Several seasons back, I sent out a large order to CGC, the leading comic book grading company in the industry. I remember the days when the process for getting books graded would be in the 30.business day timeframe. Ever since Covid has reared it’s ugly head into our lives, everything has gone a bit wonky as far as timeframes go. By a bit wonky, I mean my books have been sitting there through the mid/end of summer, all through fall, and into winter. Regardless, I’m happy to have em as there are some tasty gems here that will fetch a yummy chunk of change, depending on the grade.
For those of you reading this who are unfamiliar with what I’m talking about, comic grading has seen a big boom the past decade. What that means exactly, is that a professional service goes over your book with a fine toothed comb to come up with a numerical grade.
From a 0.5 which might appear to have been involved in a car fire during a 30 car pile up on the day of Armageddon…all the way up to a 10.0 which they consider basically Gem Mint and crisp enough to slice and dice. Then they encapsulate it in a hard plastic shell with a label. Finally, depending on your grade…you jump for joy or cry in the shower. Reason that there are some major extremes is that a grade bump…one single bump up or down, could affect the price drastically.
This batch seems fairly sold. At first glance, There are 2 books that I’m severely disappointed in their grades. One being Amazing Spider-Man #300 which is the first appearance of Venom. The second being Star Wars: Heir to the Empire #1 which contains the first appearance of Grand Admiral Thrawn and is probably giving 
Then there are about 5 or 6 books that I missed on a big payday by one single bump in a half grade…mainly a few 9.6’s that I was hoping would be 9.8’s. But mostly we did ok.
I’m going to cover in an upcoming detailed post, just how we fared on this batch. I’ll break down the price points for the grades we received and showcase the sometime ocean wide vast difference in price that a single bump in either direction can make. Oh silly comic nerds…
So stay tuned!!!
Blewitt