VintageComics

The JIM is clearly the same book, different cert#s. How does that prove anything in regards to this thread? Regrading a book gives you a new certification number. If anything, it disproves the "new label / reholder" theory which keeps the same cert number with the book, which means this book was likely regraded and therefore inspected by CGC. It was most likely a resub or a crack and press, which has been going on for as long as CGC has been around.

For the public record, I've notified Mike about my own post and asked him to not lock the thread in case he was considering it. Apologies for the distractions from my end, but it takes more than one person to derail a thread in this way and I'm going to do my part to keep it on track.

You, Prince Namor, jsilverjanet, Cat and a few others have been targeting me incessantly for months on here. You've even admitted that to me via text and ELSEWHERE that you will be purposefully targeting me. jsilverjanet did too. You started targeting me when I reported you for a bad post and told you that I didn't approve of what you said. Several others have been taking mild swipes in this thread at me as well (thothamon, GetMarwood etc). I genuinely don't care. It doesn't even register on my radar. It's just extra posts to work through to be able to get back on track and dealing with real discussions on here that matter. If you people really cared about the community you'd stop with all the nonsense, but it's this sort of behavior that gets threads locked. I simply replied to your post on tape because it was WRONG. Nothing more. I'm going to take a break from this thread to lower the heat a little, not because I want to, but just so this thread doesn't get locked.

I was obviously ignorant and even admitted it, responding as I was getting caught up on the thread in real time. This is wholly different. The guy professes to have "over 30 years of grading experience" and yet is spitballing from a grainy cell phone pic. That doesn't change over time. Two totally different things. The choice of words is accurate. Being ignorant is not a bad thing. Being defensive when found to be ignorant definitely is a bad thing. Now, as a lawyer answer me this: are there any other defenses to being ignorant other than the ones I've stated?

Now I just went to public grade schools so maybe the education you received (at say Upper Canada College) was more advanced but I’m pretty sure saying someone stated something out of ignorance is exactly the same thing as calling them ignorant. What am I missing? Snowflakes are much hardier in Canada than in the US it seems. You're a lawyer, aren't you? If someone states something wrong, and it's not out of ignorance I can only think of lying or insanity as credible options. Would you have preferred either of those?

In one page, we have 8 different OT posts, mostly made by the same people. Where are all the calls to keep the thread on topic now?

Why would my blood be up? I genuinely don't care which way this scam discussion goes. I'll be fine no either way. I didn't call you ignorant. I stated this: I said you stated something out of ignorance. If it wasn't out of ignorance, what was it? Were you just making things up? I then gave you two clear examples of much worse copies of ASM #129 in the same grade, and instead of admitting you might be wrong, you doubled down and turned it back on me. Good job, detective.

Not an accurate representation of how it went down. CGC didn't realize it. CGC knew it was happening and condoned the practice initially. CGC used to factor in the discussions on these forums to much greater measure than they do now. CGC responded to the discussion on tape ON THESE VERY FORUMS and it was because of the discussion on these very forums that they changed CGC's grading standards on tape. It was because the collectors on these forums all agreed that tape was bad for books and that tape was being used through CGCs grading loophole to increase grades that CGC changed their stance on tape and started treating it differently. It was these forums that changed CGC's minds. CGC didn't just wake up one morning and realize they'd made a mistake.

Every mountain has to start with a grain of sand first. Speculation is where the discussion loses the trail and you start building the wrong mountain. Focus on building the right mountain. How can you tell that the book in question is accurately graded and that the area around the staples is not production from a grainy picture when I can't? If you've been grading for 30 years you should know that ASM #129's are RIFE with staple issues. Here are accurately graded 9.0 #129's with staple issues I quickly pulled off of Heritage. Both books have relatively large staple issues. Using your logic, these books would be automatic fails. Let's stick to facts. https://comics.ha.com/itm/bronze-age-1970-1979-/superhero/the-amazing-spider-man-129-marvel-1974-cgc-vf-nm-90-off-white-to-white-pages/a/122213-17057.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515# https://comics.ha.com/itm/bronze-age-1970-1979-/superhero/the-amazing-spider-man-129-marvel-1974-cgc-vf-nm-90-white-pages/a/122149-11159.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515#

The fraying near the staples and the corners indicates it wasn't. This is not true, it's stated out of ignorance and it's this sort of speculation that is wholly unproductive. That's not fraying until we see closer pics. That defect is visible on accurately graded books in much higher grades. It often happens on bronze books when a staple is punched into the paper during the publication process and I've seen it on higher NM range books, especially #129's which are rife with staple issues. Your post quickly veers off into uncharted territory with no basis, which is the very reason I'm in here trying to moderate the discussion with as little speculation as possible.

Some nice closeups of the front and rear, in good lighting would really help identify some of the smaller defects and may make it easier to tell if the book is properly graded.

I was messaging with him and he is very busy, and obviously the holidays have complicated that.

While the ASM #300's are tough to tell without great pics, @sledgehammer is correct in that this book does seem to have a lot going on (back cover spine stress) for it to be a 9.8. As an FYI: For those that don't know how to do it, you can highlight any part of a post you want to quote, like copying it for a 'copy and poste' and a quote sticker should pop up that you can click on, so that you can just quote THAT portion of the post rather than copy the ENTIRE post.

Which I think is ridiculous but whatever. Not my call. Just try not discussing AI in the AI age. People who are saying AI can grade comics accurately, efficiency and in a cost effective manner anytime soon just don't understand complex systems, or how the entire system would work and the complexity involved. It is off the charts, making it unrealistic any time soon. It's not impossible, It's just not happening anytime soon.

If you don't like the post, ignore it. End of story. If I want to splice atoms, I'm going to do it. Stop telling people how to post. Your living room is not my laptop. I didn't beat you up. I explained, based on my extensive experience (I subbed my 1st books in 2003), 1000's of submissions and 100's if not 1000's of personal, direct discussions with CGC. You were speculating out of your butt and I disagreed. When you started to make it personal about me, the beatings started, and they will continue for as long as they need to.

I feel the same way. I think earlier on they may have been allegedly shill bidding and doing other nefarious things, as can be evidenced by the same book showing up multiple times on Ebay, but this current problem being discussed feels very recent. We have a lot of eyes on the internet, especially over the pandemic, and I believe a grand scale deception like this would have been uncovered sooner. It's just a guess but it's what my gut says.

If you want me to stop posting in this thread, I'm more than happy to. I don't need to be here reading 90 pages and trying to help. I'd much rather be doing something else.

As an interesting bit of info regarding CGC sig series, CGC used to allow "official sig series" people to crack and resubmit books, that means Joeypost was allowed to press and submit CGC books at some point. That changed at some point and now only CCS is allowed to do it. But back in 2013, someone else would have been allowed to have pressed the book and kept the Sig Series designation, so this specific instance is not an indicator of anything nefarious.

I'm not a lawyer obviously, but if it was me I would be hanging onto the book for now.

I don't consider a credible company one that takes money for gimmicked grades, aka the Bad Idea transparent bought grades, that was wrong on a few levels. That's just the first thing that comes to mind. There's a tonne more. You didn't answer the question. No company or person is 100%. Everyone does something wrong, including you. You're discussing what you don't like about a company, which is actually a bit of a red herring. Nobody is "credible" using your logic. How much does a company or a person need to get RIGHT for it to be "credible"?

If you don't consider CGC a credible company, how would you define a "credible company"? Anyone?

About 30 years ago I was having a religious debate with a guy about the 10 commandments. I soon realized he hadn't ever read the Bible, he'd only seen the movie. So then I asked him a specific question about his beliefs, to which he replied: "I don't know. I'm going to have to see the movie again." I literally died on the spot.

What’s what? I'm starting to realize there is less intelligent life on earth than I thought.

Well, that's that.

This isn't NASA. It has to be feasible for a business. That means cost, efficiency, learning, adaptability, size, scalability, automation, productivity, profitability, all of these things and more need to be considered. We have @JC25427N trying to explain JUST the software aspect and nobody seems to understand the complexity, and there are probably dozens of other things that need to be considered and co-incide. I don't understand the software but I DO understand the complexity. You'd basically pretty much need to recreate a human to do a 3 dimensional task. It would need to have very fine motor skills, or (again) you're paying a human to do the motor work, slowing down the process and adding human error, thereby in ways (again) corrupting the process. After discussing this for several hours I am fairly certain most people have no clue how complex of a solution that's being proposed this is. I've already been arguing for years in the minority that it ain't happening and my mind still hasn't changed. Nobody yet has been able to produce a reasonable solution.