Fantastic Four No 67 back cover has a tear- restoration 0

[rawchop]

Hey all, I just became a paying member today. I participated in the grading contest recently and found this forum to be very knowledgeable.

I came across a collection recently. I found this copy of FF 67 that is pretty pristine. My heart raced as I was examining it until I saw the back cover. There is a 1" + horizontal tear about 1/2 way up the long edge of the back cover as well as a small chip which may be intact and folded. My question is regarding restoration. How much does the tear affect the value? Is it worth getting fixed? Is this something that CGC can handle? Any idea what a resto would cost? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[revat]

There are for sure people who can "fix" the tear and chip, but would not be worth it FROM A FINANCIAL PERSPECTIVE, as restored comics have a significantly lower achievable price.  I do think CGC can handle it, and you can submit it to them to get a screening of how much the restoration will cost (understandably, it varies).

However, given that this reprint is only worth maybe $40-$50 max in its current condition WITHOUT THE TEARS, I can't see any scenario where this book is even worth slabbing, let alone restoring.  A restored CGC 9.0 (at best) reprint from the 90's, I don't know if you could even get $10 on the open market.  

I'd say just keep it raw and try to sell it for $25-$30 when Adam Warlock is featured a movie trailer.

Hope this helps, good luck.

Edited March 25, 2022 by revat

[rawchop]

Huh, hadn't considered that is was a reprint. How did you know?

 

R

[rawchop]

I see that the original had a different back cover. Feel a little silly now.

Thanks for the help.

Rawchop

[revat]

On 3/25/2022 at 4:33 PM, rawchop said:

Huh, hadn't considered that is was a reprint. How did you know?

 

R

generally-if you look in the indicia on the first or last page it should tell you about the publishing info.

and more expert folks might mention the coloring or type of ink on the cover, or possibly the difference of size in bronze comics vs modern comics (which is definitely a thing).

BUT for me in this case, the advertisement on the back cover gave it away.  That's not an ad from the 60's, based on both the content and the way its presented.

[revat]

On 3/25/2022 at 4:38 PM, rawchop said:

I see that the original had a different back cover. Feel a little silly now.

Thanks for the help.

Rawchop

This is a newbie section, no reason to feel silly.  And honestly, the answer PROBABLY would have been the same either way.  Restoration typically murders your resale value.  

 

[StillOnly25Cents]

what ever did people in the 60's do about pimples?!

[KCOComics]

On 3/25/2022 at 8:49 PM, StillOnly25Cents said:

what ever did people in the 60's do about pimples?!

It is interesting that the stridex marketing team targeted comic book readers in the 90s 

[grebal]

I think of them as the "stridex" reprints but I think most call them the JC Pennys reprints.  Pretty sure were sold in '94 JC Penney Christmas catalog. The ads were modern (from 1994) except IIRC the golden age, Young Men (forget what #) w/original ads.
FF #66 & 67
Amazing fantasy#13
Spider-Man annual #5
Avengers #88
Captain America #109
Hulk #140
Sgt. Fury #13
Submariner #8
Thor annual #2
Tomb of Dracula #25
X-men #28,62,63

Fifteen comics in the 'set' - and again IIRC, a few were reprints of reprints (not sourced from the original issue) - the FF 66, the Cap cover Sgt Fury, and the early X-Men.

[SOTIcollector]

On 3/25/2022 at 7:39 PM, revat said:

generally-if you look in the indicia on the first or last page it should tell you about the publishing info.

and more expert folks might mention the coloring or type of ink on the cover, or possibly the difference of size in bronze comics vs modern comics (which is definitely a thing).

BUT for me in this case, the advertisement on the back cover gave it away.  That's not an ad from the 60's, based on both the content and the way its presented.

Yes, the most common way to identify a reprint is to look in the indicia (fine-print publication information) at the bottom of the first page. The indicia will usually tell you the title, issue number, date, and printing.  However, in rare cases that indicia information is wrong, and this happens to be one of those cases.  Off the top of my head, I can come up with a couple prominent examples of a reprinted indicia that does not give the correct publication date or printing.

1) Famous First Editions.  These were oversized reprints of DC comics, published in the mid-1970's, which reprinted almost exactly Action Comics #1, Detective Comics #27, and some other historic comics.  The reprints had an outer cover added to a faithful (but oversized) reproduction of the original, which included and exact reproduction of the original 1930's or 40's indicia.  There have been reports over the years of people removing the outer cover and trying to pass off these reprints as original. Some people have been tempted to fall for the deception because the indicia, usually a reliable source of information, seems to indicate they are original.

2) The JC Penney reprints from the 1990's, which were sold as part of the JC Penney "vintage packs".  Each reprint included all of the story content from the original, with a copy of the original indicia at the bottom of page 1, plus the original front cover including price.  If memory serves, there may have been some of the JC Penney books that indicated in the indicia that they were second prints.  However, a good number of the JC Penney books had a reproduced indicia that made no mention of the fact that the books was a reprint.  The way to distinguish the Penney's reprints is from the 1990's-era ads in them, such as the Stridex ad.

For more information than you probably want about the JC Penney vintage packs, see this article.  Marvel Vintage Pack - Heroes Galaxy

 

Edited March 26, 2022 by SOTIcollector

[Bob Troub]

On 3/25/2022 at 7:33 PM, rawchop said:

Huh, hadn't considered that is was a reprint. How did you know?

 

R

By the back cover....

[theCapraAegagrus]

Restoration is rarely worth it.