skybolt

For typical submissions I agree with you. Experienced graders realize that books manufactured in the 70's and 80's did not have perfectly crisp corners and weren't always as flat as pancakes. What my fear is going forward is that some of the new graders are grading 70's and 80's books like they were manufactured yesterday, meaning that you have no choice but to get them all pressed (I may do that from now on). For instance, as I was scrolling down my 2 recent submissions and seeing all the 9.6's, I told myself I bet the only book that will receive a 9.8 grade is the one from 2020. Of course I was correct. Also, when my two 10/19 submissions went from SFG to G/E/I to Grading/QC and then shipped in literally 2 hours, I had a feeling the grades were going to be bad.

This is the reason why 3 graders are required for each book, with the last one being an experienced person. I don't mind new graders being too harsh or too loose on certain books, but this should be corrected by the experienced grader when checking the books for consistency against other copies previously graded. I don't profess to be a top notch grader, but I have submitted close to 2,000 modern books over the past 18-19 years. When CGC grading is a bit a loose, 90-95% of the books I send in come back with the exact grade predicted or a grade higher. When CGC tightens grading a bit, I'm usually batting around 50-60%. However, these 2 recent submissions were completely out of whack. There is no way I miss-graded 40 out of 43 books. It's literally like someone was only giving out 9.8's if the books were borderline 9.9's. Also, when I'm confident about 9.8's, I'm usually 90-95% right. With these 2 submissions, I would say I only got about 15% of those correct. Bonkers.

Looking at my 2 recent slow modern submissions I'm actually shocked at the grades received. I typically on average get 60 to 70% 9.8's, but only 3 out of 43 books came back as 9.8's. Either I'm losing it or grading has gotten super tough. Anyone else experience anything similar? Even the 2 batches graded last week that were sent it at the same time came back at 50% efficiency. There's no way my grading fell of the cliff like that. Whomever was grading these was looking for perfection.

Yup. My two 10/19 received submissions also went to G/E/I yesterday.

3 out of my 4 submissions received by CCS on 4/11 went to SFG in early February and have already shipped. The last submission still hasn't moved to SFG. I want to call, but realize it's still within the 249 business day window.

How long does this process take CBCS?

They need to open a west coast office and have half the country ship their books there.

Slow track modern pressing is also up to 249 business days. This will likely go up to 300+ business days as CCS starts catching up with the late April submissions to beat the price hike.

Has anyone ran into a situation where CGC initially only enters a portion of the books pressed by a 3rd party? What I mean is thus far 3 of the 20+ submissions have been received by CGC so far, but one submission only has 6 of the 25 books entered. Hopefully the rest of the books will be entered soon or this submission.

I agree, my last 3 submissions took 2 days to ship after going into Grading/QC.

One of my 2 slow modern submissions received on 10/14 just shipped. The other one went to Grading/QC. Grading continues to be tough these days. Only 10 books (out of 23) came back as 9.8's (was expecting 15 to 16).

For slow modern grading I know that SFG and G/E/I doesn't mean much these days. However, I was wondering on average, how long does it take to ship the books after they go into Grading/QC?

Two of my four 4/11 "Received by CCS" submissions went straight to SFG, then G/E/I, Grading/QC and then shipped. Another one went to SFG, then G/E/I, while the last one disappeared from my tracking page several months ago, while sill "Received by CCS".

Yup, I have 5 more submissions that will disappear by end of the week.

One of my 10/14 slow modern submissions just went from G/E/I to Grading/QC.

Same with turnaround times. No changes in 3 weeks.

I honestly don't mind getting charged at any point once CGC receives my packages. I just don't want to go through what greggy had to go through with over-charges or CGC billing me at the new rate (even though the submission was received before the rate change). Thankfully, I haven't had to deal with that issue yet. On another note, does anyone have any experience with certain books being rejected by CCS (e.g. embossed or chromium covers) and receiving a refund as credit for these books? For instance, CCS charged me the full amount for books received early last year, and graded/shipped back in June. However, when they billed my most recent press submittals, they gave me credit for 2 books that weren't pressed as part of the June shipped package. Is this typical? Do we only see the credit applied if we submit more books for pressing?

Pretty soon CGC will start charging our credit cards before opening the boxes. "Let's see, this package from greggy weighs a ton. Put him down for $5k. Next!"

Dang, CGC just charged my credit card for over $3k all at once. It's for 4 modern submissions received in mid October and 2 more in mid December. No movement on the tracking page though.

The problem is that it's very hard to remember why we submitted certain books for pressing almost a year ago. When I got back my two 4/11 submissions this weekend, there were several books that had noticeable color breaking pressed out creases. For the life of me I can't remember if I saw these before and just took a chance submitting them anyway, or completely missed the defects. Heck, after 1 year I can't even remember submitting certain books. I will say that when I went back and inspected the 29 books that did receive 9.8 grades it wasn't like all of them were absolutely flawless. I would say that CGC grading was consistent with previous submissions. Once you go over a couple of tiny defects, the book will receive a 9.6 or 9.4 grade. One thing I wanted to add. You are more likely to receive a 9.8 grade on a book with only 1 somewhat noticeable defect than another book that has 4 or 5 microscopic defects.

Some more top 5's

As you noted above, I typically use FedEx these days due to the lower cost. Also, whenever I ship books costing more than $200 I use FedEx instead of USPS.

My FedEx guy typically just leaves my package outside without any signatures. One time I panicked when I checked my phone and it had a different name signing for the package. When I got home the package was on my porch. Apparently he signed it under his name or something.

Nope, just regular. CGC seems to expedite grading for books sitting at CCS for long periods of time.

It's interesting how the system is currently working. I had 4 CCS submissions received in the same box on 4/11. One submission went to G/E/I on 2/1, but nothing since then. Two other submissions went to G/E/I on 2/4 and were shipped on 2/10. Unfortunately, there are still no updates on the last submission..