Comics with double covers are cool and rare and awesome, but only if they're genuine. In this post I share five tips to help you determine if the double comic you're looking at is real or fake.

(If you prefer to get this info in video form, check out my video on the same topic.)

First, why would someone fake a double cover? To make money, of course. The demand for these scarce comic book oddities has grown considerably in recent years and comics with double covers regularly obtain much higher selling prices than the same issue with a single cover. Unfortunately this price differential comes with a huge downside – frauds. There are more than a few terrible folks who create fake double covers to sell to unsuspecting collectors.

But, really, how can there be a fake double cover? Either it has two covers or it doesn’t. Right? Wrong.

How CGC Treats Genuine Double Covers vs. Fake Double Covers

A genuine “Double Cover,” as designated by CGC, is a manufacturing error. This means the comic was originally made with two covers and it left the factory that way. CGC defines a Double Cover as: “A mistake in the manufacturing process sometimes results in two or more covers being bound to the same comic book. It is not considered a defect.” Because genuine double covers aren’t defects, having a second cover doesn’t negatively affect the comic’s grade. In fact, the CGC label of a genuine “Double Cover” will show the individual grade of both covers and the highest is used to give the comic its overall grade. CGC will give a double cover comic a Blue Label unless other factors push it into another category (ex. Signature Series/Gold Label or Restoration/Purple Label).

But the fake double cover, despite having two covers, isn’t actually a “Double Cover” at all. CGC uses the term “Married Cover” to describe a comic that has a cover attached to it that originally came from another comic. CGC will give a comic with a “Married Cover” or “Married Pages” a green label indicating it’s a qualified grade. More frequently, you’ll see a “Married Cover” designation on a purple label indicating the comic has undergone restoration. This is because replacing a damaged cover or page from another comic isn’t uncommon, especially in Golden Age comics where a lot of restoration is often necessary.

In the context of collecting double cover comics, though, “Married Cover” is just a fancy way of saying that two covers have been abused and turned into the comic book equivalent of Frankenstein’s monster. And like Frankenstein’s monster, fake double covers should be avoided at all costs.

5 Tips to Identify Fake Double Covers

But how does the interested collector/investor distinguish between a fake double cover and a real one? That’s tricky business, but it’s not impossible. Here’s a few tips to help you identify a fake double cover.

To help illustrate these tips, I'm going to use as an example a fake double cover issue of Spider-Woman #1 that I bought on eBay.