Wrinkling and transparency on Squarebound books???

[SurfingAlien]

How does CGC deal with grading squarebound books with wrinkles from the glued spine? And cover transparency?

I have several Fantasy Masterpieces like this #3 that are very sharp and unread - 3 corners look 9.4 to me and very slight colorwear on the lower left FC - but the front cover paper is wrinkled from the glue on the spine - and it has the same wrinkling on the back cover with some yellowed transparency. I believe this is a printing issue and the book has virtually no human wear to speak of - bright glossy and very square - is this still high grade??

 

[DWL]

Good question. I would grade that book as "fine" until you turn it over and see the back cover. Than it could be graded as "good" or "very good" at best.

 

(Just as an aside, I am just getting back into the hobby after more than twenty years away. As a result, I am shocked that books I would consider as "fair" at best now seem to be graded as "good", "very good" or, if you are on e-bay, "near mint"? ha, ha).

 

Anyway, back to the issue at hand. This question seems to be true for many of the older gaint size books. But even more modern books have the same problem. If anyone has a copy of Fantastic Four # 200 take a look at it and see if the actual production process rather than handling causes "damage" similar to what the back cover of this book looks like.

 

I am curioius to hear what people more conversant with current grading standards have to say.

[Mr. Zipper]

Bear in mind that CGC's grading system appears to be heavily weighed toward structure. So, production issues tend to not matter except in the highest grade ranges.

 

They also tend to go easy on spine wrinkling on squarebounds and transfer staining. I'd suspect CGC would not ding this book hard at all for these flaws.

[brasseye]

Yes, I have to agree.

I've got a 69 squarebound 9.8 with major 'wave action' on the back cover. Albeit, it's perfectly clean, with no breakage to the cover in any respect, I initially would of presumed the 'un-flatness' of the back cover would of weighed against it in grading, but obviously not.

[joeypost]

Bear in mind that CGC's grading system appears to be heavily weighed toward structure. So, production issues tend to not matter except in the highest grade ranges.

 

They also tend to go easy on spine wrinkling on squarebounds and transfer staining. I'd suspect CGC would not ding this book hard at all for these flaws.

 

[osborn_fr]

FYI, this book was graded a 7.0 by CGC:

 

[KingOfRulers]

The waviness is certainly a production issue. The transparency is more of a storage/exposure issue in my opinion. It is an oil transfer stain that is made possible by humidity exposure, which seperates the oil from the color pigment. Generally CGC will still give high grades even if both defects are present.