marf Posted January 21, 2023 Share Posted January 21, 2023 (edited) Thanks! Can a CNP improve grade? Edited May 26 by marf FoggyNelson 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Point Five Posted January 22, 2023 Share Posted January 22, 2023 I'd say 4.5 and might improve a bit. I hate to say this, and it may just be the photos, but the top and bottom edges look a bit wavy -- maybe take a closer look for signs of trimming. FoggyNelson 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scburdet Posted January 22, 2023 Share Posted January 22, 2023 Point Five knows his stuff. If it's not restored, maybe a 5.0 pressed Point Five 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FoggyNelson Posted January 22, 2023 Share Posted January 22, 2023 Great key VG+ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grendelbo Posted January 23, 2023 Share Posted January 23, 2023 4.5/5.0 Thanks for posting. Anyone else glad @marfjoined the boards so we can see his books? Point Five 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marf Posted May 26 Author Share Posted May 26 After CNP huge bump! Title Avengers Issue 4 Issue Date 3/64 Issue Year 1964 Publisher Marvel Comics Grade 7.0 Page Quality OFF-WHITE Grade Category Universal Art Comments Stan Lee story Jack Kirby and George Roussos cover and art Key Comments 1st Silver Age appearance of Captain America (Steve Rogers). Sub-Mariner appearance. Grader Notes spine stress lines breaks color wear full bottom of front cover breaks color light Marvel tears front cover 1950's war comics, Math Teacher, grendelbo and 1 other 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1950's war comics Posted May 27 Share Posted May 27 Holy Toledo a 7.0 !!! FoggyNelson and davidking623 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadroch Posted May 28 Share Posted May 28 (edited) Ridiculous. Someone manipulated that spine to hide the damage. It's a good thing CGC charges more for higher grades. Edited May 28 by shadroch grendelbo 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadroch Posted May 28 Share Posted May 28 What was done to the Marvel chipping? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KCOComics Posted May 28 Share Posted May 28 Who did the press? CCS? It does look like a totally different book. It's obviously not, but the press took away a lot of defects. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadroch Posted May 28 Share Posted May 28 How does a press fix the missing chunk by Subby? Hopefully, someone is trying to pull a prank. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KCOComics Posted May 28 Share Posted May 28 On 5/27/2024 at 9:22 PM, shadroch said: How does a press fix the missing chunk by Subby? Hopefully, someone is trying to pull a prank. Yeah - above Ironman's hand. That book has been transformed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grendelbo Posted May 28 Share Posted May 28 (edited) Maybe it was a stain. Edited May 28 by grendelbo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadroch Posted May 28 Share Posted May 28 Giant-Man's and the Wasps fingers have something funky going on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RockMyAmadeus Posted May 28 Share Posted May 28 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vheflin Posted May 28 Share Posted May 28 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Qalyar Posted May 28 Share Posted May 28 Hoo boy. I am rather significantly concerned that this book was restored and that that restoration went undetected at CGC. Before showing why that's the case, I'd like to note that this is almost certainly the same book. The pattern of wear at the bottom left corner is identical between the original photos and the slabbed copy, and that's fairly conclusive. I have no opinion on the top of the book. The original photo is blurry enough, and the paper wavy enough, that I'm willing to buy just about anything happening up there. But I'm very concerned about the right edge. And it's not just about that big obvious chunk that was previous missing above Iron Man's hand, although I'll address that, too. Let's talk about Subby's inset box. Here is a close-up of the upper-right corner of the inset box from the original image. Like most copies of Avengers 4, the blue box doesn't come to a point because it's clipped by the edge of the cover. That's actually normal. The artwork for this cover is wider than the actual dimensions the books were cut to, so just about ALL copies clip this box. Some clip is VERY severely if they were miscut to the right. You can currently see a couple of those in stock at MCS. But what's important here isn't that the box is clipped, it's that its uneven. It's tough to notice in that picture, but there's actually a chip out of the right margin at the corner of this box. Despite the poor resolution, you can see the darker, off-white color of the interior page behind the missing piece, which matches the color of the interior page shown behind the larger, obvious piece out below. Take note of how that makes the corner of Subby's inset box slant up and to the left, away from the cover margin. Now let's have a look at this miracle 7.0 slab. And immediately, we have a problem. Subby's inset box is "clipped", but well away from the margin of the book. This isn't just an optical illusion caused by page fan, either; if you look at the back of the slab, you can see the pages actually fan the other way. So that's already a huge red flag. But more importantly, look at how the corner of the inset box is clipped on an uneven diagonal, up and to the left, away from the margin. This is impossible on a book that has not been manipulated, because the only reason you shouldn't see the corner of that inset box is that it is cut off by the vertical edge of the page. There's only one possible answer here. Through some method, whether that's traditional leaf casting or some sort of "dry grafting" process, material was added to the right edge of this book, filling in the chip present at the corner of the inset box. However, perhaps rightly believing that color touch would be too easily detected, the restorationist did not ink in the missing piece of the inset's corner. And, honestly, if we look further down, to that big missing chunk, the situation becomes even more obvious. The first image, on the left, is the large chip out from the original. The second image is the same area from the slab. You can see a slight color distortion along the edge of the cover. In isolation, it would be easy to pass this off as uneven aging of the paper, but I think that's clearly the imperfect color match of the fill material. zzutak, grendelbo, RockMyAmadeus and 1 other 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RockMyAmadeus Posted May 28 Share Posted May 28 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzutak Posted May 28 Share Posted May 28 @Qalyar's analysis above is compelling -- compelling enough that @CGC Mike may want to bring this one to the attention of CGC HQ. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rexinnih Posted May 28 Share Posted May 28 Well, either way. Nice result. Congrats. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...