Sky1

Yeah I made a similar short lived thread with no real answers a week ago. Frustrating time for buyers, every seller (particularly on eBay) think any and every CGC book is automatically worth at least $500 if variant is on the label. Let's not get into newsstand or first appearances of any one. Riri variant 2k, Miles variant 16k, America Chavez variant 3k, Spidergwen variant 9k, any key "x" issue worth 1k or way more now, like #141 worth 2k now. Only first appearance you can get dirt cheap now (marvel wise) is Phyla Vell or Anabelle Riggs, buy them & hope Marvel is making a movie. Anyways, real advice anyone should give you is not to use comics as a investment, if you have the cash there are much better ways to go about it.

Should be normal & I say that as I have some Detective Comics that look very similar that graded a 9.8. With that said, I do NOT guarantee a 9.8 or claim your copy is a 9.8. Just giving you my personal anecdotal experience that books like your pic can grade a 9.8.

Thanks for the info, I will be checking out those channels!

Can I get a page 23 QRD, wth made this probably the most popular thread in CGC history? Something about someone eating a box of vintage '92 gem mint pokemon?

Nice, congratulations on that win! Yea then I wouldn't complain too much if I was in that scenario either. Can I ask what event was raffling a CGC book? Maybe I am entering all the wrong raffles, just never seen that done, It's easy to re-holder any CGC book, been a while but last I checked it was $12.

Unless it's a rare book that hardly ever is sold in your grade, I would ask for a full refund. Anyone who ships a book in a flimsy envelope probably didn't even care for the book much when they owned it, which might be a reason why he is selling it in the first place. Been burned like that before. On top of that, who knows what kind of damage occurred to the actual book itself while shipped. The case is cracked but then you might have shaken slab issues. Although I read conflicting reports here, apparently sometimes CGC will regrade a book when re-holdered. Your call but something to think about.

He cracked them to just get signed (well the facilitator cracked them). I am sure he wasn't hoping for a grade bump just hoping it retains the grade. All bets are off sure, but usually it's just one grade down though. Anyone else crack a slab open & get two grades or more lower before?

wth, please tell me I wasn't the only person who thought that at the beginning

Yea there's a 9.0 in there too, I assumed everyone just knew that. Mainly didn't want people to think there's a 8.8, 8.6, 8.4 etc. Unless you were just grading my post and given me a score of 9.0 then asking if it was acceptable. You're a polite judge, I accept the 9.0 grade,

I am not sure how much detail I want to get into it because the signings was done via facilitators from here. I do not want to make it seem like I am holding a grudge or even discourage people to get signings from people here. I'll give a break down of the grades though. For me personally, I only got 1 get a lower grade but it's a big one. It was a 9.8 and went down to a 9.4 when I got it back. If you knew what it was then you'll understand why I said a grade is more important to me, As for my friend... 9.8 to 9.6 9.8 to 9.6 (also returned from WHITE pages to OFF-WHITE) 9.2 to 8.0 (This was really weird, book looked the same; we even talked to CGC personally about this & shocker no grader notes on it either) 9.4 to 9.0 He had one or two more return back a 9.6 to 9.8 I believe but those were "junk" books unlike the others. Like I said for some reason he has terrible luck doing this, but his volume of sending out books for signings are higher than mine. Keep in mind the book that went from a 9.2 to 8.0 is only 3 levels lower. There's only a 8.5 and 8.0 grade & no in between. Before anyone ask, we have no idea how the books dropped so dramatically. Facilitators walked us through their process & have plenty of xp cracking books open. If we had to guess, the ones above where it dropped by more than one grade level were all signed by the same person; he might have wanted to take a trip down memory lane & started reading them then & there. Either that, they were bought on eBay, who knows how the previous owner treated their slabs. Maybe they used them as a sauna buddy, realized that was dumb then decided to sell it

I rather wait 5 years & pay much lower then spend 16k right now, wither I have 16k to throw away or not. Is the current market a bubble or these the prices we can expect moving forward? Remember when a 9.8 GSX was selling for 5k, I can probably bet we'll never see that again?

You seem upset, did Stan Lee's success not rub off on you when you bought your 4.3 Batman comic signed by him? Let me be clearer for you then, a key 9.8 or higher is more important to me than a yellow label. I am sure it's that way for most, otherwise we wouldn't even be having this conversation. I mean it's sad to spend money on graded books AND not care about the grade, right???

I know everything has its up's and down's but are current prices the new normal & here to stay? Asking people who have been collecting for a while. For example, the variant to Mile Morales 1st appearance selling for 16k, will it ever be around 5k at all even in a down market? So if I truly want it, just pay that price and move on or be patient and wait some years? It seems like everything you can think of is selling for thousands, especially if it has variant, 1st appearance, or newsstand on the label. I don't have enough experience collecting & tracking to make a judgement call on this and hoping to get some insight here.

Alot of good comments already but I wanted to give you my experience as it will give you a bigger sample size to compare from. I only had one slab return with a MUCH lower grade out of the 4 or 5 I cracked open for signatures; with hindsight I wish I never bothered to be honest. A grade is more important to me than someone's sig no matter who it is. With that said, my friend has terrible luck cracking open slabs for sigs. Out of 5 or so that he has done, 3 of them came back with a lower grade that I know of. He gambled and it didn't pay off, I feel for him because with current market those books would be selling for alot pre-cracked. Like everyone said, don't bother if the grade is important. If you do, assume it will come back lower so you will be pleasantly surprised if it retains.

Thanks Revat, you're awesome. Really appreciate the help you give everyone here.

Is it possible to have a book in hand 8 business days from the graded date in CGC's verification system? I know there is fast track but that still seems really quick, unless the graded date is when they shipped it to you. Thanks for any response!

To be fair I recall it being the CGC Stan Lee label. I can't speak if that greatly marks up a book price or not because I have not been shopping around for those.

I'm curious what price guide alot of sellers on eBay are using. There's so many that want way above gpa prices. I saw one selling a junk book for $10000 just because Stan Lee's signature is on it. I had a good laugh at it, lol.

Hey Shane, you wouldn't happen to know the time frame when this was the case, would you? Seeing this thread makes me want to check thru all the slabs that I have to see if they were graded during this time. Thanks for all the help.

Doubt CGC will do much (other than a free re-grade/re-holder (maybe)) especially since it looks like to me & everyone else that it wasn't their fault. But this is what I would do in this case... Contact the seller ask if he will take a return due to it arriving damaged and nothing like his original pics. Hopefully he didn't do the free standard insurance which doesn't cover very much. If he says the listing states no refunds, then your next option is to contact eBay themselves. eBay usually protects buyers. Save those pics because they will ask for them to show that the item was not as described. Count on upsetting the seller tho & DEFINITELY do not do this first. The seller might offer a partial refund & you get to keep the book, so you may want to think on that as well. Keep us posted on this if you can or don't mind, curious how it works out.

I was told a long time ago (before the new cases) that it's really hard to tamper with them. You have to break it open so it's easy to tell if someone was trying to switch books or what not. I would feel that is still the case here. But that looks bad. I have seen off centered slabs before but that looks like someone was playing Frisbee with it. Contact the seller QUICK because returning a slab can be tricky the longer you wait. There is a thing called shaken slab syndrome (you can search for it here) that can damage books inside their case so that is why I would want to return it; especially if I paid 3k for a key issue.

Hey! I may be wrong but I certainly didn't mean to mislead, lol. Just what I was told. Makes logical sense when you think about the cleaning/pressing process. Adamantium's point makes sense too, a book being preserved well enough to be ultra clean. But the consensus seems to be that it's okay and just comes down to personal preference. I personally don't care either way as long as CGC is okay with it (especially if the naturally clean theory is true), they're the experts at grading, lol.

I know what you mean, I've seen those occasionally as well. I hope someone corrects me if I am wrong but I think that has something to do with the book being pressed and cleaned. Completely okay by CGC who run their own pressing service. So it just comes down to personal taste. Some people are looking for white pages while others don't care. Some want a perfectly centered book & others just tap it to get it back in place. You get it. Anyways, I doubt many sellers will be willing to lower the price that much due to the issue you're describing.

Tell me about it! Truth be told, I'm more stressed putting the books in a slab with how much care is needed with them. Don't get me started on how I get when someone asks to look at them.

To be even more clear, the no refund policy is usually from a business, private sellers rarely say that. Just don't let that deter you from buying a book, if you have doubts, just ask them from here on out.