Holy plastic slab!

The slabs are made with two sheets of thick, stiff plastic, and the books inside are encased in a thin, heat-sealed interior sleeve as well. A label inside the archival slab has a CGC hologram, a unique bar code and a description of its condition with a numeric grade. The overall package is as sturdy as a plastic clipboard and lands with a clatter if you drop it on the floor.

The CGC success story is not based on just the plastic "coffins" -- it's also the company's introduction of a 25-point scale for grading the condition of comics. That new standard has brought a precision to the once-subjective hobby that has inspired a wave of investments by non-collectors. In other words, lots of people who don't know the difference between Green Lantern and Green Arrow are now buying slabbed comics and putting them in safe-deposit boxes.

"With our grading, it's much easier for novices to come and buy valuable comic books and know what they are getting," said Steven Borock, the president and primary grader at CGC. "In essence, what we offer is the cheapest insurance in the world. If you're buying a $5,000 comic book, why wouldn't you send us the book to be sure it's what you think it is? There is a long, long history of people getting ripped off."

And Borock should know: The reason he has his job now is that once upon a time he was the naive collector getting ripped off.

It's a sad day when a starry-eyed fanboy finds out that, in real life, truth and justice are not always the American way. For Borock, that heartbreak moment came in the mid-1980s after he decided to sell vintage issues of the Amazing Spider-Man and the Brave & the Bold that he had been buying at comic-book conventions through the years. That's when the Brooklyn native discovered that many of his most prized issues had been doctored with acrylic paint, glue and paper patches to disguise their flaws.

The surreptitious surgery made Borock's books into kryptonite on the collector's market. "They were worth about $16,000 less than I paid," Borock recalled with a groan. "If I wasn't such a die-hard fanatic the whole experience would have chased me out of the hobby."