For This Is the Day… That a Superman Died
Justice League America 69 Third Printing

COMIC DETAILS

Comic Description: Justice League America #69 Universal
Grade: 9.6
Page Quality: WHITE
Certification #: 2101154004
Owner: Iconic1s

SET DETAILS

Winning Set:

For This Is the Day… That a Superman Died
Date Added: 6/2/2020
Research: See CGC's Census Report for this Comic

Owner's Description

<i>At 9.6 this book is the lone, and highest graded Universal Label copy of this book and shares the 9.6 spot with only one Signature Series 9.6.</i>

I don't want to seem <i>ungrateful</i> but when I received this book back from CGC with no grader notes, I could not find anything that kept it from being a 9.8 (even with my loupe!). If this book wasn’t the lone 9.6 and so hard to find in high grade I would probably be resubmitting it right now but I am always so worried about something going wrong that I probably won’t take the chance.

I bought this book raw for $9.00 from the same online Comic Book Shop that I had bought several other raw books from that are also now graded members of this set. I bought the last of this store’s raw stock of several books and wish I had gotten into trying to finish this set much earlier because I can only imagine what they had in stock for the last 25 plus years that went unnoticed.

This book replaced a 9.2 that previously occupied this slot. When I added the 9.2 the highest graded Universal copy at that time was a lone 9.4... I leap frogged the 9.4 with this book but had really been hoping to end up with the lone 9.8. The hunt continues!

I pulled the 9.2 from an unopened Doomsday Collector’s Pack that I won on eBay for $43.00. I also won the Funeral for a Friend Collector’s Pack from the same seller but paid over $200.00 for that one. At the time I wasn’t close to finishing this set and was pretty much mining for books everywhere I could, hoping to strike gold. I bought both packs not knowing exactly what was in them, but at the time I needed the books on the top of each, which was Superman 75 fourth printing, and Adventures of Superman 498 fourth printing. I also had this crazy idea that maybe the Funeral for a Friend Pack was full of the entire set of DC Universe logo printings! That would have been incredible, but I was wrong.

Both packs had never been opened but were disappointments. The books towards the top of the pack had either impact dents, or color rubbed off near the staples. About three books down, the books started to look pretty good structurally, but foxing started showing up on the back covers that worsened as you got farther down the stack. There was an extra piece of cardboard inserted for strength and the books against it had the worse foxing I have personally seen on modern books.

This 9.2 looked great structurally and only had one small spot of foxing about the diameter of a pencil on the back cover. I didn’t intend on submitting it but ended up throwing it in at the last minute while getting some other books ready. I sent it through CCS for pressing and dry cleaning and hoped for the best until I found a better copy.

I was glad to have a relatively decent book in this slot and I liked the fact that I saved it from the Collector’s Pack… a few more years in there would not have been good for it. I also learned something about these packs during this experience and that is that even if the corners look decent on the boxes, or even if they have never been opened, the odds are still pretty good that the books inside may not be the 9.8’s you are hoping for.

I included a picture of the Collector’s Pack in the second image slot. This picture is actually of a second set that I bought later packaged together... I guess I never learn because I had no better luck when I opened this one.

With the 9.2 occupying this slot I set about looking for other raw candidates when I bought this one. I had tried to order two copies, but it ended up that only one was left in stock. When it arrived, I was glad that it looked like it had a shot at 9.8 and would, at the very least, upgrade my 9.2 so I submitted it to CGC through CCS and held my breath...

...a little less that four months later I got my grades and this book earned a 9.6. Like I said earlier, I was really hoping for a 9.8 but at least this book shares the spot as the highest graded copy. I will continue to hunt down the elusive 9.8 raw copy of this book... I would love to be the first person with all four printings of this book in 9.8!
  
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