Lundon44

On 10/23/2022 at 9:01 PM, CGC Mike said:

The customer team should answer your post tomorrow.

Mike

Thanks Mike, I look forward to resolving this.

On 10/23/2022 at 5:51 PM, Sigur Ros said:

When is someone going to finally tell the company who designs their labels that there's this ugly hogram sticker where the characters are?

They look so stupid half covered by that price sticker looking spoon.

And yes, they clearly (and expectedly) gave you someone else's book. 

Doubt he's complaining though.

Unless the other person had already sent in a 9.8 then yeah, they're likely happy with the grade bump.

First pic (the 9.8) is my original book. All I wanted was the Wolverine label. The 9.6 is what I received back. I realize there's a risk of a book getting damaged during the process so you can potentially run the risk of getting a lower grade. However, that 9.6 is not the same book at all.

On 10/22/2022 at 5:32 PM, buttock said:

@CGC Mike

Do you have pictures to prove this? 

Yes, I do. In fact, I posted to the "Ask CGC" board but oddly it's still pending approval after 2-3 days.

Currently had a Wolverine #1 9.8 sent in only for the Wolverine customer label (basically a reholder). However, it came back 9.6 and it definitely isn't the copy I submitted. Just looking at it pretty obvious. Which means CGC likely sent my copy to another customer and gave me their "worse" copy. 

Has this happened to you? And if so, what was the end result? I've emailed CGC already so I'm waiting for their official response. But wondering what happens now. Do they track down my original and I send back this one? Do they provide monetary reimbursement? This is my first time encountering a problem like this. 

On 12/16/2019 at 7:43 PM, lou_fine said:

This is the exact reason I don't understand why anybody in their right mind would ever consider paying multiples more for a CGC 9.8 graded copy of an otherwise common book as they would for a CGC 9.6 graded copy of the same book.  

I can certainly understand paying a slight premium for the CGC 9.8 graded copy, but multiples more for a copy that more than likely (in both yours and a professional presser's opinion) could conceiveably come back encased in a lower graded slab if ever sent back in for the regrading crapshoot.  

But is that common of a book? I mean, the standard covers are but my understanding is the Djurdjevic variant is a bit harder to come by. Also, here's the best part.. I bought the book in 9.8 for $150CAD somewhere in and around 2015. 

Whether the book comes back 9.8, 9.9 or even 9.4 I'm technically still ahead. But doesn't mean I won't be pissed about losing out on thousands over an error that wasn't mine that should could have been prevented. 

I appreciate the feedback everyone. It was a bit hard to get a clean pic of this one for some reason. The lighting in my place is horrible on dark days but the book's back cover color is more in line with the 3rd and 4th pictures. So far it sounds like I'm best leaving the book as is and clearly I tossed away about $1000 for a worse copy.  

On 12/13/2019 at 2:06 PM, masterlogan2000 said:

If I'm not mistaken, a reholder will retain the grade no matter what (assuming no major damage to the holder).  That is what the OP signed up for, but the LCS submitted the book for a crack + press.  There is no guarantee that the book will come back with the same grade with a crack + press.

Exactly.

On 12/10/2019 at 3:43 PM, lou_fine said:

If we follow your rationale here, then should the original poster here be paying the LCS owner a few huindred dollars more if the book comes back with a CGC 9.9 graded label?  

Well, to be fair here.. chances of a 9.6 vs a 9.9 is night and day. I'm pretty sure I'd have the only 9.9 on the census. Those odds are probably 1:10000 lol. And honestly, if it did happen I likely would give the shop owner a gift in my appreciation. However, the odds of dropping a grade are substantially higher and probably closer to 60%. Again, I could be wrong. Most people I've told the story too are very optimistic and say I'm stressing over nothing and the book will come back 9.8. I spoke to a friend of mine who does pressing/cleaning for a living and without seeing the book he thinks it's a better chance it will drop to 9.6. And he's tossed out a friendly offer to take a crack at getting the book back to a 9.8 through whatever wizardry he feels he can do.  

So I feel a bit bummed about this purchase from about 4 or 5 yrs ago. It's my own fault really. But I'm feeling like I got swindled in a trade up deal I made at my local Fan Expo. Some of my fav books over the years I've tried to trade up several times for better copies. Avengers #1 is one of those books. My last copy with was a CGC 5.0 OW. I recalled coming across a 6.0 graded copy and I made a trade offer. I believe the deal was trading them my copy plus another $750-$900US on top (can't remember exactly how much). Now I have to state an important detail that the book was a CBCS book. But at this time of investing I wasn't prejudice about either grading company and owned quite a few slabs from both (no PGX though! lol). 

At that moment, I was more overwhelmed with excitement than anything else. Took a quick look at the book (not in too much detail) just cared about the grade while overlooking one massive flaw. There was significant water damage on back cover of the book's top corner and more along the spine which seeped into the staple and caused some other funky things there. I've always wanted to attempt to upgrade the book again but with this being the over water damaged book I own I never researched anything on how it affects both grade and values. I pretty shocked firstly that this book even attained a 6.0 for the amount of visible water damage it has considering I've read stories of books being dropped from potential 9.8's to 7.0's for water damage. I haven't heard of many achieving much higher grades at least from CGC.

I'm definitely feeling like I gave away a nice chunk of money and the better book for one that I really have no idea what to do with now. Last year I wanted to press it and potentially send it to CGC for the cool Avengers label. My local presser urged me not to crack it because I'm lucky the book got the grade it did. I also feel like my chances of selling it to upgrade to another better copy are pretty much out the window. I don't even want to know what CGC might grade this book if I ever did decide to send it to them but I know it definitely wouldn't be higher than my old CGC 5.0. Definitely a huge rookie mistake here that cost me a big chunk of cash and a great book. PSA to anyone that doesn't know about water damage on books, do your research!

What do you guys think CGC could potentially give this one on a grade? I've learned a ton of factors play into this so even a range would be appreciated.

Grader's notes on it are as follows:

Lots of staining to spine. Many cover stains that are only visible from interior. Staple rust. Many marvel tears right front cover. Creases top right front cover corner breaks color & barely breaks color. Spine stress breaks color. Small tear with 1" crease bottom left front cover. 

2 hours ago, Foley said:

Wasn't there already a thread about this book?

Almost but not quite. Other thread I shared the full story looking for feedback on how others would approach it. Here is where I asked specifically if during the process of pressing if a previous grade is taken into account. Just so happens more of the same details spilled out.

10 hours ago, Tony S said:

If you paid to have your books screened by CCS before pressing there is a good chance they will contact you and tell you improvement is unlikely - or just send it over for reholder. . The screening is done with the books still in the slab. 

I did not pay for screening.. Again, this was because a book from my reholder batch somehow ended up getting mixed into my smaller batch of books meant for pressing and grading.

But like others have said, chances should still be decent that it comes back 9.8. I mean, technically I don't know if the book was previously pressed so I can't see it doing any harm. I hope lol. 

1 hour ago, Bomber-Bob said:

Is there a chance your LCS left it in it's original slab and you can stop the process. I undesrtand you only wanted to rehold. The LCS should not have removed before submission. I wish your luck on this.     

I tried to stop CGC in time. But every time I called them they either hadn't processed anything yet or it was too late. Mind you, the LCS ower did swear to me he would follow up to ensure this wasn't done. Ah, well.

6 minutes ago, theCapraAegagrus said:

The presser will probably use your comic as a Frisbee, chuck it at Johnny, who will miss the catch completely as your comic bounces all 4 corners against the Pressing Room walls.

Say hello to your new 7.5 UF4!

Seriously, though, your chances at retaining a 9.8 are probably 98%. It's getting unnecessarily pressed after they already graded it NM/Mint. I would be extremely surprised if it came back with a lower grade.

Lol, funny.. I think I had that exact dream last night except they used it for the world championship of ultimate frisbee.

Well, I do appreciate the reassurance. I would gladly take that 98% any day. And that remaining 2% that it comes back 9.9 

21 minutes ago, theCapraAegagrus said:

No. The previous grade is not considered.

Great. There's goes the remaining bit of sleep I was getting.

On 11/23/2019 at 3:47 AM, ZackL said:

This book has been on my want list literally since 2012. First problem is been locating one. Second problem is coughing up the insane asking prices for them. I've had a saved search for the last 9 years and only seen a couple at most pop up. It's so rare GoCollect and  doesn't even acknowledge this variant. CGC lists 5 total on the census. 3 in 9.8, 1 in 9.6 and a 9.2. Rumor is 10 to 80 copies exist. I recall a 9.8 selling in 2013 for about $1000. I remember seeing it saying, no way am I paying $1000 for a modern that just came out! Meanwhile, this is the new norm. Currently, this exact copy is listed on eBay for an asking price of $30,000. 

Long story short, my LCS submitted one of my more precious books from a batch for pressing and re-grading that was only meant to be submitted for a reholder with a Marvel label. Worst part of it is that the book is a $2500 book already already in CGC 9.8. Whoops. 

I don't even want to get into the if's or what's about it again since I'm trying my best to sleep at night . But wondering if at any point during this process, is the previous grade taken into account at all? Or is the grader seeing the book raw without it's previous label. My hopes and prayers are that it stays 9.8. Or at least that chances of it coming back again in 9.8 is more than 50%.

Good points raised and appreciate the feedback everyone. Definitely a learning lesson. I can dwell on it all day but it means nothing until I actually see the results. I'd like to think that I'm bummed out for no reason because I feel that it should be at least a 75% chance of the book coming back 9.8. But like mentioned above, it all comes down to the specific grader and the day they are having. Funny, I've had results go in every direction when cracking a book for re-grading. My ASM #300 9.8 got cracked for 3 sigs and it stayed 9.8. My previous Hulk #181 9.2 dropped from white pages to white/off-white after pressing it but stayed 9.2. And then my Marvel Super-Heroes #18 9.0 stayed 9.0 but page quality jumped to white after a press lol. It's a mixed bag!

In future, I'll definitely be reconsidering how I'll be submitting books to CGC no matter what the outcome is. Either way, I'll update this thread on the results. I sent a few books in for cross-over service as well and I know people always like to hear the results.  

@Jose SantiagoPressing won't necessarily drop grade. It's purpose is the opposite. But cracking any book at any grade for re-grading runs a risk of dropping in grade. Hopefully those chances are lower being the book was already 9.8 but the risk still exists. 

@thehumantorch it wasn't Paradise. But just as reputable. I'm confident if I have to battle it out on this that I will get zero compensation from anyone. Just mentally preparing. But not saying that this is what I'm willing to accept. I definitely don't expect to be using them again unless maybe I'm there as they are inputting everything online so I can check everything is correct.

Hoping that this LCS store wouldn't want to risk hurting their reputation over this. If things turn out horribly the best way to handle things would be taking accountability and proper compensation. If that happened the most I can say is they messed up. But fair compensation at least helps redeem their reputation. 

11 hours ago, nochips said:

Next time do it yourself. You saved nothing here, in fact this whole event cost you time and time is money.

True, I may end up in a worst case scenario where the book grade drops and my LCS passes the buck to CGC and CGC says we only did as instructed. I'd like to think that the chances of this happening are less than 30% at this point. 

My original logic was saving on the shipping costs of 20 books and possible duty fees on these books as well. I have a few cases now where I've been hit with duty fees for some reason on my own books returning to me. And FedEx/UPS or whoever they use make you jump through ridiculous hoops to get that reimbursed. 

12 hours ago, Catwomancomics said:

Curiosity question.  Did you ask for any of your other books to be pressed and graded? This is very unfortunate in any case.

I submitted about 20 books in total. Half were for custom labels. 5 were for pressing and grading. The others were for cross over service. 

Hi all,

I wasn't sure of the best place to toss this posting so put in here. It's a bit more of an "advice needed" post than a noob post but at the same time, I've never been in this situation before. 

I use my LCS for CGC submissions. I live in Toronto, CA and shipping/duties can be costly so having a LCS that accepts submissions and saves you on those costs can be very beneficial. I submitted about 20 books for various services (cross over, new Marvel labels and reholdering). 

In that pile of books was an Ultimate Fallout #4 variant CGC 9.8. In my instructions to the comic store owner I requested only a reholdering with a custom label on this book. It was simply one book listed among another 9 books for custom labels. However, after he dropped all the books off to CGC at NYCC and provided my invoices it was noted that this specific book was receiving pressing and grading service (with the new label). You can imagine my immediate concern being that this is quite an expensive book in 9.8 and that this could end up being a costly mistake should the book return at a grade lower than 9.8.

The moment he handed me the invoice with this error on it I brought it to his attention. He acknowledged the error and wrote on his invoice copy a little reminder to follow up as the books were only dropped off at NYCC 2 days earlier. At this moment he was also distracted by multiple customers trying to chit chat about their favorite comics they picked up and I reminded him once more before leaving to make sure he was on top of it.

Not to say I didn't trust him, but I wanted to make sure my book was safe. I followed up by email to CGC a few weeks later asking to make sure this book was not pressed or graded as it was an error. The response was that the books hadn't been processed in the system yet and to call back once we get the confirmation email. Unfortunately the emails are going directly to the store owner so I had to continue a guessing game. I tried again a few weeks later and received the same email response from CGC. 

I waited another 3 or 4 weeks this time and called CGC directly. A customer service rep confirmed that the books were processed and that this book was already in the pressing stages and nothing could be done to prevent it at this point. I was livid as you would expect. My assumption was that the comic store never followed up at all. I emailed him right away (to ensure I had a paper trail) to remind him of our past conversation, the error on the invoice and that we now have a potential problem. He replied back that he would call CGC the next day.

2 days past and no reply email back with an update so I followed up again. He asked me to call him directly at the store. He advised me he called CGC and that they also said it was too late. He said they messed up and it was on his instructions (invoice) that no pressing was to be done. He texted me the same copy of the invoice he already provided me prior with a scribble on it beside the listed book about pressing and said "See? I had the instructions right there.". Not sure if he forgets I watched him write that note when I was with him in the store.

He proceeded to say the blame now is on CGC and that if the book comes back lower than 9.8 they will have to find a way to compensate me or provide me the same book. 

Does this sound right to anyone? And how would you proceed in this case should the book actually come back lower than 9.8?

This strategy is ideal, but as someone else mentioned.. if you don't have a money tree growing in the back yard buying a $10k or more book BEFORE selling the old copy is literally not an option. My big loss was soley due to the poor timing of my decision to upgrade. Had I done it a few weeks later I would have been happy. Or if I had done it a year earlier I would have been happy too. Same goes for selling a stock too soon then it rockets the next week. Sometimes things like that unfortunately happen! 

Man, reading this thread and seeing what's going on with this book right now is both exciting and heart breaking. On one hand it's amazing to see on of the books I love most becoming one of the most coveted books to own today. But on the other hand, if I had just held on to my 9.2 a few weeks more I could've potentially made another $4000CAD! Jeez! I literally sold mine off in mid May for FMV which was about $5000 US at that moment. I even had low ballers offering me $4000 and $4500US. My sole purpose to selling it was in hopes to upgrade it for a better grade. I've literally spent almost the last 8 yrs upgrading my 181's in hopes to one day own a 9.8.

My original copy was a raw VF+ to NM- copy. I sent it away for sigs and slabbing and it came back better than one could have expected with Herb Trimpe, John Romita, Stan Lee and Len Wein's signatures on it. Plus even a cool Wolverine and Wendigo face remark by Herb Trimpe. Sadly, the grade got knocked down to a 7.5 white pages because Stan got some silver marker on his hand and it smeared a tiny bit on Wolvie's face. I was happy but devastated by the grade. 

I sold it a year later for $1000CAD. Took that money and bought a 9.0. About 3 summers ago I came across a 9.2 white pager at my local Fan Expo and the guy let me trade up for $800 CAD. A year later I cracked it and pressed it hoping to squeeze some extra juice out of it. Came back a 9.2 but lost the white pages 

Then it was this past mid May I sold my 9.2 in hopes again to upgrade to a 9.4. Clearly, I picked the absolute worst time to sell and left a lot of cash on the table. I was stuck for a bit and was desperate to even find another 9.2 to replace mine but prices were soaring by this point. A few weeks ago a friend jokingly came across a stunning 9.6 white pager and told me to take a look. He said he knew the guy and he'd take $10.5k US. This guy had grails on grails. Clearly money was of no importance to him lol. I messaged the guy just for fun to see if we could work out an offer. He was super nice. I offered him $8500US plus my Iron Man #55 9.4. He agreed. So I spent the last few weeks selling off some modern slabs I no longer cared about, took my sale cash from my 9.2, packed up my Iron Man and now my shiny new 9.6 is in transit to me. I honestly never thought after all these years I would ever own this book especially a 9.6. I know I picked a horrible time to pay, and this whole experience was full of ups and downs, but it was well worth the time and stress. Mind you I really wanted a 9.8 all those years ago. But now that grade it probably unattainable lol.  

Everyone with their own copies or looking for one.. just enjoy the ride!