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ComicFan70 Posts: 4
1/2/2016
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Hi all,
I've been collecting on/off for years, and one of the things that bugs me is when a book is bought off the shelf in a LCS, it looks pretty good, it gets home, possibly read (with fingers barely touching the book at all), and slipped into a bag and boarded.
What would the grade of a book be w/ no discernible defects, no strange random spots, the pages are cut well, etc...
(when the book is at the store), then after a book is read with care, and bagged/boarded and so on?
Would it be safe to say at least a 9?
(The reason I ask is I've not gotten around to grading anything yet UNLESS the book was damaged in some way that was noticeable.)
Thanks for reading!
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netstuffers Administrator Posts: 239
1/2/2016
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This guide is pretty good at giving you rough ideas of grades.
You can get away with a little bit of wear and still get a 9+, just so long as you don't have several little things adding up. Even a cover bend/crease can still get a 9 so long as the interior is pristine.
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chukueke Posts: 1
1/10/2016
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I am one of those people comic book stores hate or find funny, because I carefully pick the best or least damaged comic to buy. I have been doing this decades. I even often bring my own bag and boards to put the comics in if they don't come that way, to put the comic in after buy them and before I get on the New York subway. This care in buying often pays off, but not always. At time I miss a defect in some page in the comic, but what the *(^&66 I tried.
As far as care check out my site for a few ideas: http://www.comicpreservation.com/
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axchou Posts: 5
1/11/2016
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chukueke wrote:
I am one of those people comic book stores hate or find funny, because I carefully pick the best or least damaged comic to buy. I have been doing this decades. I even often bring my own bag and boards to put the comics in if they don't come that way, to put the comic in after buy them and before I get on the New York subway. This care in buying often pays off, but not always. At time I miss a defect in some page in the comic, but what the *(^&66 I tried.
As far as care check out my site for a few ideas: http://www.comicpreservation.com/
+1
Not to mention that the staff at Midtown manhandles their comics. I've seen them drop a whole stack of books on the floor, then grab them back up and shelf them.
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Oxbladder Posts: 487
1/16/2016
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You can, get books in the very highest grades off the shelves but you have to know your grading pretty well to do it consistently. there are people out there that firmly believe that it is impossible or near impossible to do this but that is not true. To be fair though 9.9 and 10.0 are very, very hard grades to find/achieve. This is simply because the odds are drastically stacked against books surviving printing, shipping to distributors, handling, shipping to stores, and handling at that end, then surviving their life on the shelves. never mind surviving all the handling afterwards.
As to whether or not handling reading will drop books down in grade, there are many who say absolutely but I must disagree here as well. You can carefully handle a book, leaf through it, and return it to it's protection without causing damage. I have done it, professional graders do it everyday, as do many other collectors. It is all a matter of doing it in a way that you know you will not put any sorts of stress on the book that will cause damage. It also means that you may have to pull out the "extremely anal" card and wear gloves and whatnot but it can be done and the fact that you find a great deal of high grade books out there is evidence of this. Of course when you look through the ages you find that as time has gone on and people learned more about handling and protecting books there are more surviving high grade book now than there are from the 30's to the mid 60's.
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erichey Posts: 31
3/9/2016
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My opinion is that reading it once or twice won't/shouldn't affect the grade at all. So long as it's carefully handled. It isn't like a new car that loses it's value just for driving it off the lot. Most comics on the shelf are 9 and above. It all depends on how much or how significant the defects are. Grading is just so subjective. But all grading guides allow for some problems that still maintain high grade values. I don't think 10's exist because that grade is just an ideal, not a real value. My opinion is that alot of comics right off the shelf are 9.8, and stay that way if read carefully, stored carefully, and kept out of the sun and humidity.
edited by erichey on 3/9/2016
edited by erichey on 3/9/2016
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