atticus.fetch

@CGC Mike can I also include several of the X-Men I feel were graded harshly in the other direction?

Nope. The Conans had to go economy while the X-Men were modern. I want to believe they assign more "seasoned" graders to the non-modern tiers, but now I'm not so sure. It would appear that the person that graded the modern X-Men submission was looking at my late 70s books with a more modern book sensibility, which is just wrong. Judge a book based on it's era -- production values in the late 70s just doesn't compare to what is produced nowadays.

Another botched grade. I provided feedback to CGC regarding the grading of this entire submission and I hope everyone else that receives similar takes the time to do so. I only hope CGC takes the feedback to seriously and when patterns emerge with certain graders, they do something about it. Grade: 7.0 White Pages Notes: light bends to cover, light creasing to cover, light spine stress lines to cover

More of the same garbage with the exact same notes. I'm done ranting. I'll let the rest of these grades speak for themselves. Grade: 7.0 White Pages Notes: light bends to cover, light creasing to cover, light fade to cover, light spine stress lines to cover

Another head scratcher. No mention of any staining in the notes (everything else was thrown in for good measure). BTW, where the hell is the "light fade to cover"? Nonsense. At this point, I think they just started to grade all subsequent books based on things they saw on the earlier ones. This trend will continue. Grade: 8.0 White Pages Notes: light bends to cover, light creasing to cover, light fade to cover, light spine stress lines to cover

Not sure I agree with that. Why the other note of "light spine stress lines to cover". That seems to cover "creasing" along the spine (there don't appear to be any color breakers). Still convinced it was the printers creases that (incorrectly) caught their "eyre".

I get that if there are NO notes. But someone took the time to write notes and publish them with the certificate. No one bother to point out the most glaring defect (at least to you and I)?

I disagree that the entire cover is faded (like in the Hulk #181 examples). It really isn't when compared to other samples (here's the image used on GoCollect: https://gocollect.com/comic/x-men-103). It's just the top edge that must have been exposed to light or something and it fades from red to orange. I get being hammered for the kind of fading depicted in the guide, but not so sure such a harsh standard should be applied to the top edge. But now I know where CGC stands on the matter.

First rule of CGC submission: don't submit books with any kind of color fade, no matter how minor (it was so minor on this book, no one here even mentioned it). I'm sure that killed this book. I'm also sure the "light creasing to cover" was incorrectly attributed to the printers creases on the front and back.Those aren't suppose to count against the book, but as far as I can tell from the video, there were no other creases or bends to the cover. Grade: 7.5 White Pages Notes: light bends to cover, light creasing to cover, light fade to cover, light spine stress lines to cover

First one of the rest that I feel were graded harshly. The biggest flaw I saw with this one was the small corner chip on the back cover and that wasn't even mentioned in the grading notes. Instead I have non-existent light bends and creasing to the cover. I double checked my video and I can't see anything through the slab (not unusual, I know) that would indicate it was damaged in transit or during processing. I just can't see how this is an 8.0 book unless the corner chip really dinged it but why not mention it in the notes? Grade: 8.0 White Pages Notes: light bends to cover, light creasing to cover, light spine stress lines to cover

This one was pretty spot on. All downhill from here... Grade: 9.0 White Pages

This one is definitely a cautionairy tale about any kind of edge color fading. I had similar fading on my #106 and it ended up 1-2 grades lower than I thought it would (8.5), but I think this fade dropped this one at 2-3 least grades, if not more. Grade: 6.5 White Pages Notes: light bends to cover, light creasing to cover. light fade to cover, light spine stress lines to cover

Another one I thought would get an 8.5, but again with some reversion. Fair grade. Grade: 8.0 White Pages Notes: light bends to cover, light creasing to cover, light spine stress lines to cover

This one was somewhat fairly graded. Thought it would pull an 8.5 but looking at it through the slab I see some reversion of the press I did. Fair grade. Grade: 8.0 White Pages Notes: light bends to cover, light creasing to cover, light spine stress lines to cover

I have close to 400 books I am considering submitting, most of which I will probably sell, so it is too cost prohibitive to go through a third party (I do all my own cleaning and pressing as well). Didn't realize you could appeal a grade -- just resubmit, which I am tempted to do for a couple but when I look at the value differential from the grade I received and the low end of what I think I should have got, the additional fees to have it graded again just doesn't make a lot of sense since these are books I plan to sell. I would definitely appeal in cases where it is clear the wrong book was sent back to me or I can demonstrate that the book was damaged either in shipping or in the posession of CGC, but if it is just a grade dispute, I'm surprised that CGC will offer that at all. I pretty much asked that question since I think these books in question were dinged hard for printers creases (which CGC confirmed should not count against) but the standard company line is that my only option is to resubmit for re-grading. Not a great answer. I wonder what CGC would do if I appealed the 9.0 grade in the opposite direction?

Not really. My X-Men submission got hammered in the opposite direction. Books that should have been low 9s (maybe 8.5) come back in the 7s. The problem is, those books present well and don't look like the grade they received but will be tagged with it because it's right there on the label while this book is obviously misgraded just by looking at it and will never achieve a 9.0 valuation. Lose/lose for me. Think I'll skip the lottery ticket...

No mention of the double staples?!? Strange. Grade: 8.0 Off-White to White Pages Notes: light creasing to cover, light spine stress lines to cover

Grade: 7.5 Off-White to White Pages Notes: light creasing to cover, light spine splits to cover, light spine stress lines to cover

Another weird one since I felt it was the roughest of the bunch but came back with the highest grade! Go figure. Not sure what is going on over at CGC but their grades have been all over the place recently. Grade: 9.0 Off-White to White Pages Notes: light creasing to cover, light spine stress lines to cover

This one is weird: came back Restored with color touch at bottom left of front cover. I have owned this book for 40+ years and never touched it in any such way. I was not the original owner (started collecting in 1980, 9 years after this was published) but knew him and there is no way he did anything to the book back then. Total mis-read on the part of CGC. Grade: 7.5 (R-1) Off-White to White Pages Notes: light spine stress lines to cover, moderate creasing to cover, small amount of color touch on left bottom front cover

Grade: 8.5 Off-White to White Pages Notes: light creasing to cover, light spine stress lines to cover

Grade: 8.5 Off-White to White Pages Notes: light creasing to cover, light spine stress lines to cover, light wear all corners of cover

I'm in if there is still room

For what it's worth, my last couple of 10 book submissions have been much more harshly graded than the 5-6 that came before (all this year, sent in batches of 10 books). With the first sets, I was routinely hitting my grades or even exceeding them by 1 or 2 levels (I overestimated my grades on only 3 of 60+ books submitted). The last two I have been off by as much as 5 grades (the majority have been 1-2 levels lower). So at least on these latest two submissions, there appears to be a significant change at CGC or I have had a bit of a personal upward "grade creep" as I was receiving better grades than I was originally estimating. To test against that, I have posted a bunch of the books to this forum to cross-check my original estimations and most of the feedback I have been getting was consistant with my grading, not what CGC gave (I'll post the "grades in" once I actually receive the books and have a moment to scan them). On the plus side, they seem to be adding grader notes to just about every book (even got one for my 9.8 Star Wars #81 signed by Harrison Ford), so I guess that's a bit of a bonus (although not necessarily on that 9.8). I'm a little concerned about the books I submitted for the Claremont and Miller signature series. Have my fingers crossed that I just hit a harsher grader on a couple of my submissions instead of a wholesale change to CGCs approach (especially concerning "printer creases" that by all estimation were flagged as flaws on several books I submitted and may be responsible for the poorer grades and that really shouldn't be the case -- I have an email into CGC support on that one).

OK, enough with the X-Men. How about some economy original Swamp Thing submission potentials. Here's #2: My notes: Moderate spine damage with 10 or so small ticks|1-2" printers crease top right of front cover and another on the back|minor to moderate corner wear|minor edge wear|light soiling on back cover Scans: