How Do You Grade This One... 2 2

[edpink81]

Hello,

I have a Capt Marvel Jr #18 however the comic was printed with a Red Circle #4 cover. I was told this is originally produced this way for different reasons at that time. I have never seen or attempted to grade a book like this. How will it be received and or graded? Thoughts? I am new to Golden Age altogether however when looking through some online and print reference sources, this particular cover was said to have been used 4 times on different books. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

[theCapraAegagrus]

On 8/10/2021 at 10:03 AM, Mosh Or Die said:

It will be graded like any other comic 

https://www.comics.org/series/437/

So it would not be Qualified?

[grendelbo]

[The Lions Den]

Pretty freaking cool...  

[Randall Dowling]

On 8/10/2021 at 5:33 AM, edpink81 said:

Hello,

I have a Capt Marvel Jr #18 however the comic was printed with a Red Circle #4 cover. I was told this is originally produced this way for different reasons at that time. I have never seen or attempted to grade a book like this. How will it be received and or graded? Thoughts? I am new to Golden Age altogether however when looking through some online and print reference sources, this particular cover was said to have been used 4 times on different books. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

I'd keep that puppy raw so you can enjoy the interiors in all their misplaced glory.

[Randall Ries]

On 8/10/2021 at 5:11 PM, Randall Dowling said:

I'd keep that puppy raw so you can enjoy the interiors in all their misplaced glory.

Looks to me like it's already graded. If it weren't, we may have seen the interior as proof. Didn't they do this to extend the copyright protection? Like the so-called ashcans? That's a groovy book to own. Likie.

[Randall Ries]

On 8/11/2021 at 5:51 PM, Mosh Or Die said:

I don't think so, they were just unsold copies re-bound with new covers, like the EC Annuals.

Is that right? They wouldn't be considered restored then or get a green label? I always thought they were place holders until the copyright kicked in again. Intriguing, though.

I would think if for example the OP submitted his for grading, it would come back 1.8 coverless. Obviously not the right cover for a remaindered book.

[Qalyar]

On 8/11/2021 at 6:21 PM, Randall Ries said:

Is that right? They wouldn't be considered restored then or get a green label? I always thought they were place holders until the copyright kicked in again. Intriguing, though.

I would think if for example the OP submitted his for grading, it would come back 1.8 coverless. Obviously not the right cover for a remaindered book.

No, this will get a legitimate grade.

The story here is that RHP printed sort of a lot more #4 covers than they did #4 interiors. RHP wasn't exactly a high-budget company flush with cash, so this presented a problem. Their solution was, as far as can be determined, to buy a lot of coverless, remaindered comics in bulk, staple the Red Circle #4 cover to them, and sell them!

There are actually comics of Red Circle Comics #4 that contain the interior for Red Circle Comics #4. There are also copies that contain the interior of a crazy array of books from a whole swathe of publishers: Batman, Claire Voyant, Crime Does Not Pay, Dairy Loves, GI Joe, Love Confessions, Love Letters, Sabu, Secret Hearts, Superman, Women Outlaws, Young Love, and very likely others. Probably the most desirable known variant includes the interior from Dorothy Lamour #4, which was cancelled before publication and so is not known to exist as its own book!

[Randall Ries]

On 8/11/2021 at 8:40 PM, Mosh Or Die said:

https://www.comics.org/issue/245456/

Huh. I would have thought CGC would tweak. The contents are the actual book. They weren't manufactured with that cover. I find it not a little ironic that if I had a copy of Capt Marvel Jr #18 with a Red Circle Comics #4 cover, then found a nice Capt Marvel Jr #18 cover and fastened it to the book it belongs to, I'd take a ding and get a PLOD or a green label. Definitely something saying "Married Cover".

[The Lions Den]

On 8/11/2021 at 9:05 PM, Randall Ries said:

Huh. I would have thought CGC would tweak. The contents are the actual book. They weren't manufactured with that cover. I find it not a little ironic that if I had a copy of Capt Marvel Jr #18 with a Red Circle Comics #4 cover, then found a nice Capt Marvel Jr #18 cover and fastened it to the book it belongs to, I'd take a ding and get a PLOD or a green label. Definitely something saying "Married Cover".

[Qalyar]

On 8/11/2021 at 8:05 PM, Randall Ries said:

Huh. I would have thought CGC would tweak. The contents are the actual book. They weren't manufactured with that cover. I find it not a little ironic that if I had a copy of Capt Marvel Jr #18 with a Red Circle Comics #4 cover, then found a nice Capt Marvel Jr #18 cover and fastened it to the book it belongs to, I'd take a ding and get a PLOD or a green label. Definitely something saying "Married Cover".

But that's exactly what should happen, because that would be a married cover. The interior pages of Captain Marvel Jr. inside that Red Circle #4 don't belong in a Captain Marvel Jr. cover. Long ago, those pages were inside one of those covers. But that cover was removed when the book was remaindered, before Rural Home acquired the interior.

Rural Home manufactured this book with this interior. No, they didn't print the interior. No, what they did almost certainly wasn't legal, and absolutely couldn't happen now. But regardless, a comic book publisher combined this cover and these pages, and that's different than a collector, now, deciding to Frankenstein book parts together.

[grendelbo]

This begs the question, what book is it? Red Circle 4 or Captain Marvel Jr 18? As shown in the certified example I posted above, CGC calls it a Red Circle 4. Makes sense for this scenario and what Rural Home was doing, but what about other error comicbooks that have interiors that don't match the cover.

Here's an example:

What is this copy? An X-Men Adventures 9 or an Amazing Spider-Man 379? What determines a book - it's cover or it's interior?

[Qalyar]

On 8/11/2021 at 10:04 PM, grendelbo said:

This begs the question, what book is it? Red Circle 4 or Captain Marvel Jr 18? As shown in the certified example I posted above, CGC calls it a Red Circle 4. Makes sense for this scenario and what Rural Home was doing, but what about other error comicbooks that have interiors that don't match the cover.

Here's an example:

What is this copy? An X-Men Adventures 9 or an Amazing Spider-Man 379? What determines a book - it's cover or it's interior?

I believe CGC follows the cover in these cases. I know there are some slabbed examples, so someone can prove me right or wrong. Unlike the Red Circle 4s, I believe such books do get green labels -- which makes sense, really, because that XMen/Spiderman mashup book is an error vs. Rural Home's intentionally-created oddities.

[grendelbo]

On 8/11/2021 at 9:27 PM, Qalyar said:

I believe CGC follows the cover in these cases. I know there are some slabbed examples, so someone can prove me right or wrong. Unlike the Red Circle 4s, I believe such books do get green labels -- which makes sense, really, because that XMen/Spiderman mashup book is an error vs. Rural Home's intentionally-created oddities.

The Qualified label makes sense to me, but I wonder why books with cover printing or manufacturing errors get the Blue label. Why don't they get green?

And what about these?

I see a difference but I also don't between a book with the wrong interior and a book with the interior manufactured upside down.

And this one -

Does it get the Universal label because only 12 pages are from Venom 9 and not the entire interior?

[Qalyar]

On 8/11/2021 at 10:45 PM, grendelbo said:

The Qualified label makes sense to me, but I wonder why books with cover printing or manufacturing errors get the Blue label. Why don't they get green?

And what about these?

I see a difference but I also don't between a book with the wrong interior and a book with the interior manufactured upside down.

And this one -

Does it get the Universal label because only 12 pages are from Venom 9 and not the entire interior?

The Winter Soldier book got a blue label because there are enough such books that CGC seems it an (unintentional) print variant rather than a one-off error. See the black error edition of Venom Lethal Protector, for example, or the blue panels Sandman.

As to why the upside down book got blue instead of green?

But, seriously, my guess is that's because the error didn't compromise the book in any way. It has the correct cover and all the correct pages, in the correct order (more or less). I seem to recall that "manufactured with one staple" books get blue labels as well, presumably on vaguely similar grounds.

[grendelbo]

On 8/11/2021 at 10:18 PM, Qalyar said:

one-off error

This alone makes sense to me the most. Thanks.

[Randall Ries]

On 8/11/2021 at 9:37 PM, Qalyar said:

But that's exactly what should happen, because that would be a married cover. The interior pages of Captain Marvel Jr. inside that Red Circle #4 don't belong in a Captain Marvel Jr. cover. Long ago, those pages were inside one of those covers. But that cover was removed when the book was remaindered, before Rural Home acquired the interior.

Rural Home manufactured this book with this interior. No, they didn't print the interior. No, what they did almost certainly wasn't legal, and absolutely couldn't happen now. But regardless, a comic book publisher combined this cover and these pages, and that's different than a collector, now, deciding to Frankenstein book parts together.

I guess I really can't see it. Remaindered books many times had the top third of their covers cut off. Someone removed them and replaced them with RCC 4 covers. The cover doesn't make the book. The interior does. Whether or not it was a collector or a mercenary looking to make some dough, that's a married cover. Just because they were put back out for sale doesn't change the process of what happened. It isn't the original cover. If it is well known that those books were once coverless and now a cover has been re-added - not even the correct cover - that's a married cover. Whether it was done by a machine in the thousands or one person sitting at a desk.

[Qalyar]

On 8/12/2021 at 8:54 AM, Randall Ries said:

I guess I really can't see it. Remaindered books many times had the top third of their covers cut off. Someone removed them and replaced them with RCC 4 covers. The cover doesn't make the book. The interior does. Whether or not it was a collector or a mercenary looking to make some dough, that's a married cover. Just because they were put back out for sale doesn't change the process of what happened. It isn't the original cover. If it is well known that those books were once coverless and now a cover has been re-added - not even the correct cover - that's a married cover. Whether it was done by a machine in the thousands or one person sitting at a desk.

The key difference is that it wasn't a random someone, it was a publisher doing this (and doing so intentionally, rather than the random error books that sometimes happen).

A similar situation happened in the 1970s, when British importer and reprint publisher Thorpe and Porter sourced a huge pile of remaindered DC (well, mostly...) books and slapped them four at a time into custom covers, then sold them as variously-titled Double Double Comics. In this case, there is no "real" comic book. T&P's Double Double Comics exist only as a T&P cover with more-or-less random remaindered interiors. They also receive Universal labels from CGC.

Obviously, these aren't books for everyone. Personally, I think the Rural Home Red Circle Comics #4s with remaindered interiors are a fascinating piece of comic production history. And I do think CGC's labeling practices are correct here.

[Randall Ries]

On 8/12/2021 at 10:13 AM, Qalyar said:

Personally, I think the Rural Home Red Circle Comics #4s with remaindered interiors are a fascinating piece of comic production history. And I do think CGC's labeling practices are correct here.

I think they are a fascinating piece of comic production history, too. I disagree with the blue labeling, though. I don't feel that just because a publisher put new covers on book they didn't actually own takes it out of the married cover category. If Matt Nelson did it, would it be a married cover or a blue label. Where is the difference between a publisher who had nothing to do with any of it and me who had a nice cover to fasten to the book it belonged on?

[Qalyar]

On 8/12/2021 at 7:48 PM, Randall Ries said:

I think they are a fascinating piece of comic production history, too. I disagree with the blue labeling, though. I don't feel that just because a publisher put new covers on book they didn't actually own takes it out of the married cover category. If Matt Nelson did it, would it be a married cover or a blue label. Where is the difference between a publisher who had nothing to do with any of it and me who had a nice cover to fasten to the book it belonged on?

Matt is many things, but he's not a comic book publishing company.

... or is he?? ...