To these purists go the admiration of many. For the rest of the comic book collecting world, condition is all important and is a compelling and driving force, motivating fans to scour conventions, shops, and advertisements in search of this elusive commodity. Every collectible in history has encountered this same challenge. In our global culture, enthusiasts commonly buy, sell, and trade comic books using condition as a key factor in determining price. Collectors and dealers who describe the state of preservation by long distance communication face a number of challenges, the least of which is bias about the importance of defects.
Defects impact different collectors in different ways.
For some, page whiteness may be the most important esthetic factor, while structural perfection may be the preference of another. The quirks of perception have bewildered, frustrated, and even angered novice and experienced collectors since the 1950s, so much so in fact, that many hobbyists have come to accept grading incongruities as unavoidable. Even seasoned veterans hold vastly different opinions on the subtle differences between grade ranges, thus the need for usable, practical, and standardized criteria for grading. In the late 1970s, the idea of a comic book grading guide was first discussed by the authors and a commitment was made in 1987 to begin the task. By 1990, with the need for a grading guide becoming acute, The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide added greater definition to its grading standards by rewriting all grade definitions and adding sub-grades.