Tony S

With Registered Mail, CGC insures the books with USPS for the declared FMV listed on the submission form. Any claim for loss or damage while in transit is USPS's responsibility. Any settlement would come from USPS. Any settlement from USPS resulting from a loss or damage claim is going to be for a maximum of the insured value. And if you can't convince USPS the books are worth what you say, it could be less. Fair Market Value is a bit of quandary. For CGC graded books, we don't actually know the book(s) values until they are graded. But a value has to be declared when submitting. Usually those submissions are raw, ungraded books. As far as bumping up values, keep in mind that CGC has value limits for the different tiers. The difference between $200 and $300 declared value on grading a modern (published 1975 or later( is an almost doubling of the price to get the book graded. Fortunately Registered Mail is pretty secure. Loss or damage is rare. Registered mail is also often very slow. So just try to relax and don't look at tracking half a dozen times a day. It's not unusual for Registered mail to land somewhere and sit for 3-5 days with no updates.

I don't get teased because my friends aren't like that. And because I don't talk much about what I own. If I were to be teased, it might before books like Beagle Boys and Atom Ant.

https://collectinsure.com/ They sell insurance on collectible comic books and that insurance includes private shipping insurance on collectibles shipped to you and collectibles you ship somewhere. Exact terms and details vary by policy type and coverage limit. Mine - and most I believe have a $200 deductible & the package must require a signature on delivery. With the collectors policies, I believe coverage maximums vary based on choice of shipping service and the class of shipping (ground, express, next day, registered, etc) Dealer policies are also sold with expanded benefits and coverage.

This is almost certainly not true. It's actually against the law for the USPS to enter into a shipping contract where they loose money. USPS is loosing money due to the continuing decrease of people using first class mail to send letters and the Congressional mandate to forward -fund their pension system over a 10 year period. A lot of noise is made about the Amazon contract. But Amazon is a unique beast. They have 75 (Edit:over 100 in America) Regional Distribution Centers in North America. So when the USPS gets packages, those packages don't have to travel far. All that said, certainly it's being looked into. The Treasury is loaning USPS enough money to operate for a year. But they wanted to see their sealed contracts with big accounts for this loan. No doubt to see if USPS is in fact charging too little on package delivery and thus loosing money. We are not supposed to get political here and some consider fact checking sites to be political (I do not) But if you Google this you'll fine multiple sites disputing the idea that the USPS looses money on package delivery. Instead it is one of the few bright spots in their financial reports. It's a growing business for them

Sad how things have changed over eight years. Try getting anyone to answer the phone at the actual PO branch today. The only number published is the 1-800 number. And even the people working the call center can't get anyone at the local PO Branches to answer the phone. I've been able to talk to branch staff in the past - including managers. But I do it by going in, asking and telling them I'll wait until the manager comes out to speak to me. I understand mistakes can happen. This Christmas we ordered a rowing machine via Amazon. UPS delivery. We were watching tracking and it said it was out for delivery - then said delivered! We had watched the UPS truck drive down the street. Except we didn't have a big arse six foot tall 100 pound package on our porch. I immediately walked our block and found our package three doors down on a neighbors porch. I grabbed it and dragged back to my house. So yes, mistakes happen. PAY THE INSURANCE CLAIM if that happens. I'm glad you got your book delivered to you....

What you describe is how it is supposed to work, along with requiring a signature on delivery. Showing ID if the carrier/clerk doesn't know you when delivered. I have told others - in the past - much the same thing you have said above when they ask about how to ship valuable comic books. If Registered mail is handled the way it is supposed to be, getting lost should be nearly impossible.Getting damaged rare. Which is why they will sell up to $50K of insurance on a package. Nearly impossible is not 100% impossible, As they say, you can't make things foolproof because fools are clever and creative. So I get it that even registered mail can go missing. What grinds my gears is USPS not paying the claim. USPS knew it was CGC graded, collectible comic books when they took the package. They collected the postage, registered mail and insurance fees. They can't find the package. At least pay the claim. "Never had to file a claim". Yeah. I've only filed one with USPS before in decades of shipping stuff. USPS's tracking isn't the best but delivery wise it has for me been great. My real beef here is USPS not wanting to pay the claim. Essentially because the value claimed is based on collector value. "Check the Safe". Yes, this happens regularly. A few times I've had the misfortune of going to pick up registered mail when the only person with a key to the lock up was at lunch.. "Get to know your carrier". PREACH BABY! i work hard at developing a relationship with my carrier and counter clerks at my PO branch. "What's the protocol if...." No idea.

Virtually every Senator and Member of Congress have a link on their website that say "help with Federal agency". So what I've highlighted in bold is a good idea. I'll pass it on. USPS is hybrid Federal agency, Congress has oversight. IMHO, CGC is not responsible. Their responsibility ended when they shipped the books insured for the declared value. This is on the post office. To CGC's credit, they did try to help with the tracking and claim process.

It is the image sensor. Contact image sensor (CIS) is what most scanners - those that cost less than a grand - use now. Small and cheap. But it has no depth of field. It can only see that which lays flat on the scanner glass. Anything held away from the bed is out of focus. What you need is CCD (Charged Couple Device) based scanner. In this situation, old and sold on eBay scanners are your friend. Because older scanners use CCD sensors. CCD sensors have a greater depth of field. They can "see" clearly the comic book inside a slab that is holding said comic book 1/4" from the scan bed. Obviously, you also need the scanner to have a legal size scan bed. A regular size scan bed isn't long enough. HP's 8000 series scanners are fairly easy to find as they sold a lot of them to large businesses and government agencies. So they show up regularly on eBay or Craigslist. I have an 8300 and it's great. One of the things I really like about the HP Scanjets is despite their age, HP keeps drivers up to date on their website. There are other, older scanners that were well made - Microtek comes to mind. But you'll have to pay for third party drivers unless you want to run Windows XP But let me be clear. You WILL NOT find any new scanner for sale today that has a large enough scan bed and uses CCD sensor for less than a thousand dollars.

If package is insured for $600 or more, it automatically requires a signature. Normally one will want insurance equal to the amount the books are worth - or what you paid for them.

That's a great idea. I will suggest it.

Consider this a public service announcement: Registered Mail is NOT near as great as presented or generally believed. Registered Mail CAN and DOES get lost. USPS - because the items insured are collectibles - CAN and WILL do everything possible to avoid paying a claim for a lost package. I submitted 12 books to CGC for a client back in December 2019. The books were graded and shipped back to him via Registered Mail insured for $500 in January 2020. There was a problem delivering - conflicting accounts as to why.. Most likely his address not on his mailbox. But might of been just because he wasn't at home at the time of the attempted delivery. So USPS held the package a couple of weeks and then marked it for return. That is the end of tracking information. The package was never returned to CGC. Never delivered to the owner. Nothing in USPS tracking since marked for return. Initially a request was made by CGC to USPS to look for the package. After a few weeks of no reply from USPS, a claim was filed by CGC USPS was unable find the package and USPS denied paying the claim. Said they wanted actual receipts showing what the owner paid for the books. USPS's own website says that for proof of value you can submit statements from reputable dealers. Being one myself, I submitted such with the first claim. As already said, the claim was denied and closed out. CGC appealed. This time I submitted another statement of value and I got the owner of a local comic book store to submit a statement of value. So two dealer statements. AND I looked up and printed out recent completed sales on eBay of the each and every exact book (CGC and grade) All of this submitted as proof of value. I also submitted proof - actual receipts - of the pressing costs and the CGC grading costs. Denied again. The owner appealed. USPS still wants receipts showing what he paid for the books. These are collectibles. What was paid for the books does not represent their value. What these books routinely sell for is their value. And with CGC grading and encapsulation, the books become much more ....monetized. It is easy to see what a CGC book routinely sells for. I own books I paid 12 cents for in 1968 that are worth thousands of dollars now. Not only is 12 cents not a reasonable settlement if USPS looses the insured package said books are shipped in, NEITHER do I have the RECEIPTS for those 12 cent purchases 50 years ago. As of this moment, USPS can't find the package and wants receipts for what the owner paid for the books to consider an insurance payout. Over six months since the books went missing. So yeah.... You can forget that Registered Mail is the "gold standard" in shipping. We pay a premium for Registered mail because it's supposed to be handled with greater care and insurance is available up to $50,000. But if packages do get lost and insurance claims are denied- or only settled for a maximum of the original purchase price by the owner - what are we paying premium prices for? Perhaps the gold standard is private shipping insurance and UPS.

What The Lion's Den and October said. A long color breaking crease is going to make you VF range, automatic, by itself. Keep in mind that white is the complete absence of color. So in the white areas (margins) of the cover it is going to be far more difficult - maybe even impossible slabbed - to see the crease in the white areas. Somewhere along the process, the back cover got folded at the bottom corner. Or the book was very overgraded to begin with. Which can also happen. There is also a line (crease, tear?) at the top of the back cover near the spine. No reason to send this book back in. Improvement in grade unlikely

I believe the stance reflected in the article is still relevant. By itself, CGC does not consider taking a book apart and then putting back together again to be restoration. That is to say, removing the staples and putting the same staples back in. Nothing has been added or removed from the book. It is still the exact same paper and staples. The problem is what the article says. It is difficult to remove the staples and then put them back in without making the holes a slight bit larger, if done by someone with a lot of practice, it can be pretty much impossible to detect. If done by a less experienced person, it can impact the grade. WHY the staples were temporarily removed and then put back in is the real question. What else was done to the book?

It is - as they say in the hobby - a book "that presents well for the grade". There is no grade appeal process. If CGC ever starts a "grade appeal process" expect it to cost about as much $$ as sending the book back in for regrading.

CGC addresses their stance on this in the post below about defects caused by improper pressing. First sentence. Disassembly by itself is not considered restoration. https://www.cgccomics.com/news/article/3982/pressing-defects-disassembly/

If the rust is si "subtle" that a picture won't show it then you are probably being a bit to strict. There is either rust. Or there is not. if you are not sure, it is probably not rust. Staples can tarnish a bit over time. That's not rust. Just not bright and shiny anymore. . It's unlikely a book with any rust on the staples grades 9.8. But the encapsulation of the comic does not seal off the comic from the environment. If the encapsulated comic is stored in an environment with high relative humidity, the staples could rust. In fact, there have been documented instances of this where people have used fireproof safes and gun cabinets to store CGC graded comics - and the staples have rusted as a result. Because the humidity inside such safes and cabinets can build up over time and get very high.

We would need a bit more detail - like what book, what grading tier, what method of return shipping - to be of any help. As a practical matter, ONE book is always going to look overly expensive, because of shipping. The golden rule of shipping is that the first pound - or in this case book - is the most expensive. Two books are only a couple of dollars more than one for shipping. Five books only a few bucks more than two. If your book was valued over $400 and less than $1000 - and you chose registered mail (likely the best choice) for return shipping you could easily be around $85 total cost for one book. That said, these forums are not actually the ideal place to figure out things like how much you are being charged. They have customer service and accounting staff working for CGC to help with that. Customer service and accounting are working from home, not in the building. So you need to email. Accounting accounting@cgccomics.com Customer service submissions@cgccomics.com Welcome to the boards.

This "issue" gets posted every couple of months here on the forums. I'll try to be brief. If you value the grade your book is in more than the signature, don't remove it from the CGC holder to get it signed. In the process of getting book removed from the holder, getting signed and getting regraded there are multiple steps, multiple people handling the book and thus multiple opportunities for the book to get a bend or bump or worse. I personally NEVER remove 9.8's from holders for signatures. NEVER< NEVER. Because for all practical purposes, 9.8 is the top grade. The chances of a 9.8 going to 9.9 are pretty much zero. So the best you can hope for is the same grade. Dropping one or more grades is a real possibility. Go find a 9.4 or a 9.6 and get it pressed after signed. Then you might get good news instead of bad. You just have to decide.... Which is more important to you? The current grade or that book with a signature - perhaps with a lesser grade? Because the risk of a grade drop - as the OP has discovered - is real.

I do not find it to be true that CGC graded books consistently more strict in their early days (old label) Except for page quality. Based on experience, I believe the first few years open CGC was more strict on page quality. The appeal of old label books is that it's very unlikely they were cleaned and pressed, since that wasn't really an established thing yet. Cleaning and pressing were generally part of an overall restoration of comics. Done by the few restoration experts around. I also do not find graders notes all that helpful. Ultimately what is helpful is an in-hand examination by someone that can look for both the the defects pressing can improve and defects that can't be improved. And they have some experience and skill with likely CGC grade if resubmitted. I only bother with grading notes when a CGC graded books looks much nicer than the assigned grade. Then they might be useful in identifying any defects that are difficult to impossible to see because of the encapsulation. You cannot do a proper evaluation of CPR (crack, press, resubmit) from a few pictures. That said, Looking at the pictures, the book looks to be worth pressing and resubmitting. I do not believe you'll see a huge bump. The defect that can't be fixed with pressing and will hold the book back grade wise is the small tear on the middle of the right outer edge of the front cover. Probably done by someone using a thumb or finger to open the the cover. Two little tiny tears and a stress line between the tears. So you need to get this book in for evaluation of CPR. There are a number of qualified pressing services. Perhaps simplest for someone new to the game is just send it in to CCS - the in house pressing service of CGC. Pay for the book to be screened and CCS will decide if the book is good candidate (no guarantees, just an expert opinion) for removing from the holder, pressing and regrading. Once CCS has done their part then they send the book over to CGC for grading and encapsulation. The real deal here is cost vs benefit. This is not a guaranteed thing. So you are rolling the dice. By the time you pay for shipping to CCS, screening, pressing grading and return shipping back to you the bill will probably be over $100. IF the book goes up to 8.5 you've made a few bucks but that's it. . If it stays the same you are out the money. Which is why you want to pay for the screening if you use CCS

Maybe it varies based on who you talk to at CGC. Maybe CGC has changed policies. But I have made changes to tiers or services with books CGC has received. I'm certain once books are in the grading room it is too late. And I know I've made changes when the status was received. I can't say about the "scheduled for grading" status. It only takes a minute to send the email and find out. It's worth the attempt. Because I guarantee you that book has an indent down the middle of the back cover. An indent you don't see until it comes out of the polybag.

With this particular book, one has to take into account that the indent (one could call it light creasing) is the entire length of the book. Ten inches long. So yes, it could indeed cause a large drop in grade. if pressing removes the light bends and light creasing to cover, I have seen lots of 9.6's with "light spine stress lines". Probably some 9.8's have such - but CGC almost never lists grading notes for 9.8. Which personally I believe is proper and support. Listing tiny defects on 9.8's in grading notes serves no purpose except to cause buyers to question if it is actually, really and truly a 9.8. But I digress.... Get your 8.0 pressed and regraded. You will be glad you did.

That's hilarious. I took my oldest daughter - she was maybe 11 or 12 then - to a New Kids On The Block concert here in Evansville, IN. Man, but ten thousand or more preteen girls inside an indoor stadium can make a lot of noise. I was near deaf by the time it was done and my ears rang for days afterwards. The band and show wasn't bad. I actually like pop music and they put on a good enough show. My daughter loved it. So consider it a nice gift

And my mother and aunt. Geez, but those two were pro's. They would meet for coffee somewhere at 5am, go through the paper for yard sale listings and my aunt would plot out the most efficient route on a map. Then starting at 6 am it was off to the races. They could haggle prices like Uncle Scrooge at an a Arabic flea market and be back in the car and off to the next yard sale in 10 minutes flat! GOD BLESS indeed. Two wonderful women I miss everyday. But God willing, I will see them again

Link to your eBay store or listings? Sounds like you have some stuff I'd be interested in.