I have learned a lot from you doing the process of cleaning and pressing books, and I haven’t seen one in a long while. Maybe that would be a good one soon please 🙏🏼 also, would be a good video with a bit more detail on seeing you actually press the books, how you prep them for the press and the temp. Look forward to seeing more 😁

Living in San Diego, I've only ever attended San Diego comic-con. I do like seeing other conventions and how people experience them.

And when they give you a 9.6 on a book you thought was better than that they don’t even give notes on why it’s not a 9.8 or more

You wouldn't have got the big box if it didn't have some slabbed books.

Love your Content. ❤ Keep up the great work.

I appreciate seeing the good and the bad with your submissions. It helps me understand the process and how the pressing game works. Thx

Only sale I see recently on eBay for a ASM 302 Newsstand 9.6 is for $88+shipping. How is it possible for a 9.8 to go for $2,400?

What were the reject books???

$9.00 is better than $35 a book i think i heard.?

man i love watching your videos. I'm always learning how much value is in collection. Damn ASM 302 newsstand really sold for 2400?

Ooo a course sounds great!

Thanks for sharing. You have a beautiful and amazing collection. 😊

That's messed up! CGC is up to something.

Ok. Been lurking on your channel not too terribly long after you started it. You've inspired me to start pressing my collection and see if I can improve it. I may as well go all in and start a youtube channel too. I followed your links and got a few supplies I was missing so here goes! Wish me luck!

Can’t wait to see some of your tutorials. Great job!

Happy mistake 👍

Glad 302 came thru. I had a full run of ASM 298-328 in duplicate. All came back 9.6-9.8. They weren’t for as much back in 2018-19.

Awesome mistake and great covers. Thanks for all your adventures with comics and techniques!!

CGC, charging 4 percent of market value to grade has alot to gain in grading a 9.9

I sell on eBay. Mostly raw comics. I give nothing higher than 9.6 Looking at the 9.9 I would give it a 9.2 Looking at the 9.6 I would give it a 9.6, and would consider sending it to CGC in hopes of a 9.8

CBCS would give it a 9.0

CGC grader I’m grading this at 9.9 CGC senior grader rechecks, asks who submitted it? Oh, I agree.

Naw, that 9.9 looks like a 9.2 at most. Maybe fudge a 9.4. No way it has that many noticeable defects and gets 9.9. The 9.6 looks like a 9.8 at lease in comparison.

I thought 3 graders grade a book...how could they all agree that this is a 9.9....no way...If another gsx # 1 9.9 comes to market and looks much better...this $170k book will drop immensely

So everyone ones 9.6 is a sure shot 9.8 according to this logic

Great analysis Jim! Anybody who's been in this hobby for a while knows this book is NOT a 9.9. I don't understand why CGC pulls these "stunts" because all it does is hurt their credibility as an independent grader. Smells like a "you scratch my back and I'll scratch your back" favor for whoever owned the book.

This 9.9 book is cut perfect the 9.6 book is cut is slanted

Unfortunately, collectors buy the label and not the book. Someone paid $170,000 for that label. I agree with you though. It’s only a $10,000 book at most.

Meanwhile thousands of brand new, unread, uncirculated books that get submitted on release day come back with a 9.8.

That color break on the cover should've capped the 9.9 at 9.6, at best. CGC is blatantly trying to recoup their losses from the reholder scandal and the infuriating part is that it appears they're succeeding. "A 9.9 can have a slight color breaking tic"... That statement alone should've been the point where everyone finally washed their hands of CGC.

Cgc is pay 2 play

The 9.9 grade is a gimmick to create high value Bronze Age book to put certain books at the same level as many Golden Age books. The new grail which can never be especially there’s millions of Giant-Size X-Men books out there and more being graded. The market is already getting saturated with 9.6 and 9.8 ! Now magically CGC is coming up with 9.9 X-men books? I don’t think so.

The bumps by nightcrawler's leg could simply have major light reflection going on, rather than wear. An extreme staple contour can have lighting off from multiple angles, obscuring the color presentation.

The community knows this isn't a 9.9 as did the original "owner". Otherwise, why would they IMMEDIATELY put the book up for auction after getting the grade? Why not hold it for a long term investment? As far as grading, I believe they are giving 9.9s out for books without any spine tears and nicely squarded edges -- and overlooking other flaws in the book. And I'm only basing that off of the 9.9 video that CGC did, where the grader primarily was looking at the spines of the books.

its a paradigm shift in what a 9.6 is and a 9.9 is now, the only explanation is they are now allowing more defects to qualify as a 9.9, so what a 9.6 was now can be a 9.8

Buy the book sell the grade

It didn’t “slip through the cracks”. The6 graded it for a friend and they knew what they were doing. CGC is a scam. I get it, you make a living off these slabs, or at least fund your hobby. But at the end of the day, they’re a scam.

I sold my last CGC slab recently (a supposed 9.8 with easily discernible flaws that would put it in the 9.4 range at best for me personally) -- feels good to be done pretending that their grading standards are consistently accurate and objectively applied -- happy to be done with the charade!

In my understanding centering DEFINITELY comes into play above 9.8. The fact that the claws and the backsplash are cut off at the bottom of the 9.9 has got to be one of, if not THE most damning observations of them all.

That 9.6 has to be resubmitted for at least a 9.8, pronto! Great video.

Hey Jim, Brady here. Sorry we could not meet up at Heroes. it would have been nice to talk to you. Maybe next year. I think you are spot on with cover side lower staple color rub issue and whatever is going on just above that staple. It's definitely hard to say just by looking at a photo. On the back cover to the upper left of the lower staple issues is the "soiling" , if it is just soiling, that should have been easily cleaned. If I were to buy 9.9 book, it should not have color rub, soiling, and should be centered. I don't think the presser/cleaner spent too much time on the book, maybe time constraints due to the volume of books that they get, IMO. Another fine video. Thanks, Brady

I have submitted about 100 books, all ASM. When I make smaller submissions I tend to get stunningly low grades. When I submit a large amount of high grade books, the same issue, I get better results. (These are all Silver grade, some Bronze, some Copper.) The most interesting submissions are resubmissions of PGX books. The grades are all over the place! I just got back an ASM 55, 9.2 PGX, as a CGC 9.4, 1000 dollar bump! But I also had an ASM 1 (restored) go from an 8.0 to a 5.5! Still worked out financially as PGX = horrible resale.

Very compelling evidence that the 9.9 is a misgrade. I did a similar comparison (not as a KZfaqr, just privately) of the silver age Thor with a grade of 10.0. It shows faded reds with ink loss in its tradedress which looks worse than existing 9.4s. It’s an old label CGC so maybe it was the best copy they’d ever seen at the time, but that shouldn’t justify a grade of “gem mint”. You should look into it…

A 9.9 cannot have a color breaking crease. It's definitional. Matt knows that.

I understood that cgc had more than 1 grader for a book like this.

I've said this on your channel multiple times, CGC is a scam!!!!

Can you do an instructional video on how to press square bounds? I pretty good with regular books but struggle with square bounds and just avoid them

Do you think some of that Staple popping happened through being pressured into that inner well?

Wow , surprised , CGC is a giant hustle ! It's total bs . The idea that .1 of a grade can have such a huge explosion of price is ridiculous .

Very good comparison and a thorough breakdown of the book. Much can be learned 🖖🏾