High End BA Grades outside of investing 0

[Royardee]

Hello everyone!

I'm a high end Yu-gi-oh! collector (mostly world championship cards), but I have also collected 100s of graded cards. I recently have been wanting to cross over into graded comics. Mostly keys of comics that I've enjoyed over the years (majority being bronze age). I'd also like to note that even though I spend large amounts of money on these items, I am not an investor of any kind. My goal is not to make money, so I'd appreciate if the advice was not revolved around doing so. 

I'm wondering what grades would be considered worth collecting for actual condition? To give an example, I'd like to use trading cards. Simply put, a PSA 10 sells for less than a BGS 10 a BGS 10 will sell for even less than a BGS Black Label. Generally, BGS 10s and Black Labels are pretty rare to come buy but are a complete sham. There are no real visual signs of a BGS or black label being better than a PSA 10. I could give a dozen reasons for why this is, but essentially it's a grade for investors. I'm wondering if that exists in comics. At what grade does condition reach its absolute peak? The difference between a 2.0 and a 9.0 is obviously large, but is there a difference at all between a 9.6 and a 9.8 for example? If you can visually see an improvement in condition I am all for paying the extra money, but an imaginary improvement for the sake of money is not for me. 

I would like to note, that I believe even the smallest upgrades in condition are worth paying for. If it turns out that a 10.0 is even slightly less damaged than a 9.9, I support the price increase. However, if those two are identical in reality, it's not worth it for someone who's not investing in the comic since you are buying the grade and not the comic at that point. Interested to hear what the veteran collectors think about this, and I appreciate the advice!

[revat]

For BA The standard high grade is 9.8, as in premium collectors would choose them.

if it’s a bit older or rarer BA maybe 9.4 or 9.6

 

[Yorick]

@Royardee Welcome to the Boards!

I came to comics generally for the artwork and the stories.  With Yu-gi-oh! cards, there are only the two sides of a card.  You are able to appreciate everything the card has to offer even in a case.  This is not so with comic books.

Regarding grades, 9.8 is pretty much the top grade CGC gives out.  9.9 and 10 grades are rare.  There is a lot of difference in comic grading vs card grading.  An example being that a comic book's centering does not factor in the grade.  Sometimes there is no perceivable difference between a 9.8 and a 9.6.

Bronze age keys in 9.8 can be expensive (always depending on the flavor of the month).  Good luck!

[MAR1979]

Please note there will always be exceptions and outliers!

My take on Bronze Age High grade:

Bronze that qualify for modern CGC grading tier (1975-end of Bronze) :

9.8w commands the highest prices. 9.8ow/w by most collectors is considered to be fine by most collectors especially on 1975-1979 books and on low pop stuff like Gold Key, Charlton, Whitman, Archie

9.6w - the newer the book the less desirable it becomes unless it is a key. Even then a very late Bronze 9.6w might only be 1/3 or 1/4 the value of a 9.8.  9.6ow/w starts to get dicey in value on non high demand books as high end collectors usually have low interest.

9.4 for some ultra-low pop and rare Gold Key, Charlton, Whitman, Archie, Harvey and other smaller publishers is sometimes the best most collectors can hope to find thus making it the only viable option in some cases.  Especially if if no 9.8's exists and 1 or less 9.6's - example Twilight Zone #84 is sought after by Frank Miller collectors in 8.5 and above and to a lesser extent #85 (see my sig ) is as well

Bronze that do not qualify for modern CGC grading tier (1969/1970-1974):

9.8w commands a premium! 9.8ow/w is most common in that numerical grade for the era. A subset of collectors only want WP regardless of Silver/Bronze/Copper they will pay the premium to get it. As for me ow/w pages is just fine for pre-1975 and some Pedigrees such as Oakland ow/w is the standard with WP being the exception.

9.6w or ow/w - Solid grade and probably the most populous as high grade goes for the era.  My opinion is Keys major or minor are very desirable in this grade and for some ultra low population or condition sensitive books it may be the highest option available.

9.4 for many keys is a very decent grade and possibly the only "affordable" option.   The bigger the key the more desirable this grade becomes. In addition for Gold Key, Charlton, Whitman, Archie, Harvey and other smaller publishers 9.2 or 9.4 may be the highest known extant grade .  See my sig for Little Stooges #7

 

Bottom line; if not for investing simply buy what you like and don't worry about what some high end OCD collector like me thinks. 

 

 

Edited October 20, 2022 by MAR1979

[Axelrod]

If you truly don't care what it is "worth" and are just looking for books that "look" the best, I would say that you can definitely find 9.6 books that - to all outward appearances - look just as good as a 9.8.  You may even be able to find 9.4 books that look just as good from the outside. 

And on the flip side, just because the grade says 9.8 doesn't mean that it will look perfect.  You can find many, many examples of 9.8 books with notable, visible defects.    

So with comics, if what you only care about is appearance, there is no substitute for looking directly at the book and visually inspecting it.  The numerical grade by itself isn't going to tell you what you want.  Though certainly the chances are much better that the book will look perfect if it has that highest grade. 

[Royardee]

On 10/20/2022 at 7:17 AM, Yorick said:

@Royardee Welcome to the Boards!

I came to comics generally for the artwork and the stories.  With Yu-gi-oh! cards, there are only the two sides of a card.  You are able to appreciate everything the card has to offer even in a case.  This is not so with comic books.

Regarding grades, 9.8 is pretty much the top grade CGC gives out.  9.9 and 10 grades are rare.  There is a lot of difference in comic grading vs card grading.  An example being that a comic book's centering does not factor in the grade.  Sometimes there is no perceivable difference between a 9.8 and a 9.6.

Bronze age keys in 9.8 can be expensive (always depending on the flavor of the month).  Good luck!

That's a great point! The are more than 20 pages we can't see that are also graded. So generally, it would come down to how much you trust the grading authority. Many collectors I have talked to say that the community has generally accepted CGC. They have also told me that they have never seen something crazy like a 9.8 getting cracked and re-subbed, then coming back a 7.0. This has happened many times in the card world. PSA 10s getting cracked and returning as PSA 6s or PSA 7s. I think the reason comics have more consistent grades is because you actually need real training to grade them. What do you think about that? I have seen that there are near a dozen ways to restore a comic for example, and some can be very very subtle. I think anyone can grade cards, and they hardly train their graders. Some of my close friends work as graders and they aren't really trained much at all. That seems to be why there are so many inconsistencies with grades. Would you say you see that less in comics because it requires a more trained individual to grade them, or just more professionalism from the company overall?

[Royardee]

On 10/20/2022 at 12:45 PM, Axelrod said:

If you truly don't care what it is "worth" and are just looking for books that "look" the best, I would say that you can definitely find 9.6 books that - to all outward appearances - look just as good as a 9.8.  You may even be able to find 9.4 books that look just as good from the outside. 

And on the flip side, just because the grade says 9.8 doesn't mean that it will look perfect.  You can find many, many examples of 9.8 books with notable, visible defects.    

So with comics, if what you only care about is appearance, there is no substitute for looking directly at the book and visually inspecting it.  The numerical grade by itself isn't going to tell you what you want.  Though certainly the chances are much better that the book will look perfect if it has that highest grade. 

I see. So the inside is also an issue. Is it possible that the only defects the book has were on the outside, but the inside pages were perfect and that's why it's still a 9.8? I'm starting to think the best you can do is look on the outside and then trust the grading authority to have done their job on the inside. If that is the case, logically a 9.8 would be the best copies based on the information we are given to work with no?

[Royardee]

On 10/20/2022 at 7:59 AM, MAR1979 said:

Please note there will always be exceptions and outliers!

My take on Bronze Age High grade:

Bronze that qualify for modern CGC grading tier (1975-end of Bronze) :

9.8w commands the highest prices. 9.8ow/w by most collectors is considered to be fine by most collectors especially on 1975-1979 books and on low pop stuff like Gold Key, Charlton, Whitman, Archie

9.6w - the newer the book the less desirable it becomes unless it is a key. Even then a very late Bronze 9.6w might only be 1/3 or 1/4 the value of a 9.8.  9.6ow/w starts to get dicey in value on non high demand books as high end collectors usually have low interest.

9.4 for some ultra-low pop and rare Gold Key, Charlton, Whitman, Archie, Harvey and other smaller publishers is sometimes the best most collectors can hope to find thus making it the only viable option in some cases.  Especially if if no 9.8's exists and 1 or less 9.6's - example Twilight Zone #84 is sought after by Frank Miller collectors in 8.5 and above and to a lesser extent #85 (see my sig ) is as well

Bronze that do not qualify for modern CGC grading tier (1969/1970-1974):

9.8w commands a premium! 9.8ow/w is most common in that numerical grade for the era. A subset of collectors only want WP regardless of Silver/Bronze/Copper they will pay the premium to get it. As for me ow/w pages is just fine for pre-1975 and some Pedigrees such as Oakland ow/w is the standard with WP being the exception.

9.6w or ow/w - Solid grade and probably the most populous as high grade goes for the era.  My opinion is Keys major or minor are very desirable in this grade and for some ultra low population or condition sensitive books it may be the highest option available.

9.4 for many keys is a very decent grade and possibly the only "affordable" option.   The bigger the key the more desirable this grade becomes. In addition for Gold Key, Charlton, Whitman, Archie, Harvey and other smaller publishers 9.2 or 9.4 may be the highest known extant grade .  See my sig for Little Stooges #7

 

Bottom line; if not for investing simply buy what you like and don't worry about what some high end OCD collector like me thinks. 

 

 

Thank you for your insight! I have come to the conclusion that the best course of action is to buy a 9.8 of a book that I have deemed to have a solid front and back, then trust CGC to do their job since I will never see the inside pages. From what most collectors have told me, CGC is pretty consistent with their grades. Most of the stories I've heard of people not getting grades they've felt they deserved are within 0.2 of each other. 

It looks like 9.8w it is then, as I wouldn't be interested in ow pages tbh with you. Thank you for telling me about the rarer publishers to come by. I am still a comic noob, and just a guy that has read comics. Much like Yu-gi-oh! players that have no knowledge of the collecting side of the hobby. Is there any other advice you may have for me as a new collector in the space? Many of the titles I like are very costly and challenging (Marvel Spotlight #5!), so any other information you may have would be much appreciated!

[namisgr]

When building my bronze age collection the focus was on books with the best eye appeal I could find, tempered by the cost.  As others have mentioned here already, on occasion a book assigned a 9.4 by CGC will look better than other copies graded 9.6.  Same with some 9.6s looking as good if not better than others graded 9.8.  

CGC's numerical grading is all about judging structural defects, but they don't affect the eye appeal of books all the same.  Is a book not a 10.0 because of a tiny ruffling of a corner?  A lone small spine stress line?  A barely perceptible corner crease?  A surface impression that doesn't break paper or color?  A small speck of dirt on the cover?  A book not laying perfectly flat?  These defects don't all have equivalent effects on eye appeal, and collectors have different views on ones they find more acceptable than others.

Similarly, there are production issues that affect eye appeal but not the CGC structural grade.  Are the cover colors rich and the cover glossy?  How deep is the color strike?  Is the cover registered well front to back?  Is it registered well top to bottom? Is is straight or crooked?  Are there production defects like tiny bindery tears, paper creases, extra paper on an interior page?  Are the staples placed right on the spine, or are they on the back or front covers and, if so, by how much?  Is the cover stock still snow white, or has it yellowed?

In this collectors' viewpoint, then, the CGC grade is a guide to the preservation and overall appeal of a book, but not the whole story.  How a book looks is paramount, and for bronze age comics that aren't especially scarce in high grade it is possible to select from among several different copies of a particular issue for the one that looks the best in one's subjective view, notwithstanding the assigned numerical grade.

Here's an example of a bronze comic that CGC graded 9.4 based on its structure, but that is nicer looking to me (having once owned it) than many other copies of the ish that they graded higher.  Next to it is a CGC 9.6 that I personally don't think is as nice a copy.

    

Edited October 22, 2022 by namisgr

[MAR1979]

On 10/21/2022 at 8:56 AM, namisgr said:

When building my bronze age collection the focus was on books with the best eye appeal I could find.  As others have mentioned here already, on occasion a book assigned a 9.4 by CGC will look better than other copies graded 9.6.  Same with some 9.6s looking as good if not better than others graded 9.8.  

CGC's numerical grading is all about judging structural defects, but they don't affect the eye appeal of books all the same.  Is a book not a 10.0 because of a tiny ruffling of a corner?  A lone small spine stress line?  A barely perceptible corner crease?  A surface impression that doesn't break paper or color?  A small speck of dirt on the cover?  These defects don't all have equivalent effects on eye appeal, and collectors have different views on ones they find more acceptable than others.

Similarly, there are production issues that affect eye appeal but not the CGC structural grade.  Are the cover colors rich and the cover glossy?  How deep is the color strike?  Is the cover registered well front to back?  Is it registered well top to bottom? Is is straight or crooked?  Are there production defects like tiny bindery tears, paper creases, extra paper on an interior page?  Are the staples placed right on the spine, or are they on the back or front covers and, if so, by how much?

In this collectors' viewpoint, then, the CGC grade is a guide to the preservation and overall appeal of a book, but not the whole story.  How a book looks is paramount, and for bronze age comics that aren't especially scarce in high grade it is possible to select from among several different copies of a particular issue for the one that looks the best in one's subjective view, notwithstanding the assigned numerical grade.

Here's an example of a bronze comic that CGC graded 9.4 based on its structure, but that is nicer looking to me than many other copies of the ish that they graded higher.  Next to it is a CGC 9.6 that I personally don't think is as nice a copy.

    

Exactly. CGC issues Technical-Structural grades. I do have a bunch of Silver and Bronze in 9.0-9.4 that look way nicer than many 9.8's I own.

It cliche but true collectors buy the book not the slab label. Posers merely look at label and nothing else.

The question to ask oneself is do you love the hobby or simply concerned with resale. Sadly the latter is the norm and will likely only skew more in that direction going forward.

Edited October 21, 2022 by MAR1979

[Royardee]

On 10/21/2022 at 2:56 AM, namisgr said:

When building my bronze age collection the focus was on books with the best eye appeal I could find, tempered by the cost.  As others have mentioned here already, on occasion a book assigned a 9.4 by CGC will look better than other copies graded 9.6.  Same with some 9.6s looking as good if not better than others graded 9.8.  

CGC's numerical grading is all about judging structural defects, but they don't affect the eye appeal of books all the same.  Is a book not a 10.0 because of a tiny ruffling of a corner?  A lone small spine stress line?  A barely perceptible corner crease?  A surface impression that doesn't break paper or color?  A small speck of dirt on the cover?  A book not laying perfectly flat?  These defects don't all have equivalent effects on eye appeal, and collectors have different views on ones they find more acceptable than others.

Similarly, there are production issues that affect eye appeal but not the CGC structural grade.  Are the cover colors rich and the cover glossy?  How deep is the color strike?  Is the cover registered well front to back?  Is it registered well top to bottom? Is is straight or crooked?  Are there production defects like tiny bindery tears, paper creases, extra paper on an interior page?  Are the staples placed right on the spine, or are they on the back or front covers and, if so, by how much?

In this collectors' viewpoint, then, the CGC grade is a guide to the preservation and overall appeal of a book, but not the whole story.  How a book looks is paramount, and for bronze age comics that aren't especially scarce in high grade it is possible to select from among several different copies of a particular issue for the one that looks the best in one's subjective view, notwithstanding the assigned numerical grade.

Here's an example of a bronze comic that CGC graded 9.4 based on its structure, but that is nicer looking to me (having once owned it) than many other copies of the ish that they graded higher.  Next to it is a CGC 9.6 that I personally don't think is as nice a copy.

    

Oh wow, that’s a good point. I’m thinking of going a similar route to cards then. Buy a high grade, but inspect multiple different copies if I can, and choose the best one. 
 

The 9.6 you showed has the black portion of the cover way in to the right. Is that just bad centering? You’re right, the 9.4 looks better in this scenario. This doesn’t affect the grade at all?

[Royardee]

On 10/21/2022 at 3:41 AM, Techmate said:

 

This makes zero sense to me 

Basically, an investor only buys something because it may make them money in the future. If the item wouldn’t make them money, they would not buy it. 
 

Collectors will buy something because they actually want it. In this case, I will buy high grades if I think the condition is actually changing from grade to grade. In card grading, it’s hard to buy high grades because there’s no real set of standards. So the conditions vary wildly. From what I’ve seen, that’s not the case in comics. It comes down to trusting the grading authority or not and that’s what I’ve decided to do with CGC. So as someone who chases condition, it makes sense to buy a 9.8. As a collector, not an investor. 

 

[Logan510]

On 10/21/2022 at 7:56 AM, namisgr said:

When building my bronze age collection the focus was on books with the best eye appeal I could find, tempered by the cost.  As others have mentioned here already, on occasion a book assigned a 9.4 by CGC will look better than other copies graded 9.6.  Same with some 9.6s looking as good if not better than others graded 9.8.  

CGC's numerical grading is all about judging structural defects, but they don't affect the eye appeal of books all the same.  Is a book not a 10.0 because of a tiny ruffling of a corner?  A lone small spine stress line?  A barely perceptible corner crease?  A surface impression that doesn't break paper or color?  A small speck of dirt on the cover?  A book not laying perfectly flat?  These defects don't all have equivalent effects on eye appeal, and collectors have different views on ones they find more acceptable than others.

Similarly, there are production issues that affect eye appeal but not the CGC structural grade.  Are the cover colors rich and the cover glossy?  How deep is the color strike?  Is the cover registered well front to back?  Is it registered well top to bottom? Is is straight or crooked?  Are there production defects like tiny bindery tears, paper creases, extra paper on an interior page?  Are the staples placed right on the spine, or are they on the back or front covers and, if so, by how much?

In this collectors' viewpoint, then, the CGC grade is a guide to the preservation and overall appeal of a book, but not the whole story.  How a book looks is paramount, and for bronze age comics that aren't especially scarce in high grade it is possible to select from among several different copies of a particular issue for the one that looks the best in one's subjective view, notwithstanding the assigned numerical grade.

Here's an example of a bronze comic that CGC graded 9.4 based on its structure, but that is nicer looking to me (having once owned it) than many other copies of the ish that they graded higher.  Next to it is a CGC 9.6 that I personally don't think is as nice a copy.

    

Agreed. For my collection I would prefer the one on the left, for flipping the one on the right.

[Royardee]

On 10/21/2022 at 3:25 AM, MAR1979 said:

Exactly. CGC issues Technical-Structural grades. I do have a bunch of Silver and Bronze in 9.0-9.4 that look way nicer than many 9.8's I own.

It cliche but true collectors buy the book not the slab label. Posers merely look at label and nothing else.

The question to ask oneself is do you love the hobby or simply concerned with resale. Sadly the latter is the norm and will likely only skew more in that direction going forward.

It's a little more complicated than that though isn't it? Your 9.4 that looks better than your 9.8 could just be the front and back right? Couldn't the insides on the other pages be better than your 9.4? Then the 9.8 would still be a better conditioned copy in that case right? In the card world yeah, we just buy the card and not the grade, but seems more complicated in the comic world.

Edited October 22, 2022 by Royardee

[MAR1979]

On 10/21/2022 at 11:19 AM, Royardee said:

It's a little more complicated than that though isn't it? Your 9.4 that looks better than you're 9.8 could just be the front and back right? Couldn't he insides on the other pages be better than you're 9.4? Then the 9.8 would still be a better conditioned copy in that case right? In the card world yeah, we just buy the card and not the grade, but seems more complicated in the comic world.

with a structural grade things like color depth, focus registration, gloss, centerering, eveness of covers are not taken into account. In effect the overall presentation quality of a comic is of no relevance.

Many collectors take presentation quality into consideration

Better is subjective. If you buy the book based on personal criteria you establish there will be 9.8s perhaps many that fall short and lower grades that make the cut. At least for me that holds true.  

There are no absolutes with collecting.

My above comments except for outliers do not apply to copper and modern where its pretty much 9.8 or the highway

 

Edited October 21, 2022 by MAR1979

[Yorick]

On 10/21/2022 at 5:35 AM, Royardee said:

Marvel Spotlight #5

I would recommend using the Census (free to anyone here) to study what's out there regarding a certain book.

https://www.cgccomics.com/census/grades_standard.asp?title=Marvel+Spotlight&publisher=Marvel+Comics&issue=5&year=1972&issuedate=8%2F72

Over 5000 copies of that book have been graded.  You see a nice spike of numbers being graded between 6.5 - 8.0.  Only FOUR copies have graded 9.8 (and I'd imagine you know what those sell for).  It's NOT a rare book.  There's a 9.6 available on ebay right now for $60k.  BUT, relax your standards a little - go for a grade above what the average copies grades at (say 8.5) - and you can find an affordable alternative at $6400.  AND, if you know that seller on ebay, you would know that they have their own website where you could probably buy it for even less.

Think about the character too.  When Marvel comics went bankrupt in the 90's, the Ghost Rider non-comic creative rights went up for sale.  I recall it selling for the least of all the other character rights.  Didn't Nic Cage buy the rights and make a movie?  Is the character EXTRA popular RIGHT NOW?  Perhaps if you wait a year, the prices might come down and you'd be able to afford (I have no idea what your budget is) a higher grade copy.

Maybe go to a local comic book show (if there's one around).  Look at different CGC graded books available for purchase.  An 8.5 copy of a comic is a VERY nice copy.

[Yorick]

On 10/21/2022 at 5:15 AM, Royardee said:

What do you think about that? I have seen that there are near a dozen ways to restore a comic for example, and some can be very very subtle. I think anyone can grade cards, and they hardly train their graders.

I'd disagree.  There are expert card graders that missed "restoration" on some of the most expensive sports cards in the world.  CGC has missed some problems on comics as well, and you will find some of those mistakes posted here on the boards.  Graders are all human.  I would say that just because another grading company doesn't always command the prices paid for CGC books, that doesn't make the book itself a lower grade.  There are threads here about cross-over grading to CGC where other collectors have submitted their books graded by other companies to CGC.  Generally, there's not too much difference (grade-wise).

[Royardee]

On 10/21/2022 at 8:28 AM, Yorick said:

I'd disagree.  There are expert card graders that missed "restoration" on some of the most expensive sports cards in the world.  CGC has missed some problems on comics as well, and you will find some of those mistakes posted here on the boards.  Graders are all human.  I would say that just because another grading company doesn't always command the prices paid for CGC books, that doesn't make the book itself a lower grade.  There are threads here about cross-over grading to CGC where other collectors have submitted their books graded by other companies to CGC.  Generally, there's not too much difference (grade-wise).

It’s true that everyone is human, and that’s why I look for consistency. Has there ever been a case for comics having it’s grade way off the mark? Something like a 9.8 that was in 7.0 condition? Genuinely curious.

I also disagree that something such as expert card grader exists. Sports cards, from what I’ve been told, have more waxing and adhesive issues than TCG cards. So I could see needing a more trained eye there. Not sure because I don’t collect them. However, Pokémon, Yugioh, or MTG? Doesn’t exist. Anyone can grade these cards. Fake cards are extremely obvious (wrong card stock, wrong color entirely, etc. it doesn’t look like a card). Graders are given a loupe to gloss over the card for less than a minute at times front and back. 
 

This is the Reason for massive inconsistencies in trading cards. That’s why I’m genuinely curious, have you heard of situations where comics have been as inconsistent as graded TCG cards? For TCG, it’s a well know problem that has been going on for many years now. 

Edited October 22, 2022 by Royardee

[Royardee]

On 10/21/2022 at 8:16 AM, Yorick said:

I would recommend using the Census (free to anyone here) to study what's out there regarding a certain book.

https://www.cgccomics.com/census/grades_standard.asp?title=Marvel+Spotlight&publisher=Marvel+Comics&issue=5&year=1972&issuedate=8%2F72

Over 5000 copies of that book have been graded.  You see a nice spike of numbers being graded between 6.5 - 8.0.  Only FOUR copies have graded 9.8 (and I'd imagine you know what those sell for).  It's NOT a rare book.  There's a 9.6 available on ebay right now for $60k.  BUT, relax your standards a little - go for a grade above what the average copies grades at (say 8.5) - and you can find an affordable alternative at $6400.  AND, if you know that seller on ebay, you would know that they have their own website where you could probably buy it for even less.

Think about the character too.  When Marvel comics went bankrupt in the 90's, the Ghost Rider non-comic creative rights went up for sale.  I recall it selling for the least of all the other character rights.  Didn't Nic Cage buy the rights and make a movie?  Is the character EXTRA popular RIGHT NOW?  Perhaps if you wait a year, the prices might come down and you'd be able to afford (I have no idea what your budget is) a higher grade copy.

Maybe go to a local comic book show (if there's one around).  Look at different CGC graded books available for purchase.  An 8.5 copy of a comic is a VERY nice copy.

Yes, the census has been pretty helpful! I am also aware of the price of the highest grades. Just for reference, I am pretty well accustomed to 6 figure collectibles. No 7 figure collectibles in my collection, and I doubt I ever will (besides one very particular item), so that’s about where my budget is 😂.

That’s the collectible battle for sure. Buy the lower grade and save money, or go for the top. I am a very hardcore collector (if I feel it’s justified, as I’ve explained in my original post). Grading for me, is a tough one to collect. Most of the items I collect, are limited to less than 10 copies ever produced with a few being limited to 2 total. I’d classify myself as a rare hunter generally. With comics and regular cards, there were many produced. Even the lowest produced items can still have thousands of copies. So for me, the only way to make it stand out, is to aim for the top. Sometimes I do think I should be more lenient with grading though. Just grab a nice copy, but maybe not the NICEST copy. Then spend more money on the rare items. Every so often I teeter back and forth on this and you’ve incited that thought process in me again haha.

[Royardee]

On 10/21/2022 at 6:15 AM, MAR1979 said:

with a structural grade things like color depth, focus registration, gloss, centerering, eveness of covers are not taken into account. In effect the overall presentation quality of a comic is of no relevance.

Many collectors take presentation quality into consideration

Better is subjective. If you buy the book based on personal criteria you establish there will be 9.8s perhaps many that fall short and lower grades that make the cut. At least for me that holds true.  

There are no absolutes with collecting.

My above comments except for outliers do not apply to copper and modern where its pretty much 9.8 or the highway

 

I see. Also, I’d like to apologize for the many grammar issues my last reply had, was in a rush 😅.

I’ve been reading your replies as well as others and it has got me thinking a bit more. I’m going to have to think on this.

Edited October 22, 2022 by Royardee