skeltner

Hey guys, I noticed this too. Is this something I should be contacting CGC about? There's a very small rectangle spot that looks like it may be some sort of glue or sticky stuff on the inside of the inner well. I can tell when the comic moves, there's a spot on the comic itself that is much fainter, but whatever is on the inner well is leaving a mark of some sort. The whiter rectangle stays fixed. Here's an image, with a circled blow up of the area. The red outlined area is on the inner well, the green outlined area is the faint spot that's now on the comic. What is this? Could the inner well have something sticky or some sort of glue on it when they put the comic in it? It appears whatever this is has now marked the comic, and I fear as the comic moves about slightly in the well, it's just going to stamp more of these spots over time.

Awesome. Thanks guys! I didn't know how much size matters (in comic grading that is ).

Man me too. I remember seeing this cover in the comics shop back in high school when it just came out. Even back then, when I was just there with some buddies and had zero interest in comics, I thought to myself "If I were to ever buy a comic for a cover, that's the one I'd want!". I'm kicking myself for not doing so, cause I was close to pulling the trigger on it. I agree, there's a good chance it might press out. It's not a deep impression, and doesn't break color. If it did, this book would be near flawless. It's just a beautiful copy.

I just received a really nice Batman Harley Quinn graded 9.6. Graders notes mention an indention in the upper right corner. The book looks like it could have gotten a 9.8 easy without this particular defect. The indention looks like someone had a few sheets of paper over it and scratched something off on the top sheet in an area about 2/3 an inch wide by 1/4 inch tall, just enough to put this light indention in it. I'm pretty happy with it overall honestly, as other than this issue it is a very minty book and is going to look splendid in my collection. Clearly the graders saw this as it's noted as why it got the grade it got, and not something they missed. But I am curious given the size of the indention could it have been given a "gift" grade at 9.6? Or does that seem fair given it's light and otherwise appears to be the only issue. What do you guys think? A solid 9.6 or a slightly generous grade?

Makes you wonder, if you're just slabbing to sell on ebay, at what point does it become better to not slab it at all?

If I may add my own example of how bad this problem is, here is a Watchmen 1 I bought on ebay just a couple weeks ago, graded on 05/07/2018. If you look closely, you'll notice the ENTIRE cover is covered in newton rings. Every gap, from top to bottom. IMO, even though I bought this from the person who had it put in its slab, CGC should offer to reslab this for me for free. This is clearly in the "unacceptable" range of whatever quality control they must have.

Imagine what will happen to all the newton ring plagued slabbed comics of recent years if they did actually fix it. CGC would be under a deluge of reholstering requests that could have an unreal effect on turnaround times on all things, many of which will be angry customers demanding they transfer their recently slabbed books into the new slab at no or reduced cost. Comics that hit the secondary in a previous slab would sit and rot as people look for those without the rings. To say the presentation aspect of a slabbed comic doesn't affect it's inherent value is naive (not that I think anyone is doing so of course, except for CGC). And, CGC will have to finally admit their previous slabs were inferior in order to claim they fixed a problem they used to pass off as a normal part of having comics holstered. There will be real and lasting costs to both CGC and their customers if/when they do fix it. That's not an argument not to fix it, but to point out the dark cloud to the silver lining here.

Folks, thanks for all the replies! It looks like the mystery has been solved, and the questionable glue is just melted plastic from the sonic weld process. I really appreciate the help figuring it out!

I'm starting to feel like you guys know something but are letting me get set up for a nice "look at the dumb newbie" moment. All of the comic's numbers come up in the CGC system, though I guess that can be faked. The comics themselves seem appropriately graded and look authentic. They're in the heat sealed inner wells. I'd love to hear what I'm missing here though. EDIT: Adding some more photos, including the corner with the small vertical crack that started this all (first image below). These are the same thing, from the 3 other comics. Again, that clear plastic look that matches the case.

Well, what do you have to say about it? I don't know what I'm looking at which is why I came to this place. I've got 4 comics from 2 different sellers on opposite sides of the country that have this same "feature" to a degree. You guys are the experts, I'm just here to learn and hopefully not regret a purchase.

I manged to get a photo! I see something like this, in some fashion, on all 4 of the comics I got. This one is from the seller I only bought one comic from. A really well cared for slab. Looks like either glue or melted plastic sneaking out of the corner, my guess is from when CGC put the comic in the slab and sealed the corners? Do they glue the posts in?

Hey jools@jim! I would, but honestly I only spotted it because I was inspecting a tiny crack on the oldest slab under a jewler's loupe to see if I could tell if it was a minor crack or a sign of tampering. The crack is small doesn't look to go into the post, so I'm not concerned about it. I think it might have gotten knocked on the corner. In any case, I don't have camera equipment that could photograph under the needed magnification to show it or I would certainly post a photo for you. And again, I see it on all 4 comics.

Hi guys! I'm totally new to collecting comics, and bought some of the 70's Star Wars comics. I got one from one seller, and 3 from another. All of them when under a jewler's loupe show what maybe glue or melted plastic barely peeking out of the seam around the corners where the posts are. Whatever it is looks almost to be made from the same plastic as the slab. The fact I'm seeing this on all of them, and from two different sellers, I'm assuming this is from when CGC sealed the comics? They're all the type you can slide the paper into the sides if you wanted to. Does anyone know what I'm seeing, that could tell me what CGC did here to glue/adhere the corners together? I'm curious to understand how they accomplished this, which would help advise what I'd see if someone actually had cracked the cases. The first one I saw gave me a start, until I saw it on all of them.