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Guess the CGC grade: Punch Comics #18!
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40 posts in this topic

a book length crease.....i'm a total newbie so take everything i say with a grain of salt......the spine is remarkable which must really bump da grade....there r a couple of small creases it looks like on da front top left ...the corners look great.....i don't really know much about grading but i try hard....at the cost of looking stupid and everyone laughing at me i just don't c how this grades higher than a 5.0   now i'm sure i'm wrong but i would think it would go down to a 4.5 before it goes up 2 a 5.5    Now i really sound stupid.

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2 hours ago, telerites said:

Love Cheslers.  I'll go with 8.0.  

Very nice book, Jon :D

Like minds :banana: these guys forget Goldenage bumps just for existing

Edited by comicjack
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And the reveal... :eek:

punch18cgc.thumb.jpg.c90a3df946e4a0b40d77cf4e74fc71d9.jpg

 

Big ups to @AJD (first to call out the BC crease as the main culprit) and Ahsoka Tano, both of whom correctly guessed 5.0. :applause:

Andrew is absolutely right that the crease is what sunk it, but I was quite surprised when I got back the grade. Sometimes a scan will hide defects like an NCB crease, but the scans here are if anything accentuating the creasing... IMO it is extremely hard to see in hand except under strong light, and it's not a bend that goes through the book. I was expecting 6.5 or 7.0 at worst. I definitely should have had the book pressed before submitting... ah well!

Oh the bright side, I thought there was a good chance of resto, as the spine looks so dark and sharp, so very happy to see that wasn't the case.

 

 

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51 minutes ago, Point Five said:

Oh the bright side, I thought there was a good chance of resto, as the spine looks so dark and sharp, so very happy to see that wasn't the case.

 

 

That would have been my main concern going forward with the submission. Resto. Not often do you encounter GA books with predominantly dark colors and such an absence of edge color flaking and tangible spine stress color fractures. I'm sure that aspect, the integrity of the color, at the spine especially, is what threw off a lot of the grades here, skewing them higher.

Worth noting, I'm genuinely surprised at the skills of the members who regularly opine here. Trying to assess grades in two dimensions can be very hit and miss. Not only is the paper we're assessing being viewed through many layers of transparency, the scanning bed, the slab and well, and our monitors, each of which removes the paper from being revealed raw to our eyes by one tic, but grading is a three dimensional art.

Being able to view the book from all visual perspectives, all angles, raking it appropriately to the light source, and of course, being able to view the inside covers to distinguish stains from shadows, tears from stresses, etc., is all important in grading to lock in on that final determination of grade.

I wish 50% of merchants selling on ebay could grade half as well as the members here.

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what's this Golden Age bump stuff people are talking about ? I'm trying to understand this....u send your comic book to Sarasota to get it certified by CGC i'm guessing there r like 3 guy's in a room and they pass it around and study it and page thru it and share opinions and come to a census and then the book gets certified but during this process they say to each other ....hey this is Golden Age and it's in really good shape which makes it even more rare so they all decide to Bump The Grade ? I'm guessing a Grade Bump would be at least 1.0 ? How many guy's sit at the round table and grade a book ? Do Golden Age books really get a bump if there in great shape and rare ? This has a big affect on me since i just graded all my books do decide what should get  certified and what I shouldn't.  I had a price point in mind and if my Golden Age books got there i put them in the Get Certified Pile. If a book is a 6.0 vs a 7.0 can make all the difference in the world in determining whether or not u get it slabbed. So please some opinions on this idea posed by a couple of graders talking about Golden Age Bumps. Does this really happen ?

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8 hours ago, Ahsoka Tano Jedi Apprentice said:

what's this Golden Age bump stuff people are talking about ? I'm trying to understand this....u send your comic book to Sarasota to get it certified by CGC i'm guessing there r like 3 guy's in a room and they pass it around and study it and page thru it and share opinions and come to a census and then the book gets certified but during this process they say to each other ....hey this is Golden Age and it's in really good shape which makes it even more rare so they all decide to Bump The Grade ? I'm guessing a Grade Bump would be at least 1.0 ? How many guy's sit at the round table and grade a book ? Do Golden Age books really get a bump if there in great shape and rare ? This has a big affect on me since i just graded all my books do decide what should get  certified and what I shouldn't.  I had a price point in mind and if my Golden Age books got there i put them in the Get Certified Pile. If a book is a 6.0 vs a 7.0 can make all the difference in the world in determining whether or not u get it slabbed. So please some opinions on this idea posed by a couple of graders talking about Golden Age Bumps. Does this really happen ?

More like a mild curve than a bump. Most long-time hobbyists and astute students of CGC grading do note that where you have two comics of just about identical quality and wear, the Golden age one will be favored with a slight skew upward, deference given to the Golden age book and not the Silver age one. Not much, mind you. Typically, just a tic. One notch on the grading scale, not a full grade, although there are some flaws like tape and foxing that appear to devastate the grade on Silver age to a more overt degree than on Golden age.

The same holds true for the newer books, Bronze to Moderns vs. Silver age. Most note a slightly tougher stance on flaws, the newer the book gets.

This mindset seems to permeate all grading across the board in the entire hobby, professional or otherwise, and not simply a phenomenon that many note of CGC grading.

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2 hours ago, Ahsoka Tano Jedi Apprentice said:

that makes sense ....thanks James

You're welcome, Ahoska. Here's how it may work in practice. Say you have a Captain America Comics #30 that looks to be a NM quality piece, but it's got foxing (paper microbes/oxidation) on the back cover. Foxing is far more prevalent on GA than on SA, so in the lexicon of golden age grading, there's a tendency to be far more forgiving. In that genre, mild foxing on a NM GA of WW2 vintage won't ding the overall grade as much as on an otherwise NM Avengers 30 of comparable grade and with comparable foxing on the back cover, the Cap 30 NM with mild foxing = VF/NM, yet foxing on a NM Avengers 30 would definitely drop that SA book's grade to VF, maybe even less depending visuals.

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5 hours ago, Ahsoka Tano Jedi Apprentice said:

It's quite a science isn't it..

It's not. It's an art and there's logic behind it, but not absolutes. Subjection, not objection. The CGC made that exact point on the back of their label when they first emerged. "We don't guarantee the grade or the process". What the CGC did guarantee is that 3 graders will review it, a best faith effort would be made to detect resto, neither of those processes coming with guarantees and they guarantee that it's a comic book.

That's really all they could have guaranteed because grading is not science. It's an art. A skill. And like in any skill, consistency is King.

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On 1/11/2018 at 11:08 AM, Ahsoka Tano Jedi Apprentice said:

a book length crease.....i'm a total newbie so take everything i say with a grain of salt......the spine is remarkable which must really bump da grade....there r a couple of small creases it looks like on da front top left ...the corners look great.....i don't really know much about grading but i try hard....at the cost of looking stupid and everyone laughing at me i just don't c how this grades higher than a 5.0   now i'm sure i'm wrong but i would think it would go down to a 4.5 before it goes up 2 a 5.5    Now i really sound stupid.

Hey, you did well ! Good job. A book length crease usually will hold the book below 6.0. Add in some other problems and 5.0 sounds about right, maybe even on the high side. I would have graded it 4.5 .

 

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On 1/11/2018 at 3:12 PM, Point Five said:

 

 

Andrew is absolutely right that the crease is what sunk it, but I was quite surprised when I got back the grade. Sometimes a scan will hide defects like an NCB crease, but the scans here are if anything accentuating the creasing... IMO it is extremely hard to see in hand except under strong light, and it's not a bend that goes through the book. I was expecting 6.5 or 7.0 at worst. I definitely should have had the book pressed before submitting... ah well!

 

Do you really think a press would have eliminated that crease ? I don't.

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13 hours ago, Bomber-Bob said:

Do you really think a press would have eliminated that crease ? I don't.

As I mentioned, to my eye it's more prominent in the scan than in hand, so maybe? (shrug)  Fair enough though.

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1 hour ago, Point Five said:

As I mentioned, to my eye it's more prominent in the scan than in hand, so maybe? (shrug)  Fair enough though.

I've got a book that was professionally restored, cleaned, pressed, etc. It had a book length subscription crease and though the book was pressed flat as a pancake, when looking at an angle, you can still see the crease. I suspect you would be in the same situation and trust me, CGC would not miss it. BTW, my book received a 5.5 .

 

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