Marvel Comics #1, October or November 1939. How rare are the OCT dated copies? 3 3

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

On 8/16/2024 at 12:42 PM, Silver Surfer said:

Thanks for that. $50K for a rare Uber key like this seem cheap. I’m guessing it should hit $100K but I wouldn’t be surprised if it fell short. I wonder if this would be a target for a professional restorer at the right price point. Do the work themself and then relist it. I have no idea if this is a viable candidate to drastically improve the cover but these guys seem to be working magic these days. 

I’m innocent in the ways of book mechanics, but the grader notes indicate obstacles. 
 

[Silver Surfer]

Leaf casting special. Makes you wonder if this was a Franken book, slapped together by tape and pages from another book. 

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

On 8/16/2024 at 12:51 PM, Silver Surfer said:

Leaf casting special. Makes you wonder if this was a Franken book, slapped together by tape and pages from another book. 

if so, it slipped by CGC

[Yorick]

No pictures of the book from the spine side.  I wonder if it's bent into that inner well?  Lots of non-color breaking creases along the spine in that front picture...

[Primetime]

On 8/16/2024 at 7:25 AM, Silver Surfer said:

What do you think price wise, Ben?

$100k+ should be easy. The OCT will bring in a premium to a few hopeful winners. 

[Primetime]

On 8/16/2024 at 10:51 AM, Silver Surfer said:

Leaf casting special. Makes you wonder if this was a Franken book, slapped together by tape and pages from another book. 

🫣

[plady69]

On 8/16/2024 at 1:42 PM, Silver Surfer said:

Thanks for that. $50K for a rare Uber key like this seem cheap. I’m guessing it should hit $100K but I wouldn’t be surprised if it fell short. I wonder if this would be a target for a professional restorer at the right price point. Do the work themself and then relist it. I have no idea if this is a viable candidate to drastically improve the cover but these guys seem to be working magic these days. 

I regret getting a bunch of early Captain America’s restored about 25 years ago. This was before CGC.  Looking back, they would have all been 1. to 2.5 and would have looked wonderful in a slab.  They had brittle pages as my Dad found them in a friends basement…

Edited August 17 by plady69
Mistakes

[pemart1966]

On 8/16/2024 at 7:34 PM, plady69 said:

I regret getting a bunch of early Captain America’s restored about 25 years ago. This was before CGC.  Looking back, they would have all been 1, to 2.5 and looked wonderful in a slab.  They had brittle pages as my Dad found them in a friends basement…

Yup - books are only unrestored once.  Once they're restored you can't un-restore them...

[plady69]

On 8/16/2024 at 8:24 PM, pemart1966 said:

Yup - books are only unrestored once.  Once they're restored you can't un-restore them...

One of many regrets from an old time collector.

[sfcityduck]

On 8/16/2024 at 5:24 PM, pemart1966 said:

Yup - books are only unrestored once.  Once they're restored you can't un-restore them...

In the fine arts world, restoration and conservation does not carry the same stigma. For good reason. The sad reality is that a CGC slab does not stop newsprint from deteriorating. At some point comic collecting has got to grow up and recognize that things like replacing rusty staples add to the value of a book, not detract from it, by adding years to the life of the book. I don't think I'm alone in viewing restoration and conservation as an important tool for collectors who want to preserve their comics and the history they represent. 

The worst thing in my eyes, is that the quote above is incorrect. The attitude towards restoration is so perverse in this hobby that collectors are encouraged to scrape off paper that has "color touch" in order to avoid the stigma of "restoration." Think about it, this hobby incentivizes people to damage their comics in order to make more money.

The reality is that there should be no distinction in the grading between restored and unrestored comics. The only grade given should reflect the condition the book would be without the restoration. Why is color touch worse than scraped paper? Why is a tear seal worse than a tear? They should all be graded the same.

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

On 8/16/2024 at 8:46 PM, sfcityduck said:

In the fine arts world, restoration and conservation does not carry the same stigma. For good reason. The sad reality is that a CGC slab does not stop newsprint from deteriorating. At some point comic collecting has got to grow up and recognize that things like replacing rusty staples add to the value of a book, not detract from it, by adding years to the life of the book. I don't think I'm alone in viewing restoration and conservation as an important tool for collectors who want to preserve their comics and the history they represent. 

The worst thing in my eyes, is that the quote above is incorrect. The attitude towards restoration is so perverse in this hobby that collectors are encouraged to scrape off paper that has "color touch" in order to avoid the stigma of "restoration." Think about it, this hobby incentivizes people to damage their comics in order to make more money.

The reality is that there should be no distinction in the grading between restored and unrestored comics. The only grade given should reflect the condition the book would be without the restoration. Why is color touch worse than scraped paper? Why is a tear seal worse than a tear? They should all be graded the same.

makes sense.  I've no knowledge of restoration techniques, but are they that easily and accurately perceived and discerned  by graders?  Does it allow for the grader to look past the restoration and perceive  the book in it's exact condition as it was prior to restoration?  If they were, then your idea makes sense to me.  

[pemart1966]

On 8/16/2024 at 10:26 PM, GreatCaesarsGhost said:

makes sense.  I've no knowledge of restoration techniques, but are they that easily and accurately perceived and discerned  by graders?  Does it allow for the grader to look past the restoration and perceive  the book in it's exact condition as it was prior to restoration?  If they were, then your idea makes sense to me.  

Not unless they have a Time Machine...

[Cat-Man_America]

On 8/17/2024 at 6:41 PM, pemart1966 said:

Not unless they have a Time Machine...

The Wabac machine didn't help restore the popularity of Mr. Peabody & Sherman either. 

[VintageComics]

On 8/16/2024 at 9:46 PM, sfcityduck said:

Why is color touch worse than scraped paper? Why is a tear seal worse than a tear? They should all be graded the same.

This happens because collectors are ignorant and choose to remain so, because the purple or Restored label made it easy to shun Restored books, rather than interact with them and force people to learn about them.

Had all books been put into blue labels at the start of the slabbing era with restoration notations, this would have forced people to learn and understand resto better, and restored books would have been stigmatized less causing less of a price gap between restored and unrestored books. 

The entire reason that there is such a large price gap between restored books and unrestored is because of this ignorance, and savvy people who have learned how to gauge what a restored book would look like in an unrestored holder have created an entire industry unrestoring these books and profiting from that price differential that exists from that ignorance.

If collectors were more savvy, they'd be paying the relative unrestored value that is hidden in a restored book and that market wouldn't exist. 

Finally, the main reason most choose to remain ignorant, is because they can afford to do so. As everyone knows, comics are mass produced and if you don't buy one copy of a "rare" book, there are still likely half a dozen or a dozen examples of most of even the rarest books in the hobby (save a few, obviously), so if you miss one copy there is usually another. 

Why look at a restored copy when 5 or 10 other UN-restored copies exist? Shun it and wait for a restored one to come along. You have that luxury.

You can't do that in fine arts, which are a "one off" creation - like a Caravaggio painting. If you miss it, it may never return. You don't have that luxury.

It's the luxury of choice that has caused the ignorance, just like it always does in everything, in real life.

 

This is why restoration on Original Art is far more acceptable. You can have a rip in a page, a repair to a page, or even replace some of the art and it doesn't affect the value nearly as much...because it's the only available example of that page. 

What is going to happen is eventually people will realize that restoration will be mandatory for old comics and it will become more acceptable. 

A lot of people don't realize that Overstreet used to be OK with replacing staples on older books in lower grades. It wasn't supposed to affect the value. Go read your older Overstreet grading standards and you'll see. 

We'll get back there again. Things always come full circle. 

I remember when the oldest comics were 'only' 50 years old. Some of you remember seeing GA keys stacked on piles and handled like new magazines. They're going to be 100 years old soon and people will have no choice but accept things like de-acidification, replacing staples and other preservation techniques. 

Time is going to make sure of it. 

[adamstrange]

On 8/18/2024 at 1:00 PM, VintageComics said:

This happens because collectors are ignorant and choose to remain so

If it wasn't for those pesky collectors, the market would work just fine.

Edited August 18 by adamstrange

[VintageComics]

On 8/18/2024 at 2:38 PM, adamstrange said:

If it wasn't for those pesky collectors, the market would work just fine.

The grade snobs are the worst!!!

[VintageComics]

To put it in more plain language, it's just capitalism. 

Capitalism is water and it fills every opening it touches, so when there is an opening, someone finds a way to profit from it.

Effort is directly relate to profit. 

If you reduce your effort, you reduce how much you potentially profit. 

If you choose not to put in the effort, someone else will. 

If you want to reduce the number of people scraping color off of books and valuing them higher, collectors just need to value those books higher to reduce the margins.

I said the exact same thing about pressing 15-20 years ago. The only reason a pressing industry exists is because collectors don't pay more for lower grade books with pressable defects and someone else will. 

If someone paid, say, a 9.4 price for a 9.2 that will press to a 9.4, there would be no incentive to buy that book as a 9.2, press it to a 9.4 by flippers, and it would eliminate that entire section of the hobby.

And if someone chooses not to put in the effort but complains about the results, well that's just not going to fly in my books. It just means you're a communist.

[buttock]

On 8/18/2024 at 1:09 PM, VintageComics said:

To put it in more plain language, it's just capitalism. 

Capitalism is water and it fills every opening it touches, so when there is an opening, someone finds a way to profit from it.

Effort is directly relate to profit. 

If you reduce your effort, you reduce how much you potentially profit. 

If you choose not to put in the effort, someone else will. 

If you want to reduce the number of people scraping color off of books and valuing them higher, collectors just need to value those books higher to reduce the margins.

I said the exact same thing about pressing 15-20 years ago. The only reason a pressing industry exists is because collectors don't pay more for lower grade books with pressable defects and someone else will. 

If someone paid, say, a 9.4 price for a 9.2 that will press to a 9.4, there would be no incentive to buy that book as a 9.2, press it to a 9.4 by flippers, and it would eliminate that entire section of the hobby.

And if someone chooses not to put in the effort but complains about the results, well that's just not going to fly in my books. It just means you're a communist.

Mods notified. 

[VintageComics]

On 8/18/2024 at 6:55 PM, buttock said:

Mods notified. 

These mods?

 

[musicmeta]

Are there any raw 9.0+ copies floating around out there somewhere and the owners just don't want to get it graded?