 Hey guys, welcome back to comic getting there. I'm taking you on a trip on how to grade comics with comic book 101 There's have their own unique way of creating comic books I'm gonna show you how I look at the comics and grade them and which determines on whether or not I'm going to buy the book or not so a comic book Depending on the age for instance This Laurel and Hardy It's pretty beat up. It's not as beat up as say This Archie comic is missing a cover or is beat up as say this annual jug head, which is Even these dollar ones are you can you know in better condition? Green Lantern here isn't pretty good shape this green Lantern We're gonna go over and grade it and I'll give you my grade on it So the grade scale pretty much goes from like 0.5 to 10 professional Greater one you would send your comic books off through the mail. They would go with a fine Fine pick and brush and gloves and all that stuff and that's why you're spending tons of money go to a comic book dealer Good one. We'll look it over for you and Tell you you know without having to wait like two months So we're gonna go ahead and open this up I prefer to use a single piece of tape. I'm like pads and boards someone else Tape this up So we take it out No, that's how I'm kind of holding on to it here. I'm not you know I'm not grabbing it like this like this. I'm not rolling it up I'm kind of like Holding it like I'm for you to drop it. So this is how a comic Should look for the most part right off of the right off the comic books rack So what we're gonna do here first thing I look at is I look to see if there's any creases in the book There are none that I can currently see Next thing I look over is I look at the corners now Typically the point here the corner the better I mean you don't want to do that. You just kind of want to Eyeball here a little bit if it's really pointy both sides front and back Again, I didn't want to touch the corners on this because I didn't want to mess them up So that bad shape Something else I'll look at is the spine of the spine If it hasn't really been read a whole lot, you shouldn't see a whole lot if any white Marks as if it's been opened that'll degrade it a bit, but not a lot Most actual collectors prefer to be as less red as possible And again, my philosophy my motto is comic books are always meant to be red so And we may even go over that another date Next thing I'll do and you'll notice how I'm gonna open open this book here. I'm gonna open it like Like this I'm not gonna open it up all the way maybe Not like bend the page of it Maybe just kind of hold the page back a bit and before anyone says it this is a dollar book This is one that's got it's been messed up and so it goes in a dollar bin So and what I want to do is with older books specifically, we'll use Jughead here You want to make sure When you open it and again, this is especially with the older books You want to see if the cover is still attached to the book itself, which as you can tell on this one It's not So they could see this book is not attached to the cover at all. In fact, it looks like maybe someone tried to staple The book back together So these tend to go on my free rack by the way these type of books So that's one thing you want to look for We'll just take that out You also want to see again if there's missed like somebody else put staples in the book you want to see How white the inside of the pages are and I understand time has a tendency to Yellow the pages especially on the older books Again the white of the page is the better and you also want to make sure that if there's a coupon in the book So I find one here. Ah, perfect You also want to make sure that there's a cutout in the book like a coupon or something Then nobody's actually taken the time to cut this out I had a book many of you may have known this book Hulk 181 It was there's a first appearance of Wolverine. I actually had one in my hands I was looking over it to see if it was worth the price for me to buy it and I could tell you how it wasn't We won't go into that story, but in the middle of the page somebody had cut out a coupon Yeah, so degrades the book quite a bit. We also have tear in this one for instance So just things you want to look at You again you want to see if anybody's done one of these to the books You got the folds here When you're young you might be tend to take the corner and mark your page You know things like that torn covers Tape for instance, maybe somebody might have taped this So on this book here What I would probably end up Grading this definitely is very very poor just you know point five the lowest you can possibly go on the grade Not maybe even worth five cents. So that would get again go on my free rack a book like this Green Lantern however Which does have a few flaws. I mean, it's you know, not without it's got the spine So it has been read it's got a few intense from you know people holding it wrong But the pages are still really white The cover's still intact You can still make everything out So on this this would probably You can range this anywhere from seven or an eight now without how I grade these is There is a website. I use called comics price guide com It has a two-level scale one scale is just the raw grade which is what I just did There's another grading scale on there For for say you send it out to a company like CGC and they grade it You find that in grade and you can find the price on the second Second chart there I also grade books many we not say professionally, but I have been known to actually great Books seal them up not enough to type plastic case or anything, but I seal them up great them so There you go. I mean, that's really what you have to look for make sure the edges here for instance are nice and flat Make sure sometimes a The pages to a book will end up like this Because somebody folded it up make sure that's good and you know that doesn't happen Again, these little things here these will These bring down the book a lot The book has been read a lot. You can see this has really been open It's got some smudges on the side here and this may be a factory thing But even if it's a factory thing it still counts against it So sometimes the printing press messes up the book to not just you know the individual That's really what you want to look for when grading books Again, if you're not sure You just need a little bit further assistance Always go to your little comic book dealer and say hey, can you here's a couple books? I'm trying to figure out what they're worth. Can you kind of maybe you know give me a hint? Give me an idea so and There you go That is comic book 101 What to look for when you're grading your books? so Stay tuned for more come again Next time on comic book 101 why you shouldn't use eBay for pricing or possibly buying your comic books tune in next week