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Why did I get a purple label?
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110 posts in this topic

Let me state up front I am new to all of this. I have been collecting comics in a casual way for nearly 40 years and never had a comic professionally graded. But when I saw the recent prices for Amazing Spider-Man 300, I realized i might have something of value. I bought my copy in 1988 and it's been in a poly bag in a long box pretty much since then. It's never been out of my possession. But it's in good shape so I thought I might sell a book I didn't have much emotional investment in and use the proceeds to purchase Lee / Kirby Fantastic Four books, which is where my collecting interest lies these days

I went through all the steps—joined CGC, ordered a packing box, shipped it, etc— and today received it back: graded 8.0 with a purple label.The label states: "Small amounts of color touch on cover."

That is clearly an error. As stated above, this comic has never been restored. I bought it as a kid, read it once, and put it away until last month. Either there was a handling issue and the wrong book was graded and mailed to me or they simply saw something that wasn't there. Either way it's deeply frustrating and certainly does not give me any confidence about CGC, its grading process, or its so-called quality control. While I am new to this, I know enough about the comic market that a purple label will affect its price and apparently my decision to trust CGC with my comic means they have reduced its value, maybe significantly.

My question for this forum: What are my options? Can I appeal the grade? Get my money back? Get it regraded? Like I said, I am new to all this and hopefully it can be easily resolved.

(if it matters, I posted images of the comic prior to shipping it another forum on this site "ASM 300 Heating Up", so there is some record of its condition prior to grading)


Thanks in advance.

 

Edited by TappanZee
removing text that said I bought if "off the rack" since it most likely was in my pull folder when I bought it in 1988
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@TappanZee You’ve got a visual advantage of having the book in hand, so have you looked closely at the spine for any color anomalies? Was wondering if there may have been any “touch-ups” that were done by the shop back in the day.  That’s not completely unheard of.

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1 minute ago, steveinthecity said:

@TappanZee You’ve got a visual advantage of having the book in hand, so have you looked closely at the spine for any color anomalies? Was wondering if there may have been any “touch-ups” that were done by the shop back in the day.  That’s not completely unheard of.

yeah, I found out from another poster who frequented the same LCS as I did back in the day that one of the owners would touch up some books.  In my case it was an older back issue.  It does seem a little odd to do it to a new release that's just selling for cover price.    You may want to call customer service and see what can be done as far as re-grading it.

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6 minutes ago, steveinthecity said:

@TappanZee You’ve got a visual advantage of having the book in hand, so have you looked closely at the spine for any color anomalies? Was wondering if there may have been any “touch-ups” that were done by the shop back in the day.  That’s not completely unheard of.

I don't see anything out of the ordinary, and to be honest, I would be shocked if the store I bought it from would do that. I bought it at Big Apple Comics (RIP) on Manhattan's Upper West Side, where I had a pull list for years. I used to work there in high school and would fulfill the pull lists for other customers myself, and we never did anything like that. I mean, anything is possible but I would assign that a very low probability.

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The color touch likely would be along the spine where white color breaks would be, it was filled in with some type of black ink or color.  A B-1 would be multiple areas of color touch up.  If you have other comics you bought at the same time spidy 298-299 301, you could take a close look at the spines on those comics, along with opening the cover to look inside along the spine and staples to see if anything has bleed through on those books.  Slowly run your finger down the spine and if there are any areas of irregular smoothness, look closely for a touch up, which would be a flat color verse a shiny black. 

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While CGC can make errors with the high number of submissions that they deal with they most likely did not on this book.  Like the others have stated, there is most likely 2-3 places on the spine (or somewhere on the front/back cover) where black marker has been dotted to cover up spine creases/minor color breaks.  The 8.0 indicates decent wear to a modern book so it's possible that someone did this to increase the visual appeal of it.  Unless CGC made a critical error and accidentally gave you the wrong label, you won't get a refund but I'm sure they'd look it over again for you with you footing the bill for shipping to and from (but most likely, it has color touch which would warrant the 8.0 label).  CT can be extremely hard to find if you're not trained to look for it but like the others have stated, you'll want to scour that front cover to find out where it is.

Don't lose faith in CGC...no company is perfect but with this being your first experience sending in any books for grading it's hard to place blame on them as you simply could have not known there was CT present on the book.  If you find out that there is in fact CT on it, though, you've now learned a hard lesson that many of us have and that is to take LOTS of pics before sending in books for grading so you can compare them to your books once they're returned to you if you disagree with the grades they receive. (thumbsu

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1 minute ago, Sensei Ryan said:

While CGC can make errors with the high number of submissions that they deal with they most likely did not on this book.  Like the others have stated, there is most likely 2-3 places on the spine (or somewhere on the front/back cover) where black marker has been dotted to cover up spine creases/minor color breaks.  The 8.0 indicates decent wear to a modern book so it's possible that someone did this to increase the visual appeal of it.  Unless CGC made a critical error and accidentally gave you the wrong label, you won't get a refund but I'm sure they'd look it over again for you with you footing the bill for shipping to and from (but most likely, it has color touch which would warrant the 8.0 label).  CT can be extremely hard to find if you're not trained to look for it but like the others have stated, you'll want to scour that front cover to find out where it is.

Don't lose faith in CGC...no company is perfect but with this being your first experience sending in any books for grading it's hard to place blame on them as you simply could have not known there was CT present on the book.  If you find out that there is in fact CT on it, though, you've now learned a hard lesson that many of us have and that is to take LOTS of pics before sending in books for grading so you can compare them to your books once they're returned to you if you disagree with the grades they receive. (thumbsu

As I said earlier, anything is possible but I can’t fathom the scenario in which what you describe might have happened. I am the only owner of this comic, I bought it from my local comic store in 1988 for the cover price and they would have no incentive to touch up comics. They sold new comics “as is.” As I mentioned, I worked at the same store in 1985-86 and we never did anything like that. It’s been in a poly bag in a long box ever since I bought it.

This is of course an anonymous post, and so no one here has any particular reason to believe me, but the only explanation that make any sense is a significant screw up at CGC.

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10 minutes ago, TappanZee said:

As I said earlier, anything is possible but I can’t fathom the scenario in which what you describe might have happened. I am the only owner of this comic, I bought it from my local comic store in 1988 for the cover price and they would have no incentive to touch up comics. They sold new comics “as is.” As I mentioned, I worked at the same store in 1985-86 and we never did anything like that. It’s been in a poly bag in a long box ever since I bought it.

This is of course an anonymous post, and so no one here has any particular reason to believe me, but the only explanation that make any sense is a significant screw up at CGC.

How do you know someone who shipped it to your LCS didn't do it?  It was what, 30 years ago...lots of things could explain why the CT is present.  To blame CGC as the end-all is not logical, to me, is my point in this.  While you may be convinced it couldn't have happened at the LCS, I am not (but if you're that confident in that not being possible, it had to make it to your LCS somehow and 30 years ago not many of us would have been thinking to look for CT on the newsstands).

I know CGC can make mistakes as I've experienced them myself but in this situation I believe that they didn't and that CT must most likely be present on that book.  How it got there, who knows, though.  2c

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For what it’s worth I checked my ASM 299 and 301 and there’s no evidence of any tampering. Nor would it make sense for there to be any - the idea that a comic shop would pay workers to discretely touch up thousands of new comics every month just defies logic.

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Just now, TappanZee said:

Nor would it make sense for there to be any - the idea that a comic shop would pay workers to discretely touch up thousands of new comics every month just defies logic.

I agree, especially in the late 80s, a time before slabs, 9.8s, and purple labels.

I would take that in a dark area and scan the cover with a flashlight and some magnification and look for anything that could possibly be CT.

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One thing I didn’t mention is that CGC turned this around surprisingly quickly, at least compared with how long I was led to believe it would take. I shipped it Dec. 8 and it came back today and I don’t think I paid for expedited handling.

That to me lends support to the argument that there was a mixup at CGC.

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12 minutes ago, boomtown said:

Is that white spot on the "3" of the 2nd 300 below the logo box on the actual book or is it something loose on cover? It's on the CGC photo but not your raw book.

I believe it was something on the cover because I don’t see it now.

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The one book order was sent through the express tier.  That rules out two books with switched labels during encapsulation.   The notes are

 

 

light bends to cover
    light creasing to cover
    light spine stress lines to cover
    small amount of color touch on top & left bottom back cover

 

 

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40 minutes ago, TappanZee said:

For what it’s worth I checked my ASM 299 and 301 and there’s no evidence of any tampering. Nor would it make sense for there to be any - the idea that a comic shop would pay workers to discretely touch up thousands of new comics every month just defies logic.

The comic shop isn't the only place that could be blamed for the CT on the book...like I mentioned earlier it had to make it to the comic shop somehow so while your former LCS is a possible explanation, it's not the ONLY explanation for how it got there. 2c 

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10 minutes ago, Topnotchman said:

The one book order was sent through the express tier.  That rules out two books with switched labels during encapsulation.   The notes are

 

 

light bends to cover
    light creasing to cover
    light spine stress lines to cover
    small amount of color touch on top & left bottom back cover

 

 

Where do these comments come from?

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If your goal was to sell it, it might not hurt you as badly as you think.

An amateur purple 6.5 sold recently for over $400.

With it being professional, there is a chance that it is a black pencil, unless I'm wrong.

If I wanted the copy, black pencil wouldn't bother me very much.

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