How do you grade a nice book with one fugly defect?

[dreamshark]

The Overstreet grading guidelines are pretty easy to apply when you're dealing with an accumulation of small defects, but I'm not sure what to do when faced with a comic that's in very nice shape (somewhere in the Fine to Veryfine range) with one glaring, ugly defect. What would you experts do with the following situations?

 

1) Cover is flat, glossy, with minimal or no creasing. Interior is lovely. Spine is flat, corners are square or slightly rounded. But.... the lower staple is pulled right through the cover. The staple isn't loose or rusty - all the interior pages are firmly attached - but the cover is completely detached at one staple.

 

2) Comic is as described above (except for the staple detachment), with one ugly flaw: a round discoloration that looks like there was once a price-sticker affixed to the cover that has since fallen off.

 

3) Comic as described above, but with several small, ragged tears in the back of the spine due to *sob* a cat sharpening its claws on a shelf full of comic books.

[B-Smooth]

1) qualified label 2)qualified label 3)0.5 and a bad kitty

[FFB]

Leaving aside the "Qualified" grades that CGC uses, I'd grade them the following:

 

1) Cover is flat, glossy, with minimal or no creasing. Interior is lovely. Spine is flat, corners are square or slightly rounded. But.... the lower staple is pulled right through the cover. The staple isn't loose or rusty - all the interior pages are firmly attached - but the cover is completely detached at one staple.

 

Is it "minimal" creasing or "no" creasing? This makes a huge difference. Let's assume there's no creasing. On an otherwise NM 9.4 book with a popped bottom staple, I'd grade it a FN 6.0.

 

2) Comic is as described above (except for the staple detachment), with one ugly flaw: a round discoloration that looks like there was once a price-sticker affixed to the cover that has since fallen off.

 

Assuming the book is NM 9.4 except for the stain, and assuming the stain is about 1/2 inch around and just slightly darker than the rest of the book, I'd call the book a VF-/VF 7.5-8.0 depending on how bad the stain looks.

 

3) Comic as described above, but with several small, ragged tears in the back of the spine due to *sob* a cat sharpening its claws on a shelf full of comic books.

 

How many is "several" and how "small" are they? Let's assume the book is NM 9.4 apart from five tears that are an inch long and three mm wide that penetrate the back cover and part of the last interior page. I'd grade that book a VG/FN to FN- 5.0-5.5 or so.

[Jeffreykli]

1) Cover is flat, glossy, with minimal or no creasing. Interior is lovely. Spine is flat, corners are square or slightly rounded. But.... the lower staple is pulled right through the cover. The staple isn't loose or rusty - all the interior pages are firmly attached - but the cover is completely detached at one staple.

 

Is it "minimal" creasing or "no" creasing? This makes a huge difference. Let's assume there's no creasing. On an otherwise NM 9.4 book with a popped bottom staple, I'd grade it a FN 6.0.

 

So for this book, which I graded a VF/NM without the staple pull, you'd grade less than a FN? Back cover is clean. Personally, I've priced this as a FN.

 

[FFB]

1) Cover is flat, glossy, with minimal or no creasing. Interior is lovely. Spine is flat, corners are square or slightly rounded. But.... the lower staple is pulled right through the cover. The staple isn't loose or rusty - all the interior pages are firmly attached - but the cover is completely detached at one staple.

 

Is it "minimal" creasing or "no" creasing? This makes a huge difference. Let's assume there's no creasing. On an otherwise NM 9.4 book with a popped bottom staple, I'd grade it a FN 6.0.

 

So for this book, which I graded a VF/NM without the staple pull, you'd grade less than a FN? Back cover is clean. Personally, I've priced this as a FN.

 

No, I agree with you that this book is a FN.

 

I used NM 9.4 as a baseline for the discussion because that's what we generally view as a new book with no significant defects. I wasn't suggesting the book had to start out at 9.4 to get a 6.0 with a pulled staple. My point was just that when he said "minimal or no creasing," that leaves a huge amount of leeway as to what the starting grade would be. With "minimal creasing," it might be that the book was a 7.0 without the popped staple. I wouldn't call the book a 6.0 if started as a 7.0 and then had a popped staple.

[Jeffreykli]

1) Cover is flat, glossy, with minimal or no creasing. Interior is lovely. Spine is flat, corners are square or slightly rounded. But.... the lower staple is pulled right through the cover. The staple isn't loose or rusty - all the interior pages are firmly attached - but the cover is completely detached at one staple.

 

Is it "minimal" creasing or "no" creasing? This makes a huge difference. Let's assume there's no creasing. On an otherwise NM 9.4 book with a popped bottom staple, I'd grade it a FN 6.0.

 

So for this book, which I graded a VF/NM without the staple pull, you'd grade less than a FN? Back cover is clean. Personally, I've priced this as a FN.

 

No, I agree with you that this book is a FN.

 

I used NM 9.4 as a baseline for the discussion because that's what we generally view as a new book with no significant defects. I wasn't suggesting the book had to start out at 9.4 to get a 6.0 with a pulled staple. My point was just that when he said "minimal or no creasing," that leaves a huge amount of leeway as to what the starting grade would be. With "minimal creasing," it might be that the book was a 7.0 without the popped staple. I wouldn't call the book a 6.0 if started as a 7.0 and then had a popped staple.

 

That's what I thought. Personally, I think the maximum grade a book can have with popped staple is FN. I think we agree.

[FFB]

1) Cover is flat, glossy, with minimal or no creasing. Interior is lovely. Spine is flat, corners are square or slightly rounded. But.... the lower staple is pulled right through the cover. The staple isn't loose or rusty - all the interior pages are firmly attached - but the cover is completely detached at one staple.

 

Is it "minimal" creasing or "no" creasing? This makes a huge difference. Let's assume there's no creasing. On an otherwise NM 9.4 book with a popped bottom staple, I'd grade it a FN 6.0.

 

So for this book, which I graded a VF/NM without the staple pull, you'd grade less than a FN? Back cover is clean. Personally, I've priced this as a FN.

 

No, I agree with you that this book is a FN.

 

I used NM 9.4 as a baseline for the discussion because that's what we generally view as a new book with no significant defects. I wasn't suggesting the book had to start out at 9.4 to get a 6.0 with a pulled staple. My point was just that when he said "minimal or no creasing," that leaves a huge amount of leeway as to what the starting grade would be. With "minimal creasing," it might be that the book was a 7.0 without the popped staple. I wouldn't call the book a 6.0 if started as a 7.0 and then had a popped staple.

 

That's what I thought. Personally, I think the maximum grade a book can have with popped staple is FN. I think we agree.

 

Yep, that's what I think too! The question is at what level the book has too many other defects to support a 6.0. My general feeling is that this happens around the 8.0 level.

[dreamshark]

Actually, the comics I'm talking about are probably VF or F/VF without the defect.

 

So with the popped staple they might still qualify as Fine? How about the one with the price-sticker stain?

 

I could post scans if people are interested.

 

The cat-clawed ones vary a lot (as you may have guessed, this was not a hypothetical question). Some have only a couple of small tears that could fall under the description of short spine-splits. Others are fuzzy and damaged-looking all up and down the spine, but if you look closely you find that the damage only went all the way through the spine in a few places. The worst ones have staples coming loose because of the damage. It's very sad.

I'm figuring that these books are pretty much ruined for anything except reading copies, but wondered how people approach damage that is only visible on the back of the spine, not on the cover.

[uclapeterg]

I agree with you.

[FFB]

You need to post scans.

 

Actually, the comics I'm talking about are probably VF or F/VF without the defect.

 

So with the popped staple they might still qualify as Fine? How about the one with the price-sticker stain?

 

I could post scans if people are interested.

 

The cat-clawed ones vary a lot (as you may have guessed, this was not a hypothetical question). Some have only a couple of small tears that could fall under the description of short spine-splits. Others are fuzzy and damaged-looking all up and down the spine, but if you look closely you find that the damage only went all the way through the spine in a few places. The worst ones have staples coming loose because of the damage. It's very sad.

I'm figuring that these books are pretty much ruined for anything except reading copies, but wondered how people approach damage that is only visible on the back of the spine, not on the cover.

[dreamshark]

Okay.... <pause while I try to figure out how to post a scan>

 

but I really was looking more for general guidelines than a specific grade on a specific book. So far, I've got:

 

* A comic with a popped staple is never graded higher than Fine, no matter how nice it would be otherwise.

 

Anything else come to mind?

[dreamshark]

Here's a scan of a nice-looking Hulk 102 with an ugly glue-spot around the price, presumably caused by a price-sticker that has since fallen off. How should this comic be graded (assuming no major defects on interior)?

 

I'm not so much looking for an absolute grade here as trying to figure out how much to deduct from the grade for the sticker mark. Suppose this comic were one grade higher than what you see here - how would that change your answer?

 

<crossing fingers, as this is first attempt to post a scan on these forums>

[Timulty]

[B-Smooth]

try the bread trick. OR I once got glue off by CAREFULLY scraping it with the side of my thumbnail that i slightly moistened.

[FFB]

Here's a scan of a nice-looking Hulk 102 with an ugly glue-spot around the price, presumably caused by a price-sticker that has since fallen off. How should this comic be graded (assuming no major defects on interior)?

 

I'm not so much looking for an absolute grade here as trying to figure out how much to deduct from the grade for the sticker mark. Suppose this comic were one grade higher than what you see here - how would that change your answer?

 

<crossing fingers, as this is first attempt to post a scan on these forums>

 

That book looks like a 7.5 without the stain. With the stain, I'd call it a Fine Minus/Fine 5.5-6.0.

[Timulty]

With prejudice!!!

[arexcrooke]

With prejudice!!!

I Object!

[Timulty]

With prejudice!!!

I Object!

Overruled!!!!