Experiment in Restoration Removal, was it worth it? 5 5

[miraclemet]

I think if that had been all, I might have been at a 7.5, or maybe even an 8. But alas, the CT gods can only smile so much. 

This one had me baffled. Must have been some yellow color touch at the bottom right, though I saw nothing before submitting, but you can see how the whitening around the chip out looks like they worked at it to just get the CT off but ended up taking a chip out. 

[miraclemet]

So at the end of the day I think the book still presents pretty well for having the CT removed. It's all along the spine and edges and didnt bleed too far into the cover. 

GPA for ASM129 in 7.0 is $1129 for the universal version (headed up with last sale at $1278)

A Conway/Romita/Thomas 7.0 sold for $1095 back in Dec'19 (when blue version was selling for around $900, so +200 for the signed version)

A Romita/Conway sold for $1275 in 8.0 back in March. 

A Romita/Conway/Thomas in 8.0 sold for $1695 in July

A Thomas/Conway in 7.5 sold for $1262 in July

Looking at what's sitting or sold on ebay

A Conway/Romita/Thomas in 5.0 is sitting at $1250

A Conway/Romita in 6.5 sold for $1600 on ebay (but im not sure if it REALLY sold or not)

Im thinking maybe $1300-$1400 on this book now? Maybe I hold in hopes of Frank showing up in the MCU proper (not just on Netflix)... 

[silversurfer275]

 

 

25 minutes ago, miraclemet said:

Fedex just stoped by, here are the results...

Grader Notes: 

light spine stress lines breaks color
small crease right top of back cover
small piece out right bottom of front cover
small scuff left bottom of front cover

 

And the money shot:

 

CGC 7.0 SS Romita/Thomas/Conway

thats pretty good its a nice looking 7.0 for sure

[CJ Design]

Awesome book

[gadzukes]

I think you did ok. That spot in the lower right could have been scary (if there was more like that).

7.0 is good, if it would have gone down to 6.5..... then I might have changed my opinion.

[William-James88]

I think that worked out well, congrats!

Personally though, as a raw book I would not have bought that as a 7.0, that grade is higher than I would have expected.

Good for you though.

[comicginger1789]

On 9/26/2020 at 10:03 AM, gadzukes said:

That's my FF 1.  I believe it was a 5.0 restored (maybe more?) and it went down to 3.0.  The white line is very striking, but I still like it and feel like it was worth taking the risk on.  I had to resubmit it twice (when you have CT removal done you want to remove as little as possible).  It looked a LOT nicer after the first attempt, but unfortunately it needed extra scraping.  Such a shame..... it's a nice book with a fantastic spine.  Even though the white line is horrible, value wise it was still smart to get this into a Blue label.

So there was colour touch done to mask a book length crease I am assuming? Hence the book length line?

[gadzukes]

3 hours ago, comicginger1789 said:

So there was colour touch done to mask a book length crease I am assuming? Hence the book length line?

Yes.  It's so sad that what was a book length thin crease on a nice looking comic, has now become a 1/8" white line (with a few holes)

[comicginger1789]

30 minutes ago, gadzukes said:

Yes.  It's so sad that what was a book length thin crease on a nice looking comic, has now become a 1/8" white line (with a few holes)

Eh has a decent story and intrigue to it. As someone who is unlikely to ever own a copy (unless found in the walls of some derelict house or something...that seems more likely than me outright buying one), I think it looks great!

[10centcomics]

Thanks for doing this experiment, I think it's valuable information for collectors to know about when figuring out the right price to pay for books with slight restoration. That being said (and maybe this is an unpopular opinion), I don't think I can support doing further damage to a book to remove restoration. The CT scraping on the spine doesn't bother me too much (presumably it is just reverting the book back to its pre-CT days). On the other hand, purposely chipping off a section of the book with CT is something I think we should avoid. Maybe attitudes towards restoration will continue to evolve (some things that used to be considered restoration are now filed under conservation). For my personal collecting, I don't mind slight color touch if it is honestly disclosed and priced appropriately. I guess part of the reason for these practices is because we view the purple label with a stigma (PLOD), but I don't think it should lead to damaging a book to eek out a blue label and some potential financial gain.  

[miraclemet]

On 10/2/2020 at 2:13 PM, piper said:

For me it would have to be one of the suits by Bob Layton.

 

On 10/1/2020 at 7:41 PM, 10centcomics said:

... but I don't think it should lead to damaging a book to eek out a blue label and some potential financial gain.  

Its a fair point. And i was curious how I'd feel about it afterwards. One could argue the book was already equally damaged by the color touch when it was added, but thats also a matter of opinion. I wouldnt have done it to a book that was actually rare, but ASM129 is pretty widely available... 

[zzutak]

An interesting (and courageous) experiment, for sure.  Many comments on the two chips that had to be removed near the bottom-right corner of the front cover.  Personally, I find the newly-removed spine paper to be more distracting.  That's a half-inch long segment of the first interior wrap showing through at the level of Punisher's right foot.    In my mind, a half-inch of missing spine paper is a pretty serious flaw on an otherwise beautiful book.