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Great colours on that one. You can’t get grade a book for $50 today, what a steal.

Great color on that Double Detective. I wonder if people will tend towards experimenting with grading with their most valuable books or the ones in peak shape? I can't imagine that out of all my many boxes I've got very many that would hit 7.5, and most of those would be girlie pulps that are saddle-stitched with no overhang. I'm curious what the other ones you've submitted are

58 viewed in the last 24 hours heh heh

I've never bought a single magazine, pulp or comic in a slab and feel like I navigate the waters just fine in terms of condition. The very same magazine on eBay might be listed as "good" by an amateur or conservative grader, VG by actual grade, and Fine by those who don't know better or volume dealers who know they can get away with calling a book that. There are girlie pulp sellers I buy from regularly that will call a book Fine or even VF that I don't think gets too far past good. I just don't pay more than my estimate of a book's grade (exceptions will be made, ha!). That's what pictures are for. And a lifetime of looking at books. And, hell, you often actually get 10 or 20 pictures of a bunch of different aspects of a magazine on eBay instead of just the front and back cover like you do with a slab. Comics are graded a little tighter, but I'm sure we all know eBay sellers that are consistently over by one if not two whole grades. I've been around this place long enough to know that 9 out of 10 of our members can look at 2 or 3 pictures and have a great sense of what they are looking at. Personally, I don't feel like I need to give agency to a third party or pay fifty or one hundred bucks more for some supposed security about what I'm getting. If I bought higher priced books I probably would, though, and I get that people like to feel safe in a transaction with a seller they don't know. Getting into paperbacks lately I will often contact a seller for a picture of a front cover of a "VG" on Abebooks to get a better feel which makes me happy you at least get mandatory pictures on eBay. When it comes to pulps, any grade of fine is automatically suspect, especially very fine. When the books are actually that grade, though, they tend to have this color and freshness that's a whole 'nother cut above. Anyways, I do see CGC coming to the game likely leading to more grading accuracy in pulps and more disclosure of restoration (even if it's not going to be as much of a factor outside of maybe color touch) which is great. Since I've been on the forums here, I've gained more of an appreciation about the exactness and nuances of grading standards, even as I see that the best graders around this place can be way off in their guesses from an actual grade in the PGM area or the grading contests. What I don't see happening is people wanting to pay multiples of what a book is worth because it's been graded once the initial thrill wears off. Seriously, there are books I'm seen in a box in not even very good grades that you can do just a tiny bit of searching for and still find at a good price. And for those who are new to the pulps and want to explore them, how do you even do that when they are in a box anyways?? Just like with the comics, I've got a lot of appreciation for presentable beaters. I do see certain upsides, though. A truly valuable presentation only copy should be pretty secure in a slab and face less handling damage, overhang loss, etc. Weird Menace and Spicy Detectives etc. are a natural for it and probably a lot of higher end Weird Tales, too. There are cases where you aren't told (or shown pictures of) rusty staples or moisture damage or brittleness (even by the reliable auction houses) and maybe CGC will help some of that go away. I dunno, I still wouldn't trade any of it for a bunch of good pictures and especially the ability to handle a book myself before buying which you lose when graded I can see myself buying graded girlie pulps, but I can't see myself paying 600 dollars for a 200 dollar girlie in a box. And I sure the hell aren't sticking any of my PC gals in there. I haven't even been willing to do it to my golden age comics that I've been selling even if there's upside on the resale just as a personal matter. Maybe I'll get over it one of these days

This is SO interesting, thanks! And now I am fascinated by one question, if this is a stamp placed by the OO: why is the placement of the stamp on mine so obviously deliberate and the placement of the stamp here so haphazard? EDIT - dead center top front cover is actually haphazard, so never mind!

Looks just fine to me. I prefer older slabs myself so I have tons of them. Maybe corner popped in transit?

Bump for the night..... with some new lower prices added on the Golden age and a few more....

I’m going to C2E2 on Friday and Saturday, then will be setup as a vendor at the Chicago Toy Show on Sunday. I’ll be bringing comic books primarily but will also have pops and Transformers for the Toys due to it being more of a toy focused show.

There was in fact a very clear demarcation line between the run of generally superb Justice League covers and ones that were ho-hum. There was a great run of covers up to and including #35 cover dated May 1965: But things went off the rails beginning with issue #36: Oh I love the colours but what's with that huge messy arrow-shaped Marvel style cover blurb that does little but take up space? Well rumour has it that the DC "brain" trust had noticed that Marvel comics were starting to sell a lot better and eating into DC's market share. They therefore looked at a few Marvel covers (clearly they didn't read through the stories in between the covers) and decided that the key to Marvel's recent sales success was that the messy blurbs infesting Marvel's covers were drawing kids' eyes and inducing them to part with their pocket change. The next two Justice League covers were absolutely lousy: All the blurbs take up so much space that far less canvas remains for the traditional DC house look cover artwork that had delighted me since early 1962! Moreover up until mid-1965 Justice League covers generally portrayed a situation where the League members were very seriously imperiled by some menace. After mid-1965 covers switched to promising "Action!" à la Marvel. Consider. Marvel's strengths were one unified Universe with continuity not only from one issue to the next but across titles. A story in one comic not only segued seamlessly into the next but frequently hinted at the next by leaving loose ends, e.g. Thing or the Human Torch walking out on the Fantastic Four on the last page. Or the next issue's villain would be shown peaking in on the action in the current issue. Moreover x-overs of both heroes and villains were almost an every issue occurrence thus weaving each individual comic into the wider Universe. This all meant you couldn't read just one Marvel comic. You had to read more, many more, to get the whole picture! And of course there were punch-ups galore in Marvel stories, most particularly when "heroes" met! (Kids loved that.) And Stan Lee never stopped pitching the Marvel line to readers which he labelled "Real Frantic Ones". What kid wouldn't like that? Lee made Marvel readers feel a part of the Marvel family of writers, artists, letterers, colourists and even secretaries by speaking to the readers directly on the pages of Marvel comics and even creating the Merry Marvel Marching Society which was a concept so zany that young readers were both delighted and proud to join. Only Topps understood and marketed to kids as well as Lee. So what did DC have? Well they didn't have Stan Lee. DC had two competitive edges though. They had legacy heroes such as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman, Hawkman, Green Arrow, etc. none of whom were plagued by psychological problems. They were calm, competent men. In a word they were heroes, someone to emulate. Secondly in early 1965 they had a stable of artists such as Curt Swan, Murphy Anderson, Carmine Infantino, Gil Kane, Joe Kubert, Russ Heath, Dick Dillin, Irv Novick, John Romita, Jay Scott Pike, Howard Purcell, etc, etc. whose artwork was a pleasure to the eye. DC "house look" covers and even individual panels were very often mini works of art. (Ask Roy Lichtenstein.) So DC should have leveraged and built upon their strengths. Offered a strong alternative with cross title continuity! Rather than allowing each Editor to jealously guarding his own bailiwick/title lines, Editor-in-Chief Irwin Donenfeld should have cracked the whip and demanded a co-operative effort. But Donenfeld didn't do his job. What DC's management opted to do instead was mimic Marvel's weak point, e.g. messy covers. Groan. Then of course in 1966 they infected their entire line of titles with camp from the Batman TV show to court the TV crowd but in so doing alienating their core fans. So after the silly Bat-craze ended, what was left?

30+ books Friday night, 7:00 Pacific. See you soon.

No I'm not, but thanks for trying to lend a hand.

FINAL PRICE DROP: Everything now 30% off!

Paqart is now in the market for a Captain Marvel Aventures #51 in a 5-6 range >.>

>9.0. I love yellow covers b/c they pop. I hate yellow covers b/c they're great at hiding defects, especially in photos, so take my grade for the price you paid for it.

>9.0, but I don't see a 9.8

looks like there's a little water stain or something in the corner with the CCA box. I'll guess a max around 6.5/7.0 if that's right

Might be pressable to 7.0/7.5

9.4/9.6. I've never seen a book from this series before, but if this is on the BOOM covers that's the heavier cardstock material, there probably isn't much hope for pressing doing much.

Now we'll see if CGC labeled it correctly

Ok, the hammer price was even worse. Am I missing something, or did two rich guys get competitive and lost their minds on this one?