what to do with my 4 gradings

I've been sitting for a bit on my CGC coupons from my membership renewal. Recently I've had a bit of a re-org in my collection; if you've looked at my sets you'll notice that my X-Men have gone down over the past few months as I've been selling off my post-Byrne X-Men. Granted, my 99% sets are whittled down, but in the end, my goal is to have Uncanny X-Men 1-144 more or less with annuals as a nice investment and personal collection (investment side is the ongoing battle to upgrade to those 9.8's. Maybe never for some of the big issues, but that's the fun).

So I've been trying to see if I can grab a raw X-Men #1 for one of the grading certs, but with the scattered restoration bugs on many of the sub 5.0 copies ("color touch by kids") and markings (writing or stamps on the cover), I think I'm going to stick with buying a slab.

I picked up a really nice HONEY WEST #1 at a show. I think it was undervalued by the seller, and honestly, it might pull a 9.0 with the corner, spine, and page condition. It looks like it's been in a mylar since it was purchased. I'm not a big Honey West fan, but it's a fantastic photo cover...

... just like the Gold Key Dark Shadows #2 I snagged from a bin at a local shops. Barnabas in all his glory, suitable for slabbing and displaying. Will go well with my goth and horror items.

I also have a terribly bad Amazing Fantasy 12 that deserves a slab for the preservationist side. It's probably a 2.5 but without the slab, it's 1) hard to sell down the road and more importantly 2) hard to preserve without a fear of "is today the day the cover decides to disintigrate?"

So there's some of my ideas. Wizard World Philly is coming up and CGC will once again be on the spot, so I might gather a few more fun issues to have graded.

I really do enjoy the "shopping" experience of the membership certificate grading coupon. I always feel like it's a wish list of books to grade when otherwise my submissions in bulk come down to a cost vs turnaround time vs priority matrix of decisions.

(Inspired by Tnerb's coupon posting...)

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