By Benjamin Nobel, October 2022
“Amazing Spider-Man #238 is not incomplete without Tattooz. It was printed in a standard, old-fashioned way, independent of the Tattooz inserted later, just like many other in-house or paid advertisement inserts from any era. … All any grading company would have to do is say ”no Tattooz” on the label and have a blue label, leaving it to the collector to decide on the relative importance of its inclusion. … The only cure to allow for promotional extras, be they trading cards, inserts, or spare tires, is to eliminate them from the nomenclature as the extraneous and unnecessary items that they are, at least in regards to grading a book independently.”
— Jon McClure, ASM #238 Advisor Note, from the 2022 CPV Price Guide
Long-time readers may already be familiar with Jon McClure’s once-“controversial” stance on the Tattooz inside of Amazing Spider-Man #238, with Jon advocating that their absence should not cause an “INCOMPLETE” label note at CGC nor a green label; in both his Overstreet Price Guide market reports and his CPV Price Guide advisor notes, Jon has been advocating for years that CGC change their approach and use a blue label and a simple “no Tattooz” label note when this extraneous insert is absent.
And there’s no better support for the notion that they really were “extraneous” than their absence from this year’s facsimile edition release of the book. As the solicitation synopsis states: “It’s one of the all-time great Marvel comic books, boldly re-presented in its original form, ads and all!” [Original form, ads “and all” – and yet, no tattooz insert was included in the facsimile, and its mention was edited out of the cover artwork as you can see below.]
So why am I bringing up this subject again today, in connection with the release of our new 2023 CPV Price Guide edition?? Long-time blog readers may have already read Amazing Spider-Man #238: The Tattooz Situation (October 2017) on the tattooz subject, as well as my update, The Overstreet Grading Guide, Staple Replacement, and ASM 238 Tattooz (June 2021). This post provides a further update, because, coincidentally right after the above facsimile came out, CGC announced a labeling change:
“CGC is discontinuing the use of the term “incomplete” on its label, as well as the terms “affects story” and “does not affect story” when parts are missing from the interior of a comic.”
— CGC Comics, Parameters Modified for Defects Listed on CGC Labels
Without making it crystal-clear how the new treatment would impact Amazing Spider-Man #238 specifically with regards to blue-vs-green labeling, it was clear from the announcement that a missing tattooz insert would no longer prompt the inclusion of the “INCOMPLETE” warning on the CGC label, bringing their treatment one step closer to Jon’s viewpoint. Jon McClure’s contrarian views are ultimately prevailing (yet again)!
It has been a few months since this new treatment was announced, enough time for a few tattoozless CGC-graded ASM #238 examples to trickle onto the market. And interestingly, there is inconsistency on the green-vs-blue front so far, where CGC still used a Qualified (green) label for this example graded 6/14/2022 (leading me to wonder: possibly that book was already in-process before the announcement?) but then also this example graded all the way out on 8/5/2022…
But then I spotted the below blue-label tattooz-missing copy on the marketplace:
As you can see, it was given a Universal Grade (blue label), and consistent with CGC’s May announcement, the label does NOT say “INCOMPLETE” on it like they used to write, just “Tattooz insert missing”:
And this same treatment is shown on the certification lookup page itself [https://www.cgccomics.com/certlookup/4057358001/]:
… Where as you can see above, the grade date for this example was post-CGC’s-announcement with a 7/13/2022 grade date and it was categorized under the Universal tier not just on the label but in the lookup (with an unqualified Modern category shown), meaning that’s where it would fall on census too.
The next no-tattooz copy I spotted was this blue-label freshly-graded copy below:
As you can see, it too was given a Universal Grade (blue label), and just like the first example the label does NOT say “INCOMPLETE”, just “Tattooz insert missing”:
And this same treatment is shown on the certification lookup page [https://www.cgccomics.com/certlookup/3864639003/]:
And as you can see from the certification lookup screen-captured above, the grade date for this example was also post-CGC’s-announcement, with a 6/22/2022 grade date, and the category is once again an unqualified Modern designation.
These two above-pictured ASM #238 examples match pretty much exactly what Jon had advocated for slabs to ideally look like, where the warning of “INCOMPLETE” is now gone from the label, a blue label was used, and the remark on the label simply states whether the tattooz insert is absent.
But overall this was an even green/blue split of the copies I was able to find without tattooz that were graded by CGC following their May announcement, which at first would suggest there isn’t 100% consistency yet… I wondered, could it be up to chance of who was on staff the day of grading? But then I realized something: in both of the green-label instances I had spotted, the books had the “regular” label style, whereas in both of the blue-label instances the submitter had paid $5 extra for a fancy special/premium label. [Leading me to wonder: is CGC’s commitment to their no-tattooz labeling treatment so loose that it is possible to “buy” a Universal Grade simply by upgrading to the $5 fancy label selection?]
Whatever the case may be to explain these above examples — whether it was a matter of the $5 upgrade or an underlying change in treatment — it was neat to find them on the marketplace as 2022-graded ASM #238 CGC slabs which both effectively matched Jon’s once-controversial viewpoint, almost to the letter. We should all be listening to Jon more (Hey Overstreet! Hint Hint!); here’s two other things he said about ASM #238 that we as collectors (and Gemstone as publisher of the OPG) should be paying attention to:
(1) “The day will come when Amazing Spider-Man #238 is selling for serious money…”
(2) “[Overstreet needs to change] the explicit mistaken statement that no Type 1a Canadian variants exist with Tattooz … ”
— Jon McClure, ASM #238 Advisor Note, from the 2022 CPV Price Guide
You can follow more of Jon’s thinking by reading his ongoing Overstreet market reports including his Overstreet Price Guide #50 Full Market Report which I was honored to publish here on the Rare Comics Blog in its full form in 2020, and by picking up a copy of A History of Publisher Experimentation and Variant Comic Books, 2021 Edition which is included within the pages of The Overstreet Guide to Grading Comics, Sixth Edition.
And here below for anyone who did not already see it, was Jon’s full “Advisor Note” for ASM #238 from the 2022 edition of the CPV Price Guide:“Amazing Spider-Man #238 is not incomplete without Tattooz. It was printed in a standard, old-fashioned way, independent of the Tattooz inserted later, just like many other in-house or paid advertisement inserts from any era. This problem originates from the fact that the comic’s cover mentions Tattooz, as does the cover to Fantastic Four #252(3/83). Ideally, the Tattooz are absent due to the slow degradation of the contents that will eventually affect the paper quality inside. Overstreet Guide listings are confused, forced to respond to CGC’s myopic view. Once upon a time, I called Bob Overstreet and told him that the Fantastic Four #252’s Tattooz were being used as Amazing Spider-Man #238’s Tattooz and that the cure was to list them as same value, which he agreed with and subsequently did so. Collectors aren’t sure what to believe and that’s how the myth is perpetuated, the myth of being incomplete without Tattooz. At some point, although my original note remains in the guide about the switching of Tattooz between books, this was changed back to the original mistaken listing (including the explicit mistaken statement that no Type 1a Canadian variants exist with Tattooz) with two values, with and without Tattooz. Fantastic Four #252 is listed in the Overstreet Guide #50 at $8 with Tattooz and $6 without in NM-, and Amazing Spider-Man #238 is listed at $180 with and $85 without in NM-, a discrepancy that highlights this dilemma, with Tattooz worth between $2 and $95 for the same useless item, which is ridiculous. Worse yet, the Tattooz are valued at $10 higher than the book by itself! All any grading company would have to do is say ”no Tattooz” on the label and have a blue label, leaving it to the collector to decide on the relative importance of its inclusion. There is little difference between the mistaken use of the term ”Canadian Edition” for Type 1a variants and insisting books without inserts are incomplete; thankfully the misidentification of “Canadian Edition” now reads “Canadian Price Variant.” Any NM- or better copy should be taken seriously with or without the insert. Tattooz were inserted in Amazing Spider-Man #238 and Fantastic Four #252 and advertised on the covers; Captain America #279(3/83) and Star Wars #69(3/83) were also given Tattooz inserts without any advertising on the covers. Because neither of the latter books are considered incomplete without the inserts and would receive CGC blue labels, it stands to reason that Amazing Spider-Man #238 and Fantastic Four #252 are not incomplete without Tattooz either; the only difference is the ads on the covers, and those are irrelevant as they are part of the cover of the comic book. The only cure to allow for promotional extras, be they trading cards, inserts, or spare tires, is to eliminate them from the nomenclature as the extraneous and unnecessary items that they are, at least in regards to grading a book independently. Any insert loosely attached at the staple is not part of the book. If an item is glued into the binding it becomes part of the book, just as rebound comics exist, but those become a new and unique product that is not a variant. The day will come when Amazing Spider-Man #238 is selling for serious money and the color of the label, instead of the quality of the book, will largely determine the value, which creates an increasing financial incentive for inserting the Tattooz. If you are investing in this book, do you really think half of the value is in the Tattooz?”
— Jon McClure, ASM #238 Advisor Note, from the 2022 CPV Price Guide
Happy Collecting!
Rare Comics 
