VintageComics

This... A million times this. It's now the most reasonable explanation for 9.8's that everyone objectively agrees aren't even close to a 9.8 As someone who submits a lot of books, I can testify that CGC has been inconsistent and you can get overgraded and undergraded books back from CGC. Any high volume submitter can testify to this. In fact, we talk to each other all the time about it and compare notes regularly. Let's not start yelling fire in a movie theater just yet.

So folks will send back their 9.8 labels to get 6.5 Green Labels. Given the morals and ethics of most Comic Book Dealers, Sellers, Speculators, Flippers I don't foresee that occurring in anything but the tiniest numbers unless there is full FMV remuneration involved. Ain't gonna happen as Blackstone will not pay out a cent. CGC previously released serial numbers of possibly affected books. If they do the same here, why would anyone want to hang onto a tainted serial number? On a side note, I asked and got word back from Comiclink regarding that ASM #129 CGC 9.0 from the exchange that was discussed earlier, and that specific book has been checked and is not considered to be a part of this problem. Just relaying info. So, so far this still seems to be an eBay centric problem.

I agree with you that this is a VERY dangerous way to handle things. It reeks of nerd ego. This guy should have sent the details to CGC but not exposed them publicly. May as well explain to everyone how to build a bomb and trust the cops to catch the bad guys. Does this person dislike CGC?

I would say that CGC is not consistent to us on the outside on these things, but internally, they may make sense based on the path the book actually goes through. Any Gen 1 or 2 holder will get an all new holder because they are completely different from the Gen 3 (current) holders. There are lots of people that spot raw 9.8s and there always has been. Like anything, some people are just better at it than others and high grade collectors tend to be very picky and train their eyes to spot such things.

To get back on track, does anyone else agree that this is the most likely scenario?

So this is what the heartless moderators look like!

It just tickles me sexy that @jimjum12 is reacting to posts and even laughing. Love you, buddy!

You're a horrible human.

Nobody professed a want. The biggest problem with online discussions is when people who choose to make things personal, intentionally twist the discussion to mean the most negative thing they can in order to mischaracterize what someone else said or meant, and that affects everyone in the community. It's unnecessary and disruptive for everyone and people who care about their community should be speaking out against it rather than stand for it because this is everyone's community. It is, quite literally what you make of it. If you choose or ignore the negativity, it will be negative. If you choose or act on positive actions, it will be positive. The choice is a community effort, and pre 2020 it used to be treated as such. Somehow, after 2020 everyone just became numb to wrongdoing. Also, you're welcome. I think CGC will soonest implement something along the lines of what I described a few posts above.

All good. At this point, I believe it's safe to say, based on what I know, that the BR name is an alias or a relative of some sort and not the actual, alleged person at the center of this. We live in a strange age, and the reason I'm stating this is so that people out in the real world don't start searching down and hounding BRs out in the real world.

The point you quoted earlier came out of a discussion that spanned various threads, and the point I was specifically making was about how corporate influence affects the final artform. I think audiences are surprised at this. I am.

Lighting and equipment can make books look dramatically different, especially small tonal changes. We've proven this in previous grading contests where 9.4's can look like 7.5's and visa versa. Looking for the unequivocal markers and 'fingerprints' which are much more objective than subjective, subtle things.

Someone who posted on page 1 could volunteer to create an index of sorts (by editing one of those posts) They would need to index specific post links and not just pages, because I believe some people's page settings are different, aren't they?

That waviness is from someone doing a terrible pressign job. They're probably pressing their own books and doing it poorly.

I'd say a grader takes at most, 30 second a book on average. Factor in 3 graders at 90 seconds a book, so 1.5 mins a book total and work from there and that would be on the long end IMO. If you only have two graders a book then it's even shorter at 60 seconds a book. Using your math, you'd have a robot grading a book 24 hours a day. Did you stop to think how the books would get in and out of the robot? You'd be paying employees to serve a robot that works slower than the humans. See what I mean about thinking things through. Oy vey!

Honestly, that is not a new thing, especially in these times of AI and CGI.. My point was directed at the intent of the people involved. If the director or producer can change the intended purpose of the artist entirely from what it was originally intended to be then that is very disturbing.

Neither is namisgr's robot. To get the entire job done, you have to factor in all of it. The conversation has evolved from "let's use AI to fix the #252 scam" to "how do we use AI to grade comics" and now, in this thread it's evolved into "what else would we need to change to accomodate AI in grading comics". The software is one complex problem with it's own limitations and obstacles. The hardware is another complex problem with it's own limitations and obstacles. How to implement the two (and in which combination, because there are many ways to do it) is something that must be addressed. How does the final product look? And then, cost of all of this has it's own set of problems and limitations. Each new factor multiplies the complexity by a factor. I believe we have the tech to do it on a NASA level enterprise if cost and profitability is not a factor but factoring in cost and profitability changes the entire discussion much like scaling the cost / complexity from doing surgery on a living baby in the womb to simply doing surgery on a textbook on a desk. Finally, I don't think MOST people who were calling for AI to solve the grading problem thought through all of these factors, which is obvious from all of the replies.

A great deal. Hardware exists to do this. Like anything it is expensive for quality, but this is not an AI issue. I've used this one - this is a medium-level non-destructive book scanner. You could do a comic book on here in maybe a minute at 600 DPI. A higher-end one would get much higher DPI at the same resolution. Amazing how quickly a discussion can progress once everyone chooses to focus on the message rather than the messenger. Nice robot that's 'not a robot'. Now we're getting somewhere. ------------------------------------------------------ I personally don't believe that particular machine can be used safely and effectively. I'm spitballing for problems as someone experienced in mechanical tech and diagnostics to uncover possible impediments and complications: It's very slow. It takes 10 seconds per page image. That actual machine is probably going to take 300 seconds or 5 minutes to scan the average 32 page comic book - plus covers and 20 minutes for a square bound 64 pager, so very time consuming. It's still not very gentle looking. How do you adjust the pressure and how deep that angled lense drops down? Is it stopped by pressure from the book once it touches? I'd be very worried about that pressure on open folios. You do that to ANY page on a square bound and you're 'effed so useless against anything squarebound. You do that to ANY page on a brittle book and you're 'effed, so useless against brittle books. Do you really want that angled lense pressing every open folio wrap down? Tearing wraps at staples? Cracking brittle pages? Speed it up and risk increases dramatically. So likely useless against ALL comic books, unless you can image the comic efficiently without pressing the folios all the way down. And then, after ALL that, you'll still need a manual inspection of the book for areas you can't image. ------------------------------ As someone who has extensive experience in tech and diagnostics, how reliable would it be? They'd need multiple machines, but they'd also need backup machines. Could it grade, say...10,000's of books a year / per machine? Not at that speed. Without breaking down or needing service? You'd need backup machines if one went down and needed repair or you'd immediately get a backlog. ------------------------------ What I can actually see, eliminating ALL of this complexity that we're discussing and everyone is having trouble envisioning, is having pre-graders count and grade the interiors, inspect staples and interior covers for defects, maybe do one interior AI shot for estimating page quality, and then CGC can use AI just to grade the outer covers. Then a finalizer would look at the AI estimate, the pregrader's notes and come up with a finalized grade. THAT is how I can see AI being used very soon. And this idea is an evolution of this very discussion. I literally just came to that thought as I was typing up this post. It's quick, cost effective, easy to implement, efficient and makes grading FAR more accurate. I believe THAT is the route CGC will likely go soonest. The complexity, delicacy, accuracy and cost effectiveness of robots turning pages or machines getting good enough images is where all of this falls apart...in the near future.

I'm certain if I'd posted this in this discussion, I'd have 43 people hitting the laughing emoji and at least 12 notifies to moderation about it including Matt Nelson himself. But to build on this great discussion in the spirit of cooperation, may I suggest we use this to safely deliver comics between departments? Finnegan asks very little and does so much!

I did? Now I’m lost…. It was a dad joke. I thought maybe your experience with dental had to do with getting braces for your kids or something along those lines, as I paid for all my kid's braces and it wasn't cheap.

Thank you for your opinion on the theory. I too would LOVE consistency in grading. What experience do you have in fine robotics? What experience do you have in imaging? How much do YOU think it would cost to implement a hardware system that could turn pages and image them to grade comic books? Do you believe it would be cost efficient enough to implement in 12 months? Did you want us to stop discussing these things?

You didn't ask how much it cost. You're confusing the discussion with this post. I was asking CAHokie how much the dental work and the dental machines cost. They entire point of having the discussion is to discuss the various facets of the potential use of AI in grading comics. I'm not arguing angles on a pinhead because from my end, so far it's been a discussion about beliefs: what is possible and what isn't. I didn't state any absolutes within the context of this discussion. I specified a belief that it's too costly to do right now. I also stated it will likely be possible in the future but not the near future. I still stand by those beliefs unless someone shows me a better way. Discussions expand over time. To clarify for you: Discussing whether AI can grade comic book or not and whether CGC will be able to use AI or not are two different discussions now. They've branched off into theory and implementation. The AI discussion alone is software. Everyone knows that. I always knew that. The application of AI to grade comic books is a discussion about MULTIPLE facets of the application, including AI, robotics, cost, feasibility, practicality, efficiency and a zillion other things. Myriad. Which part of the discussion being address is important. JC25427N addressed the software problems from his experience in software. namisgr addressed some hardware problems with his experience in the health industry. CAHokie addressed cost issues with his experience in the parent industry. If you want to start a discussion about angels on a pinhead, that room is down the hall.

Are you sure? This expert disagrees with you: ----------------------------------------------- It's a discussion about both capability and feasibility. Are you sure?

One of my daughter runs a dental office. Again, not saying it's impossible. I'm saying it's not feasible at this point. How much does it cost?

Which goal posts did I move? Be more specific.