General 9.6-9.8 question

[1Cool]

Has anyone defined a good "rule of thumb" on what gets a 9.4 vs a 9.6 vs 9.8. I am working my way through a batch of X-Men and Iron mans and I am having a hard time setting limits for the grades. Can a 9.6-9.8 have one spine mark? Any help from the modern CGC submitters would be great. Thanks.

[ft88]

Can a 9.6-9.8 have one spine mark? .

 

Generally no especially on 1980 on up books. Even spine bends tend to get the 9.4 treatment. CGC seems to be especially harsh on spine bends like that and then they let go a millimeter production spine tear on 9.6's. Usually a 9.8 can have one ultra small soft corner or a little production fleck at the staple and thats about it.

[Mr. Zipper]

I have a decent number of late Bronze and Copper 9.6s and 9.8s. In my experience, a 9.6 may have one or two TINY hairlike spine stresses. So small that they would be easy to miss at first glance. A 9.8 should look perfect except for the slightest corner touch. I don't think I have any 9.8s with spine stresses.

 

That said, I have some 9.8s that look worse than my best 9.6s which look, absolutely flawless.

 

I won't pay a heavy premium for 9.8s, because IMO, the difference between a 9.6 and 9.8 is often non-existent and/or completely subjective and arbitrary.

[FFB]

Has anyone defined a good "rule of thumb" on what gets a 9.4 vs a 9.6 vs 9.8. I am working my way through a batch of X-Men and Iron mans and I am having a hard time setting limits for the grades. Can a 9.6-9.8 have one spine mark? Any help from the modern CGC submitters would be great. Thanks.

 

9.8s can have a couple/few tiny spine stresses, as long as they are not really visible when viewing the book from the front. If you can only see them when looking at the book along the spine, the book could still get a 9.8. But as soon as you have a tiny, thin spine stress that wraps around to the front of the book, 9.6 becomes a ceiling pretty quickly.

[1Cool]

Thanks for the responses. I'll just have to be extra conservative and cross my fingers. I would like to post a few on the PGM section but my scans are always too small to grade effectively. How do I increase the size of the scan? I typically pick a small number of pixals but I don't think this has anything to do with the size of the picture on the post. Any help on getting the pic up to nice size.

[ft88]

Scans will really never show the difference between a 9.6 and 9.8

 

You can generally see if a book is 9.4 or less but even a 9.6 might be a *spoon* shoot using a scan. I agree about the subjectivity on the 9.8's and greater. It's kind of ridiculous IMO but I can see why some folks are looking for the best stuff.