A new order?

Let's face it, While we all love CGC and what they've done for the interest in our hobby, they have been woefully lacking in the modernization department.

I'm sure each one of us could come up with at least one thing that CGC could do better. But until now, they have had no reason to do so.

Since January, 2000 CGC has been revolutionizing our favorite hobby as the premier comic book grading company. There have been, and still are others out there, like PGX and the newer Vault grading companies, but CGC has continued to be where most people send their books. Arguably 90% of comic books are submitted for grading through CGC.

With such a stranglehold on the grading market for so many years, CGC has done little in the way of updates and upgrades. They did manage to change the look of their labels once, almost five years after using the older labels. This was probably the last great, significant improvement to any of their service.

But now, things may be on the cusp of changing. I am referring to Steve Borock starting up his own book grading company, CBCS. They will be accepting their first submissions at the Indy PopCon at the end of this month, which makes me almost wish I could go.

I'm sure there are many different opinions and outlooks by many of us here on the registry, but I personally believe this will be a good thing, regardless of how it all pans out.

Why? Because competition breeds innovation.

The biggest reason for the lack of any real competition to CGC up to this point has been a lack of established integrity. If anyone has a chance to challenge CGC, it's Steve Borock, former President of CGC, as well as it's first primary grader. Steve is one of the most respected and knowledgeable individuals in the industry.

Do I think this will lead to the demise of CGC? Absolutely not. What I believe it WILL do is cause CGC to finally take a long, hard look at many aspects of their services.

I'm sure many of you will make suggestions as to what improvements could be made, and now I believe CGC will need to seriously consider many of these recommendations from us. We are, after all, what keeps them going.

As for some of my thoughts in this regard, I can put forth a few items:

1 - Quality of materials.

The sturdiness of the outer casings, the quality of the label's paper stock, etc.

2 - Restoration determination and accuracy.

This has been a very contentious issue lately with CGC. I am also very curious as to how Mr. Borock will handle the pressing of books. CGC has determined that pressing is NOT restoration. I wonder if Steve will agree.

3 - Quality Control improvements.

This is another area that CGC needs to work on. There are times where I believe QC is not even applied to invoices other than to glance over the graded books quickly one time and pass them on to shipping. Mistakes in QC have increased in the last couple of years.

4 - Accurate and consistent turnaround times.

This is an area that Steve Borock is attacking head-on. He is "guaranteeing" turnaround times for books submitted through his company, it will be interesting to see if this happens and how it affects CGC's procedures on this issue.

5 - updated and more modern online software.

This is a biggie. The software CGC uses for all of its online chat, boards and registry is about ten years out of date. It really needs to be modernized. Being able to link through and apply changes made on the registry to other social media apps alone would be a welcome change.

The one big thing that CGC has had going for it over anyone else is the online Registry. The way it breeds competition among collectors and allows us to show off our books and sets, as well as have the opportunity to receive awards for our collections, is a huge benefit to CGC.

It will be interesting to see if Steve works something like this into his company eventually. To do so would surely be the biggest single boost to his chances of overthrowing the big boy on the block.

CGC really needs to look into updating its online presence for the modern era of mobile inter-connectivity. I very much hope this competition brings about a change in this area.

It will probably take a couple of years for any real competition to develop between these two companies, but I am hopeful that Steve's re-infiltration into the grading industry will benefit us all. If CGC can see this as a legitimate threat to its near monopoly of the grading market, then maybe we can start to see some serious changes to their practices and software applications.

I know some have been skeptical in the past about CGC's grading accuracy, but the truth is, this is the one area that will be equal between the two companies in my opinion. It shouldn't affect either company's status in the market.

I think it will come down to customer service, turnaround times and all the little aesthetic extras applied to their services that will ultimately determine how it all ends up.

CGC, the ball is in your court.

Below is a preliminary example of what a CBCS graded book will look like. Let's discuss, everyone.

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