C'mon People- Check Your Freakin' Pages!!

[Silver Surfer]

This has Roy's handy work all over it.

[rjpb]

The one that bothers me the most is a purchase I made from Metropolis Comics. My Startling Terror Tales 11.

It has a beautiful front cover, but the back cover has a large missing corner and the one that bothers me the most: the interior has what looks like someone either bled all over the page or spilled their spaghetti-O's on it. Neither the back cover missing chunk or the spaghetti stain were disclosed.

 

 

Ive learned to always check raw books from Metro as soon as they come in.

[Artboy99]

 

The one that bothers me the most is a purchase I made from Metropolis Comics. My Startling Terror Tales 11.

It has a beautiful front cover, but the back cover has a large missing corner and the one that bothers me the most: the interior has what looks like someone either bled all over the page or spilled their spaghetti-O's on it. Neither the back cover missing chunk or the spaghetti stain were disclosed.

 

 

Ive learned to always check raw books from Metro as soon as they come in.

 

a $50 dollar book I am less worried about it but I paid $1100 USD for my STT 11, I was disappointed to find the problems it had well after the fact.

[rjpb]

The one that bothers me the most is a purchase I made from Metropolis Comics. My Startling Terror Tales 11.

It has a beautiful front cover, but the back cover has a large missing corner and the one that bothers me the most: the interior has what looks like someone either bled all over the page or spilled their spaghetti-O's on it. Neither the back cover missing chunk or the spaghetti stain were disclosed.

 

 

Ive learned to always check raw books from Metro as soon as they come in.

 

a $50 dollar book I am less worried about it but I paid $1100 USD for my STT 11, I was disappointed to find the problems it had well after the fact.

 

That may be part of the problem with a high dollar/high volume dealer like Metropolis. The average seller would presumably be a bit more thorough in checking a four figure book, but for Metro I wouldn't be surprised if the grading and pricing were done by different people on most books.

[retrocomics]

Metro and CC have very lax grading standards. Since it takes two months to get a book I'm assuming they take the word of the consigner before they ship it?

[kazoo]

I buy a lot of GA off ebay, and agree with Rick that there is a problem with too many books with interior problems. The most common one in my experience is a missing centerfold, 1 out of 10 purchases seems about right. I have found the same thing when shopping at conventions, I don't think it is just ebay. I believe many people grade a book without removing it from the bag. Hey, its faster! One dealer seemed shocked when I told him a book I bought was missing the back cover.

[rjpb]

Metro and CC have very lax grading standards. Since it takes two months to get a book I'm assuming they take the word of the consigner before they ship it?

 

I haven't bought a ton of raw books from them, but in my experience, books from them that don't have issues that one could charitably describe as "missed" problems, are graded reasonably well, at least in the low to mid range grades I've purchased.

[Sqeggs]

The one that bothers me the most is a purchase I made from Metropolis Comics. My Startling Terror Tales 11.

It has a beautiful front cover, but the back cover has a large missing corner and the one that bothers me the most: the interior has what looks like someone either bled all over the page or spilled their spaghetti-O's on it. Neither the back cover missing chunk or the spaghetti stain were disclosed.

 

 

Ive learned to always check raw books from Metro as soon as they come in.

 

a $50 dollar book I am less worried about it but I paid $1100 USD for my STT 11, I was disappointed to find the problems it had well after the fact.

 

Did they refund your money?

[Doohickamabob]

 

[Doohickamabob]

The worst is when you purchase a lot of 30-50 books and you don't have the time to count pages on all of them before the window closes to make a return. I bought a large lot from somebody and now that I've finally gotten around to counting pages, I am finding about 1 in 8 (or so) of the comics has an issue.

 

I'm not sure what I would have done if I had counted them earlier. Some of the issues I really wanted, so I couldn't do a straight return without losing out. But I also would have liked the chance to at least tell the seller the situation and see if he wanted to make things right.

 

The weirdest thing is this one comic that is supposed to have 68 pages. When I count all the way up to the center wrap, the first half of the book has 34 pages. All good. But to be thorough, I keep going to the end, and when I get there the comic only has 66 pages. What the? So I go through carefully trying to find where there's a page torn out, and for the life of me I can't spot it. I am hoping there are two pages semi stuck together and I'll find them and the comic will really have 68 pages.

[Point Five]

My favorite page count story is, early on in my ebay history, I bought a Marvel Mystery #52 that appeared to have a page razored out of it, leaving just a long half-inch strip of paper where it presumably used to be. I contacted the seller, he was cool about it and took the return and issued me a refund. Some time later I learned about that period of WWII-era books with their wonky "16 pages on one side of the staple, 12 on the other" page counts. The book was totally fine; I returned it for no reason! And such a nice copy too. I wonder if the seller then took a loss reselling it as incomplete.

 

 

[ecfanman]

I have had the "missing pages" syndrome fairly often, but more like 1 in 20 than 1 in 10. Sometimes the seller will refund my money and tell me to keep the book (usually under $20), but a number of sellers tell you to ship it back. Even if they refund the money and return shipping you have to go through the hassle of repacking the book and (for me) stopping at the post office. It seems that your time is wasted, because they didn't want to spend the time to check before listing or sending it out.

 

I can forgive the non comic dealers that make the mistake, but it seems to occur more frequently with people that deal in comics and should know better. In fact one of the "board's good guys" missed a missing half page and brushed it off. He never refunded my return shipping.

 

Gj

[MrBedrock]

I can say with some authority that, other than the times where I have missed some interior defects, I have never missed any interior defects. Well, other than the times where I have.

[porcupine48]

The worst is when you purchase a lot of 30-50 books and you don't have the time to count pages on all of them before the window closes to make a return. I bought a large lot from somebody and now that I've finally gotten around to counting pages, I am finding about 1 in 8 (or so) of the comics has an issue.

 

I'm not sure what I would have done if I had counted them earlier. Some of the issues I really wanted, so I couldn't do a straight return without losing out. But I also would have liked the chance to at least tell the seller the situation and see if he wanted to make things right.

 

The weirdest thing is this one comic that is supposed to have 68 pages. When I count all the way up to the center wrap, the first half of the book has 34 pages. All good. But to be thorough, I keep going to the end, and when I get there the comic only has 66 pages. What the? So I go through carefully trying to find where there's a page torn out, and for the life of me I can't spot it. I am hoping there are two pages semi stuck together and I'll find them and the comic will really have 68 pages.

sometimes they count the covers as pages.

[fifties]

 

The weirdest thing is this one comic that is supposed to have 68 pages. When I count all the way up to the center wrap, the first half of the book has 34 pages. All good. But to be thorough, I keep going to the end, and when I get there the comic only has 66 pages. What the? So I go through carefully trying to find where there's a page torn out, and for the life of me I can't spot it. I am hoping there are two pages semi stuck together and I'll find them and the comic will really have 68 pages.

sometimes they count the covers as pages.

Exactly.

The outside and inside of each cover counts for two pages, or four total. That said, I ran into a similar situation awhile back, and it turned out that the book (I can't remember which it was, but I think a post war '40's crime book) did indeed have a different number of pages on either side of the staples in the centerfold, and that was the way it came from the publisher.

 

I ALWAYS count pages, and I do it as soon as I receive a book, because I too have come across missing pages, half missing pages, cut out panels, etc., and not just by eBay sellers, but dealers as well, including MyComicShop, from whom I buy monthly. The seller gets messaged immediately, and the book either goes back to them for full refund including postage both ways, or in the case of some eBayers, they just let me keep the book and give a refund.

[gino2paulus2]

I can say with some authority that, other than the times where I have missed some interior defects, I have never missed any interior defects. Well, other than the times where I have.

 

[skypinkblu]

I sold my first book to a fellow boarder on eBay years ago and learned about page counts. I had no idea before that different books had different counts He was really nice about it (thanks Win:) I was very embarrassed, it was a lesson learned.

 

Since then I count pages on every book, and even then I missed a centerfold or 2 on some $2 books, it happens.

 

I had the same problem as Jon with the weird counts on some of the war years books, but someone showed me this book, and I've been using it ever since, it's wonderful as a guide, but unfortunately, only for super hero books.

 

https://www.twomorrows.com/alterego/media/Golden%20Age%20Index.pdf

 

A friend taught me the answer to the eBay problem, I write to the seller before bidding and ask for a page count . I specifically ask them to count each piece of paper as one page and not to count the covers. I also ask (if it's an odd count) for them to tell me how many pages are on each side of the staple.

 

If they won't count them for me, I rarely bid. I find if I am not specific enough, they don't seem to count properly, but if I am specific, there are usually no problems.

 

The last three books I bought with missing pages, were from big dealers. (All boarders),2 (nice guys) took returns, one was a fairly big headache.

Bedrock knows how to count pages, they were not from him;)

[Robot Man]

My favorite page count story is, early on in my ebay history, I bought a Marvel Mystery #52 that appeared to have a page razored out of it, leaving just a long half-inch strip of paper where it presumably used to be. I contacted the seller, he was cool about it and took the return and issued me a refund. Some time later I learned about that period of WWII-era books with their wonky "16 pages on one side of the staple, 12 on the other" page counts. The book was totally fine; I returned it for no reason! And such a nice copy too. I wonder if the seller then took a loss reselling it as incomplete.

 

 

I have been the lucky buyer on a lot of those. If you know the drill you can figure it out. The trick is the cut is straight and even. There needs to be at least a quarter inch of paper to hold the staple. The total page count needs to be an even number as well. When I was buying a lot of the "Paul" collection there were a number of books that had this situation. The seller thought they were incomplete. I got a nice Continental Suspense cheap because of it.

[GoldenPRGuy]

I've certainly missed a few counts in my time (always when buying), to many to recall exactly, and only slightly costly in the grand scheme of things. Many of the purchases were when I was young, and the resources weren't so easily accessible.

 

Being an MLJ collector it was always pretty simple. Most books were 68pgs and then after a certainly year they reduced to 60 and 52. Archie is usually where I've missed something.

[Doohickamabob]

The weirdest thing is this one comic that is supposed to have 68 pages. When I count all the way up to the center wrap, the first half of the book has 34 pages. All good. But to be thorough, I keep going to the end, and when I get there the comic only has 66 pages. What the? So I go through carefully trying to find where there's a page torn out, and for the life of me I can't spot it. I am hoping there are two pages semi stuck together and I'll find them and the comic will really have 68 pages.

sometimes they count the covers as pages.

I always count the covers as pages.