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Hulk 1 Trimmed?
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25 posts in this topic

4 hours ago, gadzukes said:

I'd be very nervous buying that comic raw.  $4200 seems like a good price for what it is though.

$4200 is about right with the cover trimmed on its right edge. $5500 to $6000 if it wasn't. In this grade, the trimmed right cover edge isn't as critical to impacting the value as in the $10,000 and up range.

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11 hours ago, Ozonetv said:

This showed up at a local auction a couple weeks ago...the consensus amongst some of us was that it was trimmed...wondering if you agree?

FYI- it went for $3600 ($4200 with fees) 448.8 kB · 0 downloads

 

Ozonetv, were you able to check the insides before the auction to make sure if it was complete?  Or did they just say it was complete?

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14 minutes ago, gadzukes said:

Ozonetv, were you able to check the insides before the auction to make sure if it was complete?  Or did they just say it was complete?

It's actually kind of funny. A mid-four-figures megakey silver age comic with a trimmed edge and split/retaped spine, *literally* bagged with a sticker across it saying "SOLD AS IS WITHOUT GUARANTEE OF ANY KIND".

If I said "Alexa, show me the best ad for CGC slabbing one could *possibly* imagine", I'd expect a photo like this to fly right up. 

 

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6 hours ago, Point Five said:

It's actually kind of funny. A mid-four-figures megakey silver age comic with a trimmed edge and split/retaped spine, *literally* bagged with a sticker across it saying "SOLD AS IS WITHOUT GUARANTEE OF ANY KIND".

If I said "Alexa, show me the best ad for CGC slabbing one could *possibly* imagine", I'd expect a photo like this to fly right up. 

 

So this was an "as is" sale???? If the CF or any coupons are missing then the sale price was too high.

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11 hours ago, mike devon said:

To me looks trimmed at the top but not right or bottom.

That top edge would be very perilous to trim, whoever would attempt it would have a helluva' lot more guts than brains unless they taped the inside of the front cover along the entire top edge first. Case against top edge trim = There's a lot of parts of that edge that looks like it would break right off if trimming was attempted, unless it was a very deep trim, and the size looks perfectly normal top to bottom based on the considerations of the typical amount of artwork present on untrimmed Hulk 1s. Also, although the top cover edge is almost flush to the pages, there does appear to be some downward shift of the cover that occurred from reconstituting the spine with the tape and possibly re-stapling.

Now the right edge of the cover does undulate (from an uneven cut) along its length and the trimmed edge looks solid enough to have withstood a trimming, probably executed while the cover was still unattached. That's why the edge looks trimmed to me. Its mechanics. Does not appear to be a factory slice as far as characteristics go. Now I'm not going by the amount of pages visible beyond the cover as an indicator because as mentioned, the spine isn't as produced, so the pages probably fanned out loosely towards the open right edge, well beyond their original position as published.

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15 minutes ago, James J Johnson said:

That top edge would be very perilous to trim, whoever would attempt it would have a helluva' lot more guts than brains unless they taped the inside of the front cover along the entire top edge first. Case against top edge trim = There's a lot of parts of that edge that looks like it would break right off if trimming was attempted, unless it was a very deep trim, and the size looks perfectly normal top to bottom based on the considerations of the typical amount of artwork present on untrimmed Hulk 1s. Also, although the top cover edge is almost flush to the pages, there does appear to be some downward shift of the cover that occurred from reconstituting the spine with the tape and possibly re-stapling.

Now the right edge of the cover does undulate (from an uneven cut) along its length and the trimmed edge looks solid enough to have withstood a trimming, probably executed while the cover was still unattached. That's why the edge looks trimmed to me. Its mechanics. Does not appear to be a factory slice as far as characteristics go. Now I'm not going by the amount of pages visible beyond the cover as an indicator because as mentioned, the spine isn't as produced, so the pages probably fanned out loosely towards the open right edge, well beyond their original position as published.

Wow.  To be fair there are ways of trimming that not everyone knows about that would make it fairly easy to trim even a ragged edge.  I know how to do it but I'm not going to say here - don't want to give anyone ideas (!)

Having said that:  if you trim a badly frayed edge its really obvious - a sharp edge with a load of creasing just below doesn't look right - you'd have to trim it then scuff up the edge to make it look natural.  I'm sure this goes on.

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uh oh I think there was a long thread with tons of deleted stuff about this who "hiding" trimming I don't think many want to go back to that again.. 

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7 hours ago, mike devon said:

Wow.  To be fair there are ways of trimming that not everyone knows about that would make it fairly easy to trim even a ragged edge.  I know how to do it but I'm not going to say here - don't want to give anyone ideas (!)

Having said that:  if you trim a badly frayed edge its really obvious - a sharp edge with a load of creasing just below doesn't look right - you'd have to trim it then scuff up the edge to make it look natural.  I'm sure this goes on.

I'm talking about the not so obvious. In the final analysis, close, in hand, magnified inspection under the proper light is the only way to be 100% sure. Images of books with tells for trim are inconclusive. We can say "that edge is suspicious and assign odds based on how suspicious it looks for being trimmed. But what's imperative to remember is that in the 1960s, these were manufactured as throwaways. The tolerances and quality control standards were slight to none. These weren't being produced with the exacting tolerances of medical grade and aeronautic equipment.  What we do is impart the type of tolerances on edges when we eye them that weren't part of of the manufacturing equation! By 100fold! So we're examining these as though the manufacturer meant edges to all look a certain way, or not.   Now since these were all produced on the same machinery, what we can identify are anomalies. Books with features that stands out as "different". The more thousands of books you've had run through your hands, the easier this becomes, like an assembly line worker performing quality control.   We identify a tell and to clinch that suspicion, close inspection follows. No mater how many ways there are to trim an edge, the end result is the same. The edge is no longer original. And this can be seen in hand with the proper optics if not by unaided eyesight alone. There's no getting around that, no matter how an edge is cut.

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12 minutes ago, James J Johnson said:

I'm talking about the not so obvious. In the final analysis, close, in hand, magnified inspection under the proper light is the only way to be 100% sure. Images of books with tells for trim are inconclusive. We can say "that edge is suspicious and assign odds based on how suspicious it looks for being trimmed. But what's imperative to remember is that in the 1960s, these were manufactured as throwaways. The tolerances and quality control standards were slight to none. These weren't being produced with the exacting tolerances of medical grade and aeronautic equipment.  What we do is impart the type of tolerances on edges when we eye them that weren't part of of the manufacturing equation! By 100fold! So we're examining these as though the manufacturer meant edges to all look a certain way, or not.   Now since these were all produced on the same machinery, what we can identify are anomalies. Books with features that stands out as "different". The more thousands of books you've had run through your hands, the easier this becomes, like an assembly line worker performing quality control.   We identify a tell and to clinch that suspicion, close inspection follows. No mater how many ways there are to trim an edge, the end result is the same. The edge is no longer original. And this can be seen in hand with the proper optics if not by unaided eyesight alone. There's no getting around that, no matter how an edge is cut.

Good stuff. But what a nightmare - how is anyone at home without scientific gear supposed to tell if a book they bought is trimmed..?  Do CGC really take a microscope to the books..?  I've no idea how they check for this.

I'd love to know how a cleanly sliced page done this week looks any different than one hit straight on the edge by a guillotine in 1964.  Apart from a microscope to maybe see whether the paper fibres were sliced or hit dead on I can't really see how you'd know - especially if it was on a clean book so the paper edge didn't suddenly look lighter..?

Its a bit of a worry really.  In some ways books coming out of original owner collections are the safest bet even though they are generally fairly low grade.

Edited by mike devon
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1 hour ago, Krismusic said:

uh oh I think there was a long thread with tons of deleted stuff about this who "hiding" trimming I don't think many want to go back to that again.. 

You mean deleted because it was giving people ideas on how to do it..?

My worry is buying -  I think I can tell when they arrive but maybe I can't ..?  That's why I think I might stick to local auctions and raw books coming from original owners etc.
 

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