Gallery of Disclosure Introduction | Network Of Disclosure

The NOD is pleased to present its Gallery of Disclosure which documents examples of comic books that have been reasonably determined to have had some form of treatment applied to enhance their appearance. Generally, these treatments are undertaken to increase the book's grade in order to positively impact the monetary value for a seller. Until the creation of this visual database, these manipulations would often go undisclosed to buyers.

Each example presented here has been reviewed by at least four NOD members to assess the reasonableness of the evidence. The inclusion of any individual book does not necessarily denote the NOD as an organization has concluded the accuracy of the opinion; it does reflect a consensus judgment that the book in question has been manipulated in some manner as supported by the presented evidence.

The NOD realizes that certain types of manipulation remain the subject of serious debate as to whether the method constitutes restoration or not. For example, in her article The Restoration of Comic Books: 1982-2002, which appeared in The Official Overstreet Comic Book Grading Guide (2nd Edition), noted restoration expert and NOD Charter Member Susan Cicconi wrote: "I truly feel that once you remove staples from a comic book, you are altering the book; therefore I would consider this restoration...Noticing that staples have been removed from a comic book will always open a book up to suspicion as to whether anything else may have been done to the cover or interior pages". Yet at least one third-party certification company has recently taken a different position regarding disassembly.

Regardless of whether the method or treatment is restoration, the increasing population of manipulated books has brought with it some worrisome side effects. For one thing, the efforts to create a "new supply" of higher graded material in order to gain short-term financial profit has the potential to seriously destabilize the Golden Age, Atom-Age, Silver-Age and Bronze-Age future markets. This, of course, will significantly impact the value of all of our collections.

Whether the destabilization of the future market place will occur is certainly open to debate, but what is beyond dispute is that the manipulation of certain books is intentionally destroying comic book history by condoning the disappearance of treasured pedigree books. Whether this is accomplished through the erasure of recognized distributor's marks, arrival dates, distinguishing traits, or through the simple elimination of a pedigree, file copy, or collection designations, the "sanitation" of these historical 'brands' is destroying a cohesive genealogical link to the nostalgic past that the NOD believes should be cherished and preserved.

The premise for this Gallery is to promote disclosure, to educate buyers in order to allow informed decisions and to reveal what is happening, oftentimes in the shadows, within our community. The concept of conducting due diligence prior to a purchase may be a daunting task with the numerous venues available to liquidate manipulated books. Ideally, this Gallery will serve as a single focal starting point for collectors, dealers and investors alike to research provenance of at least a certain number of books.

Please note that the individuals creating and reviewing these examples may not be experts in the area of restoration detection and/or procedures. Therefore, we encourage anyone to identify any perceived or known errors with any of the Gallery postings. Additionally, we solicit any further examples of manipulated books for inclusion in the Gallery.

Please contact us at info@networkofdisclosure.com with any comments or suggestions.