Tony S

As various defects go - a detached centerfold seems on the minor side to me. Others may feel differently. But clearly CGC with this book believed 8.5 was the grade. I could make out the certification number. It is a universal grade. It was not supposed to be a green label. https://www.cgccomics.com/certlookup/1239659013/

Yeah....Interesting. I wonder if they are responding to the fact that other grading company in Texas does it this way. There were several announcements/updates of note today. TAT starts on delivery Receiving is opening boxes (submissions) received April 5 Economy is at 134 business days TAT. Over six months. And a few numbers don't seem right. Example: Modern Fast Track is 33 business days. But CGC is taking 24 business days to open boxes (April 5 to May 6). So is CGC really pushing modern FT books all the way through in the remaining nine business days? I'm a bit skeptical. But if they are it's good! Standard tier - which costs $75 - is now six business days slower than Modern Fast Track - which costs $37. This happens from time to time, but never seems "right" to me. In auto racing there is the old saying of "speed costs money - how fast can you afford to go?" Seems like paying 2x more would get you a bit more speed.

This thread was definitely locked for a time. Wonder what jarred it open? Ehh.... doesn't matter. And as typical, discussion has veered off to...something. Not even sure what.

Jennifer - are we certain this is correct? Joe at CFP Comics has been able to crack, press and resubmit CGC Yellow label books for decades. His website still lists he can. So unless there has been a very recent change - like just in the last few weeks - your answer looks to have one exception. https://cfpcomics.com/services/

I just watched an entire movie - Chopping Mall - plus commercials and was unable to complete a 17 book submission. At about 12:45 am CST the CGC servers look to be 100% down. I can log into my dealer account, but the online portal to submit will not even load. Period. Nothing. CGC not only needs to fix this - but they need to fix it so that everyone that is trying to have submissions in by the deadline THEY SET is able to be accomodated. That might mean paper forms. It might me a list of people that tried to submit that could not and so prices are adjusted on receipt. But this is not right.

You just described why professional 3rd party grading and encapsulation exists in the hobby. Arguing about grade was just another way to negotiate the price. With professional grading and encapsulation, the negotiation is only about price.

the charts have been made by members posting here and I'm to lazy to make one... Take the old CGC retail tier prices minus 20% and the new CGC retail tier prices minus 15%, calculate the percentage and you would have the chart. Moderns for instance. Old retail price $20. With dealer (20%) discount the price is $16. New retail price is $22 - 10% increase. The new dealer price with a 15% discount is $18.70. $16.00 to $18.70 is about a 17% increase. CGC receives a LOT of books from dealers. So the price hike is - for a lot of the books CGC receives - substantially more than it looks like in the new retail price Vs Old retail price charts.

Premium went from 10% discount to no discount. Zero Elite went from 15% discount to 10% discount Dealer accounts went from 20% discount to 15% discount. CGC has raised prices in the past. They have never before - to my knowledge - reduced discounts for paid memberships and Dealer accounts.

I think it likely the "hired 70 people" is misleading. Here is the full quote below: "As part of the Certified Collectibles Group® (CCG®), we have initiated a massive hiring push that has resulted in over 70 new employees being added in the last three months, So what is with the "as part of"? Did CGC hire 70 new people? Or has CCG hired 70 new people across all their seven companies? Keep in mind the sports card grading company is brand new. They had zero staff grading sports cards a year ago.

It also filters down to the average person. The vast majority of books I send in are my client's books. I pass the 20% discount on to my clients. Now I'll be passing on a 15% discount. This also has the effect of some of the pricing increases being an even larger increase. Say for instance fast track. It was $10 ($8 dealer) and is increasing to $15. A 50% increase. But the new dealer account charge is now $12.75. About a 60% increase. Modern's increasing 10% isn't that big deal for collectors (though it should be a huge amount of $$ for CGC) These add ons (fast track, prescreen) and discount reductions are where the real price hikes are taking place. And the discount reductions are I believe historically unprecedented. CGC has raised prices on grading tiers a number of times over the 21 years. Prices go up. Not welcome when it happens but it is expected. But I don't believe they have ever before reduced the grading discounts for paid memberships and dealer accounts.

I'm only speculating, but the most likely result is CGC holding onto the book until grading is paid for. The terms and conditions - which submitters agree to - state CGC can move a book to a higher priced tier if they determine it is worth more. I personally err on the low side as far as submissions and value goes. If you send a book in at $10K and walk through and CGC finds color touch and trimming so your book is really only worth $3K they won't be issuing any refunds because it could have gone express tier. If they upcharge that's fine. I'd rather have an occasional upcharge than an occasional paid way too much. Insurance isn't so much a concern for me since I - like many others - have private shipping insurance.

The graders have no information on the book they are looking at. They don't know who it belongs to. The graders don't know if the book was previously graded. This is done to ensure impartial grading. Crossover grading is a bit cheaper and a bit faster because CGC wants to stick it to the competition.

My experience has been CGC does not answer "what if" questions about grading. And the question is if CGC is grading down for this defect and if so what sort of impact it would have. So it's a "what if" question. Also, people answering the phone are customer service, not graders. So they couldn't answer even if they wanted to. I expect if CGC started answering what if questions, they would scarcely have time for anything else. Plus grading is ultimately subjective and what the spine fraying actually looks like is going to vary from book to book.

Book is Star Wars: Heir to the Empire 1. Graded about a month ago. Only grading note is "frayed spine". Book looks "minty" otherwise - 9.6/9.8 Obviously this is a defect. But I've not seen the "frayed spine" note before on the modern books that are prone to this.color flaking/rubbing along the spine. So like Galen130, curious if this is something CGC graders will be looking at more closely and not considering a production/printing defect going forward.

It's important to note the difference between the maximum fair market value and the value range of the various CGC tiers. If the UM 4 is valued at $1001 in 9.8, it's not a standard tier. It's an Express tier. Express is $1001 up to $3000. Standard is $401 up to $1000. But no, this is something new. CGC has not in the past seemed interested is disputing declared values and bumping books to higher tiers. They have always reserved the right to move books to higher tiers based on the value, but just have not done so often. Especially not with moderns, where the difference between 9.4 and 9.8 can be huge. Heck, about six years ago when CGC announced the modern tier was being rolled back to 1975, they pictured a GS X-Men 1 in 9.6 as the example. Even six years ago GSXM 1 in 9.6 was worth way, WAY more than the $200 limit for modern. But that was their example back then of a book now eligible for modern tier. Will be interesting to see if this is the beginning of a new mindset of CGC, or some one-off thing. But on the positive side, it's pretty much certain your books are 9.8's. That's a good thing. I will also add that third party grading and encapsulation is a value added service. Their grading and encapsulation add value. The more valuable the book, the move value added. I don't disagree in that grading companies can and should charge more for more expensive books. Only noting that in the past CGC has seemed disinclined to do so, even though they have always said the could. That grading company that is now in Texas has always been more likely to bump books.

Lightning 55's answer is correct. But there is more than one way to do what you wish done. You can also write in changes on a submission form. Receiving will update when books are received. When I have this issue (want to make changes) which direction I go (start over with a new sub or handwrite changes) depends on how big the submission is and how many changes I don't want to redo for instance a 30 book submission to subtract one and add one book. But half a dozen book submission I'd rather have a nice clean form. Neither does it seem wise to add 10 books to an existing submission form. Unless it's 10 copies of one book. There are a few areas where manually handwriting in stuff is the ONLY way it's done. Mechanical errors (incorrect labels, slab issues) for instance. So Receiving is used to this. Use a red ink pen, write big on the form. Receiving will update.

For me it's not necessarily the most expensive books I own, but rather the ones I wanted that I searched the longest to find. For my collection, that would be high grade copies of the first issues of the small Gold Key line of super heroes/action titles. They are just nearly non existent in the 9 and above grades.

That is a labeling error. Above the numeric grade it says "Moderate B-3" which is Restored. The label text says "restoration includes". Someone in encapsulation grabbed the wrong label.

Because Stan Lee is a notable name on the cover. Someone sought out Stan Lee and asked him to sign their comic book. Some kid (named George Smith) that loaned his comic to other neighborhood kids and wanted to make sure eventually he got his comic book back is not notable.

I would not consider the book ruined or desecrated - but neither would I want to own it unless it was a great price. The problem for most people including myself is the cover is iconic. It's perfect as is. I'd be fine with Adam's signature (I'd be fine without it too) but the primitive sketch can only detract from the cover, not add to it.

These pens are called permanent markers for a reason. In this case, silver ink permanent marker. Anything capable of lifting the permanent marker would strip the printer's ink too. Far simpler would be to sell this copy and use the money to purchase a regular blue label. You might even be a few bucks ahead at the end of the process.

That seems logical and consistent. But my answer is I do not know. I have not sent in any pedigree's recently.

It looks nicer for sure. But IMHO, 98% of the improvement is from pressing (including aligning the spine) and getting all those folded over pieces out and flat. Where it has been leaf casted - because no color touch was done - essentially still LOOKS like missing pieces. This is exactly what the book would look like - in a picture anyway - if there had only been a careful press and no leaf casting. We would be looking at the newsprint first wrap where there are holes instead of newsprint leafcasting material. And it wouldn't be conserved or restored. It would be blue universal.

When the custom labels first came out, my clients were enthusiastic. But then we quickly discovered the custom labels end up costing MOST submissions a lot more than $5 a book. CGC treats the custom labels in a submission as a separate submission. So if one is only sending in a ten Spider-Man books for grading - one only pays an extra $5 a book for the labels ($50 extra) . But if one is sending in six Spider-Man books, two Batman books, one Black Panther and one Eternals - now you are paying for two shipments (one of six books plus one of four books) You pay an extra $30 for special labels an extra $5 invoice fee and an extra $40 in shipping. So the real cost of special labels on six books in this instance is $75 - not $30. That's $12.50 a book. So while I think some DC labels would be cool, I doubt the special labels are selling anywhere near as well as they could if CGC would stop with the "it's a separate submission" thing.

First, there is no guarantee that leafcasting will get a conserved grade. The guidelines say "some leafcasting" under conserved guidelines. It's probably based how much is being replaced and on color touch. Leafcasting replaces missing pieces (which is normally restoration) - and missing pieces that are replaced are typically colored to match the surrounding artwork/area. Color touch is always restoration. Second, we don't really have comparisons to know if the conserved label consistently sells for more money than restored. And if conserved sells for more, how much more? There is no one formula that works for conserved/restored vs Universal. It depends on the age of the book (GA restored books will bring a higher percentage of universal than SA - and SA a higher percentage than BA) But the biggest factor is the actual numeric grade. Low grade restored copies of very sought after books might bring 40-60% of universal. But as grades get higher, the percent of universal gets lower. A universal 9.6 Amazing Fantast 15 sold for 1.1 Million in 2011. It would no doubt sell for a lot more today. But a restored 9.6 just sold for $42,222. That works out to a restored book being worth 4% of the universal grade. But restored AF 15's in 2.0 will bring 40-50% of universal. The why is easy to figure out. If restored/conserved always sold for 1/2 of universal - than that would make a restored AF 15 in 9.6 worth $550,000. For half a million, you could get a universal 9.0. Which would you rather have? A restored/conserved 9.6 or a universal 9.0?