skybolt

One of my three 2/242022 slow modern received submissions was just shipped. I received 12 - 9.8's, 6 - 9.6's, 6 - 9.4's and 1 - 9.0, with no grader notes.

I will give an update once the books are in hand, but my gut tells me the books were graded tight but fairly. Most of my non 9.8 graded copies were ones I had on the fence between 9.6 and 9.8 and between 9.4 nd 9.6.

On 5/11/2022 at 11:24 AM, Petroman said:

Yeah, I'll agree with this.  I would say that in the event of an unexpected grade, in my experience over the last 6 months, that grade has been lower than expected pretty much every time.  And yeah, this seems hit or miss per submission -- some entire submissions have come back as expected, and others have come back with much lower grades than expected.  For those of us trying to monetize collections we've had for years, the latter result really hurts the wallet!

The inconsistency does hurt the overall market. For example, if CGC was grading 9.8 copies harshly across the board, I could see the market adjusting, where buyers would be willing to pay a premium for a tightly graded 9.8 copy graded in 2021/2022 vs. another 9.8 copy graded before. However, when grading standards are all across the board with experienced vs. new graders, it's hard to define which submissions were graded more harshly than others. These days we'll just have to assume that 1/3 of the submissions we get back will be a wasted effort.

I am hopeful that shorter TAT's would result in more graders looking at each submission.

On 5/11/2022 at 6:43 AM, Petroman said:

I was in the same boat and stopped submitting for 9 months or so.  CGC seems to have turned the ship around a bit so I re-upped my membership and am now submitting.  That said, I would *not* submit anything under ECONOMY tier unless you use the FAST TRACK option.  From what I've read on these boards all of the other tiers seems to be in fairly decent shape these days.  One word of caution though -- grading seems to have gotten quite a bit tighter so you may see that grades are lower on average.  Oh, and if you decide to use CCS for MODERN/ECONOMY then expect a very lengthy TAT.

I would say the grading is more inconsistent these days than tight across the board. Five of my last nine submissions have come back with fairly expected grades, while the other four were graded extremely tight with very few books receiving a 9.8. 

On 5/9/2022 at 1:42 PM, Ninja0215 said:

I have two Economy books at CCS right now. Maybe I'll see those at Christmas .

What year?

On 5/9/2022 at 11:14 AM, Petroman said:

Also an interesting point.  So if they didn't fast-track the post-CCS books through grading then they might have major reversions prior to grading thereby nullifying the effects of the quick press (thus making the service potentially worthless).  So press it and grade it quick so that it can get a higher grade, then let it possibly revert to a lower grade when slabbed.  Seems like gaming the system a bit to me.  But then again, I have always felt that the grading of pressable defects has been way too harsh.  Things like "bends" and "indents" are far more benign than color breaking spine ticks or creases, yet they can have major impact on grades, especially in the 9.0+ range.

I get your point, but I have dozens of CCS quick pressed books in my collection that I personally sent in it be pressed, and they're still in their perfectly post pressed condition 3 or 4 years later. I haven't noticed any reversion. I will say that sometimes the quick press will not get the initial bend out, which is frustrating.

On 5/9/2022 at 9:20 AM, wiparker824 said:

That’s weird because they charged for CCS first week of March when my books moved from Received by CCS to In Process at CCS and here we are in May and still in Received at CGC status… this is for several submission types, Modern, Modern Magazine, etc. All would seem to have been at CGC beyond 4 weeks now with no movement.

If you’re on FT, WT, Express or an in-house signing yeah, you’re going to get it graded quickly after CCS but the slow track stuff isn’t moving like that.

In process at CCS means very little. It's sort of like SFG in grading. Once the books get actually pressed they move to CGC shortly and are entered into the system. Once that happens they are typically graded within 2 to 4 weeks.

On 5/8/2022 at 3:25 PM, Petroman said:

This is a really interesting point.  I've always wondered about exactly what CCS does for a "quick press".  If they are not using moisture, which I kinda doubt they are, then there is a very high chance that there will be reversions after the pressing processes.  Yes, for the book to revert to it's prior state this will take time, but with such long TATs it is certainly likely.  I've also been pressing books for a few years now and really a quick press will only work for a certain percentage of books.  Many defects will require some degree of moisture to press out, and also require time, meaning that you will likely need to repeat the moisture->pressing loop several times to achieve the desired result.

The only issue with this is that CGC typically grades CCS pressed books within 2 to 4 weeks of being pressed no matter what the current grading turnaround times are. I think this could be a more relevant issue for some inexperienced 3rd party pressers though.

On 5/6/2022 at 9:25 AM, zzutak said:

   

In my supermarket analogy, there are multiple lanes, including lanes for 10 items or less.  Some of these "Express Lanes" would correspond to CGC's various Fast Track options.  For example, consider this: Lane 1 = non-FT Modern, Lane 2 = non-FT Economy, Lane 3  = Standard, Lane 4 (an Express Lane) = FT Modern, Lane 5 (another Express Lane) = FT Economy, and so on.  In my analogy, there's a separate lane for each possible submission tier or order type.

I am not bothered one bit by the fact that some lanes (or tiers, if you prefer) move faster than others.  However, neither the number of folks behind me in my lane nor the number of people queued-up in other lanes should effect my check-out time.  My CGC "wait time" should be the estimated TAT in place at the time I entered the queue, not the estimated TAT 2 months, 6 months, or 1 year later. 

My analogy may not be 100% accurate, but I absolutely, positively stand by what I've opined (in red) above.  No business or individual should be making "promises" they are not prepared to keep. 

I think the other concern is getting a runaround from CGC customer service. For example, 5 weeks ago I was told my 4/11 CCS submission was almost complete and only a couple of books were left to be pressed. I contacted customer service again last week and was told to wait another 2 weeks. I don't mind waiting, but the response has to be based on factuality. I'd much rather be told that your submission has been miss placed for the time being, but will be located in time. 

Going back to the grocery store analogy, this is like finally getting to the front of the line and your groceries suddenly disappearing from the conveyor to the cashier. Then being told to step aside while the people behind you are getting checked out.

On 5/4/2022 at 9:24 AM, thingsofstuff said:

I wish you luck and hope they are.  For perspective, I have a slow track CCS order that was delivered in late-May 2021 and "Received" mid-June 2021 that I'm waiting to see pop back on my submissions when it gets over to CGC.  It dropped off the screen in January and has yet to come back and there isn't anything but 'Received' when I type in the sub # ... 

 

Still waiting for my 4/11 received submission.

On 5/2/2022 at 9:26 AM, captainzombie said:

Honestly at this point, my suggestion is if you don't have someone local (or if they are also backlogged) I would spend the money on a press and tools needed to start learning how to press and clean. I bought my first press a few months ago and then added a second one a month ago, and I am planning to add a third one here soon. I am nowhere near a professional at this, but I will say I have brought several books back to life where they got 9.6 and 9.8 grades. I was very scared at first, but with time, practice, and patience (which I have neither, LOL!) you will not believe the wonders you can do to a book. Forget waiting on CCS with all of the issues people are reporting and then even many of the local guys are so backed up its on even funny.

I completely agree with your post, but unfortunately, I just don't have the desire or patience to press my own books. With that being said, I did transition to Joey after the five 6/25 received submissions. It's still a long wait time, but at least I have a pretty good idea when the books will be pressed. With CCS, for all I know, this submission has been miss placed and won't see the light of day for another few months.

A couple of quick updates:

I had my credit card charged for five 6/25 CCS received submissions.

About 3 or 4 weeks ago I e-mailed CGC about the status of my 4/11 CCS received submission. At that time I was told that only a couple of books were left to be pressed. I contacted them again on Friday and was told to wait an additional 2 weeks. At this point I get the sense that there are no real updates and will just have to wait for CCS to locate this submission. It's interesting that the other 3 CCS submissions that were mailed with this one back in March 2021 were graded and shipped 2 months ago.

On 4/26/2022 at 9:18 AM, Crops068 said:

Alright so my Modern no fast track....  I sent these overnight as the box included a George Perez signing book and was right at the wire to get it out.

Modern no fast track

1/18 - Mailed to CGC 

1/19 - Delivered to CGC

1/27 - Received by CGC

1/27 - Scheduled for Grading

4/22 - Grading / Encapsulation / Imaging

4/25 - Grading / Quality Control

4/26 - Shipped

When this was submitted the TAT was 130 busines days, current TAT is estimated at 113.  I was not expecting these to even possibly ship back until sometime in July at the earliest.  I will be honest, every single submission I have done has come back ahead of the estimated TATs.

I am guessing I will get this back in my hands early next week.

Just wondering if the grades were close to expectation. 

On 4/22/2022 at 9:15 AM, captainzombie said:

Yes, they are moving very fast. The package of books I sent and they received yesterday, are already at SFG as of yesterday. Granted one of those books is a walkthrough, they are plowing through these and that is what scares me, because is that what's causing some of the funky grading.

Going to SFG quickly is not a concern. When it goes from SFG to grading to Q/C to shipped in a matter of hours, then the grades will likely be lower than expected.

On 4/21/2022 at 9:46 PM, Petroman said:

Totally agree with what you say.  If reversion is going to happen it will still take some time.  A few years back, when grading was in 1-2 months, it would probably not be enough time for an improperly pressed book to revert.  But when these times go to 6+ months, and potentially with adverse conditions that could affect reversion, e.g. humidity, then there is a much greater chance that there would be some reversion when the grader inspects the book. 

I've never used CCS but would really love to know how well their quick press works as I know I've worked on many, many books that require multiple pressings to remove defects and the word "quick" is not one I would use to describe this process!

Based on past experience with CGC / CCS, here are my two cents:

- Does CGC damage books in their possession from time to time? I would say the chances are remote (since it hasn't happened to me yet), but others have had issues in the past.

- I would be shocked if CGC or CCS stores books in non optimal, humid type conditions. Again, I've had books sitting at CGC/CCS for 6 months to a year and haven't noticed any new creases resulting from temperature variations.

- CCS Quick Press is definitely a hit or miss. I think they do a great job on 1980's type covers, but would not recommend using quick press for hard stock or thicker type books. This includes books like Adventures of Superman 500, the collector editions of the various Superman returns books from 1993, collector editions of Uncanny X-Men #316/317, thick wraparound covers, etc. If you send these books to CCS using quick press, you'll likely get them back in their original non pressed condition. That being said, they have done a good job with foil type covers like Punisher 2099 #1. On a side note, I was really impressed with a Spectacular Spider-Man #117 I sent to CCS a few months. It literally had about 20 light bends and creases on the cover, and all of them were removed with the quick press, resulting in a 9.8 copy.

- IMO, I  believe that most of the books that come back with creases after being pressed by a 3rd party are either due to minor creases or bends missed during pressing or as Joey mentioned in a previous post, the books were not allowed to take shape after pressing and before sending to CGC. In all honesty, perhaps this is the one benefit of having books sitting at CGC for such long periods. If the pressing job was bad, then at least the books would revert back to their original form BEFORE being slabbed. 

On 4/21/2022 at 7:36 PM, Petroman said:

Reversion is definitely a thing, especially if you do no use some degree of moisture during pressing.  Personally I've always wondered what degree of reversion, if any, you have with something like a quick press at CCS.  Don't know anything about how good a presser this guy is, but I guess that if you're looking to monetize a $60k investment quickly you are pretty much quick pressing most of the collection and just hoping for the best on the grades.  Spend a decent amount of time and care on the top 10% and then just press, submit and dump the rest of the cr@p.

I have books in my collection that were pressed by CCS almost 10 years ago and haven't noticed any reversion. My concern with this guy is what if the books reverted after getting graded and sold. He makes it sound like it's a normal thing.

On 4/21/2022 at 2:22 PM, captainzombie said:

Not sure how you guys feel about YouTuber's like Bry's Comics, but he is discussing the topic we have been discussing for the last few days. He is seeing some of the same things we are talking about.

 

Not sure if I want to buy books off of this guy. He keeps talking about his personally pressed books potentially reverting back to original form (right before slabbing) like it's a common thing.  

On 4/21/2022 at 1:16 PM, Still Only 20¢ said:

@skybolt, for your 4/11 CCS submission have they charged your credit card yet?  4/11 is about 260 business days....  

Yes, I was billed on 1/6/2022 along with 3 other submissions. The other 3 submissions were pressed and graded 2 months ago, but this one is still lingering. I contacted CGC 2 weeks ago and they told me the books are currently being pressed. Not sure why this is taking longer than the others.

On 4/21/2022 at 10:18 AM, captainzombie said:

You never had your books from the 90's and earlier pressed/cleaned? I don't think I would ever send anything to CGC or CBCS without having been pressed/cleaned, that is possibly leaving too much money on the table. As we see, even doing all that, their grading is so all over the place. In this last batch that I sent over, I have a few books in there that I sent in a specific way to see how they grade and how they come back.

I wish they were more transparent on how they are grading these books. What I do not understand, is that you would think they would be much tighter on grading with newer modern books so those should have less flaws in a real world scenario vs. books from the Golden, Silver, Bronze, and Copper Ages which were handled differently.

To clarify, I do actually have most (if not al) books in the $150 to $200 plus range dry cleaned and pressed (just in case). I'll do the same for lower valued books that have noticeable dents / non-color breaking creases.

On 4/21/2022 at 9:03 AM, irishcritic said:

100% true! The inconsistency is ridiculous and unnerving.

Unfortunately, the inconsistency will hurt everyone in the long run.

I would rather have CGC come out and say that starting May 1st, 2022 we will tighten the grading for 9.8 books than having inconsistencies in various submissions. At least with tightened grading across the board, the market will adjust, and buyers will know they're getting pristine 9.8 copies if graded after a certain date. 

Honestly, from now on, I will likely have all early 1990's and older books pressed before grading, since some new graders are knocking off a couple of grades if the book does not have a perfectly flat spine (even though this was not how it was manufactured).

On 4/20/2022 at 11:35 PM, Dikko said:

Submitted 10 Economy last year. Arrived CGC 6/22 . Listed 8/19 and STILL IN SFG !!

My Tracking number has now disappeared.

The tracking number for my 4/11 received CCS submission disappeared over 4 months ago.

On 4/20/2022 at 2:36 PM, captainzombie said:

 

That is so wrong of them to do that and make it to where you have to resubmit books in order to get the grade that the book deserves only for them to keep making money off of the customer. Like I said earlier, from my point of view, I know the flaws that some of my books had......yet some of their notes were so off. Nothing will change with them as long as they keep getting the business. We needed someone like a CBCS to step up their game a bit more and get themselves on equal footing for this to stop.

One modern book had a grader note - "light creasing to cover", yet the grader proceeded to give this a 9.0. I've had other books with the same only grader note get a 9.6. It's like WTF.

It could also be a case of CGC grading books more harshly these days (in certain cases) to reduce the glut of high grade copies hitting the market all at the same time. For example, if all of sudden 10 times as many copies of Batman #500 are submitted for grading, this could potentially kill the market for this issue if 10 times as many 9.8 copies hit EBay all at the same time. If that happens then less people will submit this particular issue in the future since the return value would have dropped significantly. 

This is even more evident for books like ASM #300 and 361. I have two 9.8 copies of ASM #361, which I purchased already graded about 5 years ago. Since that time, I've owned better looking raw high grade copies, but can't get a 9.8 for the life of me.

On 4/20/2022 at 2:05 PM, Bighaley21 said:

This is 100% accurate. I had one submission late last year that had 12 rejects on a 9.8 pre screen. I did nothing to those 12 books and resent them in for another 9.8 pre screen. They all came back 9.8 except for one in the next batch. I guess CGC made an extra $100 off of me in the process from the reject fees. 

This inconsistency needs to be corrected by CGC as soon as possible. Something like this should not happen.

On 4/6/2022 at 6:10 PM, skybolt said:

One of the two slow modern 12/6 submissions just shipped.

Best case scenario was 23 - 9.8's and 2 - 9.6's. Got back 14 - 9.8's, 5 - 9.6's, 5 - 9.4's and 1 - 9.2. No grader notes.

Honestly, after only getting 3 of 43 books graded as 9.8's with my last 2 submissions, I'll take these results.

Just got back my other 12/6 submission and the results weren't what I expected. Only 8 - 9.8's, 12 - 9.6's, 3 - 9.4's, 1 - 9.2 and 1 - 9.0.

Upon closer inspection, at least 7 or 8 books have no noticeable flaws and would've likely received a 9.8 grade another day.

Some graders continue to be tough on 80's and 90's books that don't have perfectly flat spines. 

7 books had grader notes, which made sense upon closer inspection.

On 4/15/2022 at 7:18 AM, captainzombie said:

I had something similar happen with my first submission, but with 2 Batman books that they were off by 20 issues between each other. They both received the same grade and grader notes, while the one I thought was going to get graded very low. I made the same mistake you just made with this latest submission that CGC has received and now I am kicking myself. I sent 2 of Moon Knight #1's from the 1980 run. The one has an apparent issue where it looks like someone tried to clean the book and took a little bit of the yellow off of one of the letters in the MK title. While the other book is in NM+ condition, which conservatively I'd give it a 9.4-9.6 range. Now I fear after doing that both end up getting the lower grade because the grader could end up having an off day or lazy.

I will say that most of the submissions I send in these days include 2 or 3 copies of the same book. Although I feel like the grading is super tough these days, I haven't had any of the experiences noted above. With that being said, I have several submissions that are currently being pressed that will have 8 plus copies of a single issue. Will see how that goes.

On 4/6/2022 at 6:10 PM, skybolt said:

One of the two slow modern 12/6 submissions just shipped.

Best case scenario was 23 - 9.8's and 2 - 9.6's. Got back 14 - 9.8's, 5 - 9.6's, 5 - 9.4's and 1 - 9.2. No grader notes.

Honestly, after only getting 3 of 43 books graded as 9.8's with my last 2 submissions, I'll take these results.

Just got the books back today and inspected each one very carefully. I will be completely honest and say that CGC did a great job grading these books. Overall, I completely understood why 10 of 11 books did not receive a 9.8 grade, and I'm sure I'm missing something with the last one. There were a couple of 9.4's that looked more like 9.6's, but I'm not too concerned about that.