darkstar

192 and 196

Just an all around terrible take and atrocious comparison to the videogame market. This is reactionary nonsense due to price spikes and overall instability in a virgin market. Evidence of an actual pump is nowhere to be found. Where is the hype? Where is the young, outside money moving into the market? There is little evidence of either of those things. Pulp content here on the boards? Nearly non-existent. Same thing to be said about Youtube and your social media platform of choice. Windy City Pulp was this past weekend, fewer than 5 dealers had graded pulps, and I would estimate 90% of the people in the room were in their late 40s or older. It was the same show that it has always been. Graded videogames were around for years, being bought and sold for understandable prices by collectors, before any sort of manipulation set in, the market depth and interest simply was not there. That market wasn't seen as an investment opportunity until Heritage made the false press release about the Super Mario Brothers sale and then conveniently announced they would start selling graded games.

What is your price on issue #1?

Remember that time Vintage Magic, probably the largest vintage Magic the Gathering dealer in the world, opened a sealed Alpha starter deck at CGC HQ with the head grader of CGC's Trading Cards division present? And we're to believe that the people responsible for grading these cards didn't know who submitted them? CGC's policy may be true MOST of the time, but it definitely isn't true all of the time. We really don't need to rehash all the instances of exceptions being made throughout CGC's history, do we?

It is unknown if the scammer was able to swap labels/books at home and reseal them without requiring a re-submission to CGC for a reholder or custom label. In theory he could have swapped the 4277700006 label at home with an inferior copy without ever re-submitting it to CGC. It depends entirely on whether he was able to crack the slab and reseal it without noticeably damaging it. Until that is ruled out as a possibility CGC should have released a list of every book that was ever submitted under his account and not ones that were only resubmissions.

But what if he was able to swap books at home and wasn't entirely relying on CGC to do it via reholders or custom labels? He might have submitted a legit 9.8 raw, swapped the 9.8 label at home with a lesser copy and then re-submitted the raw 9.8 again for another 9.8 label and just kept the cycle going. Every cert # attached to this person's account is suspect.

Verified by whom?

I believe so. I just took all the certs from his eBay listings and looked up the other books within each submission to see if every cert from each submission is on the list...and they aren't.

From the submission below the only cert on the list is 4277700004. Why? 4277700004 asm 252 4277700001 spider-man 1 4277700002 asm 252 4277700003 asm 252 4277700005 killing joke 4277700006 batman 442

Why isn't cert # 4343218005 on the list if 4343218001, 4343218002, 4343218003, and 4343218004 are all on the list?

The scans on a book's cert page are scans from the last time the book was in CGC's possession, not when the book was first graded. They have scans for swapped books on their cert pages...so no, they didn't know anything about this until the community discovered it.

The 9.4 wasn't swapped with the 9.8 and graded on 4/12. The time window doesn't fit. The swap occurred sometime after that and before the two sales in August.

Revise what speculation? I provided a reason for the discrepancy in grade dates for books that were part of the same order. Again your language seems to indicate that I am denying the accusation that the book in the 9.8 isn't actually a 9.8, when that has never been my position and I'm getting tired of correcting you regarding that.

A reholder isn't the same thing as a mechanical error. If you submit a Mark Jeweler copy and CGC grades it but does not note it on the label you can re-submit it as a mechanical error as long as you make the request within the 2 weeks or whatever it is from the time it was delivered.

I think the original 6 book order was re-submitted as mechanical errors. The 238 and 252 were sent to CCS, because they didn't pass inspection and were sent for re-grading, which is why their cert pages have grade dates months later, 7/10, instead of the same date as the rest of the order, 4/12. If you read the posts in the link below starting with the post by Ramithard on Feb 23 you will see this boardie sent a book in for a mechanical error that ended up going to CCS, even though the boardie didn't request or pay for that service. CGC chose to do that on their own, which ended up delaying the simple mechanical error for months. Going back to the 238 and 252 the images on their cert pages likely aren't of the books that were graded 9.8 by CGC. Those books, or more likely the labels, were swapped into lesser grade slabs and then submitted to CGC as reholders or mechanical errors - due to case damage or label error. If at intake the books were deemed to not require re-grading then they were sent off to be slabbed, scanned, and shipped - which means the latest scans on the cert page are of a different book than what was originally graded. There is no way CGC is dedicating the manpower to reholders or MEs to the point that every book is being inspected closely to see that it matches the grade assigned on the slab. So unless it is obvious that the case has been compromised or that the book has incurred additional damage since grading then that book isn't going to be subjected to grading again. Your post reads like I don't think there is anything wrong going on here, which is obviously not true. This is definitely a big bowl of fraud, but I don't see how anyone at CGC could be knowingly involved. The sheer volume of books CGC receives, not to mention how many orders the scammer has submitted, pretty much eliminates the possibility that one person at CGC could effectively control all of the fraud books at receiving and then steer them through the entire process while at CGC.

The photos on the certification page for a book are scans from the most recent time that CGC had the book in their possession - whether that was for grading, a reholder, or a mechanical error or label update, which means the copy you are seeing in the certification page photos isn't necessarily the same copy that received the grade that is shown on the label or the grade on the certification page itself. When one of the most popular topics on this forum is one that calls into question CGC's Quality Control and has nearly 6000 posts, we should probably stop thinking that our individual books see anywhere close to the amount of individual care and attention that many seem to think they do. I don't think the people tasked with inspecting reholders or mechanical errors are doing anything more than giving a book a quick once over for anything that would warrant a re-grade instead of a re-slab and even then they are likely looking for structural damage to the case more than damage to the book that doesn't line up with the grade on the label.

I'm pretty sure those 5 books were submitted as Mechanical Errors and the 7001 and 7005 went to CCS after being reviewed by CGC, which is what caused the delay and grade date discrepancy with the other books in the order. And I think the scans on the certification page are the most recent scans of that book the last time CGC had it, not necessarily scans of the book that earned the 9.8 grade designation originally.

The 7.0 qualified and 8.5 universal were both graded in February. The photos show the 7.0 qualified being paired with the 8.5 universal label. That pairing was done after the initial grading of each book. The scammer re-submitted the 7.0 qualified copy with the 8.5 universal label for a re-holder and/or label update after the initial grading in February. The book wasn't re-graded which is why the grade date remains unchanged from the February date. It is impossible logistically for a CGC employee to be running this scam, there are simply too many steps in CGC's process for one person to be playing overwatch during all of them and on specific shipments no less. The submitter has figured out how to either swap books or swap labels on books while doing minimal damage to the case so that his re-submissions don't always trigger a re-grading by the person inspecting his submissions. Other than that he might be marrying qualified and/or restored copies to frankenstein into universal copies, but that's all this is.

The grade date on the page for the universal copy is the original grading date. It doesn't update when the book is submitted for a re-holder and/or custom label. The book was graded in February and didn't sell until June, plenty of time to have it sent back for a re-holder or custom label. There is no way someone at CGC could be doing this, to somehow manage to sequester tens or hundreds of shipments from a single submitter, and then be solely responsible for all of those books from intake to shipping? Absolutely not, there is no way the division of labor is broken down like that.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/304548820994

The creation of the product is irrelevant. The point is that successfully deceiving an authority of the product in question does not in any way legitimize a fake as being authentic. The scammer here has made CGC an unwitting co-conspirator in his ongoing fraud scheme. The scammer can't claim ignorance of his fraud and point to CGC as being at fault when his actions were done repeatedly to deceive CGC and the buyers of his books.

1) Because he swapped books 2) Because he did it more than once

You'll figure it out eventually. Do you require a condescending thumbs up emoji as well?

Read exactly how what played out? The guy bought a 9.0 blue label Hulk 181. He bought a 8.5 green label Hulk 181 with a missing mvs. He cracked the slabs and replaced the 9.0 blue copy with the 8.5 green label copy and sent the green label copy inside the blue label slab to CGC for a re-holder and/or label update. He KNOWS the book he got back from CGC isn't actually a 9.0 blue label copy of the book, regardless of what CGC has on the label. He then KNOWINGLY sold the book as a blue label 9.0, despite knowing it is actually the qualified copy with the missing mvs. You do this once or if you aren't in the business of selling comics sure you could say it was an honest mistake or that it's too inside baseball (a marvel value stamp, what the hell is that?), you can get away with it. But if you are in the business of selling comics and have established a pattern of doing this then there is no playing dumb. And yes, the currency analogy is perfectly appropriate because you seem to think that an authority ruling something as authentic legitimizes the counterfeit. It doesn't work that way.

That's not how any of this works. This is like saying if you successfully pass counterfeit currency through a bank that it is now legitimate and legal tender. Knowingly misrepresenting what you are selling for financial gain is fraud, it doesn't matter if you were able to fool a third party authority or not. You understand people have gone to prison for selling trimmed sports cards that passed authentication by the grading companies, yes?