Nerds like slabs, bigger nerds like slab data.
Which books take home the most gold?
What if each CGC Grade was its own Olympic event?
The most submitted book to earn CGC 9.8 grades is Spawn #1 (1992).
All the CGC grades are included in these “CGC Census Olympics” and the awards are Gold, Silver, and Bronze
Read the full article for free on GPAnalysis.com here…
The most often submitted publishers to CGC, as of the January 17, 2017 CGC Census. To date, at least one submission has been made for 2,476 different publishers.
58% of all submissions are Marvel comic books, and 20% are D.C. Comics. Marvel can also claim another 0.4% each for Timely and Atlas titles, while D.C. also adds 0.6% for Vertigo titles.
Image Comics has also published as Skybound and Top Cow, to total more than 6% of CGC submissions. Only two other publishers total at least 1% of CGC submissions, Dell Publishing and Valiant Comics.
Popular comic book submissions to CGC from 2000 to 2015 are fairly consistent, with the same comics appearing most years, but a few surprises do appear as recent events such as movie releases, character re-introductions, and television series impact the demand for their CGC graded key issues.
1930s: View a three-year “Top 10” and an overall ranking for comic books from 1930 to 1939 in the chart below (enlarge), or as a printable PDF.
Popular comic book submissions to CGC from 2000 to 2015 are fairly consistent, with the same comics appearing most years, but a few surprises do appear as recent events such as movie releases, character re-introductions, and television series impact the demand for their CGC graded key issues.
1940s: View the annual “Top 10” and an overall ranking for comic books from 1940 to 1949 in the chart below (enlarge), or as a printable PDF.
Popular comic book submissions to CGC from 2000 to 2015 are fairly consistent, with the same comics appearing most years, but a few surprises do appear as recent events such as movie releases, character re-introductions, and television series impact the demand for their CGC graded key issues.
1950s: View the annual “Top 10” and an overall ranking for comic books from 1950 to 1959 in the chart below (enlarge), or as a printable PDF.
… just in case anyone was wondering.
To calculate the current CGC Census totals, click this link and give the page about 20 seconds to load.
After more than 3,200,000 comics graded 2000 to 2016, this is the Top 25 list of the oldest CGC 10 comic books.
| Ranking | Comic | Date |
| 1 | Kolynos Presents the White Guard 1 | 1949 |
| 2 | Thor 156 | 9/68 |
| 3 | Snatch Comics 1 Third Printing | 1969(?) |
| 4 | Aurora Comic Scenes 182-140 | 1974 |
| 5 | Aurora Comic Scenes 184-140 | 1974 |
| 6 | Aurora Comic Scenes 185-140 | 1974 |
| 7 | Aurora Comic Scenes 188-140 | 1974 |
| 8 | Aurora Comic Scenes 192-140 | 1974 |
| 9 | Aurora Comic Scenes 193-140 | 1974 |
| 10 | Captain Canuck 1 | 7/75 |
| 11 | 1984 3 | 9/78 |
| 12 | Cerebus the Aardvark 6 | 10/78 |
| 13 | Cerebus the Aardvark 7 | 12/78-1/79 |
| 14 | Daredevil 157 | 3/79 |
| 15 | Battlestar Galactica 5 | 7/79 |
| 16 | Cerebus the Aardvark 15 | 4/80 |
| 17 | Cerebus the Aardvark 21 | 10/80 |
| 18 | Eerie 115 | 10/80 |
| 19 | Fantastic Four 226 | 1/81 |
| 20 | Amazing Spider-Man 216 | 5/81 |
| 21 | Ka-Zar the Savage 7 | 10/81 |
| 22 | Uncanny X-Men 156 | 4/82 |
| 23 | Ghosts 112 | 5/82 |
| 24 | Marvel Team-Up 117 | 5/82 |
| 25 | Star Wars 59 | 5/82 |
A list of all CGC 10 comics 1949 to 1999 is available:
CGC10list.xls (Excel format)
There are 256 different comics in the list, some duplicate CGC 10 so the total number of CGC 10 slabs 1949 to 1999 is 547.
Earlier labels noted the grade as CGC 10.0, but the current standard label states CGC 10.
Popular comic book submissions to CGC from 2000 to 2015 are fairly consistent, with the same comics appearing most years, but a few surprises do appear as recent events such as movie releases, character re-introductions, and television series impact the demand for their CGC graded key issues.
1990s: View the annual “Top 10” and an overall ranking for comic books from 1990 to 1999 in the chart below (enlarge), or as a printable PDF.
Popular comic book submissions to CGC from 2000 to 2015 are fairly consistent, with the same comics appearing most years, but a few surprises do appear as recent events such as movie releases, character re-introductions, and television series impact the demand for their CGC graded key issues.
1980s: View the annual “Top 10” and an overall ranking for comic books from 1980 to 1989 in the chart below (enlarge), or as a printable PDF.
Popular comic book submissions to CGC from 2000 to 2015 are fairly consistent, with the same comics appearing most years, but a few surprises do appear as recent events such as movie releases, character re-introductions, and television series impact the demand for their CGC graded key issues.
1970s: View the annual “Top 10” and an overall ranking for comic books from 1970 to 1979 in the chart below (enlarge), or as a printable PDF.
Popular comic book submissions to CGC from 2000 to 2015 are fairly consistent, with the same comics appearing most years, but a few surprises do appear as recent events such as movie releases, character re-introductions, and television series impact the demand for their CGC graded key issues.
1960s: View the annual “Top 10” and an overall ranking for comic books from 1960 to 1969 in the chart below (enlarge), or as a printable PDF.
A comparison of the number of CGC submissions for Star Wars #1 (1977) over time, including both the regular edition and the 35-cent variant.
The total submissions as of January 2017 are 5,895 copies of Star Wars #1 regular edition, and 195 copies of the Star Wars #1 35-cent variant. The 35-cent variant is effectively a 1:30 variant of the regular edition (1 variant for every 30.2 regular), for copies of both submitted to CGC.
It is likely that the Star Wars #1 (1977) 35-cent variant is significantly lower than 3% of the existing/remaining supply, because lower grade copies of the Star Wars #1 regular edition are generally not “worth submitting” for professional grading when considering the resale value compared to the submission and grading fees.
The purchase of 1990s publisher Valiant Comics intellectual property in 2005, the announcement of the return of Valiant Comics in 2007, and the return to regular publishing in 2012 had impacts on the number of CGC submissions for 1990s Valiant Comics. The chart below shows the percentages of all 1990s Valiant Comics submission by the date they were submitted to CGC.
The above chart for Valiant Comics should be compared to the percentages for all 1990s comic books submitted to CGC to see the differences specific to the Valiant titles.
Though the announcements in 2005 certainly impacted CGC submissions for 1990s Valiant Comics more than the average for other 1990s comics, it should be noted that Valiant Comics (published by Valiant Entertainment, Inc.) announced an investment from DMG for publications and movies in March 2015. The increases in CGC submissions beginning in 2015 for Valiant, even above the overall 1990s percentages, are likely attributed to that announcement. In the fall of 2016, Valiant announced a web-based live action series beginning in 2017.
The impact of comic book based movies on the back issue comic market is undeniable, but is it also quantifiable?
In the case of the first comic book appearance of Harley Quinn, the number of CGC submissions for Batman Adventures #12 (1993) is shown on the chart below by the take of the CGC census. Though most CGC census updates were weekly, beginning around 2013, there were cases where the census may not have been updated one week and the next week may actually be the counts for two weeks, such as the gap visible just before January 2016.
The Suicide Squad (2016) was announced with a director in September 2014 and casting in October 2014. The number of CGC submissions spikes initially in late-2013, and increases significantly beginning in early 2015. The dates reflected are the CGC census updates, so it can be assumed that the books were submitted 4 to 8 weeks prior to being recorded on the census after grading, coinciding with the September-October 2014 announcements.
The “rise of the variant” is clearly seen in the percent of CGC submissions which have any type of variant notification on the CGC label, separated by the date of the book. The 1966 variant “spike” is related to Golden Record Reprints from Marvel, and the 1976-1977 “spike” is for 30-cent and 35-cent variants. 1990’s spike is primarily related to Spider-man #1 (1990).
The percentage of CGC submissions which are also part of the Signature Series program is shown in the chart above. These are overall percentages for all comic years. Specifically focusing on comic books printed 2010 to 2016, the annual percentage of books CGC graded each year from 2013 to 2016 was about 36% in the Signature Series program.
As of January 17, 2017, a total of 3,233,122 comic books appear on the CGC Census.
The following chart shows the total number of submissions (universal, signature, restored, and qualified) according to the CGC census data compiled at CGCdata.com, with the oldest decades at the bottom and newest at the top. The numbers for 1930s comics are included, but are so low that they do not appear in the chart.
The portion of each CGC grading year(s) attributed to each decade of comic books is shown as a percentage in the chart below.
