My standard is complete and readable. I might even accept something missing (coupon, page, etc.) if it did not interrupt the stories in the issue if it is a pricey key that makes it more affordable on my limited budget.

-M

Years ago I bought an Avengers #5 on eBay and discovered it was missing a non story page. I contacted the seller and we agreed on a refund of 5 dollars.

For 900 bucks, the comic would have to be a Kirby original, complete with cigar ash sprinkled on it.

I was mad at myself for paying $100 for a copy of Exciting Comics #10, with the first appearance of the Black Terror, at a Heroes Con. For that one comic, I could have bought about 5 other Golden Age books, a a whole stack of Silver Age comics, or a box of Bronze Age material. Or, I could have made an extra car payment. Story wasn't that great, either. I later got the best stuff from AC Comics, in their Golden Age men of Mystery series, where they reprinted the Jerry Robinson and Mort Meskin stories. Those collections ran $6.95.

I grew up with too little spending money to ever spend that kind of cash on anything that wasn't a necessity. Even in my collecting days, $30 for a single comic was pretty much the upper limit and that was for 40 year old material. I rarely paid more than $10 for anything published in my lifetime, no matter how historical it was. Besides, I'm a story guy and I can get reprints of that and other stories, for a hell of a lot less.

.5 and 3.0 have less meaning for me than Good and Very Fine. Does it have a cover? Are the pages all there? Did anyone draw mustache's on the love interest? That's about it for me, other than I'm not going to pay Very Fine prices for a dog eared copy and have walked out of shops, without buying, that had that kind of pricing. Anything in my collection that was older than 20 years and was in higher than mid-grade condition was probably blind luck.

Grading systems have always been a joke, to me, as it all boils down to a subjective opinion. the difference is that now they assign a numerical value to that opinion, but that still doesn't mean you wouldn't get 3 different grades from 3 different "experts." I look at it in simple economic terms: it is worth whatever the buyer is willing to pay and the seller is willing to accept and there is no more science to it than that.

Bagging and boarding I got, to a certain extent, to preserve your comics for re-reading (or, at least, my comics); but, slabbing is just insanity, to me.  Sealing a book or comic in plastic so it can be looked at, but not read, makes even less sense than never removing the toy from the box to play with it.  I've just never been that kind of collector.

You know that’s a really good point I never thought of. Slabbed to keep from further deterioration.