wiparker824

On 1/22/2024 at 12:44 PM, wiparker824 said:

I’ve been following a similar thread with regards to CL and ASM 194. Specifically they have 2 9.8’s ending tonight of that book. One is a direct (4344978004) and one is a newsstand (4287881001). Currently they are both sitting at 1700 and 1800 bids with the newsstand slightly higher. 

Neither book is on the list, but given that roughly 11% of the census of 9.8’s in this book are on the list these 2 sales are intriguing to me.

Also, one other tidbit, the newsstand copy isn’t on the list but a book from that same submission 4287881003 is on the list and has yet to be crossed off. Is it because the 003 book was submitted for a custom label and the 001 book was not? We don’t know because we aren’t being told how this list was compiled or how books are being determined to be clean and then crossed off.

Im not saying CL is listing a bad book, or has done anything wrong, but I can’t see how these books being sold without the full picture isn’t at all concerning to the buyers who are aware of this situation. I guess we will see how the final hammer price compares tonight. 

Kind of low for these books even if you add in CL’s 3% buyer premium. 

90 day GPA is $2688 for direct (8 sales), with the last sale being on HA 1/16 for $2760

90 day GPA is $2524 (only 2 sales) for newsstand with the last sale being on HA on 1/16 for $2640

Even so 4287881001 was the newsstand cert that isn’t on the list but is on the same submission as 4287881003 which is on the list and that’s the book that went for $200 more than the direct tonight. So I don’t know. 

On 1/22/2024 at 12:25 PM, sledgehammer said:

This is what I see as the problem with not knowing a timeline on when we will hear "who" CGC believes is behind this:

It seems to me to be an extreme example of a coincidence, that @mycomicshop would list 3-  9.8 ASM Newsstands right now, all from the same submission

I brought it up earlier that I would now be viewing submissions on books listed with a lot more scrutiny. The listing prices are quite high for the current market, but offers are being accepted

Here is what I see.

This cert, of a 9.6 newsstand, sold for the highest price (by quite a bit) of a 9.6 in 2023.  4144955001 sold on June 19th, 2023

I think that's intriguing ( and please, somebody check the sale if possible ) , considering the speculation on shill bidding in many of "scamboy's" auctions, when you consider this:

Here are the other books in that submission of 12/12/22:

4144955002  9.8  ASM  300 newsstand   https://d1466nnw0ex81e.cloudfront.net/n_ii/originalimage/7181147.jpg

4144955003  9.8  ASM  300 newsstand  https://d1466nnw0ex81e.cloudfront.net/n_ii/originalimage/7181145.jpg

4144955004  9.8  ASM  300 newsstand  

4144955005  9.6  ASM  300 newsstand

My opinion is, cert #s 002 and 003 seem to have some funky things going on to be considered 9.8.

They could also be post slabbing issues, I'm sure.

The 3- 9.8s were just listed. and I'm not saying @mycomicshop is doing anything wrong, make me curious if the consignor is from NY?

On your website, the consignor is Ironside Comics, of Texas. Are they possibly consigning for someone else?

I'm assuming the answer is MOST PROBABLY NOT, but do you guys have clarity, on who "scamboy" is, from CGC?

Until we get clarity, on exactly why this is limited to reholders/custom labels, it seems like it wouldn't be advisable to do business with "scamboy", if there's any doubt about the legitimacy of comic books that he owns??

Until we get clarity, and an understanding on how books were delivered to CGC in a way that this got past them?

Oh yea, curious what the second highest price was on a 9.6 newsstand in 2023??  It was this one, on January 1st 2023.  4140765015

That submission was on  11/11/2022, and included the following 3-ASM 300, 9.8s.

 4140765016, 4140765017 and 4140765018.

All 3 have the "very light spine stress lines to cover" grading notes.

There is going to be a big fog over this, until light is shown.

I’ve been following a similar thread with regards to CL and ASM 194. Specifically they have 2 9.8’s ending tonight of that book. One is a direct (4344978004) and one is a newsstand (4287881001). Currently they are both sitting at 1700 and 1800 bids with the newsstand slightly higher. 

Neither book is on the list, but given that roughly 11% of the census of 9.8’s in this book are on the list these 2 sales are intriguing to me.

Also, one other tidbit, the newsstand copy isn’t on the list but a book from that same submission 4287881003 is on the list and has yet to be crossed off. Is it because the 003 book was submitted for a custom label and the 001 book was not? We don’t know because we aren’t being told how this list was compiled or how books are being determined to be clean and then crossed off.

Im not saying CL is listing a bad book, or has done anything wrong, but I can’t see how these books being sold without the full picture isn’t at all concerning to the buyers who are aware of this situation. I guess we will see how the final hammer price compares tonight. 

On 1/22/2024 at 11:32 AM, Sweet Lou 14 said:

FWIW, one aspect of this situation that isn't being discussed enough is CGC's holder review process.

When the big list was published, I quickly discovered that I owned one of the most valuable books on the list, having won it at auction on ComicLink.  I was assured by Josh that my book was "fine" because of photographic evidence (apparently, this book has sold on ComicLink a couple of times and Josh feels it's clearly been the same book in the two images, one of which predates the scammer's possession of the book).  But I was also strongly encouraged to send the book in, which I did immediately.

CGC has had my book since January 9, nearly two weeks ago.  It's still in the dreaded "Scheduled for Grading" status.  Last week, I called customer service for an update -- if this is such an urgent matter for CGC (and it certainly is for me!) then why hadn't they completed their review yet?  I was told I needed to email the fraud group because regular customer service was not handling these cases.  OK, I went ahead and did that.  And the answers I got were completely unsatisfactory -- just the usual about how this is very important but I need to be patient, and no word whatsoever on an ETA.

I hesitated to comment because I am not one to air out grievances on the boards.  But the communication from CGC is so poor that this is the only way I'm likely to find out if others are having the same experience.  I don't think in a situation like this that I should have to wait more than 24 hours, 48 tops, to get an answer to the simple question of whether my book has been tampered with.  I've been in limbo for two weeks and that is simply not acceptable.

Of course you don’t have to share anything further once you find out but it would be very interesting if you find out a book CL “cleared” actually isn’t legit and CGC has to pay you out. I hope that’s not the case, and you get your book back ASAP, but it would be very interesting if that’s what’s holding things up. 

On 1/18/2024 at 6:06 PM, sd2416 said:

Something happen?  6 hour posting gap.  Boards go down again?

I’ve been busy dusting off my 9.8’s for the 9.9 pre screen program. 

On 1/17/2024 at 6:09 PM, bc said:

Depends on how they married it. If they used any tape or other adhesive, the weight would deviate.

-bc

This. Plus a lot of other factors that would impact weight - the most fun one being CGC isn’t consistent with how many pieces of microchamber paper they add to slabs… anyone who has cracked slabs knows you may find one, you may find none, you may find two ya never know. How are you going to estimate weight of a book in a holder given you don’t know how much weight you’ve added with microchamber? They definitely aren’t weighing them for MVS stamps. At least I hope not because there’s no way that would ever work.

On 1/17/2024 at 11:03 AM, ADAMANTIUM said:

All it made me think of was "it is up to the consignor to ok sending back to CGC?"

Idk but maybe some aren't willing?

Lol meaning the owner selling on heritage, idk perhaps they aren't in a forced position and or need $$ quicker than waiting on cgc or the next possible auction

Idk

Yeah that seems like the best guess, CGC can’t force anyone to send it back but they can still clear it if they have scans before and after the reholder I guess? This is what I thought was going on when some books crossed off weren’t in the verify tool while others were. Seemed like some books weren’t popping up because they were given new certs after being sent in and others were not sent in but still verified as not fraudulent so they remained under the old cert in the verify tool. But now all crossed off books come up in verify. So I don’t know anymore.. I guess we will have to wait for those that posted they sent in books to tell us if they got new cert numbers or not.

also weird for it to still say this at the top. Got to say if I was trying to sell this book on HA who provides a link in the description to this CGC cert verification it wouldn’t feel great that my perspective buyers are being told to report it as fraud if they are offered the book. Yes I’m aware it’s been crossed off the list but not every buyer is aware of that. They just click on this link and see that and are probably going to look for another book.

On 1/17/2024 at 10:34 AM, silent06 said:

It does appear something has changed in their plan. This book which is struck through and has a new grade date is available on Heritage for sale. If the book has been cleared based on what CGC originally outlined it should have a new certification number and if not cleared should be in their hands as evidence based on the comments Matt Nelson provided in the recent discussion with West Davengers and 9.9 Newsstand.

https://comics.ha.com/itm/the-amazing-spider-man-300-marvel-1988-cgc-nm-mt-98-white-pages/i/800110856.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515 

Good find. Yeah that’s in line with what I thought was happening when I looked at all of the 20+ books that have been crossed off this morning. None have new cert numbers, all are now searchable in the verify, only 3 still have old graded dates, the rest were given new dates.

On 1/17/2024 at 8:26 AM, BrashL said:

It's been confirmed that anything they received for reholdering had to be still sealed or it would trigger a re-grade. If they were reholdering open cases that would be much, much worse. 

“Sealed” is not the word I’d use. I’ve personally sent books for reholder where a corner of the slab was chipped off and had them sent back without being regraded. This was the main reason people used to use this service before the custom labels came about. In the cases I’ve sent it wasn’t feasible to slide the book out given the minor corner damage wasn’t enough to pry out the book. So I believe reholdering without regrading was fair. But the question remains if the scammer was sending in books that appeared to have minor damage to the holder but actually had enough damage to slide the books out and CGC didn’t regrade them OR if the scammer was sending only fully sealed books (that they resealed themselves) back for reholders OR a combination of the two.

On 1/17/2024 at 4:48 AM, sledgehammer said:

I agree completely with tmac. I would be amazed if there are books on the list that weren't put on there to punish scamboy. I brought this up 11 days ago.

If he still owns the AF 15, he's now  ed. Not just because the value may have plummeted 20% in the market. If they don't like whoever currently owns that book, it is permanently marked, and they will certainly be watching for it to ever show up raw, with that silver Stan Lee "scarlet letter" on the back. It seems like a no-brainer to me.

I don't know how exhaustive your search of grade date changes was.

The second book I checked was the ASM 121 yellow, and it's not crossed off, with a grade date of January 12, 2024.

Here is the ASM  16 yellow, also. Same thing. 

https://www.cgccomics.com/certlookup/1146675001/

What part of their internal process this signifies, I have no clue, and it's not a top priority right now to figure it out.

Very interesting they seem to have updated many of these in the last 24 hours, and all of the books that are crossed off and weren’t searchable are now all searchable thru the verify tool again with new grade dates, most with grade dates of 1/16/24 (yesterday) or 1/12/24. Of the 18 books crossed off only these 3 I’ve found have been crossed off and retain their graded old date: 0233579-004, 0800641-009, 1152116-001. But all of the books are searchable again. Not sure if this is temporary or if they’ve decided now to leave these books in the verify tool now with the new grade dates after they’ve reviewed them rather than removing them. But it does seem like they might have changed their plan which was:

“As impacted books are returned, the certification number will be struck through, indicating it is no longer valid and the book has been given a new certification number. Certification numbers that are no longer valid will not be searchable in the Verify CGC Certification database”

Everything is currently searchable in verify CGC at the moment. If this is the case I’d expect the ones that have updated graded dates like the AF 15 but aren’t crossed off will be shortly.

On 1/16/2024 at 4:03 PM, tmac100 said:

Regarding the AF 15 SS - My guess is they don't need the book back to tell if it's legit or not.  They likely have pictures of the before and after for all their books already (as others have mentioned), so they can tell that the book wasn't swapped out.  Same for other books that have been crossed off the list which is why they don't need to crack it open to see the MVS is missing - maybe they can link it back to a previously graded 181 with a missing MVS by comparing the pictures.  For the scam to work, he would need a previously graded 181 with a missing MVS still in the holder.

As to why they didn't cross the AF 15 SS off the list, maybe they know that it is legitimate from comparing pictures - but know it is also still part of the scammer's personal collection because there is no recorded sale of it.  What better way to screw him than preventing him from ever selling it unless he contacts CGC to get it off the list...If it was sold off-market, then the new owners can still contact CGC to get it removed.

My point wasn’t whether it’s legitimate or not, it very much looks legitimate. My point was he said he hasn’t seen it yet. Why was the graded date updated to 1/5/24 if it wasn’t re-graded on 1/5/24? None of the other books that I’m aware of had their graded date updated and also still retained their cert. Consistency matters right now. 

Also have never bought the idea CGC put books on this list to “punish” the scammer. The punishment should be in the form of criminal charges first of all, second of all they have no idea if this person sold the book privately or not. And even if this book was put on the list for this reason it still doesn’t address my main point which is why was the graded date updated if it’s not in their possession and they’ve not regraded it?

On 1/16/2024 at 4:17 PM, Chip Cataldo said:

Wrongo threado, bucko.

That’s so weird these board are so glitchy I wasn’t even in this thread. lol.

…

On 1/16/2024 at 10:24 AM, WestcoastDAVEngers said:

Well, I tried!

Certain people have said it wasn't punchy enough, well I'm not a journalist, nor do I invite people onto my channel to "gotcha" them. 

FWIW I genuinely was impressed by both of you. We learned things we had not previously and a lot of the things people are demanding they answer we all know they won’t answer and you’ll just get the line of “I can’t divulge any details into an active investigation”, there’s not a lot of value in just asking them question after question where they just say that line. I thought you all did a good job in skirting around those so we didn’t have to hear that repeatedly and getting what information could be had.

On 1/16/2024 at 10:00 AM, Mikey C said:

The problem is, the book would have been reholdered and not shown signs of tampering. So this tells me they might have scans of books before they started making the images public to be able to tell? I’m confused by Matt’s answer.

I thought about this it’s really the only thing that makes sense… they’ve been imaging all books before and after reholders (without making them public) for years and then they are comparing those photos with the books in hand. 

On 1/15/2024 at 7:04 PM, WestcoastDAVEngers said:

Hey all, so I needed to keep this under wraps until it happened, but this interview took place today, hopefully it helps answer some of the questions we've all had. Matt did a good job answering what he could

 

 

Well done. Of course you know this forum and thread (myself included) are going to be filled with the people who Manu mentioned at the end that are going to be saying “why didn’t you ask this!” But before I get to that just wanted to say thank you to both of you and @mnelsonCGC for doing this and do hope you guys come together for a part 2.

Quick thoughts: 

1. The final note about them not opening holders sent back to them on this list to verify is very interesting. This tells me they have some tool or process already in place to determine a book was swapped by this individual. What that may be I understand they can’t divulge but it is very interesting. I think a lot of us thought that the books were all being cracked, regraded and checked for things like MJI, MVS, if they are the grade they say, coupon cut, resto, live ink on signatures, etc. How they are doing that without cracking the books is certainly fascinating.

2. The lone individual responsible I’d have liked to know if they’ve narrowed it to one individual who submitted the reholders or one CGC account that might have been used by one or multiple individuals. Furthermore was the party that submitted the reholders the same party that then sold the fraudulent books immediately after (thru eBay, CL or anywhere else) or was the person that submitted for reholders using a dealer account to handle their submissions and then reselling later.

3. Since the AF 15 SS was brought up Matt said he’s not seen that book personally yet. Which I know Matt isn’t the only one that works at CGC but that book seems like one he’d have seen if it came thru? Yet the grade date was updated to 1/5/24 on that book. This implies the book was regraded 2 days after the list was provided on 1/3/24. If it’s not in their possession why was the graded date updated? How was it graded? And if it’s a clean bill of health why wasn’t it crossed out after being graded?

On 1/14/2024 at 11:09 PM, Microchip said:

 

Apart from GPA repeating themselves, saying they're just a pricing tool, they're explanation was a bit confusing if I use a weak yard stick on their contribution.

So CGC will remove go the through all the effort of fixing the books, giving compensation to those affected, and re-grading the books needed.   

And GPA will just leave in cert's that CGC will be deleting from their database.    Automatically, every other CGC database will be updating accordingly..    So that answer sounds problematic from the get go.

We need a follow up @gpanalysis 

 

GPA isn’t a site that logs “certs” to be removing “certs”. They log sales. There’s a big difference. If you crack press and regrade a book and send in the old cert CGC will remove the old cert from the census but every sale of that old cert is still valid. So, there have always been many certs that appear in GPA that don’t appear in CGC’s census and no longer exist in the world. Because again GPA isn’t a site for “certs” and cert verification it is purely a record of sales. So removing sales data is problematic and should not be done just because CGC has removed it from their database. 

Well after. Again, I recommend reading what they wrote on page 332. Would seem to answer all of your GPA questions. 

On 1/14/2024 at 5:55 PM, Microchip said:

The question of Tampered slabs still stands.   

Will these be removed, identified, or nothing done in response to the list of numbers released by CGC, by @gpanalysis on the website.

“We also spend time checking previous sales data and, as best we can, remove erroneous sales and identify relisted books. Unless these current books under investigation need to be adjusted (with respects to sales not having gone through) then we won't be removing anything from GPA. Including any certs that no longer appear in CGC's system.”

This is what GPA said in this thread. Not sure what more you’re looking for, but they are telling you they won’t be removed. 

On 1/13/2024 at 11:51 PM, Microchip said:

Hi @gpanalysis I've just contacted you via your website contact function.

 

Are you guys going to identify the CGC Slab tampering list of books within the database?  

Your website helped identify the fraud initially, what steps will you be taking in response to the fraud committed on the CGC community?

https://www.cgccomics.com/news/article/12454/

They posted a response on pg. 332 of this thread.

On 1/13/2024 at 3:18 PM, agamoto said:

So, 350 pages in and I just learned something new about this incident that has really disturbed me that I never heard before. 

The person who originally blew the lid off this story, 9.9 Newstand, recently chatted with the gang at The Code-X Comic Station youtube channel yesterday.

In the conversation, 9.9 talks about a 266 X-Men MJ variant which Zaneglor had up for consignment via Grailz. He talks about having a discussion in DM's with the consignor, Zaneglor via Insta at the time. 

This is a DM discussion Zaneglor and 9.9 had months before the sale of the infamous swapped 9.8 252 MJ variant.

In the ad for the 9.8 X-Men 266 MJ, Zaneglor commented that only 7 copies of such a highgrade X-Men 266 existed and 9.9 had asked him how he knows this as they aren't broken out on the census, nor on sites like GPA or GoCollect. 

According to 9.9, Zaneglor responded by saying he has been "a professional collector for 30 years who had called in favors at CGC and we decided, me and the higher-ups, that there are 7 of these books". 

(412 seconds in if the link doesn't work right)

Zaneglor may have been totally lying when he talked about collaborating with CGC "higher-ups" on the 266. However, the mere suggestion anyone working for CGC had collaborated with Zaneglor in ANY manner should be automatic grounds to disqualify the impartiality of any internal investigation. 

For the umpteenth time, law enforcement needs to get involved in this investigation, yesterday. At the very least, we deserve to hear from CGC as to whether LEO's have even been approached on this matter.

I watched this last night and had the same reaction hearing that as you did. I know some people seem to disagree, that’s fine, but let’s put it this way. If this person was a random submitter who sent in a few books a year, yeah, it’d be hard to believe they had any sort of line of communication into CGC. If this person was working at or with a larger dealer that also ran a pressing shop for the past decade+ and that submitted a high volume of slabs on a weekly basis and was submitting books under that dealer’s account. Well, it’s not that hard to believe they’ve had some direct conversations with CGC before. Of course we don’t know if that’s 100% true or not, but it remains a possibility. That doesn’t necessarily mean even if that is the case that the conversation this person claimed happened with CGC where they announced the number of MJI they believed existed in such and such grade actuallY took place. That might have been 100% just blowing smoke. But there’s usually some truth in a lie. I don’t think it’s that much of a reach to believe this scammer or scammers might have had an open dialogue with their subs at CGC at some point. 

On 1/13/2024 at 4:23 PM, comicwiz said:

The interesting thing I find from this data is things seemed to ramp up after 2016. That’s the same year CGC rolled out the custom labels if I recall. Of course you could reholder a book without a custom label before 2016, but this limited data we have suggests the scammer may have not ramped up that particular exploit until the custom labels rolled out.