Third Party Grading of Silver Age Comics
Question: Third Party Grading of Silver Age Comics
A reader recently sent me a question regarding third party grading.
"Read your grading comics article....Just fell on some Silver Age comics....If I wanted a pro to grade a few, where can I trust that i will get my same comic book back?"
Answer:
If this was just another large collection article that I get regularly, I would send them some article links and give some advice here and there.
The thing that gets my attention from a question like this though is that it is a group of Silver Age comic books, which could make it worth quite a sum.
Getting a group of comics can be something of a burden, especially if they are quite new. Most new comics are not worth the time and energy of sorting through them one by one and grading each and every comic book. Getting a group of older and therefore more likely to be valuable comic books is a completely different situation.
Probably the industry standard for third party grading is going to be CGC and that was my main suggestion to the reader above. In mulling it over though, I think I would take it a step further. I think for me I would cherry pick the best comics out for grading. Probably first on quality and then on supposed worth. If value and making profit were my first thought, then that is the route I would go. Otherwise I would choose the ones that were the most meaningful to me and just bag and board them as getting them graded makes it difficult to read again.
When getting a group of comic books, it can be a daunting task to grade them all and it may be tempting just to send them all in for grading. Take into account that it could be as much as $95 per comic to grade and you can see the problem for the everyday collector. Having a few comics that you know have a good shot at being valuable is probably the best way to go.
You never know though, in that box of mystery comics could be one gem worth thousands to the right collector. It's always good to at least give everything a good once over to see if something catches your eye.
A reader recently sent me a question regarding third party grading.
"Read your grading comics article....Just fell on some Silver Age comics....If I wanted a pro to grade a few, where can I trust that i will get my same comic book back?"
Answer:
If this was just another large collection article that I get regularly, I would send them some article links and give some advice here and there.
The thing that gets my attention from a question like this though is that it is a group of Silver Age comic books, which could make it worth quite a sum.
Getting a group of comics can be something of a burden, especially if they are quite new. Most new comics are not worth the time and energy of sorting through them one by one and grading each and every comic book. Getting a group of older and therefore more likely to be valuable comic books is a completely different situation.
Probably the industry standard for third party grading is going to be CGC and that was my main suggestion to the reader above. In mulling it over though, I think I would take it a step further. I think for me I would cherry pick the best comics out for grading. Probably first on quality and then on supposed worth. If value and making profit were my first thought, then that is the route I would go. Otherwise I would choose the ones that were the most meaningful to me and just bag and board them as getting them graded makes it difficult to read again.
When getting a group of comic books, it can be a daunting task to grade them all and it may be tempting just to send them all in for grading. Take into account that it could be as much as $95 per comic to grade and you can see the problem for the everyday collector. Having a few comics that you know have a good shot at being valuable is probably the best way to go.
You never know though, in that box of mystery comics could be one gem worth thousands to the right collector. It's always good to at least give everything a good once over to see if something catches your eye.
