stanley1883

Sorry no pics, but got some nice TPB's. Batman TDKReturns 1 & 2 and Bats Year One. All for $17. Not a crazy steal but I like it enough to share.

Wow, did not see that coming. Cannot fathom what they will do to end the season. Should be intense.

The Physics of Super-Heroes by James Kakalios. Great book, check it out!!!

Bought an awesome slabbed book from Steve, but I prefer to call him Bob Barker cuz the price was right! Shipping was fast and very well protected. Highly recommend Steve. He's a pleasure to work with!

Love the show, Thea is starting to annoy me though. She's so pissed and all the sudden doesn't care about the money. Having a tough time accepting her characters motivations.

Submission via secret society coupon en route after a quick pitstop at the JoeyPost Press later this week. Updates to follow.

You got rid of your 9.6 or resubmitted it and got a 9.8? Eitherway...9.8's whoot!! No I sold my 9.6 , and bought this last week So I have a 9.6 myself. I understand it cant be guaranteed, but wouldn't it be more cost effective to press and resubmit the 9.6 with hoped of a bump? From what I've seen 9.8's are not pricer proportianaly. From the prices I saw there was a pretty significant jump from a 9.6 to a 9.8...or maybe those were crazy eBay numbers? whats an average price for a 9.6 vs a 9.8? Someone care to share according to that GPAnalysis thing?

It's a sad sad feeling when you remember there's no episode tonight.....

Sorry if I'm late to the party but the Bleeding Cool article on this is interesting, though it doesn't really say much or anything we didn't already discuss.

I did want to give my regarding the statements that we pay CGC for their opinion. That is FALSE. We pay CGC for their expertise, knowledge "training" (if any), and their service. If I want an opinion, there's a perfectly functioning grading forum where other members are very knowlegeable and reach the same grade that CGC does if not, they're very close. I understand that the grader's are humans and perfection cannot be asked, and I'm not asking for perfection. I'm asking for a product/service that warrants the money spent. Mistakes are fine, BIG mistakes like the one we had here are not, in my humble opinion. I appreciate CGC, and everything they do, and I certainly undertand the immense pressure and scrutiny they are under. I will continue to submit there, partly because there is no alternative, and I enjoy my graded books. With that said, I do think CGC should be more receptive to suggestions by us, the consumers. Especially regarding transparency and turn around times, I also think that some of their Customer Service reps could use some customer service training. If I would see that they are making a legitimate attempt at improvent, that would quell my concerns. Sadly, as it stands now, it only looks like CGC will strive for improvments when they have a legitimate threat by a competitor, and by then, it may be too late. Proactive is better than reactive.

So whats bothering me is that is would seems that the bare minimum was done by CGC and people are satisfied. This is what I meant by we the consumers creating the problem. CGC is off the hook and back to business as usual, let's send them our money. They acknowledged the mistake, well I would hope so. Them taking the book off the market really does nothing, it's a weak attempt at best. Then we are given "we're human, we make mistakes, blah blah." How about answering how it happened? "We make mistakes" is not an acceptable answer to me. Especially when "Everyone" looked at the book. How long do graders look at a book? What exactly is done" What is QC and do they really do anything? I want transparency, why not share what the "grading standards" are? If you really have "bar none the best graders" as claimed, then others knowing your "standards" will be irrelevant as they won't be able to match your staff. I don't know, CGC took a step in the right direction but that;s all it is to me, a step.

It's amazing where a thread goes. I left for a while and when I come back, it's no longer a thread about CGC's mistake, but rather about sociopaths.

Please don't mistake my posts for non-chalantness. They're not directed that way nor do I have a "je ne m'inquiète pas" attitude. I'm not casting judgment b/c frankly, I do not know, nor do I have enough information to make an informed decision. That's all. And yes, feel free to person_without_enough_empathy and moan about whatever you want. If you pay to play, you can complain. I know I do my fair share, but just know, it doesn't always go in my favor. I've had my share of success but have fallen right on my arse many a time w/CGC. I never meant to imply you were judging. Personally, IMO, I fail to see how anyone cannot view this as a "big deal." This is a very serious error that does not fall withing the realm of acceptable mistake by CGC and their graders simply because of the history of this incident. From Blue to Purple, that incident being highly scrutinized, and then back to blue within about a month is quite serious. Granted we don't KNOW, 100% that it happened. However, I have seen no reason to discredit the OP, so as of know, it's plausible this occured. I'm not suggesting we boycott CGC, I'm suggesting we have nobody to blame but ourselves for their monopoly. Sorry if I came across bull-headed. Friends?

As someone who only sells CGC'd books on his website I'd say you're hardly unbiased. Staus quo much? Not the status quo...just a realistic approach to an unrealistic expectation. The fact that people here expect perfection from an imperfect product is laughable. The only thing I agree w/in this entire thread is that CGC has a responsibility to handle the situation correctly...and that's on them and only them. Its not the responsibility of this community to determine what they should or shouldn't do..and casting stones before all the information is available is not only ignorant, but shows true colors by many. Take it for what you want...if a mistake was made, is it the end of the world? No...my power still comes on, my fridge still keeps my food cold and I still have a roof over my head.. Its shameful all these first world problems us comic collectors and dealer's have... We do not pretend perfection, and a mistake it's not the end of the world, you are right. But the mistake becomes a PROBLEM when it's made not one, not two, but THREE times on the same book. The third time, after the head of the company assured the customer that "everybody in the building with grading skills" revised the book. Who graded it the third time? The receptionist? With that comment, Herschen added fuel to the fire, also jeopardaizing his and his company reputation. Finally, if that happened three times on a single book, who knows how many books out there fall in the same category. At the end of the day, you cannot say that three mistakes were made. A blue label went purple...then back to blue. Perhaps the mistake was going to purple. If that's the mistake, then it happened once. I have no clue..I didn't see the book, I didn't grade the book and have no idea if the book should have been recognized. Its a major SA key but its relatively common to say...a Batman 1?? And I realize this addresses another poster but saying the book should have been recognized is like saying I should recognize my lunch 5 hours later... While an argument for overreaction certainly exists, the level of non-chalant, and it's no big deal coming from your post suggests you have your success tied to CGC at least in part. For the "average" colector who does not own a store and isn't in the business of reselling, this is a big deal as we want our comics from a trusted source. These are our collectibles, not our inventory and theres a huge difference between the two. Also I for one love having first world problems, thats why I love this country. I work so I can enjoy my hobbies. The fact that we send our hard earned money to cgc for our grades and to dealers for our books means we can person_without_enough_empathy about whatever we want. We give you our money we expect certain things in return.

Money always changes things, faster than law does too. Regulation or no regulation, irrelevant, people care about money, whomever we pay to grade our comics will be King of the Hill. Period.

Well, maybe. The problem with monopolies is that they are created by circumstance, that is, it's not necessarily what the market will bear, but what the consumer will bear in terms of acceptable choices. Your choices disappear many times over when, as it was mentioned in this thread already, CGC engages in acts to manage your ability to make a choice, like engaging in marketing agreements with vendors and retailers across the board, making it legally impossible for other companies that want to be in the business of grading comics to gain any sort of marketshare, which allows consumers to enjoy the results of competing businesses. The problem is that, at least in this industry, nothing has to change: this isn't regulated by any law, which serves as the basis for those cases you read about between Microsoft and whoever. In the end, I really don't believe "we created it," but I also believe that it was completely inevitable, considering the (lack of) circumstances to stop it. I cannot accept the fact that if we stop submitting to CGC all together that those agreements will remain in place. Exit clauses and contract terminations will be abundant. Let's say a new grading service comes up and we start submitting to them, and I don't mean some of us, I mean the vast, vast majority. CGC's market share evaporates to single digits. Your saying those vendors and retailers won't break those contracts and jump onto this new grading company? Of course they will, companies go where the money is, as it happens basically all of the money is with CGC right now, and guess who gave it to them?

WUT I thought the comment was pretty self explanatory, not sure how you could be confused. The crapstorm this has and will create is much the same that would happen if people really knew what was going down in the real on a regular basis. Clearer? So the buyer and seller are stupid for relaying the results of multiple submissions of the same book, and the subsequent crapstorm is the reason why we can't know what really goes on at CGC? WUT The new owner was not smart to ever let anyone know of his good fortune, absolutely. Not only has he put a big black mark on his own book, but has brought serious doubt of the whole system in place. Doesn't take a Braniac to see that. Do you know of any business that is run completely transparent? The mass panic on this thread is evidence of why not, so yes, you or I will never know exactly what goes on behind closed doors at CGC. Still not clear on why it was dumb to bring this to light. The fact that CGC apparently had an EPIC screw up should be covered up or hidden? Is this an "ignorance is bliss" type argument or what? Or are you saying by bringing this to light, CGC will now be more secretive? The OP = seller = Dan brought it to light and yes, it was the right thing to do. However, IMO, the new owner screwed up by alerting Dan to his good fortune. I think there is a real chance of CGC requesting this book back for evaluation. If you recall, CGC did that for some of those spine realigned books. Of course, the new owner can refuse but no matter how you look at it, this book has a scarlet letter and will be difficult to move. I disagree with he hard to move part. Again this goes back to my point of us being the culprits. If that book is priced right, it's sold. Maybe even to one of us. Worst case scenario, some "half-way" comic fan with money snatches it up. Nobody in their right mind would return this to CGC to re-examine.

This part is up to all of us. PGX trashed their rep, the Vault is still new and I haven't heard of any concrete proof of wrong doing. The problem isn't with CGC in this aspect but rather all of us. For every 10 of us that say, screw CGC lets try the Vault or whatever new company pops up, there will at least be another 10 who best case scenario, don't care and keep going to CGC. People are so used to them that it's next to impossible to dethrone them. CGC didn't create monopoly, we the consumers gave them one. Someone has a PGX book we laugh and criticize, same thing with the Vault. We created this, it's our faults. I'm just as guilty, if I wanted a book graded, I go to CGC because people seemingly lose credibility if they don't. "The Difference is CGC" As long as CGC copies continue to sell for multiples of their raw counterparts....the truck will keep on...... truckin'. Is there another Auction House large enough to invest in and sponsor another Grading Company? Who's ever going to do that? ComicLink? And even if it did happen, CGC already has "marketing agreements" locked down across a buttload of vendors and retailers. Few things are certain in the world, but I can unequivocally guarantee this, if we start messing with CGC's bottom line, change will happen. All of their marketing agreements with vendors and retailers will be worth less than the ink it written with. If we start going else where, CGC will change faster than Superman in a Phone booth. However, to emphasize, it will never happen because of US.

This part is up to all of us. PGX trashed their rep, the Vault is still new and I haven't heard of any concrete proof of wrong doing. The problem isn't with CGC in this aspect but rather all of us. For every 10 of us that say, screw CGC lets try the Vault or whatever new company pops up, there will at least be another 10 who best case scenario, don't care and keep going to CGC. People are so used to them that it's next to impossible to dethrone them. CGC didn't create monopoly, we the consumers gave them one. Someone has a PGX book we laugh and criticize, same thing with the Vault. We created this, it's our faults. I'm just as guilty, if I wanted a book graded, I go to CGC because people seemingly lose credibility if they don't. I fully agree with you, we put them on the top, Quick Story, I met a man once who worked for Princeton one of his job duties on the side of being a professor for the university was evaluation of OLD books. He had 1000s of these rare old books that were probably worth more then our Comic collections combined. After I left his studio/Office, I thought to myself. These are the kind of guys who could make a killing on grading comic books. They know more then any GCG grader could possibly imagine. But then again his books were from the 15th century and stuff, or something like that. He said lots of people like him do this. But then again my second thought would be that it’s overboard and not really his area, But hey get a few of those guys and start a company with the education and background, GCG =Done. But thats my opinion I agree, the best people to grade these would be old book and currency experts and others from academia. I'm almost of the notion that the people who grade comics should have a distaste for the, or at worst not care. That way, it should be be completely objective, at least in theory. the PMG graders should grade comics and the CGC graders should grade currency, at least that would be a start. Then again, they're still under the same umbrella.

WUT I thought the comment was pretty self explanatory, not sure how you could be confused. The crapstorm this has and will create is much the same that would happen if people really knew what was going down in the real on a regular basis. Clearer? So the buyer and seller are stupid for relaying the results of multiple submissions of the same book, and the subsequent crapstorm is the reason why we can't know what really goes on at CGC? WUT The new owner was not smart to ever let anyone know of his good fortune, absolutely. Not only has he put a big black mark on his own book, but has brought serious doubt of the whole system in place. Doesn't take a Braniac to see that. Do you know of any business that is run completely transparent? The mass panic on this thread is evidence of why not, so yes, you or I will never know exactly what goes on behind closed doors at CGC. Still not clear on why it was dumb to bring this to light. The fact that CGC apparently had an EPIC screw up should be covered up or hidden? Is this an "ignorance is bliss" type argument or what? Or are you saying by bringing this to light, CGC will now be more secretive?

Fact is new companies have come up, they either trash their own rep (PGX) or we as consumers don't even give them the time of day and start spinning reasons why they're bad and how CGC is great. Look at the thread regarding The Vault, a lot of that is people saying they don't say who their graders are, it's fixed, blah blah blah, and how CGC is the best. Then we hear of like this, get up in arms, person_without_enough_empathy and moan and that's it. Either CGC is gonna own up, try to make amends and we will say wow they're so awesome and we'll forgive and forget. OR they'll do absolutely nothing, and we'll forget. If we want change, we submit elsewhere or we don't submit. Who among us is ready for that?

This part is up to all of us. PGX trashed their rep, the Vault is still new and I haven't heard of any concrete proof of wrong doing. The problem isn't with CGC in this aspect but rather all of us. For every 10 of us that say, screw CGC lets try the Vault or whatever new company pops up, there will at least be another 10 who best case scenario, don't care and keep going to CGC. People are so used to them that it's next to impossible to dethrone them. CGC didn't create monopoly, we the consumers gave them one. Someone has a PGX book we laugh and criticize, same thing with the Vault. We created this, it's our faults. I'm just as guilty, if I wanted a book graded, I go to CGC because people seemingly lose credibility if they don't.

Agreed, especially on the bolded part. AND, this could have been remedied instantly by going with the suggestion of taking the book off the market. A write down over a reputation bruiser any day of the week. Why? Because once a book goes from blue to purple, there is always that possibility it returns blue. Of course CGC had it's head up it's arse too long trying to play the "can't prove it's the same book unless it's submitted in it's blue label holder." They got exactly what was coming to them. Occasions like this, regardless of how often they occur, is why we as the collectors, fans, sellers, etc need a viable alternative to CGC. With nothing threatening their bottom line, they won't be inclined to do anything. Let's not delude ourselves, CGC cares about nothing except their profits. Unless the vast majority of us stop using them until something is done, this isn't even a blip on their radar, regardless of how much we think it is. says the guy with CGC books in his sig line. I know, but PGX was not an option.

Agreed, especially on the bolded part. AND, this could have been remedied instantly by going with the suggestion of taking the book off the market. A write down over a reputation bruiser any day of the week. Why? Because once a book goes from blue to purple, there is always that possibility it returns blue. Of course CGC had it's head up it's arse too long trying to play the "can't prove it's the same book unless it's submitted in it's blue label holder." They got exactly what was coming to them. Occasions like this, regardless of how often they occur, is why we as the collectors, fans, sellers, etc need a viable alternative to CGC. With nothing threatening their bottom line, they won't be inclined to do anything. Let's not delude ourselves, CGC cares about nothing except their profits. Unless the vast majority of us stop using them until something is done, this isn't even a blip on their radar, regardless of how much we think it is.

So what's a possible outcome here? If they admit that they screwed up, what then? Compensate Spider-Dan? (I wouldn't hold my breathe) Issue a mea culpa and that's it? (seems likely, the "everyone makes mistakes" cop out) Or maybe they are really off their rocker and offer discounted submissions. Though I agree with errors being very unique, I still wouldn't completely rule out denial. Their response is more suspenseful than the grading tournament!