Barrakuda

Potentially. Or maybe a ratio variant of something. Anything of note could do it. I think an 9.8 ASM 300 banana could fit the bill. It's more about a book that will bring eyes to it. Plus - the seller still might actually get a sale at the price-point the grade dictates to someone who just buys the grade.....and no need to feel like that buyer was taken advantage of since it was prominently disclosed.

BTW - the actual Overstreet verbiage for a 9.8 grade, which ostensibly CGC grading based off of, is: 9.8 - NEAR MINT/MINT (NM/MT): Nearly perfect in every way with only minor imperfections that keep it from the next higher grade. Only subtle bindery or printing defects are allowed. Cover is flat with no surface wear. Inks are bright with high reflectivity and minimal fading. Corners are cut square and sharp. Small, inconspicuous, lightly penciled, stamped or inked arrival dates are acceptable as long as they are in an unobtrusive location. Spine is tight and flat. Staples must be original, generally centered and clean with no rust. Paper is white, supple and fresh. Only the slightest interior tears are allowed.

Wider visibility is what is most needed to apply the pressure required for an appropriate response. The volume of squeaky wheels making noise in comparison to the size of their customer base overall crossed with CGC's small percentage of revenue contribution to their parent company means that regardless of importance to us as a subset of customers, they really don't have the hard driving force to act quickly and explicitly, as evidenced by the length of time this has been happening and the substandard (to put it nicely) responses to-date. Simply, more public visibility to the issue is what is needed to drive some sort of more concrete statement and/or action like correcting process and repressing+reholdering and even compensating customers with egregious damage to their books. They would want to be publicly seen as remediating the problem for their customers. An interesting scenario would be for someone(s) to put up a significant slabbed key of some sort they want to get out from under on Ebay for a 5-day auction and title it prominently as a Bendgate or Bananagate book - "please see photos...." and include some detail of the scenario in the description. If it doesn't sell, keep relisting. Consistently having impacted higher-caliber books there could potentially generate a snowball effect of listings and/or visibility. Then it's not just some spread of Youtube channels and forums with less reach due to their very focused audiences, since the majority of collectors likely aren't on these platforms. It instead becomes a prominent posting of an obviously compromised item for sale on a primary distribution platform for their product. That's the kind of thing that gains more eyes. Imagine if something like that goes viral within the collector community - and that kind of posting has that potential, especially if there are multiples. I want CGC to be better. I want them to be successful. I want to be able to trust them in terms of company, services, and product. I want their entire staff to be as helpful and concerned about their customers as CGC Mike tries to be. The right pressure in the right volume, as opposed to just complaints, is what is needed to push a response in today's corporate world where companies look at customers as commodities and necessary evils rather than taking pride in how they serve the people who actually provide the money that pays their salaries. Unfortunately I do not have any slabs with enough moxie for the task. I apologize for the length of post - but wanted to get it out of my head and into words before it was gone!

I miss the days of Newton Rings. Ugly as sin, but not damaging.

I pulled and looked at a couple of my slabs that were encapsulated in the past couple years and found curvatures on 1 from May of 2022 and 1 from May of 2023. These may be isolated incidents, but it is evident. My 2023 slab is definitely much worse - a banana, and my 2022 has the top of the comic high, but the bottom is almost flat to the middle with just the smallest lift.

Maybe CGC is trying to target the college-age demographic now where grading on a curve is awesome...

I've collected on and off for about 35 or 40 years. Got my son into the hobby for several years, though he's since lost interest other than the occasional Con and pickup here and there. I'm sitting at a bit more than 6000 books right now.