CGC Page Color data

[gifflefunk]

Page Color list:

 

1 White

2 Off-White to White

3 Off-White

4 Light Tan to White

5 Light Tan to Off-White

6 Light Tan

7 Pink to White

8 Pink to Off-White

9 Pink to Light Tan

10 Pink

11 Cream to White

12 Cream to Off-White

13 Cream to Light Tan

14 Cream to Pink

15 Cream

16 Tan to White

17 Tan to Off-White

18 Tan to Light Tan

19 Tan to Pink

20 Tan to Cream

21 Tan

22 Dark Tan to White

23 Dark Tan to Off-White

24 Dark Tan to Light Tan

25 Dark Tan to Pink

26 Dark Tan to Cream

27 Dark Tan to Tan

28 Dark Tan

29 Slightly Brittle

30 Brittle

 

Here is a chart of the various CGC page colors I've come across "in the wild". I would be interested in scans of any CGCed books that have page color/grade combinations not found on the chart (for future inclusion).

 

Pink pages?

 

Books manufactured with Pink paper tend to be noted as such on the CGC label.

 

As an owner of about 200 Fox books, I can confirm two things (1) between 1939-1947 Fox did use "tinted" paper at times, the colors I've seen are pinks, blues, and greys; and (2) In late 1947 Victor Fox bought his own paper mill and produced his own paper. Some of this paper tends to turn pink (rather unevenly in spots) because it absorbs the inks from the facing pages (and it also tends to bleed through to discolor the opposite sides). You can often find Fox books with splotches of red on the outside of the front covers because its pulled the red ink printing from the inside front cover completely through (later Fox books had the first page of story printed on the inside front cover using black and a single color, usually red). This absorbtion of the inks will often discolor the pages with a pink hue, hence the Cream to Pink designation you'll find on some CGCed Fox books.

 

Here are three non-Fox books that have a pink component noted:

Boy Explorers #1

Uncanny X-men #239

Douglas Comix

 

Shouldn't "light tan" be above "tan" and below "cream"?

 

Based on the CGC page color schema of listing edge color to interior color (or a single color if both are the same), the ranking of Light Tan above Cream would appear to be correct. The first color (edge color) is almost always the darker color due to the nature of oxidation and that the edges are more exposed to air than the interior portion of the page.

 

I have yet to see a label that states "Light Tan to Cream Pages", but there are many examples of "Cream to Light Tan Pages" which taken in context of other labels...

 

Off-White to White Pages

Light Tan to Off-White Pages

Cream to Light Tan Pages

 

...would indicate that Cream is a worse condition than Light Tan.