RhialtoTheMarvellous

I guess I made it sound like there is some new thing. Sorry to confuse people, but I was really just referring to the Restored label in general detailing what has been done to books and identifying that it has happened and whether it's professional or not. I guess there is the Conserved label as well for things that are minimal like staple replacement. I'm not sure how people view that vs Restored.

I gather that the history of comic book sales is filled with people misrepresenting restored comic books as unaltered originals and that is why it is frowned upon, but now CGC specifically addresses this. I was considering picking up a more valuable ungraded golden age issue and it's complete, but in what I would say is 1.0 condition. I'd probably have it professionally restored partly because the appearance is poor and partly because if I'm gonna pay a couple thousand for a 60+ year old comic book I'd want to preserve it. Remove dirt, debris, foreign substances, repair any loose areas etc. Not something hamfisted, but a company that does an actual restoration. I'm not sure what people think of this at this point, but I feel like for very old rare books it's not a bad thing to do.

The multi-printing thing with alternate covers must drive shop owners nuts, because it annoys me and I don't even buy singles regularly. I cherry pick the things I really enjoy after reading them on Marvel Unlimited or DC Universe. I went to buy a set of singles of Power of X and House of X, wow was it confusing. Granted they made a trade of all of it, but I wanted to get individual issues, but which ones did I want? Just browsing to find the issues was confusing. Do I get the 5th printing of issue #2? Or the 2nd print of issue 5? Hey, that cover looks cool... $100?! Nope nope nope! I ended up just buying whatever was a reasonable price and available. I saw some alternate covers up for $300 on eBay and people are buying. Eesh. I hope they REALLY enjoy that cover, because I bet for a little more they could get the artist to do a commission for them.

Yeah, I guess it's the wrong time to buy for me. I had no idea that they were making the What If tv show when I started buying a few months ago. That said, it's still not that expensive to get the books overall. Certainly not nearly as bad as some other copper age stuff. Not many people catch the reference. Yeah, I was a real junkie for that sort of thing as well. I have every Marvel Universe issue for that reason. I got to read about all the stories that I couldn't afford to buy. I'm just missing issue 25 now. I might just be being extra picky now on some of the early issues. That's the most expensive one and luckily I had a decent copy of it already.

I thought if I'm going to fill in the gaps in my What If...? collection that I might as well get some mint copies of what I'm missing. Then I started looking at the various books I already had and realized that as a young man I was most interested in reading said stories and not particularly picky about their condition. In other words the new books were making my old books look bad. Granted, issue #1 was my first buy off of the wall of a comic store, but even that one was never mint. At this point I'm done fleshing out all the missing issues, but now I have the problem of, I do have a bunch of very mint issues, but I still have a bunch of not so mint issues and a lot of dupes of the non-mint ones. I've discovered what many of you already know, the print quality for the issues from the late 70s is wildly variable. The 80s issues are the easy ones to find in mint condition in general, though I'm starting to become really really picky about any defects after finding issues that look basically unread. I'm going down a rabbit hole of comic book collecting. At least I picked a relatively cheap set to do it on I guess.

I think it's still kinda the same as it ever was. Fill in the line art details. If it's a different guy than the penciler then the end result really depends on how tight the pencils are that get to the inker. Some guys go very loose and the inker puts a lot of detail in according to their own style, some guys are more detailed and leave less or very little interpretation to the inker.

Oo oo oo! I just started collecting Neal Adams covers! I have a bunch of these stories in digest or collector edition format, but never owned the originals.

Wow, I knew Roy Thomas mined the DC archives for All-Star Squadron, but I didn't realize Doll-Man had his own book. I'd probably go 2.5, but I'm less clear on the lower end grading scale than I am on the higher end.

I see a lot of books from that era with the staple marks. I've been pulling in What If...? vol 1 issues to complete my collection and the overall differences between the same book can be drastic.

It looks like it has a small color breaking crease on the back spine near the top staple. Slight spine roll. Looks like it also has a small scratch on the back cover upper left near the TSR Sentinels logo. 9.0

I'm struggling to find any flaws on that book. It looks almost perfect other than that dust shadow. I do see the slightest amount of corner wear at the spine bottom on the back. The shadow is a very large defect though and very noticeable. I'm thinking 8.0-8.5.

It's hard to see many flaws on it. It's at least a 9.0. The only thing I notice is some slight bends at the top and bottom edges and then the little bit of creasing at the spine near the top. I can't see any reason the flaws I see wouldn't press out and then you have something in the mid to high 9s.

Man, what a machine and such quality even at that speed.

I don't think it's trimmed. Comparing it to other copies it looks like it's just printed way off kilter. For instance this one above gets a 9.0 and you can see the E in police is right near the bottom of the cover, but looking at the top the alignment is much more even whereas the OP's copy has a bunch of dead space on the upper left side. I've seen this sort of thing numerous times with books from this era as I've been looking through What If...? issues on auctions and the variability in the printing is extreme in some cases. I'm not sure how this affects the CGC grade, but I'd imagine unless they find actual post production alterations it shouldn't matter. OP's copy has corner crunching on the bottom spine side, enough that it looks like there are bends and creases that formed on both the front and back sides. Chipping at the bottom open side. Edge wear at the top of the front cover on the spine side. Back top edge has that indent and what appears to be ink transfer or possibly just wear. Also looks like there is a chip on the back cover top near the spine. Very minor spine stress lines. Probably 8.5

Crease on front long through Thundra Crease on front short next to Thundra. Front cover open side edge has wear in that same area. Front cover spine stress lines. Back cover has chipping bottom and on the open side. Back cover top corner on open side has taken a hit. Back cover has many non-color breaking creases across the face. Back cover spine stress lines. 6.5

As noted by some others... slight spine roll more noticeable at the top. Indentation in top right corner. 9.0-9.2. If a press removes those defects, 9.8.

Noticeable edge wear at the top, bottom and open side on both the front and back covers. The edge wear on the cover is really noticeable in the book opened shot. Spine rolling and noticeable lines and cracks at the spine front and back. It looks like it has been handled a lot. The back especially seems to show a lot of specks and marking that could be dirt or dust, but in some cases seems to be just worn through the color. 7.5

I'd be surprised if it even got 9.0. I have an Amazing Spider-Man 300 that is a 9.0 just for defects that are non-marring like a light crease you can only see from a certain angle and minimal spine stress lines.

What would it rate if the chunk on the front cover was there? I'm looking at various scales and I guess usually the biggest chunk you get is about a 1/4" square or 1/2" triangle before it gets downgraded. I realize it has some other issues as well.

Pics aren't that clear? You can enlarge them after you click on them the first time as the browser will fit them to the height of the window. Each of them is 1536x2048 resolution. This is the level of detail when you view them full size.

Ah, finally have them in my hands.

I saw this on ebay and picked it up for what I thought was a decent price. It's in generally good shape, with the major flaw being the missing cover chunk. Imgur high res links. https://i.imgur.com/l5vRLQB.jpg https://i.imgur.com/4LauxrR.jpg https://i.imgur.com/kRzh5ux.jpg

It looks like there are scratches running across the cover? Even with the flaws that is a really nice copy overall. Just a guess, but it has to be 7.0+

For sure, very happy with those results. I wasn't sure what they were going to bring. I sent in both Killing Jokes because I had never read one of them so I wanted to get an idea of what I could expect in that situation. I'll post up the pics when they get here. I have two of Amazing Spider-Man 361, one of which is unread, that I am thinking I might send in the next time I make a submission.

I unintentionally lied in my last post where I said my first submission had returned, because I had a bunch of books in that submission. I submitted the Amazing Spider-Man 300 I got back in that post as Economy and I had a bunch of other books I submitted as Modern. I just got the notice the moderns are on the way back. I bought all of these off the rack at my LCS at the time. Batman: The Killing Joke (never read) - 9.8 white Batman: The Killing Joke - 9.4 white (scratch on back cover) Incredible Hulk 340 - 9.2 white Wolverine 1 11/88 - 9.6 white Uncanny X-Men 266 (Gambit 1st appearance) - 9.8 white Yes, I bought two copies of the Killing Joke and only one of Amazing Spider-Man 300, oh well.