wiparker824

On 11/18/2023 at 6:18 PM, D2 said:

Yeah it’s unfortunate. I haven’t seen many fully 340s. Especially the last 2 signings, which I think were 50,000 subs in total, of all the 340 subs, not 1 fully Todd. Sad. 

 TIL my full Tord McFarlane 340 is more rare than I thought. 

On 8/5/2024 at 7:13 AM, LordRahl said:

While Bob's perspective is educational, it's irrelevant to 99.9% of the slab consumer base. It's the perspective of a convention dealer. How many of those are there? A few hundred? The vast majority of slab sales happen online, where you don't have to read the label from 20 feet away and the weight of the slab itself is irrelevant past having to pay an extra buck for shipping.

Every point he makes is secondary to the things that will matter to everyone, not just the few hundred convention dealers that exist. That being, a slab that doesn't damage the very thing it's meant to protect, consistent grading and cost to slab. If PSA can beat CGC on those 3 things, the tens of thousands of people that buy slabs aren't going to care that the weight of the slabs will bring down Bob's convention rack.

Yes but a lot of people who buy slabs even online do so to display them on a wall in a comic room or their office or whatever. They also like Bob want something that is aesthetically pleasing and easy to discern without being right on top of the comic. And Bob’s point did make me think about PSA probably coming from the card world where dealers typically have their slabs in cases or tables in front of them vs. comic cons where dealers big books are on walls behind them.

Of course PSA doesn’t have to, but I truly hope they take the feedback on the cosmetics and make some changes pre launch even if it means the labels don’t look like their “brand” they established in the sports card world exactly. I don’t have a dog in this race, I do think however having multiple competitive dogs in the race is healthier than not. So I’d like to see them have some success out of the gate but I do think the label is going to hurt that more than many people on this board believe. Particularly when you’re talking about people sending in $30-$50 books to be slabbed which happens a lot more than Action 1’s. For those people the eye appeal is going to matter a lot. In the case of the people sending in the more high dollar books none of this matters, it’s simply to @Stefan_W point the value on the secondary market. Very few are going to put a massive key in any company’s slab if the same book in a CGC slab holds 10-15% more in value in resale (the problem for CGC’s primary current competitor). This one is a lot harder to nail than the label redesign though which is a layup if they want it.

GPA’s site has always left a lot to be desired in terms of user experience. But I use it for the data, not the UX, and until a better competitor comes around I’ll keep paying for jt. 

How my Vintage Bulk subs are going:

Vintage Bulk - 25 books

7/12 - Arrived CGC

7/16 - Scheduled For Grading

Vintage Bulk + CCS - 22 books

7/12 - Arrived CGC

7/16 - Received at CCS

7/17 - CCS in Process

Vintage Bulk + CCS + JSA - 1 book

7/12 - Arrived CGC

7/16 - Received at CCS

7/22 - CCS in Process 

8/2 - Scheduled for Grading

12 weeks now since the signing. Still haven’t got back any of my books I sent, some of which they’ve had since January as I sent for Claremont’s initial signing offering. 

At this point I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll have them back by Wolverine’s 51st anniversary. 
 

Edit: Just marked Shipped!

On 7/31/2024 at 6:12 PM, Stefan_W said:

The 9.4 had light foxing on the cover, otherwise I am pretty sure it would have gone for more. In fact, without that I would have bid on it. 

That makes sense. I still can’t get over that 9.8 price. I’ve not seen something that bizarre since the crazy times of 2021. You can literally get that book in a buy it now in a 9.8 for low 2,000’s on eBay any day of the week and people really bid it up to $4600? 

On 7/31/2024 at 5:40 PM, Stefan_W said:

I was going to post about it as well. This is a dream scenario for the seller.

Yep. The 9.4 sold seconds later for $554 which is below the last 5 GPA sales which ranged between $600-$790. Very strange. But yeah that seller has to be quite pleased.

These 2 sales 1 week apart. $1680 wasn’t really that low either about what it’s been going for… someone or I guess 2 people went nuts tonight on this one on CL.

On 7/31/2024 at 9:03 AM, shadroch said:

A book comprising parts of different books has always been considered a frankenbook.   Is it official CGC policy that married covers are now conserved?

Not according to their guidelines here https://www.cgccomics.com/grading/grading-scale/?scale=restoration

you can get an A1 if the married cover is professionally attached and matches well in size… but still restored A1 would seem to be the best you could do.

But apparently this isn’t accurate.

On 7/30/2024 at 7:17 AM, Sweet Lou 14 said:

Wouldn't a lot of this have already been priced in as we anticipate the FF coming to the MCU?  Seems Doom and the Surfer have both seen plenty of attention over the past couple of years.

You’re right, but you can’t reason with the speculators. Spec is still very much alive on Doom with this announcement. FF #5, to me, is the only Doom “key” that matters if I were to speculate on the character and that book has seen all the graded books available gobbled up but there’s not as many of them out there that were readily available to really get a good gauge on the spec yet. If you want a really good tell look at Infamous Ironman #1 from 2016, this is a book (not the only book) where Doom becomes Ironman that went absolutely bonkers since this announcement. Here’s GPA in a 9.8:

note: the high price in all of this is $400. That’s a price that is an all time high on this book. Previously during the Covid boom it was topped out at $274 in Sept of 2021. Which now, you’re lucky to get it for that price. Any book going that much higher than 2021 peak in 2024 is crazy. And it let’s you know the MCU speculation isn’t dead, just needs RDJ apparently.

On 7/29/2024 at 10:13 AM, MAR1979 said:

Not saying you will but many will simply sell off the affected books in this situation. 

This is for sure happening. Much of it will be unknowingly too. A lot of people who submit tons of books to sell don’t have time to check every slab in a side profile to see if it’s curved (especially if they’re not aware of this problem and aren’t actively checking for it). Some of the time they aren’t even getting the slab back themselves before they sell it, if for example they sell thru an auction house that will submit books to CGC on their behalf and auction them when they are graded.

It’s one thing if we’re talking about a high grade AF 15 that will have a lot of eyeballs on it, but some random modern 9.8 that sells for a couple hundred online could change hands many times without anyone examining that closely. And to your point even if someone does notice, they will often sell it immediately rather than go thru what appears to be (from what people are reporting in this thread) a massive hassle of trying to send to CGC as ME.

On 7/29/2024 at 9:35 AM, lollyclown said:

Yup, I'm aware of the cert lookup,but the fact you saw this before I did is...wow. But here's the thing, because of your reply, I check my account, I see it has changed in status on my account page, so I grabbed the cert # from that since it is new, and...item not found.

 I had to copy the one from what you just posted to find it. Nobody there could have shot me an email, anything? Good grief. Well, I truly genuinely appreciate you finding this, otherwise I would still be sitting here waiting for a reply from not one, but three possible people at this point. Which is pretty absurd. Never would have thought to check the old cert #. I *am* however extremely pleased they found me one of the retired Doom custom labels.

 

I of course didn’t have the new one, and quite honestly am surprised they even issued a new one. But the old one is THE cert number it appears since that’s what’s on the slab

When you said they needed you to send the book you received back first before they sent this one out I assumed this is why. They need to get the incorrectly labeled book back before they can send one that has the exact same cert number out.

On 7/29/2024 at 9:25 AM, lollyclown said:

Where did you find this, or rather when? This is absolutely new as of today, I haven't even seen it or got a notification about it from anyone there.

You just have to look up your cert number in the tool they provide:

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

like I said they rarely change the cert numbers on these sorts of errors, they keep the cert, correct the label and the book, scan and send it out. 

In any case it looks like you’ll be getting it back soon, which is good news. Still unfortunate this happened.

On 7/18/2024 at 3:35 PM, Lenoxseer said:

Anyone have any updates on their Sharen/Salicrup/Parker/Michelinie signings? I sent my ASM 328 to have all four of their signatures.

Been waiting on this one too, haven’t seen any movement on their social media. Was really hoping it’d happen before the SDCC rush.

On 7/28/2024 at 5:40 PM, lollyclown said:

Update 

So I have been in contact with a supervisor and director of the signature series. I was told they actually have my book, and I sent the other one back to them and it arrived on Thursday. It was addressed to a specific person so hopefully it actually got where it needs to go. 

Communication has improved. I've not been the most pleasant but when you see that this particular signing is played with problems, and you wait patiently for your book to come back and it turns out it has one of the biggest problems you can get, well I'd like to see anybody who doesn't get po'd.

 

They have been at San Diego Comic-Con throughout the week and hopefully I will get an actual update. I'm kicking myself for not asking for photographic proof that they have mine before I sent the other book back in. Because honestly, it is most likely far-fetched, but there's a 5% part of me that wonders if they actually do have my book or if it was a way to ensure that the other book came back. I was told they can't send me mine till they get that one back. Which in and of itself makes sense, and hopefully that is what's happening.

It's sad that I have to even doubt what they are telling me, but given this problem and the one from a month and a half ago, and how bad communication is between people. If you ever have an issue I advise demanding that you just get put in touch with a single person. Because as soon as more than two people get involved in something it seems incorrect information grows at an exponential rate. Which is 100% of the reason why this time around I demanded to speak to a supervisor, I didn't want to get multiple explanations that contradict each other so I wanted one person to talk to.

So hopefully saying they found it doesn't mean that wrong information is being communicated and suddenly my found book turns out to not be the right one, and mine continues to be lost.

Photographic proof exists, just check the scans for your cert number:

when they make mistakes like this they keep the cert usually and just update everything else.

On 7/28/2024 at 7:12 AM, Jaylam said:

Does this mean we may or may not get to see this...

 It’s gonna look more like this…

Apparently Marvel Hall H announcement can still create this…

copies of the FA of Sidewinder flying on eBay. 

On 7/25/2024 at 3:07 AM, MyNameIsLegion said:

 

Given how much they are promoting the PSA Vault, I could see them encouraging getting everything graded and just stored with the them, which makes the case, case design, label design, all that cosmetic stuff that others have nitpicked in this thread irrelevant. 

They can encourage all they want it doesn’t mean anyone is going to use it. The eBay vault (now PSA vault) has been around for sometime for things like cards, and there’s a very small percentage of cards that are actually there vs the millions that exist in slabs in the wild. I’m not saying the vault is a bad thing, I think it has its usefulness, but to think you’re going to see most slabs housed there so you can ignore cosmetics is just not going to be true. Personally I don’t think too much of the cosmetics but I have heard time and time again about the CBCS labels from a lot of people, and how many collectors did not like the look of them so they chose CGC. The presentation of the label is a big deal to a lot of collectors and I don’t see that changing.

On 7/24/2024 at 3:42 PM, Brer247i said:

We've all seen 9.8's that didn't look as nice as the 43 appears to be.

Appreciate it. I’m happy with it, so this isn’t a complaint but CGC notes showed:

very light foxing to cover
very light spine stress lines to cover
very small stain right top of back cover

And zooming in on the back right cover I do see the very small stain and the very light foxing, which I know CGC is harsh on both categories so I’m not surprised it’s a 9.0. Seen here:

On 7/24/2024 at 1:22 PM, Ryan. said:

So Mark Wilson is the president of the comic grading division...

That makes this make more sense… for those that were confused earlier this is his son, who also is a dealer and runs his own auctions. 

On 7/20/2024 at 8:14 AM, wiparker824 said:

Apparently this is who PSA was consulting, and made sign an NDA… take that for what you will. 

finally seeing some movement on my books…  

It seems very odd to offer a add-on service “Pressing” thru CCS with every grading submission which advertised the ability to remove “curves” and “bends”:

And then say they’re okay with their inner wells causing a slight curve. 

So you’re asking people to pay you to take a curve out for you to then say it’s acceptable to put a curve back in as the “inner well cools”?

On 7/23/2024 at 4:59 AM, DanJD said:

First, if I could have waited but got my book back undamaged, I would have preferred that.  Second, I have only been told what is supposed to happen (“is going to be repressed”).  My book has not been pressed yet.  Actually, it hasn’t even been logged in yet by CGC as a ME even though they have had it back for over a week.  I agree with you that your wait is unacceptable, though.  I just hope it’s taking longer for you and others because they are putting in the level of care they should have been doing from the start of this event.  

Yeah I get it, I’d also rather wait than have it be wrong or damaged but I don’t have a lot of hopes that it’s due to extra care they’re putting into mine. They literally told me last week that they hadn’t even begun working on it at CCS. I don’t think this signing had a lot of let’s call it - organization.