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On 9/18/2024 at 3:20 PM, WernerVonDoom said:

The old CGC would have owned up to their mistake and provided free re-holdering for curved books. 

You know what, this is why I felt safe sending my books there in the first place.  I've never graded books before in my life, not before this last year.  But I watch a lot of comic book YouTube channels and almost always I saw that when people made a video about damaged books, they also said that CGC ended up making it right by paying them for the damages or buying them a new book of the same grade.  So I felt that even though there's always a risk with sending books out to someone else to handle, grade, and ship back and forth, I wasnt worried.  That carried on to when I submitted and didnt feel the need to take "before" photos, and didnt inspect that closely when they came back.

So this is kind of my first and only experience with this company, and I certainly cant say much good about them since they just kind of screwed me by ignoring my claims that they damaged my books and then gaslighted me by saying that the bends are "acceptable" and my 1/4" color-breaking bend is ok in a 9.8.  

New data. 

CGC = Clearly Gaslighting Customers

On 9/18/2024 at 8:24 AM, MAY1979 said:

I will be using mine for early 1980's Comic/Comic Adjacent Video Games. 

 

 

Actually, this is a good point.  I do have a bunch of older books that will almost certainly not get close to 9.0 and have enough spine damage already that CGC potentially turning them into bananas wont damage them or affect the perceived grade... unlike my 9.8's that are now maybe 9.4 or 9.6.

But, yeah, I might send in those to use the credit and then sit tight and wait for a resolution on all this.  Of course, even if CGC fixes the issue with bending and damaging books, I still have books that are damaged and CGC has offered ZERO in terms of compensation or satisfactory resolution.  So even if they fix Bendgate, I might already never submit anything after my subscription is over.

I havent used up my initial credit for my subscription, so I keep hoping that CGC will fix all this and I can once again submit.  I have around 100 books I want to grade, but that's also 100 books I dont want to pay to get damaged and turned into bananas.   At the rate this is going, or rather the rate that nothing is happening, I will also likely have to cancel my autorenew and move on to another grading company next year.  I know that CGC doesnt care about individual customers and whether we renew the membership or not, submit books or not, or whatever.  But, yeah, eventually they will have enough people who will start using their competitors that they WILL care.  But, by that point it might be too late.   

We already know how productive "contacting customer service" is.

Once again, CGC cares much more about censoring this board than they care about their customers (and their customers' property) or the quality of their product.  Their reply to me emailing their customer service is that I can send my damaged comics in so they can further damage them, at my expense!  Their response to my latest questions is... well, I'm still waiting for it after a week. 

This board is completely useless.  CGC is not interested in dealing with this problem or making customers whole for all the damage they have inflicted on our books.  I guess they think that if they gaslight us enough we'll all just go away.  

On 9/13/2024 at 10:29 AM, Stefan_W said:

Two more people picked up their books that I pressed so they could send them through something else so running total is now at four. 

At least they wont blame you when they get them back with ticks and bends.

More bent books...

Here are the results of my conversation with CGC customer service:

I sent them photos of 3 damaged books (all 9.8 from prescreen, all went in with ZERO spine damage).  The worst one now has a color-break and bend that measures 1/4".  But, all came back bent and all had spine damage.

First response from CGC: The told me the following:

Quote

We are aware of the reports that some inner wells exhibit a curve, and while we have not seen any impact to the condition of encapsulated books, we take any concerns about the quality and integrity of our holders seriously.

There you go, they dont claim to have even seen ANY impact to the condition of books.

Quote

Our team has reviewed the images provided, and want to advise that a small stress line, like in the pictures provided, is acceptable for a book graded as a 9.8, and will only prevent the submission from grading as a 9.9 or higher. 

According to CGC, the color-breaking tick that measures 1/4" is "acceptable" for a 9.8.

I'm sure if I crack it and send it back in, it will get a 9.8 again.  Right?  Right???

and

Quote

you are welcome to resubmit any of these books for Pressing and a ReGrade, however there isn't a guarantee that the grade will change.

Or, more like "there is no guarantee that the grade will stay the same".

I offered them 2 options that would be acceptable to me.  1) Press and re-holder the books at their expense and guarantee that the grade will not change.  and 2) I send them the books and they refund me their replacement cost FMV (for 9.8s) in exchange.   I think both are reasonable.  For #1, the books have clearly had zero damage done to the slabs after they left their facility.  The only damage is inside the slabs.  So if they graded them a 9.8 they should still be a 9.8, especially after pressing.  Any damage that would make them not a 9.8 is entirely their fault.  And #2 is also reasonable since I'd just like the value of the comic they sent me and I'm sending back.

Their reply:

They asked for images of the books prior to being sent in.  I dont have such images.  Also...

Quote

As well, you can resubmit these books with paid Pressing and Grading again

So I can pay... again... to have them graded, and possibly damaged again.

and finally:

Quote

If you believe the books were damaged or mishandled while with us causing any of these issues, you can also submit them back for Mechanical Error review

...

however please be aware that if we review the books with our team and find no issues or mishandling of these books, that they will be sent back as is, and you may be billed for the inbound and return shipping.

So I can resubmit for ME, even thought the spine damage will not qualify as ME and they have already said that a bent inner well is "normal" and "acceptable".  And of course once they reject the ME I will have to pay shipping both ways.  

There you go, customer service as its finest.  I can either suck it up and accept that I paid CGC to grade/slab my books and now they're damaged, or I can send them in to maybe get even more damaged and maybe, just maybe they can press them and keep the same grade... but I have to pay for it.

No offer to even refund the grading fees, or acknowledgement that there's any problem.  In fact, they claim that the books with ticks and bends (in one case 1/4" deep) are acceptable in a 9.8.  And, while I'm not an expert grader, I think that's just total B.S.  If I send that book in I'd expect maybe a 9.4 or 9.6 at highest.

And so now I really have nothing I can do except accept that I spent money and the result is some of my books are damaged, and I have to crack and press them myself to TRY to get them back into their original condition.  And then... I'm not sure what else.  Start using another grading service?  Why would I use CGC again when they wont even make up for their mistakes or even do the bare minimum of offering to refund the grading fees the few books they damaged? 

I just hope that this serves as a warning to others.  Submit books are your own risk.  If they come back damaged, you're on your own.

Attached photos of 1/4" spine tick/bend for reference.

On 9/8/2024 at 7:53 PM, MAY1979 said:

Perhaps they all are

Of course they are, that's the normal and expected outcome of their encapsulation process according to CGC.

On 9/8/2024 at 5:10 PM, Stefan_W said:

But we dont have enough behind the scenes info to get a final answer. 

Indeed, and probably never will.  

On 9/8/2024 at 4:59 PM, Stefan_W said:

I'm not sure what that has to do with my comment, but yes bends are not acceptable. 

My comment was geared more toward using a super flashy title promising big revelations for a video which basically shows that books are bent, which we already know. 

Ok, sorry then.  I thought your issue with the video was the claim that CGC was lying and the book are indeed being damaged.

Personally I thought the video brings some useful data to this issue.  For example, it's notable that the slab itself didnt appear to be putting pressure on the inner well, and it stayed bent after being taken out.  To me this says there's a high likelihood that the issue is either 1) the process of sealing the book in the inner well, or 2) mishandling of the inner well after it's sealed.  I tend to think it's 2) because I have a feeling that at some point these books get bent to a much bigger angle than what we end up seeing, and THAT causes the damage.  The permanently bent inner well is just the symptom and not the cause.

On 9/8/2024 at 3:44 PM, Stefan_W said:

Holy click bait titles, Batman. 

I can see why you might say that, but the other side of the argument is that even without spine ticks or bends, having the book be bent (seemingly permanent bend by the looks of it) is already damage to the book.  Yes, CGC has admitted that they bend books, but they also claim there's no damage being done.

I would say that even without any VISIBLE damage like ticks, a bend ALWAYS causes damage to a book because it will be tearing the paper fibers at a small scale.  Also, we have to ask what larger bend was put on that book in the first place to cause that small permanent bend.  I mean, if that bend only caused by the inner well being bent that much, or was the entire thing bent to a much larger extent before being put into the slab?

In any case, to me at least, any bend on the book is unacceptable.  And being gaslighted by being told that this is "normal" and "does not damage" the book is part of why people are so upset.

On 9/8/2024 at 7:34 AM, Carl’s Comics said:

Before — pressed and cleaned 

 

After— CGC bending

 

Sent two emails to CGC…no response.  
 

Being someone who only sells a few books here and there to fund the hobby this is not acceptable.  Plus, just sad.  This book was immaculate before.

That's really sad.  Sure, there were already ticks there beforehand, but they were pressed and pretty minor color breaks.  Whatever CGC did definitely took that down a grade or two from the pressed submission.   This is basically what happened to my books, except in some cases the ticks that were introduced were definitely not there in the first place.

On 8/30/2024 at 9:53 AM, lostboys said:

They start out flat and smooth and develop a weird kind of bubbling/rippling over time.

Not sure how else to describe it...they go from looking great to looking like chit over time.

And im a guy who loves looking at his books!

I know what you mean, but honestly I'd expect that for books that have been sitting in those bags for at least 10 years.  In any case, if they're looking like that after a couple of years... then I guess you can go with mylar bags.  I have a lot of my books in mylar, but there are of course downsides.  They are expensive, especially if you're bagging hundreds/thousands of books.  They will also take up more space in your boxes than regular bags.  But they do look nice especially if you're displaying them and not just keeping them in boxes.  But, really, if you have the comics in boxes and in a nice dry area... a regular bag will last you 10 years easy.  Before I re-bagged mine recently, I had some that had been in regular bags for nearly 40 years.  The bags had the ripples you're describing, but otherwise fine.  The backing boards had yellow images of whatever was on the back cover, but I'm guessing this is because they were cheap boards that were not acid-free.  I would not worry too much with a regular bad and acid-free boards, even if I'm storing the books for decades.  More important, at least IMO, is the environment where you're keeping them.

Why are you changing them every 2 years?  

On 8/29/2024 at 4:12 PM, DanJD said:

The video recently posted about “spine stress” with Matt N in it clearly stated a few spine ticks are acceptable in a 9.8 as long as they don’t break color.  It would be helpful if CGC would publish specific knock outs for various grades.  I lost count of the number of times a seller tried to convince me that a color break must have been small enough that CGC still gave it a 9.8.

There's a difference between what they "say" and how they actually grade comics.  It could just be that some of their graders are way harsher, but I've seen many 9.6 books that should be 9.8 by that criteria.

Also, the size of the spine ticks matters.  When they talk about spine ticks (color breaking or otherwise) on 9.8 books, they usually mean at or less than 1/16" to 1/8".  Or, at least that's my impression.  The ticks I'm seeing on the books pictured above are way larger than 1/16".   I got a couple others with multiple small ticks that are all less than 1/16" so I didnt send them those.  But again, it's hard to capture the full size of these ticks on photos.  Only looking at them in person do you see just how big they are and how far from the spine they extend.  The most severe tick/bend on one of my books here extends 1/4".   

Is anyone going to seriously tell me that a spine tick/bend that's 1/4" is going to still get a 9.8?

On 8/29/2024 at 2:21 PM, MAY1979 said:

^ i can clearly see color breaking spine damage in the 3rd and 4th pics. What was the grade of that book?

 

The 3 books I'm discussing are 9.8s.  I know all of that pre-screen batch that I sent in were absolutely flawless since I picked the best of the best (in terms of lack of flaws) that I had to send in.  

I'm communicating with CGC at the moment about my books, and so far they've commented that the issues on the photos I sent them look like they're all acceptable for 9.8 comics.  (I'll post the ones I sent below for reference)  However, one thing that occurred to me is that it's hard to capture these bends and ticks adequately on photos and they tend to look worse when you're actually holding the book in hand.   But I'm not sure what else to do since photos is basically all I can actually provide as evidence, plus my assurance that these were not there originally.  But if they say "these are ok for 9.8"... there's just no way I can refute that in any way since it's their opinion based on photos that dont really convey how the book looks in person.  =(