Douglas W. McCratic

Before I start, how about a big round of applause for everyone involved in re-designating the variants in CB? Holy cow, I can't imagine what a monumental task that must have been or how long it took. Strong work! I found it all done because I had some variants in All-Star Batman (the hyphen is important) that were no longer recognized. I got my books worked out but noticed some anomalies in others. All-Star Batman #1-V-29 is listed as a Midtown Comics Exclusive cover by Tyler Kirkham but has the #1-S Ben Oliver variant pictured. Additionally, the actual Midtown Kirkham variant is already listed as #1-L. All-Star Batman #1-G is listed as CGC Graded and includes a certificate of authenticity but there is no picture associated with it. I'm not sure why a CGC graded book would also have a COA so I'm wondering if the intent behind this book is that it was a "thank you" book sent to retailers. I have found one with "DC Certified" noted on a special label with a Batman illustration on it. I would wager that this is the book intended for this variation and have submitted the info and pic. Were All-Star Batman #1-E and #1-F produced? I can't find evidence that they actually exist. Dynamic Forces' website has a place holder cover of a book that doesn't appear to have been produced. There are no copies on eBay and no pictures of the signed book or the place holder anywhere other than the DF site. Amazing Spider-Man has what is probably a minor hiccup as well. #583-A has Barrack Obama on the cover and there were 5 printings before it was all over. What were numbers 583-A-3, 583-A-4 and 583-A-5 are all now 583-3 and up. #582-A-2 was left in place. For my money, the proper designation includes the "A" in the numbering since that was the cover reprinted. Back to the Future (IDW) #1-E appears to have the wrong picture, the correct pic is below. The picture listed now belongs to #1-V28. Also, it's the Z-Box variant with nothing to do with Carol & John's Store. #1-V28 is Carol & John's Store with it clearly labeled on the cover. Back to the Future #1-F is not a Wizard World exclusive cover. It was for the VA Comicon only. #1-F and #1-V39 both appear to be VA Comicon exclusives as they both have the VA Comicon logo on the cover. #1-V31 and #1-V37 are technically the same book since it is a shared variant. Secret Wars #1-G has the note "Alex Ross blank variant cover." Not sure if Mr. Ross is taking credit for blanks now but if he is, it seems wrong to me. 💩

Nothing has turned up. I still have some old backups I want to check just to be certain but it's not looking good.

The new update fixed the problem with being able to edit the issues but the pics are still gone. All the standard pics are there but my own additions are not.

No COA, the gold "seal" and printed "Signed Edition" theoretically fill that role. Unless they have changed recently, I've never seen an IDW Signed Edition with a COA.

I thought these had been in higher demand for a long time!

No, the pics are all gone. I put them in using the method described. They're not in the file at all now which means a ton more time rescanning. Everything is in the original default location as it has always has been. None of the higher prints have a pic associated with them now but did in the past. I really thought the upper end of printings was 50 as I have another book I set aside using that one. Nothing special just an oddball book I wanted to keep my own scan for in addition to the regular edition. I didn't think to check the pic on that one but will tomorrow.

Another example of the variants' images disappearing is the Secret City Saga (Jack Kirby's...). I'm pretty sure #0-B is the platinum (or possibly Kirbychrome) edition and the gold edition is just gone. I had images of all the books I had but now one is gone. Contrary to the notes, #0-A isn't a Kirbychrome edition, it's the Red edition. This also comes into play on Silver Star (Jack Kirby's...) with a platinum variant as well that simply no longer exists. I have books that used to be in CB but are now gone and I don't have an image to go by to figure out what was what.

There is a magnifying glass at the top search bar, click it. It will open a window with a drop down menu, click it and go to "Advanced Find" Beyond that, there is a thread at the top of the Tech Support page to help with the syntax to get what you're looking for.

I feel like there is but I'm not sure how to do it. I can't even find the "Advanced Search" that I have never been able to use...

Oh! And Qty is "Quantity" meaning how many you own...I got ahead of myself...

Forgive me, I haven't used a free version in more than 20 years so I may not know as much as I think. I believe the default setup is with the Item #, Qty, Condition, Grading Notes, Cover, Currency, Cover Date, Street Date, Price and Cost. If you're missing any of these, go to the Setup menu at the very top of the window and hopefully you can activate them there. Cost is what you paid, Price is it's current value. I'm not one to keep track of when I purchase books but I suppose you could active one of the custom fields for it under Setup as well. Welcome aboard!

I don't know that there is an accurate algorithm to apply for signatures. Let's use a popular one as an example, Incredible Hulk #181. Let's say you have a 7.0 signed by Len Wein and I have the same book in 7.0 signed by Herb Trimpe and Billy Bob has a 7.0 signed by Len Wein, Herb Trimpe, John Romita, Stan Lee and Hugh Jackman. How do we determine the value on that? Wein, Trimpe, are fairly common. Jackman is incredibly rare but you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a half dozen Stan Lee signed books on eBay. I would say the Wein and Trimpe signed books are fairly equal in value. I'm not trying to be a jerk, I've given this some thought in the past and just don't see a good way clear as the signed market is an entirely different animal from the rest of the hobby. Books that I wouldn't touch with your wallet (New Mutants #98 signed by Stan Lee, anyone?) will bring stupid money despite Stan Lee having absolutely nothing to do with the book. I prefer some connection to the characters, the history, or something, having Stan Lee sign anything Marvel always drove me completely nuts. At least on Hulk #181 one could argue that he created the Hulk so it's good. Despite the title, I don't think of Hulk #181 as a Hulk book but rather the first Wolverine book. I've got Stan Lee on some moderns that he didn't have anything to do with but they are anniversary type books or some other "classic" tie in. Amazing Spider-Man #657 is one that I had signed because it tied two of his creations together on the cover in a unique image. ASM #638-C is another one but with Stan on the cover, it's an easier connection to make. If you've got a good algorithm, I am all ears!

The is a book on my Unknown Items list that I have submitted in the past but it keeps coming back. Under the title Locke & Key, it should show up as #1/AUT. It was issued by IDW at roughly the same time as the regular #1. The UPC is the same as the other first prints but it has "SIGNED EDITION" under the IDW logo and a big gold seal that reads "Signed Edition" similar to other IDW signed editions. I've added a scan below. Sorry for the bright white line about midway down, this is a new action by my scanner that I can't seem to get fixed.

I'm not really sure where to post this as it touches a lot of different areaed to content and corrections because it involves later printings of books that already exist in CB that don't actually exist (read on, I made this really complicated). It's sort of a technical issue as I believe my problem stems from the big update to CB 2021. I'll try to map it out and see where we get. I have lots of sketch cover variants, you know the blanks that were made to get the artist to sketch on. Years ago, I started entering my sketches in Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America #3. Many of my sketches are CGC graded and I wanted to keep track of all of my sketches in CB and to have images of the individual sketches available. I did this by using high numbered variants. As an example, I have a Fallen Son #3 that got a 7.0 (ouch) from CGC. My solution was that I would enter it as a 70th printing and put the scan into my database so that it was available in CB. The picture number was 3-B-70. I rationalized that no one would ever get up to a 70th printing so this should be safe, plus CB appeared to allow an infinite number of printings. I didn't upload the books since they were mine and no one would benefit from all my personal sketches. I did this with all grades but with the high grades where most of my books land, the first CGC 9.0 became a 900th printing, the second became the 901st printing and so on. 9.4 became 940th printing, 9.6 became 960th printing and continued. CGC doesn't use 9.5 or 9.7 so I could use those to add additional 9.4s and 9.6s. My 9.8s go up to 1021 printings to cover them all. As it currently stands, all my high number printings are still in CB but all the images are gone. To make matters worse, I can't access these books to change printing numbers and bring them in line. I assume it has to do with the high printings. It appears that 50 is the highest printing CB now accepts. I have no way to change the information on the books because I can't even open up the individual issue. I get the following message Is there any way to get back to something similar to the way things were? I really liked having my books in front of me on CB but I'm guessing that since the program didn't see the books in the Master DB, it deleted the images? That's a whole different issue but in trying to reconcile my collection with the Unknown Items list, the images are gone meaning I'm digging through literal tons of books to try to guess what I meant when I entered the book originally. I don't mind moving stuff around to bring it in line but not even having an image to compare makes it difficult at best. Also, I number the FCBD variants in their title by the year they were released. I copied the pictures and changed the numbers to fit my collection but now about 1 in 3 that I look at are gone. Again, I assume because the issue number isn't in the Master DB? Is this an action that can be halted?

I put signatures in the Grading Notes if they're not a limited edition.

I have a handful of titles that have the occasional random issue repeated from three to maybe a dozen times. As a rule, I delete them as I find them, just shrugging it as a minor bug. I'm not entirely sure when I did my last export/import so it might be time.

I can find them. They are certainly there, but I never have, nor would I ever use the number 2/May. I have used a variety of designations for variants but not the months. I'm operating from memory at this point, but few, if any, of the issues correspond to the month that follows the number. The whole thing is just odd and I wondered if maybe the way data is moved/changed at times might correlate. I have several books on my wanted list and these certainly may have been on that list once but are not currently. I regularly rebuild lists and optimize my database just in the interest of keeping things running smoothly. Logically, CB has left the issues behind when it has done updates because I had a quantity in stock. You mentioned that you don't have these particular issues, but have you ever seen anything similar? Maybe with a book or two that might complete a run?

Yes, the item #. What I have listed above are the unknown items after the update. There are standard numbers in my db.

What they said.

I am noticing something very strange in my "Unknown Items" list. I have issues that have a number with a slash followed by a month. I figured this was some sort of holdover from a previous update where something didn't get carried into the new database. In going over these, I am finding that I don't have most of the issues that are marked but they are issues that I would certainly like to have as they would complete runs and such. Here's what I found: Batman: The Killing Joke 3/Jan Deathstroke the Terminator 2/Jan Doomsday + 1 (Charlton) 2/May Dork 2/Feb Dork 3/Jan Hate 2/May Hate 3/Apr Hate 4/Jan Johnny the Homicidal Maniac 3/Apr Liberty Meadows 2/Feb Liberty Meadows 2/Mar Liberty Meadows 2/May Liberty Meadows 4/Jan Of these, I actually have copies of the Killing Joke and Deathstroke. I want the others to fill in gaps but have never owned them as best I can remember. I don't know if it is relevant but the months are January thru May only. The numbers don't correspond to the month but none go above #4, numerically it would be April. I'm fine simply deleting the quantity in the books above but wanted to know if anyone else had seen anything similar or if there is any explanation. I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm trying to learn how things like this might occur.

I am in the process of switching to short boxes. Far more sturdy, not so heavy to move around, and easy to store.

Also, Topps as the company we generally think of in comics as a publisher didn't emerge until 1992.

I don't have a copy, but it's safe to say that even though Topps put out some GGA books, they never did anything that I can recall with live models. Topps was also pretty consistent with getting their name on the cover. Not only does "Topps" not appear on the cover but "MN Design Productions" is fairly prominent. I would have put it in the early to mid 90s for publication based on the $4.50 cover price but in looking for information on "Nova Girls" online, they appear to have been active from 1989-1990 so I'm think MN Design Productions in 1989.

I don't personally own any of these but in looking around, I found this site online. As I strongly suspected, it is primarily comics shot from the original art. So technically, "comics."

So....it's been a month. I finally had time to look into it and sure enough, the grading notes were simply hidden from view. Thanks for the tip! Sorry for the delay in the attempt and the update.