wiparker824

I was told my books that were sent in January for Claremont still haven’t been pressed yet, yet alone graded… yet somehow it seems people are not only getting their books back but getting them repressed a 2nd time before mine have even been pressed the first time. That is something…

On 7/20/2024 at 2:10 PM, Sauce Dog said:

It is a little disingenuous to say they are outright 'the worst at it' when all of them fail UV protection (CGC being 5% higher isn't close to a pass...even BGS which had around 50% is still not appropriate for protection when the lowest you want to consider is 90%); I honestly chalk up these differences simply due to luck when each company sourced their plastics (and not something any of them actively researched or invested in). 

Very easy for any company that offers slabs to switch to such protection so long as the costs are reasonable to them (in fact, they can keep the slab plastic the exact same, just offer an inner sleeve have UV protection)

It’s not disingenuous, it’s just the facts. Whether they lucked into being the worst at it or not, objectively they are. And I never claimed any were great or even good at it, but still they are the worst of the worst when it comes that particular aspect. And given they’ve shown no desire to change that in the card slabs which they’ve been in the market on for a long time I’m not sure why anyone would expect them to do that in the comic slabs they produce. But again, like I said, I hope they do. But I’m not holding my breath. 

On 7/20/2024 at 11:58 AM, Sauce Dog said:

Considering they have the advantage of studying what collectors have been saying they want in their slabs for years, if not decades, they could do the following and immediately convert a large chunk of people over: Offer some level of UV protection by default in their slabs. That's it. They could do that and charge more than CGC, which would position them as the 'premium' slab option. Why bother fighting for the casual market share when there is a gap in the market to position yourself as a premium offering (which would also allow them to keep the operation smaller. Basically, be the grading company equivalent that Neo Geo was during the fourth generation of video game consoles)

They could, and I hope they do, as those are the sorts of things that competition drives others to also be better (like CGC). But I wouldn’t hold my breath. They’ve been slabbing cards for a long time and don’t have UV protection in their cases on cards. I remember a video on YouTube some guy did a couple years back comparing leaving CGC, BGS, and PSA cards in the sun as an experiment and PSA actually faded the most of the 3. So expecting them to somehow become the best at that offering when they’re the worst at it in the card world seems quite optimistic. 

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

On 7/18/2024 at 6:43 PM, Complex306 said:

I, in my infinite wisdom, decided to necro this thread to bring you this....ASM #1& #2 CGC 0.5, Qualified Labels. I googled and searched through the forums to find out more about this practice, but I can't find anything and this was one of the more recent threads on the subject. I guess on very high dollar books, a Qualified label will be given when there's a significant defect(s)? Or maybe I missed some kind on announcement about this at one point. Anywho, just thought it was funny and I'd share. 

Funny enough I own a copy of ASM 2 in the exact same grade with the exact same page missing. Think if I send this one in for a reholder I get the green/yellow combo label?

On 7/18/2024 at 6:28 PM, CGC Mike said:

Just so you know, we have an out of context member quotes thread.    Also, there's a chance that quotes end up being a custom title.  

I approve. 

On 7/18/2024 at 3:41 PM, lollyclown said:

Wow, this definitely was sentimental then. My book also has an extremely low population as well. One of 46 signature series as of yesterday.

Hopefully they’ve not sent your book out to whoever else yet… because yeah, the book you got is a $5 book raw. FWIW I’ve seen others post on here about this happening specifically at signings… I’m sure it happens with blue labels too I just don’t recall them. Here’s a couple past instances:

In both cases it looks like you have to go thru the ME / customer service process and cross your fingers.

I’m still waiting on all 7 books I sent in for this signing and I’m starting to wonder if I’m going to get sent back some random books now too when they do get around to grading mine. Certainly making me hesitate on sending anymore out for future signings.

Yikes. On so many levels yikes. 

This is also the first CGC SS of this book in any grade…. And they put it in the wrong holder:

This is such an odd book to get signed, that I agree it was definitely someone’s sentimental value copy. 

On 7/18/2024 at 7:48 AM, Stefan_W said:

Pre-Covid 9.8 copies were going for $1500-2400. Sadly, there is still room for it to fall a bit more before it levels out. 

Oh I agree, in general I think that’s the case for all of the copper and modern keys that they will be the last to bottom out but we aren’t there yet. Of course I can’t predict the future but think the days of seeing things like this on copper keys:

Are never going to return… These were wild times we lived thru.

On 7/18/2024 at 6:23 AM, NY Roadkill said:

Finally shipped, complete timeline for books sent for in-house signing for Terry Austin and Chris Claremont was:

X-Men #137B and  #141B

Mailed 2/24/24

Received by CGC 3/1/24

Signed by Terry Austin 3/26/24

Signed by Chris Claremont 5/8/24

Scheduled for Grading 6/20/24

GEI 6/26/24

QC/Finalized 7/10/24

Grading/QC 7/10/24

Shipped 7/17/24

quite jealous… sent mine for Claremont in December, still waiting.

On 7/9/2024 at 4:19 PM, DC# said:

I don't want to keep bringing this book up but holy cow is it dropping fast all the sudden.   It really seemed to be holding at the $3K mark for the longest time......Heritage just sold for under $2.2k.     Looking at GPA there are still a lot of recent sales in the upper 2s.....maybe Heritage is just not the place for sellers of this book right now (and yes....these books are for sale every week it seems on Heritage so I get that aspect too)

 

 

Correct in that these do appear in Heritage weekly… one sold yesterday for a bit better but not much, nowhere near the 3k barrier you mentioned: 

Meanwhile over on MCS this one is already up to 2900 with over a day left to bid on it:

I have many copies of this book still, and they aren’t for sale at the moment but I can tell you one thing…If they were I’d not send this book or any other common Copper/Modern to HA. Much better off on eBay or MCS.

On 6/27/2024 at 10:24 AM, WOLVERINE335 said:

Hey everyone.  I thought my fellow "custom label" aficionados might appreciate this.  I was watching some books on a ComicLink auction, they had a couple of Spidey 238s newsstand books both graded 9.4 with White pages.  The only difference was that one had a custom Hobgoblin label.

So controlling for basically all other factors:  they had the same visibility, both auctions ended the same night, at basically the same time (1 minute apart), both books have the same grade, same page color, neither has any particularly noticeable blemishes, etc.  So it's about as fair of a 'head to head' as you could ask for.  The result?

The ASM 238 in a standard holder sold for $375.  The ASM 238 in a custom holder sold for $505!

That's a very significant difference.

So beyond personal preference and overall "eye appeal"... from what I've observed in this (and other instances) is that the custom label almost always sells for more.  In this case, the extra $5 spent on the custom label got the owner an extra $125 on the resale!

What's everyone else experiencing and observing?  Are you also seeing custom labels bring in higher resale prices?

These are not the same book my friend. Note the 75 cent original price on the bottom one and the 60 cent price on the top. The bottom is the Canadian Price Variant. $505 is actually quite low for the CPV in a 9.4, but nonetheless the auction value is more related to that than the custom label. 

On 7/12/2024 at 11:27 AM, jlrangers21 said:

I had one delivered yesterday too, we will see if mine is opened today.  But wow, one day is fast. 

Mine arrived Friday, late afternoon. We’re in System today. Nothing fancy - vintage bulk subs.

Anyone else still waiting on books? 10 weeks since signing now.

On 7/12/2024 at 5:26 PM, CGC Mike said:

I will say that after talking to our Operations Manager the other day regarding this problem, he went to the encapsulation area where there were a lot of slabbed books, and could not find 1 book with a warped holder.  

It seems entirely possible that these warps take some amount of time to form from encapsulation period. At least on some of the cases people have posted here they don’t appear in the official CGC scans to have the same damage as when people actually get the books in hand. Which if that’s the case it may not show up in a pile of fresh slabs. That’s what is being reported over in a similar discussion in the signature room thread:

On 7/9/2024 at 5:14 PM, DanJD said:

It was brought to my attention by another member that there might be an issue with the inner well bending books.  I checked my book and as you can see, the entire book is curved in the inner well.  This would explain the difference in appearance of the book when it arrived versus the CGC imaging right after encapsulation.  I hope no one else experiences this if this is real.

On 7/11/2024 at 5:30 PM, melanrus said:

Just speculation but I wonder if this damage in these books are from someone after books are graded and they are sealing them for encapsulation?  Seems like they don’t  understand they are damaging all the books?   This is worse than the reholder scandal because this seems like it can be hundreds if not thousands of damaged books here

 

I too am beginning to wonder just how widespread it is. Not everyone is looking at the side profile of their books when they get them back. And the real issue here is you’re going to see a lot of these not returned to CGC for mechanical error. People will just throw it up as a 9.8 on eBay and it will sell. This could be quite the mess if there are a high volume of these. Once people lose confidence in a 9.8 actually staying a 9.8 after encapsulation that’s a pretty big problem for the brand of CGC.

On 7/11/2024 at 2:56 PM, DaveSFU said:

Reviewing the pictures taken by CGC just that come up when i search the Cert numbers, i can see the damage on some of the books with darker spines.  So this was present when it was still in house and it got through quality control before being sent out

This is what I suspected. I have a guess this is a result of their new case sealing they’re using post reholder scandal. Which if that’s the case you likely will see the damage as soon as that seal is made. 

I still have books sitting at CGC/CCS for this signing… I am quite worried.

On 7/11/2024 at 2:28 AM, SergeyS said:

How to change credit card for payment for an order # CGC6751410407? While my comic was on its way to you at CGC, my card was blocked by the bank, but there is another card

I had something like this just happen, I lost my CC and therefore had to cancel it for safety reasons… they do have a “update credit card” button on the my submission page:

But this button didn’t work for me at all. It didn’t work because my books were at CCS who apparently can’t handle using that button. I called them and had them update my CC to my new one - I was also able to do it wholesale for all my open subs that were in various stages.

On 7/9/2024 at 2:44 PM, LudaToke said:

Any chance this is just smoke and mirrors to offload comic holders/slabs that we and CGC know are defective based on the the re-holder scandal that broke at the end of last year?

Find this highly unlikely. If they wanted to incentivize that specifically they’d just run a special on reholder fee. Plus much of what was confirmed to have been swapped out were more modern than 1975, and also more than $400 - both would disqualify for vintage. If you were trying to cast a wide net on potential swap outs vintage would be the last tier you’d offer given the requirements for vintage which make swapping out not really that easy or profitable.

On 7/9/2024 at 7:20 AM, melanrus said:

 Now I just checked, it’s in grading/quality control so it’s nearly ready to ship to me. 

One sub has been in this status for this signing since 6/26 for me… so I’m not sure how near shipping G/QC really is at this point. 

On 7/8/2024 at 8:53 AM, kcm54 said:

Since I'm liquidating my silver/bronze/copper collection, this seems like a really good time to submit a lot of the earlier books.  The fees had been off-putting.

Now, is this just a one-time thing, or can we expect more price "specials"?

Seems like one time but should be permanent IMO.

The problem with this tier is $40 (regular price) for a max of $400 value means grading costs 10% of FMV minimum. That’s the highest of any tier. Modern is 6.5%, High Value is 8.5% and Unlimited is 4%. At $30 it’s more in line with the rest at 7.5%. 

I know CGC doesn’t care about resale value but the reality is a lot of us do the math on is it worth it to slab based on raw FMV vs. slab cost + slabbed FMV, and this tier struggles a lot more than the others to make it worth it when regular pricing is in place.

Still waiting… one sub stuck in G/QC, other in SFG. Been 8 weeks now since the signing wrapped. Although based on what some of you are reporting with damage and sigs missing I’ll take late at this point…

On 7/6/2024 at 6:28 AM, Microchip said:

Expect an up-tick in prices shortly 

 

Drinking a random unopened Coke that just appears in front of you no questions asked is the most unbelievable part of this whole commercial.