About the Grade:
Near Mint (NM) Condition (9.2, 9.4, 9.6, 9.8)
A nearly perfect copy that looks brand new with only a few very minor defects. Acceptable minor defects on a NM copy include: A very small amount of spine stresses without color breaks, very minor instances of denting (two or three at most), slight corner blunting, and minor (less than 1/8") bends without color breaks.
On the ten-point grading scale, a lower "Near Mint" grade like 9.2 will allow these defects in a greater quantity and degree than a higher grade like 9.8, which sometimes may have no discernible defects at all. I do not assign the grades 9.9 and 10.0 to any unslabbed "raw" comics. You will only see these ultra-high grades on comics slabbed by one of the grading services such as CGC, CBCS, and PGX.