Page quality vs grade? 1 1

[KPR Comics]

Never have I ever considered page quality when purchasing.  I’d pass on brittle but haven’t seen many of those.  

[Martin Sinescu]

After taking a break for a few years, I came back and started seeing people poo-pooing PQ and cover alignment. These things had never even registered with me before, but, they are definitely a personal standard I adopted over time as I became more critical of what I was buying. Not to get too off-topic, but now I'm seeing that awareness going on with newsstand copies. The metric for what we as a community consider the best-of-the best is getting stricter and more refined as the years go on. It sucks when you spend a lot of money on a book that you think is an outstanding copy, only to go to sell it years later and discover it's now considered a lesser outstanding copy because the hobby's perception has shifted, but I think it's a good thing that collectors are still finding ways of making this old hobby interesting.

In reference to your original post, Cushy, I think you did fine going with the 7.0 OW-W versus the 6.5 W. I don't think PQ demands enough of a premium that it will ever override the technical grade. I'm guessing that, based on the grade, it was probably of a vintage where OW-W is going to be acceptable to most. You can look through many of the dealers' sites and see a small but noticeable premium placed on books they deem to have White vs OW-W pages as well, but these are never priced higher than the next highest grade.

Like Brian48, though, I pretty much have a line drawn in the sand in regards to different eras. When I read an older book, those yellowed pages can be a little off-putting, so that translates over to my collecting of graded books where the amount I'm spending on a single book is much higher. Unless it's mid-Silver, I will typically hold out for White pages if I feel the book comes up often enough that I can afford to be patient. OW-W isn't a deal-breaker, per se, but I think, of my graded comics, my GA books are the only ones that aren't White. Again, with Batman books, there's plenty out there so I can be choosy. 

[JollyComics]

I happened to cross SSWS #24 (it was printed in 1954) and checked the pages. It nearly blinded me. The pages are WHITE!  Of course, I had no hesitation to buy it.

[Immortal Hulk]

Question, when a CGC label doesn't have the page quality on the label what does that mean? Does CGC not do page quality anymore?

[dfx1]

I have a comic with black pages and all white ink. Will it say black pages if i send it in? Some pages were never white even off the production line. Is there even a defined standard in place for how CGC decides? Do they have a list of all printers stock used for every comic and adjust their grade accordingly..eg an off white paper stock was only used for a book, CGC has this documented and when they receive the book to grade they compare it to the standard for that comics production line stock (off-white) and bump it to White pages because it is still identical to the original stock?

[Darkowl]

PQ is overrated for the most part, imho. I've seen books with WP that looked worse than books with OWP.

It's when you start getting into the tan/cream territory that turns me off.

Edited February 24, 2019 by Darkowl

[Darkowl]

1 hour ago, BetaRayBill said:

Question, when a CGC label doesn't have the page quality on the label what does that mean? Does CGC not do page quality anymore?

Can you show me an example? The only thing I can think of is NG.

Edited February 24, 2019 by Darkowl

[Ride the Tiger]

I'm not too picky when it comes page quality since in a slab you never really see it anyways. On the same note you don't see a missing MVS either but that's an entirely different animal. 

[Ride the Tiger]

16 hours ago, BetaRayBill said:

Question, when a CGC label doesn't have the page quality on the label what does that mean? Does CGC not do page quality anymore?

It is just a cover with no pages....  

[Immortal Hulk]

3 hours ago, Ride the Tiger said:

It is just a cover with no pages....  

 

19 hours ago, Darkowl said:

Can you show me an example? The only thing I can think of is NG.

APOLOGIES lol, I just noticed that in 2016 they started putting the page quality under the grade, rather then the middle of the label.

 

Is there any reference however as to the list of page qualities a comic can get currently?

[The Lions Den]

21 hours ago, BetaRayBill said:

Question, when a CGC label doesn't have the page quality on the label what does that mean? Does CGC not do page quality anymore?

That usually means the grader (s) forgot to enter the page quality designation in the proper field...  

[The Lions Den]

20 hours ago, dfx1 said:

I have a comic with black pages and all white ink. Will it say black pages if i send it in? Some pages were never white even off the production line. Is there even a defined standard in place for how CGC decides? Do they have a list of all printers stock used for every comic and adjust their grade accordingly..eg an off white paper stock was only used for a book, CGC has this documented and when they receive the book to grade they compare it to the standard for that comics production line stock (off-white) and bump it to White pages because it is still identical to the original stock?

Good questions. I hope I have good answers...

CGC has an extensive drop down menu of all the standard page quality designations; all the grader has to do is select which one he or she feels is accurate for the book in question. There are also a variety of oddball page quality types listed within that same menu---these would be colors that've been encountered infrequently, but still surface from time to time. It's pretty rare when a book comes in that doesn't have one of the specific types of page quality already listed in the menu, but it does happen occasionally. At that point the previously unused page quality designation would simply be added to the menu (and the CGC label) for future reference. The printers stock question is a good one, because this is the type of information that most graders know simply from experience. Please bear in mind that most (if not all) the graders are lifelong collectors, and usually know what different characteristics certain books have, including what type of paper stock. Not only that, the grading room itself is a great resource for all the employees of CGC, because contained within that room is a plethora of information---it's like a massive library devoted to the research of the hobby. There aren't many comic book related questions you could ask within that room and not get an accurate, informative answer.  

[Cushing Fan]

I have another question - would it be possible for CGC to start designating how many copies of each page quality there is for each comic they grade? For Example - Fantastic Four 48 - for each grade (ex. 9.0) break it down further than just how many examples of 9.0 are graded - how about how many 9.0 White examples are there, how many 9.0 Off-White to White examples are there, etc... Seems like it would be an easy thing to do.

[namisgr]

3 hours ago, Cushing Fan said:

I have another question - would it be possible for CGC to start designating how many copies of each page quality there is for each comic they grade? For Example - Fantastic Four 48 - for each grade (ex. 9.0) break it down further than just how many examples of 9.0 are graded - how about how many 9.0 White examples are there, how many 9.0 Off-White to White examples are there, etc... Seems like it would be an easy thing to do.

They can't, because in the earliest days of the business CGC didn't give any page quality designation.  I think it was about six months into slabbing that they heeded advice from the community and began including a page quality designation.

The distinguished competition has begun giving out a designation for exceptional page quality, called 'extreme white'.  I wish CGC would adopt such a standard.  We've all seen examples of comics where the pages are so like-new and snow white that they'd grade as 'white' 100 out of 100 times, and others where the page quality straddles the line between white and off-white to white.  For me, and I suspect at least some other collectors, the books with the whitest of white page quality are strikingly fresh looking, and I'm willing to pay a little more for them than books with a bit of yellowing on the interior pages.

Edited February 26, 2019 by namisgr