?in which David Swan becomes the least liked person on the CGC registry

There has been a lot of talk about the slowness of CGC to grade comics so the question is who?s to blame. CGC, partially, but mostly it?s the comic book fans. I?m a child of the 70?s and 80?s but if there?s one thing I learned after years of collecting it?s that the comics of my youth will never be worth anything. Unlike the comics of the golden and silver ages these were perceived as collectibles and thus preserved in sleeves killing the supply and demand model. Too much supply. But comic collectors are a stubborn lot a vowed to imbue these comics with value using sheer force of will and with the help of CGC the magic happened. And now I shall unfairly pick on Spiderman.

There are currently 239 CGC collectors of Amazing Spider-Man #201-#300. This range started in February 1980. Issue 201 has been CGC graded 174 times.202 is CGC graded 80 times. 203 is graded a mere 40 times. So maybe the number of gradings goes down over the years. Jump forward to 1984 and issue 251 has been CGC graded 253 times. Issue 252 (which I used to own and features the black spiderman costume) has been graded 2741 (not a misprint) times. Issue 300 from 1998 has been CGC graded *gasp* 5930 times. I?m willing to bet that the total number of a CGC graded comics from a golden/silver age series like ?All Star Western? doesn?t even come close to that number. Issue 353 from 1991 has 127 CGC graded issues and a near mint copy (non CGC graded) sells for $1.10 on mycomicshop.com. Issue 402 from 1995 has 59 CGC graded copies and sells for $2.00 near mint.

I have three amazing looking non CGC graded ?All American Men of War? from the mid-1960?s. They were sold to me as 8.5?s but MAN they look good for 8.5. There are 3 CGC graded copies of issue 108 in existence, issue 106 has been CGC graded 4 times and issue 115 has been CGC graded 6 times. How many Amazing Spiderman?s from the 90?s would I be queued up behind before mine were graded? And what?s the point. I love CGC because it preserves comics that deserve to be preserved. Preserving issue 300 of Amazing Spiderman is silly because it?s been preserved beyond all sanity and it was specifically created to be collectable and that?s the worst kind of collectable. So let?s say you just LOVE Spiderman and it would mean a great deal to own spectacular copies of the issues of your youth. So you buy them up at heavily inflated prices and what are you left with. A collection of issues that are unreadable and now have a volume that I would estimate to be at least 5 times the size of an unslabbed comic. You can?t even display them because there are too damn many. You could literally encase an entire room in the 100 issues of Spiderman #201-#300. When I was a kid I got rid of most of my collection because it occupied too much space. I can?t imagine if each comic was 5 times the volume and I?m sure an even greater factor more in weight. Instead you could simply buy the collection in raw comics, store them in sleeves and they would be sufficiently preserved. I have 30 year old comics that I stored unsleeved in a box and they look like they just came off the rack. And you could even get crazy and occasionally wash your hands, open the sleeve and carefully read them and there?s a good chance they won?t disintegrate into dust in your hands.

In my opinion CGC should put a limit on how many copied of bronze age and forward comics they?ll grade for a specific issue. They certainly make a lot more money from a high ticket golden or silver age comic then they do from a dozen comics from the 90?s and they?ll increase customer satisfaction (except for those who want there very recent comics graded). BTW: Spiderman 601*ahem*A from 2009 has been CGC graded 111 times. That?s what you call a canary in a mine shaft.