comicwiz

Protect this man!

Then there's this: Of those 2000+ submissions, CGC believes "[a]pproximately 369...were for reholdering"...although the complaint notes the "Defendants’ submissions have increased in recent years, with approximately 253 submissions in 2021, 345 submissions in 2022, and 329 submissions in 2023." This submission data meshes with what I've seen, in terms of the progression of their activities, but falls short both in terms of the amount of subs in that three year span (927) when compared to their sales history records, as well as it falling short on when this starts - sales history shows it's as far back as 2016, but really took root in 2017/2018. Even if we stick with the UNLISTED tampered I've shared (2 thus far, FF 48 CGC 5.5 and ASM 300 CGC 9.8), the last one taking the timeline back to Aug 15, 2018, 6 years is a long time for someone to have allegedly been pulling this scam, and for it to go unnoticed.

You must understand, I am probably more ahead of most, including CGC here. I have done number crunching on the 350 list, with financial tolls. I have provided data specifically showing the ratio of books the alleged seller has on the 350 list. Those start from 2016, but the real breakout years are 2017/2018. After 2017, they have over 50% of the books, 2017 has 71%, and 2023 has 88%. Their lawsuit claims they used the 2000+ submission data to arrive at the toll of $4M in damages. My calculations show this is incongruent with the 350 totals. That should have been the point most would realize something doesn't add up. You can"t file in that self-serving manner without catching some attention - and that leads to questions where it appears to be backed by and intent to bolster the impact of the damage to make their case stronger. Unless you want to play both sides, where the courts are seeing it as a large scale assault on your reputation, trademark and brand, while simultaneously attempting to minimize the appearance of scale with customers using a narrative of a constantly narrowing 350 list to limit their financial exposure.

You're clearly dropping into this thread without having done any reading of previous posts. Read the CGC v Zanello lawsuit, that should give you some clues as to the scale, despite the narrow 350 list we've been told is the limit. People who have bought from the alleged seller are having those books "treated differently", meaning no compensation, unless it's been " reholdered." They're also doing strike throughs on the list with no way to discern what's been cleared and what has been tampered. They are also changing certs on problem books to allow those problem books to be sold minus the 20 questions. There's a few facts to get you started, lots more where those came from.

ASM 300 CGC 9.8 - UNLISTED ⬇️ (NOTE: This shifts the timeline of tampering further back to August 15, 2018) Ten days ago I shared the first UNLISTED book (FF 48 CGC 5.5) and have continued compiling others. Today is a holiday here (Family Day) and I've tried to set aside some time to work/share another because I believe this is becoming even more important as events continue to unfold. Applying the same details on the retrospective and current comparabiles analysis for books impacted by this "holder tampering." The purpose here is to use this unlisted book as an example of how one might arrive at a valuation suitable for redress and/or compensation. While the serial number from the ComicVerify badge below is a sample, the data is live, and the screenshot takes you right to the sample appraisal and assessment, with notations, working links to diagrams, etc. Full disclosure,ComicVerify is an online appraisal service I began in March of 2022, along with an appraisal service called ToyVerify. It allowed me to streamline reports, and uses proprietary software I developed which helps accelerate the process of mining/discovery, recall, insight assement, as well as calculating comps using the desired valuation method, as well as offering real-time reporting, all accessible in a digital format (smartphone or on your computer). Certification: 1333068004 (NOT ON THE LIST) Amazing Spider-Man, The (1963) #300 CGC 9.8 Beginning first with the screenshot of the Cert for posterity: Based on the assessment arrived at, replacement value would be the method of valuation best suited to handle the market fluctuations seen from the time the book was sold in August 3rd, 2018, and the current day, where consumers are being made aware of an alleged incident involving "holder tampering." Click screenshot below to visit the online appraisal for further details Additional notes for comparison, review, and posterity: Sales history, this ASM 300 appears 4 times for sale, the order that follows is from the first appearance of this cert to the last Cert: 1333068004 Amazing Spider-Man, The (1963) #300 CGC 9.8 1. 183297086318 | ebay | addict11 | 6/29/2018 | $2,265 2. 163182535151 | ebay | ncmultimarketing04 | 8/3/2018 | $2,702 Third appearance (The listing below is when we notice a change of the book inside the holder, while keeping the same certification number) 3. 283097153694 ebay | alleged seller Cert: 1333068004 [8/15/2018] - $2,475 4. 232918685477 | ebay | azwildcatz520 | 9/7/2018 | $2,325 (reuses the same images from previous sale)

Great poists! I've been asking for some manner of tracking strikethrough books as tampered or cleared for nearing a month. I know @CGC Mike mentioned he had asked the team, but I never got a response yet. The point you raise about the 2000+ figure which is the submission history, I feel is one of the more interesting data points to glean from the lawsuit. When you look at the stated damages in the lawsuit ($4M), this is in my opinion too high a figure if it's just the 350 list. Awhile ago, I ran the sales history on 225 books after differentials of 117 on that list having no sales history, and the strike throughs that occured at that point. I wanted to establish a baseline. The figure I can up with was just shy of $1.1M. We have to consider that a good amount of these books sold in a peak market (2020/21), so I'd very interested to know how they arrived at that $4M figure, IF it's exclusively from the 350, which has since narrowed more since running those numbers over a month ago. I'm extremely busy at the moment, I've got 10 out of town tournaments between now and August for my son, but I'd REALLY like to go over some of the 350 list knowing which have been cleared and which have been assessed as tampered to compare it with my own list, just on the "listed" books, because I'm certain there will be some interesting discoveries to be made there.

here's a business opportunity for someone. @comicwiz let me know if you're looking for venture capital! I can do the report side of things quite easily through ComicVerify already. What we need here is an advance warning system. I have some ideas on how this can be done, and the approach to use to avert this type of thing from ever happening unnoticed again. I built something similar for the insurance industry 16 years ago when they needed to track dead VIN's that were being revived for criminal activities.

I hear, you, but I think it's a stepped and procedural strategy. As a trademark owner, I can only say that I don't like the onus USTPO puts on the owner to defend against infringement. It can even be used by the entity infringing, or to contest seniority. The moment you are aware of infringement, you have to defend against it or risk losing the TM. If I had to provide an opinion here, the moment legal saw enough evidence of infringement, they went in this direction to establish their defence, and will build out the case from that point forward.

The problem here is the contextually inaccurate use of a legal case which has nothing to do with what happened. At some point, there is a duty to report the exploitation (when discovered) rather than planning, priming and carrying out deception from it. In a hypothetical scenario, if someone happens to discover a bank ATM is prone to disperse more money than requested from a withdrawal minutes after being serviced, and then in a premeditated manner, that person proceeds to discover the service schedule, so as to return to that ATM, planning to be the first person to request a withdrawal so as to benefit from that flaw, it does not take away from the deceptive nature of the act. This alleged incident goes beyond just the exploitation, coordination, planning - still keeping with the ATM example, it's more akin to realizing that the machine will only disperse a limit of a few hundred dollars and then calibrates to function correctly after dispersing that limited amount, and that cap restricts the coordination and payoff of the deceptive activities, so the deception graduates to counterfeiting. If a candid camera were set-up at the machine to see how many people would do the right thing, and report it to the bank, you might be surprised by what is captured. I'm sure some would look both ways, maybe twice, before walking off with the extra money, but they might not have thought through that this might come back to them. I guarantee you most would recognize the repercussions, even if that was a letter in the mail saying you received too much money from one of your withdrawals and were expected to return it. I guarantee you the chance of finding someone returning to that machine, with the planning, coordination and repeating pattern would be near non-existant. They'd probably figure out the hidden camera location before trying. It's funny reading the preliminary statement suggesting all CGC had to do was contact the alleged perp. How about turning the tables and saying, all the alleged perp had to do was contact CGC when they discovered the manner of exploiting the process? My initial thought is that there's no way anyone can lack the self-awareness and be that naive to believe there would be no repercussions to this activity, but then I realize they hired someone to file this contention.

Information wittheld.

This was graded by CAS Feb 2, 2023, so the O-Ring break happened within the last year. Here's a pic of the before: I handle quite a few post-loss appraisals for Gi Joe MOC's through ToyVerify, it's a shame. A lot of them get damaged being shipped back to the submitter. I'm not a fan of HA listing it using the 80+ grade, that is no longer valid.

There you go, @MasterChief is your huckleberry

The problem we run into with exposé's of this nature is it begins to raise suspicion and questions about everything. There's a long, long history of unexplained activities, impressive bumps, and preferential grading. If we had to start going through it all now, it might start out as a history lesson that would quickly turn into retelling of horror stories forming around a massive bonfire, where we'd see the boards being used as as kindle, logs and firestarter by the time everything was said and done. @MasterChief would probably have a better handle on this book, contextually and from a historical point of view. If there's any boardie that would know, it's him. I know even if I did a deep dive, there's a long history of excusing this sort of thing with GA books.

Kept the 8.5 seperate, because they cranked the contrast on this way too high, which you can see from the yellowing on the edges and middle area. I can't say I've seen HA do this sort of thing before, very unusual. Nonetheless, you can see the same area, but harder to notice because the overclocked contrast subsumes the detail:

OCT 14, 2005 NOV 21, 2019

You be the judge

This point raises something I feel is also critical to point out. That 2000 flat count could very well represent what we see being mentioned in the filing, as the submissions from the CBS account. If I had this data, the very first thing I would have done is make all the connective ties between the submissions and sales. I'm concerned they did not only NOT do this, but from the filing, they make some statements which lead me to believe there were gaps in their research on the accounts used by the alleged perp. This largely had to do with the shuttering activities of the alleged perps of this scandal that created difficulty in mining the data that could be used as evidence against them. From the details of their lawsuit filing, and this unlisted example I shared, I believe the sales history exposes one of the gaps in their assessment of the scale of this holder tampering incident, both in terms of count and how far back in time, and perhaps also helps explain why the "impacted list" is deficient.

I don't want to get too ahead of things here and risk the more essential aspects of this reveal being missed, but let's just say a few. Apart from this being an excercise in revealing that unlisted books CAN also be tampered with, and swapped (as shown with this FF 48), and conversely merits victims being compensated in the same way as those on the 350 list, there are these very significant aspects which should not be overlooked. Namely, that we have examples of swaps that deviate from the usual subset of suspect targeted books. It's not only 9.8's, it's not only ASM 300's, 238's, 194's, or Mj inserts. There's variability here in targeted books, and that means also lower grades, and other key books. The other, and no less significant because of the order it's presented, is this "unlisted" example takes the timeline point a full year back to the previous known earliest example being Dec 2019. With this "unlisted" FF48, we have a 5.5 that was acquired Nov 28, 2018, and 20 days later reappeared on Dec 18, 2018 as a swapped book with the same characteristic swap scenario, with the added upside of a lightning fast reholder and flip. This should at the very least give everyone pause, and for us to ask "why does the 350 list exclude these?" Perhaps even more importantly, we now see that this had been going on from at least between Dec 2018 - Dec 2023. 5 years, 350 books. I'll leave you all to decide whether you still believe this list is "all-encompassing."

Information wittheld.

This is one of those that had the grade removed, and became a strikethrough. It's dependent on people like you to update the community, which helps us make sense of what we are looking at, because CGC refuses to address these changes without any update or announcement. I don't understand why this is so difficult for CGC to do right. Screenshots are for posterity. And this did pass through seller zaneglor, one of the eBay accounts alleged to be involved in this "holder tampering."

FF 48 CGC 5.5 - UNLISTED ⬇️ Reading about unlisted books from CGC's 350 impact list being treated "differently" is both perplexing and disappointing. I thought it was time to share at least one I found, applying some details on the retrospective and current comparabiles analysis for books impacted by this "holder tampering." The purpose here is to use this unlisted book as an example of how one might arrive at a valuation suitable for redress and/or compensation. While the serial number from the ComicVerify badge below is a sample, the data is live, and the screenshot takes you right to the sample appraisal and assessment, with notations, working links to diagrams, etc. Full disclosure, ComicVerify is an online appraisal service I began in March of 2022, along with an appraisal service called ToyVerify. It allowed me to streamline reports, and uses proprietary software I developed which helps accelerate the process of calculating comps for a desired valuation method, as well as offering real-time reporting, accessible in a digital format. Certification: 0212408029 (NOT ON THE LIST) Fantastic Four (1961) #48 CGC 5.5 Beginning first with the screenshot of the Cert for posterity: Based on the assessment arrived at, replacement value would be the method of valuation best suited to handle the market fluctuations seen from the time the book was sold in Jan 2019, and the current day, where consumers are being made aware of an alleged incident involving "holder tampering." Click screenshot below to visit the online appraisal for further details Additional notes for comparison, review, and posterity: Sales history, this FF 48 appears 3 times for sale, the order that follows is from the first appearance of this cert to the last 1. 202507080375 | ebay | the.boss | 11/28/2018 | $1,100 Second appearance (This is when we notice a change of the book inside the holder, while keeping the same certification number) 2. 283298999496 | ebay | alleged seller | 12/18/2018 | $1,025 Third attempt is less than a month from the last time this appeared, same seller attemping to sell - as such, this sale is redacted as an outlier, despite it appearing as a valid recorded past sale comparable for FF 48 CGC 5.5. 3. 283323890210 sellerID: alleged seller Cert: 0212408029 [1/8/2019] - $1,110

Thank-you for the clarification.

As a follow-up request if I might - @CGC Mike I had not heard from you on the last matter, and you indicated you were sending me a note. If I might add to the last request please - I'd like for CGC to either colour code the strikethroughs in a way where we can discern books that have been reviewed, and are known to be tampered, from those it strikesthrough that have been reviewed and are fine. I'd also like to understand in situations where books from the impacted list have the request on the cert look-up to contact CGC reportfraud@collectiblesgroup.com - in such instances, what does the NG or removal of grade signify? Thank-you

Not that long ago

Thank-you for sharing this, because I knew about this as well.