Customer Reviews

The Official Overstreet Comic Book Grading Guide, 3rd Edition

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I own the two previous versions of the Overstreet Grading Guide and have a few historical observations which may put the current work into perspective. First, the grading world was stood on its ear with the advent of third party grading companies that "certify" the grades of comics, by far the most prominent being CGC which began operations in 2000. Second, grading is not a science, it is an art. Like Robin Williams in "Dead Poet's Society" you can't grade a comic book on an axis like was suggested for grading poetry in the text Robin taught from in literature class.

What you see here is Bob Overstreet's second attempt to incorporate more CGC-like grading standards into his publication. The attempt at grading uniformity is laudable but not always attainable. True the defects chart/graph in the guide shows that for a 9.8 grade, a book should have no more than two defects, yet a color plate of Infinite Crisis #1, shown as example of a 9.8 book, shows three defects indicated by arrows.

CGC however demonstrates similar occassional inconsistency. In the Overstreet Grading Guide no bindery tears are allowed in 9.9 (Mint) books. I have owned and currently own a number of 9.9 and 10.0 CGC books. None have any bindery tears, except one 9.9 I previously owned which had a prominent and easily visible bindery tear in the upper left corner. I have tried to nail CGC down just what the difference is between a 9.9 and a 9.8 book, relied on their advice in my submissions, but to no avail. I have produced CGC graded 9.9 books from my submissions, but not when expected.

This grading guide is just that; a "guide," to be used in combination with experience in the comics hobby as well as hopefully some education, training and dedication. It is not a bible to be referred to in attempts to discern the objective truths of grading; there are few. What it is, is a solid guide to introductory and intermediate level grading. To go beyond that you have to have enough knowledge to identify the inconsistencies in this guide and deal with them. If you have expensive, key issue Golden or Silver Age issues or high grade issues, you should strongly consider submission to CGC. CGC graded comics are most fungible in the marketplace and will always draw multiples of the bids placed on non-CGC graded comics in the same grade at auction.

Ladieees and gentlemen! New in this Third Edition! 10.0s with visible defects! 9.9s with spine stress! A 9.6 with a 1/4 inch front cover tear!

...and that's not all!

You also get all the same internal inconsistencies that you got in the second edition, such as text descriptions that read "No creasing" accompanied by pictures of books in the same grade with visible creasing!

So what prompted this THIRD edition of the grading guide? Apparently, they thought the addition of zoom boxes on a few of the defects here and there justified an entirely new edition! Well, that and a few pages of the same namby-pamby discussion of restoration, pressing, and disclosure that you can read on the CGC message forums for free.

The bottom line is, if you need a grading guide, buy the second edition; don't buy this third edition. If you follow this third edition and try to sell someone a "10.0" that has visible defects or a "9.6" with a 1/4 inch front cover tear, I don't care what the guide says, you're going to have an angry customer.

And if you already have the second edition of the grading guide, save your money and skip the third edition. This book is a complete waste of cash and paper.

Book supplies what is advertised.
I can see some improvements, but I am not an expert.
Needed if you are seriously considering collecting comics for investment purposes.

This book is actually less helpful than the 2nd edition in my opinion but its a useful tool if you want to do a lot of comic grading. Good format and easy to use but I do think that some of the guidelines for grading in this book are not clear enough (dimpling, subscription folds, etc. are hardly even mentioned). Also, some of the pictures do not seem to match the grade they are used to describe. Overall, a good guide though.