What is this ?

[Gibberish]

The black junk that is from the staples out onto the cover about 1/2 an inch

I purchased 5 NM copies from Jesse James on ebay and these are what I got.
4 of the 5 have these same marks and I feel this is not a NM book. If I am wrong,please,clarify as I do not wish to give issue with their company over me being to picky.

They look to be VF POSSIBLY VF+ as all of the spines are higher than the cover, not a nice flat,uniformed book

[Gibberish]

Jesse James ( Is this a real person ?) just contacted me on ebay. I was very non-aggressive or accusatory in my message as I do not know if this is the norm for these books.

His reply seems ok,but I need legitimate input from people who go to stores and buy.
The fact 1 has NO marks leads me to think he is generalizing since if it WAS industry standard,they should all have the same issue

Wow okay you must be out of the loop. The last couple of years any white dominated cover done by most the independents all have printer runs on them. They are reported to CGC for graded and not counted as grade. Since I picked these personally out of the 500+ copies we have. They would all grade out as a NM (9.6 to a 9.8) I will be more than happy to pick up some more at SDCC this week for you but we will not find any clear covers for you. Our original purchase was a 1000 copies and we were actually the first store to stalk these. We have not had anybody until now say anything so we went with the assumption that everybody knew about this comic. However in your case you just said you just got back into this. We will do whatever you want done as you can see we have perfect ratings across the board. Also so you no John Layman and Rob are very close friends of mine so I wouldn't want to sell comics of theirs that didn't represent them in a proper manner. my number is also (Felt it would be nice NOT to hand this guys cell out) thanks Jesse James no worries there is always a solution to all matters.

So come on guys
Am I getting the back door smoke or is this true ?
I have a Walking dead #1 yearbook?Year 1 ? book ? Not ,but it is a full white book and it is also put out by image and does not have these marks either.

[John91C]

Originally Posted by Gibberish

Jesse James ( Is this a real person ?) just contacted me on ebay. I was very non-aggressive or accusatory in my message as I do not know if this is the norm for these books.

His reply seems ok,but I need legitimate input from people who go to stores and buy.
The fact 1 has NO marks leads me to think he is generalizing since if it WAS industry standard,they should all have the same issue

Wow okay you must be out of the loop. The last couple of years any white dominated cover done by most the independents all have printer runs on them. They are reported to CGC for graded and not counted as grade. Since I picked these personally out of the 500+ copies we have. They would all grade out as a NM (9.6 to a 9.8) I will be more than happy to pick up some more at SDCC this week for you but we will not find any clear covers for you. Our original purchase was a 1000 copies and we were actually the first store to stalk these. We have not had anybody until now say anything so we went with the assumption that everybody knew about this comic. However in your case you just said you just got back into this. We will do whatever you want done as you can see we have perfect ratings across the board. Also so you no John Layman and Rob are very close friends of mine so I wouldn't want to sell comics of theirs that didn't represent them in a proper manner. my number is also (Felt it would be nice NOT to hand this guys cell out) thanks Jesse James no worries there is always a solution to all matters.

So come on guys
Am I getting the back door smoke or is this true ?
I have a Walking dead #1 yearbook?Year 1 ? book ? Not ,but it is a full white book and it is also put out by image and does not have these marks either.

What he is saying has some truth to it...if it's a "known" printer's smudge than it does not count against CGC 9.8 since "most" of that printed issue will have the same defect. Now there will be very few copies that do not have the smudge which will grant it a 9.9 or 10.

Thief of Thieves has a known printer's smudge on the back cover and it goes under CGC 9.8.

[Gibberish]

Originally Posted by John91C

What he is saying has some truth to it...if it's a "known" printer's smudge than it does not count against CGC 9.8 since "most" of that printed issue will have the same defect. Now there will be very few copies that do not have the smudge which will grant it a 9.9 or 10.

Thief of Thieves has a known printer's smudge on the back cover and it goes under CGC 9.8.

Alright
I will let it go then

[Gibberish]

Maybe not

I looked on ebay and even his auction copy does not show this mark and none of what is listed shows it from 4 other sellers as well.

[John91C]

Originally Posted by Gibberish

Maybe not

I looked on ebay and even his auction copy does not show this mark and none of what is listed shows it from 4 other sellers as well.

He may have only sold the ones that have the printer's smudge. Usually if it's a known problem "most" of them will have the smudge but if he's selling some without the smudge then it more than likely will not count towards CGC 9.8.

[Gibberish]

Originally Posted by John91C

He may have only sold the ones that have the printer's smudge. Usually if it's a known problem "most" of them will have the smudge but if he's selling some without the smudge then it more than likely will not count towards CGC 9.8.

Yah,talked with the owner of Castle Comics in NY and he told me the 9.6-9.8 remark was BS, his words. Said there is no known printing ink issue that he is aware of on the #13B that CGC will take into consideration with grading

[John91C]

Originally Posted by Gibberish

Yah,talked with the owner of Castle Comics in NY and he told me the 9.6-9.8 remark was BS, his words. Said there is no known printing ink issue that he is aware of on the #13B that CGC will take into consideration with grading

Sucks...I know with Thief of Thieves there is a known printer's smudge on the back that does not affect a CGC 9.8 grade...don't know about a 9.9 or 10 since I haven't seen one of those yet.

[Gibberish]

Well
the person I am speaking with on ebay seems unusually motivated to make my happy. I say unusual as I am usually the one willing to take a loss on a sale to make a buyer happy when something is overlooked,so It feels weird.
He offered to let me keep the 5 I have and find me 5 without the rub stain. I told him I would pay for these 1st 5 or send them back,but free makes me feel awkward
He went so far as to say he emailed "layman"( I assume he means the writer) too see if he has any copies that are NM that he would send to him to give to me to fix the issue...talk about really feeling awkward.

[dustin9900]

Those don't look like smudges. They are where the staples are at. It almost looks like damage from where they were packaged together and the weight caused the staples to make an impression on the front thus causing the cover to "discolor". But then again I am tired what do I know right now. Let the guy work it out for you seems like he is going the extra mile enjoy it for once as the buyer!

[Gibberish]

now I am at odds
Jesse James got back in touch with me with the following

I got NONE ZILTCHED NADA!!! Layman is making it up by doing a batman signing for me so that will work in our favor. let me get that shipment in and see what they look like first this week. JJ


I don't do batman so I have no idea what he is talking about and fairly sure I wouldn't be interested.

Input ? I don't want to spread the guy out over a few books,but I do want what I paid for
I am at odds here

[Gibberish]

Come on Indy
I know you are browsing
Give me some input here Chris !

[John91C]

Layman is the new writer for Detective Comics starting at issue #13. If your seller is doing a layman signing on the Detective #13 and is submitting to CGC with possible SS 9.8 then let me know...as I'm very very very very very interested in this!

[Gibberish]

Originally Posted by John91C

Layman is the new writer for Detective Comics starting at issue #13. If your seller is doing a layman signing on the Detective #13 and is submitting to CGC with possible SS 9.8 then let me know...as I'm very very very very very interested in this!

But that is in October....
I am so confused.

[John91C]

Maybe he's asking you to wait until October...

[IndySportsCards]

I've gotten books like that, and yes, it is rather common with white covers. I either sell them for cover, try and return them, or just let them sit in a box.

Yes, you could argue they're not NM IMHO. You'll win the case, not as advertised. If I were you, I'd do that and try and find cleaner copies. They are out there, just harder to find, and it's issues like this that put such premiums on 9.8's...

And Layman on Detective RULES! One of my all time favorite books, with him at the helm.. GOLD!

In fact, I got 2 Revival Variants from Midtown today that had a smudge at the staple on both, I returned them immediately. I'm not paying $9.99 a book (Or whatever it was) for damaged books.

And guys, don't go crazy buying a Gazillion Detective #13 books. DC prints enough copies of each of it's books each month, you could take all the pages and build a house for every citizen of Zimbabway, Brazil and Remulak with them.. there will be plenty.. now if there are variants, those might be tempting, but I've not seen any pre-order info on variants yet, just base copies.