TC33

Mopsy #1 3.5 Revealing Romances #5 5.0 Dotty #36 4.5 Cutie Pie #3 6.5 Farmers Daughter #2 4.0 2 Bulls, 2 off by 1 and Cutie Pie off by 2. I knew I should have bumped that Cutie pie a little more.

If this is anywhere near as bad as that 1st round, I will be tapping out of this competition!

That comet book has massive spine wear on the back a large back corner crease and a sizable corner chunk missing. I have some Key 5.0's that literally look WAAAY better than that book assuming you grade the back cover and front cover defects the same! ARGH! Also that HOS has an upper left corner crease where the whole corner was bent back at one point that breaks the color that is fairly sizable, that 9.0 grade ignores that all together, so I had that book several grades lower. Seems like I have a few hundred books to resubmit for grading if these defects are going to slip by in those high of grades.

Sign me up

That Pep Comics is multiple full grades nicer than that 4.5 Kid comics (not a lousy 1/2 grade nicer) and nicer that some of the other 6.5's we have in prior rounds in my opinion! The CGC grading guide allows for light staining like that in 7.0!

Those last two rounds were certainly tougher ones, harder than the first two in my book.

9.8 does not mean perfect. It is allowed a very minor defect or two and keep in mind that tiny ding is still non color breaking. While many people might agree that one defect is more in the realm of a 9.4/9.6 range defect if the rest of the book is as nice as it seems on the surface, but it is what it is, a beautiful very high grade book graded 9.8 by CGC. Many people buy the label grade more than the book, and the book still presents really sharp even with that tiny non color breaking ding, so you should not have a hard time selling it.

Can be hand pressed or pressed by only the most well known pressing people, don't trust it with anyone else.

Surprised on the Lack of Silver/Bronze/Modern into the mix. An all Golden Age ish start is a bit of a curve ball as the grading criteria is sometimes a bit different on golden age. Maybe it weeds more people out early? I have not seen any perfect or near perfect scores reported, so I am guessing a couple of those were tough to grade accurately.

Count me in.

Most people ignore the most obvious and likely answer. It could be the exact same book and different graders at CGC can go from 8.5 to 9.6 depending on who you get and what kind of day they are having. I and a few of big time pressers I have talked with have found excellent pressing candidates with significant bump potential based on back cover dirt/dry cleaning, removing waves and bumps at the spine etc, and guess what they still came back a lower grade because we probably got one of the toughest graders having a bad day or something. I had an X-Men 121 9.4 I sent in for pressing to get a 9.6, came back 9.0, so based on notes with finger bends, I had it pressed again, it came back an 8.0 with similar notes, go figure! Instead of all these handling damage scenarios, guess what most of us know..... different graders are not going to be all that similar on different days and you are taking a risk that it may go down even if the book appearance and grade went up significantly and no damage was done! If a book is already high grade, you are taking a real chance of a downgrade every time you crack it open and send it in even if you improve some minor flaws first.

Bought an X-Men #1 1963 from me. Prompt payment, Great transaction, pleasure to work with! A+

Closer to 5.0, front cover too nice for lower than that even with the BC tape pull, but that book and mid grade 5.0+/- potential would be helped out with a press.

Sign me up.

We selected out about 260 copies because of their 9.8+ quality. Rather than individually bag and board square-bounds, we bound them into bundles of 10-12. We completed the process according to the standards accepted by CGC in the past. (This is how they have done it multiple times) You can easily get Magazine bags to fit this book! If there is overlap, you just have to modify it and tape it around the side also to cinch it up. After all, CGC is now apparently bagging them for them for free, so we know that magazine bags that fit this do exist! I am merely making a strong suggestion that if you are truly taking all that time to pick out 260 9.8s from a warehouse find, you should really try to be patient enough to order the mag size bags online and send/ship them in bagged at a bare minimum, we all know the rubbing/friction damage that occurs from having non bagged books bunched together, at least and especially when shipped in a typically tough and bumpy "ground" shipping manner. Mag sized Backing boards for a 9.8 keys like that one seems to make a long of sense also, again if they are too big, easy enough to trim them down, but for goodness sakes, don't send them all bunched together unbagged unless you like losing out on a sizable % of the potential 9.8's just from minor rubbing/contact blemishes caused shipping them unbagged alone. I am just hoping to convey some general common sense here to help improve this tough situation for the future, the value of getting even a few more 9.8s and 9.6s vs 9.2s and 9.4s should more than make up for the time and expense to bag and or board .

Most of those "Newstand" copies show up as 9.2 range and are meant for readers, not speculators that are submitting to CGC and hoping for 9.8 or 9.6 at the worst. The 9.6 to 9.8 are hand picked ones that at times were lucky enough to be cushioned from impact in the middle of the pack and or just got lucky in an abnormally smooth transit. That is why graded 9.6 and 9.8s are worth far more than the other grades, because most brand new books don't even show up to the comic shop in nearly that nice of a grade.

Backing boards have never been required, but not even using a bag for minimal protection while shipping a bunch of potential 9.8s is like... Just a dose of common sense that would have prevented this whole situation and for the least should be a lesson and warning to anyone else thinking of submitting a bunch of high grade books without bags in the future. DONT DO IT!

Purple Label Cleaned staples are removed from the book, they soak in a chemical solution that eats away all the rust and makes them shiny new looking, its a dead giveaway for cleaned staples. Taking an exacto knife and carefully scraping away some of the rust to look way better (careful to not cut into the book!), will NOT get you cleaned staples/purple label. However in the online notes, they "may" mention minor staple rust, staples scraped.

Lets be honest, if you are trying to submit a boat load of hand picked 9.8s, at the very minimal of common sense, you really should bag them up before you ship them to avoid them all from getting rubbing/contact damage in shipping or you will lose a ton of value with many of those coming back 9.2-9.4, its totally worth that very small investment of time/money. If you truly want to keep them 9.8, a backing board would have likely given that extra bit of security and been fairly smart also and likely worth the extra investment to keep even more at 9.8, but at the very least put them in a bag.

Lets remember Mike had a serious heart attack here, he could have easily died, while there were other issues that hit him also, this is by far the most important and was something out of his control. He is putting his health and life at risk further by putting in longer hours than he should to try to get through this huge back log on his own. The situation sucks for everyone, but those making big demands and threats on him are probably making his stress and health far worse and a person's life and health/survival is far more important than these massive delays. I trust that Mike is an honest guy and will all get all books finished and returned back as soon as possible even though that may seem like eternity for those that want them back now. Mike has given his word here that this & his health are his top priority so hopefully those waiting for long periods can continue to wait for a while longer and have some patience & understanding for a really tough and unfortunate situation for all and can allow more time for Mike to get caught up and back on his feet. Best wishes to all!

Sent many massive books like AF 15 (yes that was my book he showed off on his web site) ASM 1 etc to Mike for resto although that was quite some time ago and everything came back great back in the day. From my past dealings, he seemed like an honest and hard working guy that takes his work seriously, but even when healthy got significantly behind schedule quite often (my extensive resto books went well into the next year) which is why he added help to his staff quite a while ago. I can only imagine that having a heart attack & whatever else he has been through took a massive toll on him physically and financially to set him back upwards of a year or so on his huge back log (especially if he had to let his staff go due to financial issues from the hospital/surgery/recovery costs). Based on my past experiences with him, if I had books out with him, I would still hold out hope to get my books back eventually, even if it were a year or so late. From the above recent post and scans, it looks like he is back at it as he gave the pre and post press scan above and delivery tracking for the ASM guy that first started this thread, so that should give some confidence that hopefully he is still slowly working through his huge back log as his health and time allows. Mike, it looks like people just want you to take a bit more time to communicate better details on the health issues you have gone through, huge back log and time constraints to get through your back log due to your health issues you have been through. I am sure some people that had feared the worst would even be OK getting their books back without the pressing work etc at this point, so you should offer that possibility along with more accurate updated timing estimates. I have a hard time believing Mike won't make things right & get all the books back eventually based on the guy I dealt with in the past. With Mike communicating and working again, hopefully this all gives some hope back to everyone that had feared the worst. Best Wishes!

FYI, Sub-Mariner #1 8.0 just sold by PM. I will keep these remaining books open through tomorrow early afternoon before closing the thread and posting them on another venue at a higher starting price. Take advantage of Super Low Blow Out Prices and as of now for this last day ALL USA Shipping will be FREE!

Major Keys at Blow out Pricing! Last day of the listing. Books to be taken down tomorrow!

All Prices Slashed, Everything Bargain Priced Well Below FMV! Final 24 hours of sale! Flexible Payment Terms Offered!

Startling Comics 37 Sold per PM!