Wasted 80 bucks on a graded comic that was a complete dud

I bought a CGC 9.8 copy of Batman #423 off eBay last month for 80 dollars. The seller's photos looked fine, but when it arrived the spine had multiple color-breaking creases I somehow missed. I feel like I got taken for a ride and now I'm stuck with a book that's probably more like an 8.0. Has anyone else had bad luck buying slabs online and gotten burned?

3 comments

3 Comments

davis.olivia19d ago

My buddy actually got fooled by the exact same thing last year, paid 65 for a Batman slab that looked perfect in the listing but had a massive bend on the back cover that was totally hidden by the angle they photographed it. The thing nobody talks about is that some graders have gotten way more generous with their labels lately, especially on mid tier books like that. A 9.8 from a few years ago might actually be closer to a 9.4 or 9.6 if you crack it open and look hard enough. I always ask sellers for a straight on shot of the spine with a light source behind the book before I buy, if they refuse or make excuses I just walk away.

rodriguez.mia19d agoMost Upvoted

Read somewhere that some graders are getting real sloppy with their internal QC. A buddy of mine cracked a 9.8 Flash book from 2022 that had a visible spine stress line the grader missed. The light source trick is solid but I also heard collectors using those little portable UV lights now to catch press lines that normal light won't show. That wavy paper thing you mentioned is real too. Had a dealer tell me he stopped buying slabbed books from certain years because the pressing was so aggressive it left permanent damage that only shows up months later.

hannahcraig19d ago

oh the light source trick is smart but honestly the real issue nobody brings up is that some of these graded books come from collections that were stored in conditions that look fine for a decade then suddenly shift. i knew a guy who had a whole run of ASM that graded out at 9.8s back in 2018, cracked one open last month to rebag it and the whole book had this weird wavy paper texture from being pressed too hard originally. graders cant see what the paper will do 5 years down the line so a slab that looks perfect now might literally warp itself into a lower tier book over time. that batman slab your buddy bought could have been totally flat when it got its grade and just developed that bend later from bad storage or bad pressing technique.