Is Your Comic CGC Worthy?
It's possible you may be sitting on a pile of 9.8 comics and don't know it. If you have examined your comics and found various imperfections, you may have tossed them aside and figured they would make good reading copies. It's likely you may wish to take a second look. Some defects can be corrected with a little cleaning and pressing. Imagine that all the wrinkles and dirt were gone. What would its grade be? Here's a check list of defects that can be corrected.
Things that can be corrected are:
1. Bumped corner
2. Stress along the spine
3. Small printer's wrinkle
4. Ragged edges
5. Wrinkles and creases on inside pages
6. Dirt
Things that can't be corrected are:
1. Chipped corner
2. Piece missing
3. Broken ink
4. Scratches
5. Stains
6. Chrome
cover
Shown below: before and
after photo of a bumped corner. Bump often extends to every page in a book. All
of these can be pressed to original condition. Cleaning didn't hurt it either.
Note: darker photo shown to help illustrate the defect.
Let's take a look at dirt. Simply cleaning the front and back covers can make your book more presentable.
BEFORE :
AFTER :
If book has been dropped and suffered a bruise that extends to every page like this one. You may have a 9.8 candidate. Imagine that each page is a demerit point : 16 pages + 2 covers = 18 demerits. This could easily translate into a 5.0-7.0 grade.
18 demerits ... gone.
Things to look for before sending off your comic for certification:
1. Open your front cover and examine the edges of the cover. Is it absolutely perfect? Does it have tiny imperfections. Chances are very good that it will have little ridges that here and there. Ignore it if you wish. The grader at CGC won't. Do the same with your back cover. If less than perfect do not anticipate 9.8 grade. Pressing removes all imperfections here.
2. Hold the comic in your left hand ( if you are right handed) and fan the pages with your right and examine. If your page are perfect, you will sense it immediately. If not, you'll see tiny waves and microscopic indents. Imagine that every wave and indent is a demerit. You may see just a few or often dozens will jump out at you. To examine closely lay your comic flat and lay out your pages as shown to look for a repeating imperfection. Pressing removes all these imperfections.
3. Open your comic to the center page and you'll see the back side of the two staples. Look at the top of the spine and look for anything less than perfection. Are these pages perfect or do you see printer's wrinkles? Since 90% of every comic printed has wrinkles here, your grade will drop to 9.6 if everything else is perfect. Do you see a black ink mark there too? Another demerit. Examine pages to the right and left of center. More wrinkles? Yep. Grade can drop further with more demerit points. All this can be eliminated with pressing and cleaning.
A comic with all these imperfections can be cleaned and pressed in around 9-12 minutes. Fee $8.50-11.00.
__________________________________________________
Actual Grades Received on Recent Large Order.
This sample list continues much the same. Reject was set at 8.5 and nothing below 9.0 was to be accepted. Nearly one third were rejected which is to be anticipated and most often resubmitting the same issues can result in a passing grade. The + indicates that we felt the listed grade was minimum one could anticipate and just a bit higher was possible. It's better to be tough before sending in items as rejects are $4 each! Objective is to find the cream of a collection and submit it for certification. Comics were originally purchased from dealers who claimed comics were NM or so. Most met the claim (9.4) after prep.
One can see that the arriving grade has little bearing on the grade after prep. The 7.5 is the only one that arrived a bit weak and prep did bring it up to a barely passing grade. The 8.5 's ended up all over the spectrum. Every comic is an individual challenge with some simply lending better to prep than others.
Arrrived Estimate Upgrade Final CGC grade
8.0.................. 9.0+.............................9.4
8.0
................. 9.0+........................... 9.6
8.5
................ 9.0+ ........................... 9.4
8.5
................ 9.2+ ........................... 9.6
7.5
................ 9.2 ............................. 9.2
8.5
................ 9.0+ ........................... 9.4
9.0
............... 9.4 ............................. 9.6
8.5
................ 9.0 ............................. 9.4
8.5
................ 9.0 ..............................rejected
A big "Thank You" to customer who sent us this info.