On 11/3/2023 at 3:28 AM, Gaard said:

Don't understand. There's a question as to whether or not it's yours?

I assume, we know what that means, that CGC has found, I'll say, a lost Batman 251 and it may be the one ArtRock1600 submitted or, if not, it was submitted by someone else; unless CGC has (lost) copies of Batman 251 throughout its building/s.

Of course, I am making a bad joke; I hope.

We'll soon have to include detailed instructions on how to open boxes, laminated to the top of the box, and, inside the box at, the very top, how to unpack the contents.

I joke, or do I.

The prices are like a Led Zeppelin.

Three of my comic books gut' dan' vanished.

On 10/22/2023 at 9:52 PM, bluehorseshoe said:

Love it that you feel that you need to mention that everybody has your permission to buy what they want. 

You are welcome.

The last five or so comic books FedEx has delivered, including one box on Thursday, October 19, 2023 (I was home and heard it land on the porch with a thump), they just throw on my porch from the path before the stairs; there are three steps to reach the porch.

However, on Wednesday, Oct., 18, I had a box weighing 54lbs. delivered. Even if they threw it on the path no damage would have occurred. The FedEx delivery person must despise having to deliver such relatively heavy boxes. Hahahahaha... Yes, it is petty of me to laugh but, well, "screwdriver" FedEx.

This is one of the original owner copies I purchased via Westfiled (Edit) Westfield, although I did "file" the comic books (Westfield is going strong and still provides comics in typically excellent condition if they are packaged securely-you request that they do so), (End Edit), Comics mail order. This is the only one I have thus far submitted for grading and have not submitted any of the ones I purchased at LOCs or newsstands, yet.

On 10/18/2023 at 9:47 AM, MAR1979 said:

A bit less than 3 years ago the TP would have had higher value for a time.

Not the "kind" of toilet paper I meant. Eww!

Unfortunately, many folks were either never taught or never learned how to save money. Perhaps many of them purchase comic books when they can't afford to, possibly including new releases; not even relatively expensive variants, but "run of the mill" comic books. Likely, many purchase them on credit and end up paying much more for a new release comic books that may be "worthless" in a week. Of course, folks can spend their money on comic books as they wish.  

At least CGC has not started using toilet paper. Or has it!

To me, many of them resemble terminators. Perhaps they are.

On 10/14/2023 at 4:02 PM, Sigur Ros said:

I think he tried to fix things so they got rid of him.

They showed him the door faster than

My submission of five copies each of Golden Age Action Comics 1, Batman 1, Detective Comics 27, and Superman 1 vanished and never reappeared. I have to remember to follow-up with CGC about that.

I greatly enjoy all of Mr. Giffen's work and treasure them among my comic book collection.

So, there are 36040 of these.

On 10/10/2023 at 9:37 AM, BlowUpTheMoon said:

I have been out of the loop for about a week. I thought I had caused the errors.

I know that guy.

Across all it appears as of Tuesday, October 10, 2023: 9:19 a.m. EDT.

Server Error in '/' Application.

Runtime Error

Description: An application error occurred on the server. The current custom error settings for this application prevent the details of the application error from being viewed remotely (for security reasons). It could, however, be viewed by browsers running on the local server machine.

Details: To enable the details of this specific error message to be viewable on remote machines, please create a <customErrors> tag within a "web.config" configuration file located in the root directory of the current web application. This <customErrors> tag should then have its "mode" attribute set to "Off".
 

Notes: The current error page you are seeing can be replaced by a custom error page by modifying the "defaultRedirect" attribute of the application's <customErrors> configuration tag to point to a custom error page URL.
 

Server Error in '/' Application.

Runtime Error

Description: An exception occurred while processing your request. Additionally, another exception occurred while executing the custom error page for the first exception. The request has been terminated.

Server Error in '/' Application.

Runtime Error

Description: An application error occurred on the server. The current custom error settings for this application prevent the details of the application error from being viewed remotely (for security reasons). It could, however, be viewed by browsers running on the local server machine.

Details: To enable the details of this specific error message to be viewable on remote machines, please create a <customErrors> tag within a "web.config" configuration file located in the root directory of the current web application. This <customErrors> tag should then have its "mode" attribute set to "Off".
 

Notes: The current error page you are seeing can be replaced by a custom error page by modifying the "defaultRedirect" attribute of the application's <customErrors> configuration tag to point to a custom error page URL.
 

On 10/8/2023 at 8:27 AM, KCOComics said:

I'm curious why holding them for 20 years would be a bad idea? 

A few years ago,  my son was begging me for graded pokemon cards. He was 7 or 8 at the time and he swore they would be worth a fortune one day.  I said no and proceeded to explain why he was wrong.... but,  I flashed back to conversations I had with my father 30 years earlier about comics. 

Now, the comics I was trying to convince my father to buy would have been a waste (modern age 90s drek.. Spawn 1, Xmen 1(90s)).  So dad would have won that argument... but had he bought some SA keys for a few hundred dollars? 

Anyway - I told my son we would look into it. So we researched which decks to buy,  the grades and characters and so on. I got advice from folks here,  and for Christmas I bought him 5 graded cards from the original series. They were popular characters in high grade.  Nothing terribly expensive. 

They have sat locked away with my comics and have only come out when he asks to see them. But the plan is, wait and see. When he is 30 or 40, will they be the "key" collectibles of his life? Or will they be bookmarks in nice cases? Either way,  it's minimum risk.  

Great!

Whenever I sell my comic books (graded, one day to be graded, and raw) I will give all the proceeds to my daughter as, thankfully, my wife and I don't need them. My daughter, thankfully as well, does not need them but she and the grandchildren will, of course, have more of a lifetime to put the funds to work.

On 10/6/2023 at 3:12 AM, jimjum12 said:

... There are actually services that have been in place almost as long as CGC has been open, that specialize in culling raw 9.8's, slabbing them and provided to people who have subscriptions for a 9.8 of each new issue of a title as it is released. This is a large but quiet part of the hobby. These are as much true collectors as anyone, a vestige of the original "run collector" who just wanted one of each of something they loved. This existed outside of the "value" system in place today ... the "what is my book going to be worth?" ... this is a growth of a person going to the LCS or Newstand and grabbing the prettiest copy of their favorite runs to add to the rest. We've been reading Market Reports for so long now, we have forgotten about the guys who gladly paid a thousand times cover, just so they could have the ones they missed, no thought at ALL about ever selling it. In essence, if we reject the 9.8 market, we reject what made the comic hobby robust and vibrant all along. The type of collector who seeks out just any shape is probably in the minority if we're talking percentage of total head count. GOD BLESS ...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) 

 

...I'm not sure what the 9.8 subscription service costs now, but I think it was $35 per, or something like that, when it started. The new distribution through Penguin makes multiple raw 9.8's unlikely. Product damage with today's output is VERY common, at least around here. 

I very muck like penguins but, as you note, Penguin Random House (PRH) stinks as far as delivering undamaged comic books to market; perhaps Marvel Comics is the prime example. IDW has delivered damaged comic books for years in my experience because of, "I'll say," crappy cover stock so PRH is par for the course with them. I'll see how Dark Horse comics start arriving now that PRH is distributing them. I believe they also distribute DC Comics' collected works but another board member may know more about that.

On 10/2/2023 at 3:46 PM, the blob said:

I don't think it is an ultra profitable business to there probably isn't much fat in their pricing despite what we think, but if volume is down they might need to lower fees to keep it up

On 9/29/2023 at 12:31 PM, the blob said:

One of these days I will get around to slabbing my Hulk 2 type books and a few others that are arguably worth it (I sold most of the major keys years ago), but the amount of money I would spend slabbing a host of $75-200 books in my collection would basically be enough to create a whole new, pretty good, collection, yet the market seems to think those should be slabbed. CGC is a great product and if I am spending real money nowadays I want that slab, but criminey there should be a cheaper option for the mid tier books 9.4-6 and below that adds the requisite trust and liquidity. MCS basically creates that for a $7 fee on consignment, but they don't give you that tamper proof packaging. I get it though, if the goal is a 9.8 it probably needs all the bells and whistles. And my guess is that MCS is not doing the same level of resto check on a cheaper book. If some book winds up being restored from them do they accept returns? (But you still get burned on slabbing fees?)

As for CGC, if they lowered fees they'd keep everyone on salary pretty busy if there has been a slow down. They might need to splurge on a good espresso maker.

 

Lower CGC fees would be great but, perhaps like you and other posters, I am extremely doubtful that will occur but I hope to be proven wrong.

On 9/28/2023 at 4:32 AM, Catwomancomics said:

I’ve seen this so many times on my orders. It’s crazy that this continues to still be an issue over a year later.

True!

On 9/23/2023 at 5:56 PM, BlowUpTheMoon said:

Found On Road Dead.