee that part of their operations.  

Maybe you are right in that they need to fire either somebody on their CCS side or on their CGC side of the operations then.  

Hopefully, you can go back and ask for a full refund that you had to pay CCS for NOT doing their job.  

[lou_fine]

5 minutes ago, walclark said:

It wasn’t that long ago that CGC hammered this comic book for a dust shadow.  Heritage graded it as a VF+ and Metropolis called it a VF/NM.   Graded in January and the grader’s notes don’t note any hidden defects.  So in early 2021, they did count a sun shadow as a significant defect.

Haven't the graders at CGC gone back and forth on this whole sun or dust shadow kind of defect and it's seemingly pretty much luck of the draw when your book goes through?  

[Badger]

25 minutes ago, walclark said:

It wasn’t that long ago that CGC hammered this comic book for a dust shadow.  Heritage graded it as a VF+ and Metropolis called it a VF/NM.   Graded in January and the grader’s notes don’t note any hidden defects.  So in early 2021, they did count a sun shadow as a significant defect.

 

Given that it is a D Copy, known for foxing, and given the looks of that brown area on the cover are you sure its not foxing? CGC hates foxing and are harder on it than stains sometimes.

[Badger]

19 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

Haven't the graders at CGC gone back and forth on this whole sun or dust shadow kind of defect and it's seemingly pretty much luck of the draw when your book goes through?  

I think you are right, they did go back and forth for a while; although I'm pretty sure they have now decided that light sun shadows/dust shadows only preclude the book from 9.8 and higher. I seem to remember a conversation on the boards a long time ago over a FC #386 or FC #178 that had a significant sun shadow on the back cover but was a 9.0. This may be the book but I cannot find the conversation. Four Color 178