skybolt

On 6/8/2022 at 8:59 PM, JJ Speederman said:

Another Fast Track Modern submission that was received June 1st shipped today. 12 issues — two 9.8s, seven 9.6s, two 9.2s, and one 9.0. These were all strong 9.8 candidates so more head scratchers here, especially the 9.0. One of the 9.6 slabs is a Fury of Firestorm #1 that was flawless raw. I'll have to wait until they're in hand to investigate further. Also, no grader notes.

In the past, if I sent in 2 submissions at the same time and one came back with 80% of the books graded at 9.8 and 70% for the other, I'd be a little surprised at the variance. These days it's completely normal to get 80% on one submission and 10% on the other. It's like the Wild West.

On 6/7/2022 at 9:46 PM, skybolt said:

I can't believe I finally received some pre February 2022 grades (18 - 9.8's, 6 - 9.6's & 1 - 9.4). No weird grader notes and no inexplicable 8.5 grades.  These books were pressed by CCS. I had 3 more submissions go to G/E/I today. 

My second CCS submission was just shipped with disappointing results. 9 - 9.8's, 9 - 9.6's, 4 - 9.4's' 2 - 9.2's, 1 - 9.0 and 1 - 6.0. No grader notes, including on the 6.0 copy. I will reserve judgment until I have the books in hand.  Lately I've been having problems getting 9.8's on 80's Spectacular Spider-Man issues, since the copies I submitted all had miswraps.

I can't believe I finally received some pre February 2022 grades (18 - 9.8's, 6 - 9.6's & 1 - 9.4). No weird grader notes and no inexplicable 8.5 grades.  These books were pressed by CCS. I had 3 more submissions go to G/E/I today. 

On 6/6/2022 at 2:47 PM, ADAMANTIUM said:

what tier?

slow modern.

On 6/3/2022 at 8:17 AM, skybolt said:

It's interesting that 4 out of the 5 submissions received by CCS on 6/25/2021 just went into SFG. My 4/11/21 submission is still missing in action.

3 of these 4 submissions just went into G/E/I.

On 6/3/2022 at 2:09 PM, zoso99 said:

I am having the same issue. I have never received as many wide gaps in what I graded a book should receive compared to what my books got, or the amount of graders notes I am getting now. I have 90 books wrapping up today and had 50 books shipped last week. The 50 books were almost a total loss based on their grades, and I am sweating these books now. The biggest disappointment was a Secret Wars #8 that I am certain was a 9.8 that got a 9.6. I bet I am going to have to crack dozens of slabs. Extremely expensive, time consuming and potentially dangerous to the books. I am on a Facebook group that someone showed a group of modern books with gnarly spine stress that he swears was not present, and it's hard not to think there is not something to that due to how profound the defects were on such high-grade books. I am considering sending books of a specific value to a different tier now to get them away from this group of graders.

I've heard the same thing from many Youtubers opening their CGC boxes as well. They all want to switch to Economy for pre 2000 books. The issue I see with this is that as soon as CGC sees the pendulum swing and a huge glut of books are now being switched to economy grading, I could easily see them transfer some of these new graders to that tier. In recent posts, it appears these new graders have now migrated to fast track modern books as well.

On 6/3/2022 at 10:24 AM, captainzombie said:

I have noticed the same thing with some of these grader notes, just not making sense at all. I am going on vacation next week, but I am prepping another submission for the following week. I plan to crack open 2 of the books they sent back with super low grades to investigate and then I will be cleaning and pressing them again to send them in. It is baffling. I press and clean all of my books, even ones that are brand new and have gone up in value as I don't want to take a chance. Something has to give with these books from the 80s-90s, they can't keep grading these like this as it causes inconsistency.

On average about 50% of books graded for each particular issue come back as 9.8 (this average is of course lower for black type covers). With these new graders that average is likely down to between 5 and 10%.

It's interesting that 4 out of the 5 submissions received by CCS on 6/25/2021 just went into SFG. My 4/11/21 submission is still missing in action.

On 6/2/2022 at 8:49 PM, captainzombie said:

All of my submissions have been Fast Track Modern too. One order, I had loaded up with a lot of books from the 80s and 90s and now I regret doing that since I have quite the experience sending books in. I don't have the time and patience to go through all these books cracking them, repressing them and sending them in again to get hit with another $39.

They honestly have to figure this out with the books from the 80's-90's, because there are a lot of people on here complaining about it. Even some of the Youtubers that I watch have started complaining about this too.

Misswrappings should not be hit with a grade drop, yet they have been doing that of late. I had a Wolverine #1 1988 that had a miswrap but I cleaned up that book so nicely and pressed it to get any spine stress out, the grader ended up giving it a 9.2. I probably should of resubmitted it, but I ended up selling it.

Their graders should be consistent and if there are 2-3 people reviewing one book as they say they do, why isn't one of the other three saying, "hey, a miswrap is not an issue".

My biggest pet peeve is that we barely even get grader notes. I can see if they don't want to really give them out for 9.6 and above, but seriously, why are we not even getting them with the lower grades? If they keep raising their prices, this is something we should be getting with each single book.

Honestly, even when I get grader notes on some of these harshly graded submissions, some of them don't make any sense. I had a 90's Superman book receive an 8.5 grade with a "crushed spine" designation. I'm looking at the book and all I see is one very minor spine stress line that barely breaks color. Lately, I've also been receiving a bunch of 9.2's with light rippling to cover designations. Unfortunately, some of the 90's books were manufactured that way. 

On 6/2/2022 at 3:25 PM, captainzombie said:

 

@skybolt and I have been talking about this the last month or so, there has to be some kind of an issue with whomever is grading books from the 80s and 90s. I have had so many books from that era get graded unfairly. For right now, I have decided to just stick with getting modern books from last 10-15 years graded and when I know that I want a book from the 80s/90s that is worth some money to be properly graded I'll just spend the money on a walkthrough. Some of these new graders I just do not think know what they are doing with books that range from the 80's to 90's.

I wonder if some of these so called "new graders" have actually been grading raw books in the industry for a long time, and are now projecting their own personal pet peeves (like not liking misswrapped books) onto CGC. It's extremely important that CGC guidelines are followed by all graders, and not having someone projecting their own grading style onto these submissions.

On 6/2/2022 at 3:00 PM, JJ Speederman said:

So I just had a 12 comic submission under Fast Track Modern complete in world record time — two day turnaround! (received May 31 and shipped today). However, the grades are awful. 11 of the issues were strong 9.8 candidates, but nine ended up at 9.6, and two at 9.4. The remaining comic I submitted for a friend. I had it pegged at 9.4... it came back 9.8. Go figure.

Was the 9.8 a newer book? I've had similar submissions where only books from the past 10 years receive the 9.8 grade. Some newer CGC graders are hammering 1980's and 90's books if they don't have perfectly flat spines, have some overlapping of the cover at the spine, book is slightly miss-cut, book has some production type scratches for hard stock covers, cover corners are naturally overhanging, etc.

On 6/2/2022 at 9:23 AM, Stefan_W said:

Is it just me, or is the wait to move from G/E/I to QC taking longer than it did a couple of months ago? My orders were typically moving between these stages in a day or so, but the past three orders have sat for a week before being graded and shipped out. 

No biggie for me either way, I just like to know so I know how often to check in to see what the grades are. They are still beating promised TATs on modern books by a pretty decent margin. 

This is actually the best case scenario if you want your books graded by an experienced grader. The ones that fly through the G/E/I, QC, Shipped process are the ones that tend to be graded more harshly.

On 6/2/2022 at 6:24 AM, Petroman said:

I do wonder if they have started charging much earlier in the process as a way to stop people from submitting too many books at once and thereby reducing their backlogs and TATs.  For those looking to grade and sell this would be a pretty effective strategy IMHO.  Heck, throw in the fact that you may get horrible grades on some of your submissions, and thus effectively waste a large percent of the grading cost, and it really looks pretty risky to have paid for lots of submissions up front not knowing what kind of grades you'll get.  This would be especially true for MODERN subs where books graded less than 9.6 may be pretty much un-sellable (well at least at a profit or even cost).  Reminder to self:  start using PRESCREEN!

Whether intentional or not, it does appear that CGC tends to grade tighter during busier times vs. being more lenient when submissions are low. It could also be a case of grading the same issue fatigue. For example, if during a 2 week period a grader sees 3 high grade copies of Batman #500 during low submission times, they are more likely to grade all 3 as 9.8 vs. seeing 50 copies of the same book during high submission periods. What I mean is that if a grader receives 10 pristine copies of Batman #500 and grades them all as 9.8, they are less likely to give slightly less presentable copies the same grade, even if technically they are still 9.8's. It's sort of like a professor taking a step back and grading more harshly when 90% of the class is getting A's.

The bi-product of this approach would also benefit CGC, since A.) buyers of these harshly graded books may decide to resubmit to CGC during slower times, B.) there aren't 100 9.8 copies of the same book hitting the market at the same time, which would suppress the value and result in less future submissions, and C.) when grading more leniently during slower periods, people are more likely to submit their books.

On 6/2/2022 at 9:16 AM, captainzombie said:

When you have a submission go from "Grading/Quality Control" to "Quality Control/Finalized" and then back to "Grading/Quality Control". Does that mean that there was some kind of issue found during QC that needs to be reviewed?

It's possible, but I've had a few instances where the designation (as noted above) has changed back and forth within 10 minutes. 

On 5/26/2022 at 9:53 PM, skybolt said:

The staple pushed into the spine has knocked a couple of my books from 9.8 to 9.0.

I just got back a modern submission today and again it went from G/E/I to Shipped in a matter of hours. 12 - 9.8's, 7 - 9.6, 1 - 9.4, 2 - 9.2's, 1 - 9.0 and 2 - 8.5's. Not horrible grades, but I was upset my Newsstand Uncanny X-Men #275 came back a 9.6. That book was flawless. I'll give an update once I have the books in hand.

Just got this batch back today. After really careful inspection of each book I would say CGC was fairly spot on with 20 out 25 books. Most of the 50/50 books came back with the lower 9.6 grade, but that's totally understandable. As far as the other 5 books are concerned, I would say that one of the 9.2's, the 1 9.4 and 2 of the 9.6's look like 9.8's to me. Since CGC got 20 of the 25 books right, I'll assume I missed something on the interior cover or something. Wish there were grader notes for at least the 9.2 book. It is interesting that I submitted 6 copies of Action Comics #687 (in various submissions), expecting 9.8's, and all of them came back between 9.2 and 9.6. Not sure what CGC is looking for with respect to this book. The only really confusing one was an 8.5 grade with "crushed spine" as the only grader's note. I'm looking at the spine and other then one very minor spine stress line, I don't see any crushed spines. Not sure what that even really means (these books were not pressed).

As far as grader's notes are concerned, I wish CGC would provide them for books receiving 9.4 grades and lower if the defect is not noticeable to the naked eye. I honestly don't need grader's notes for the light spine stress lines designation for a 9.4 book if I can clearly see them with some lighting. The ones that look like 9.8's, but come back as 9.0's with no grader notes are the really frustrating ones.

On 5/31/2022 at 11:57 AM, eastriver31400 said:

My only hope is that the barrage of books from the price increase announcement will be behind them soon. 

Once that is complete the TAT's have to normalize somewhat..... an announcement to that effect would really alleviate some hobby-wide stress. 

I have another 5 CCS submissions that were received by CCS back on 6/25/21. I don't expect to have those pressed until at least September.

On 5/31/2022 at 9:34 AM, toro said:

If books don't move for 8 months they fall out of the submission tracker.  When they start to move again they will pop up back in there.  Maybe someday my books from 4/21 will come back to life.  They are allegedly being worked on in CCS. 

Same with my 4/11 received submission. Although our respective submissions were received prior to CGC announcing the price hike, my gut tells me they somehow got mixed up with the pile of submissions received in May last year. It could be months before they see the light of day.

On 5/27/2022 at 12:04 PM, The Meta said:

I have this book I want to have subbed, but I won't because in order to ensure I get a poly bagged notation, I have to have CCS press it 

CGC, in its quest to make money, is alienating more people, eg money, than its attracting at this point

 

Beautiful Newsstand Edition!

On 5/27/2022 at 9:55 AM, Iconic1s said:

I’ve also always wondered if there was a CCS bump (which is why I use CCS BTW).  I know CGC is not supposed to know whose books they are grading when they come in and where they came from etc, but seriously… there has got to be something common among CCS books when submitted to CGC that would give this away.

I honestly think this could be a bigger factor with high end key books in the $10K + range (or maybe even $50k + range). 

I've submitted plenty of books via CCS and haven't seen a grade difference one way or the other. That being said, I will say that some CCS pressers are better than others.

On 5/26/2022 at 9:09 PM, captainzombie said:

I got my latest batch of books back. Here is a good example of my West Coast Avengers 94 scoring an 8.5, and I shake my head. The only issues I can really see here is the staples are a bit pushed into the spine, but that would be more of a manufacturing defect.

The staple pushed into the spine has knocked a couple of my books from 9.8 to 9.0.

I just got back a modern submission today and again it went from G/E/I to Shipped in a matter of hours. 12 - 9.8's, 7 - 9.6, 1 - 9.4, 2 - 9.2's, 1 - 9.0 and 2 - 8.5's. Not horrible grades, but I was upset my Newsstand Uncanny X-Men #275 came back a 9.6. That book was flawless. I'll give an update once I have the books in hand.

On 5/26/2022 at 9:23 AM, captainzombie said:

Totally agree with you on this. They can't for a period of 6 months to 1 year grade a bit on the loose side, and then decide well it is time to grade very harsh for another 6 months to 1 year and then change course again. Some of this has to be due to these new graders taking CGC guidelines to the extreme. I feel like that comes off as market manipulation.

I can send a book in with 1 flaw, which technically should be at a 9.8 since you rarely see a 9.9 or 10.0. If they are deducting by a .1 or .5 basis for each issue with 1 flaw you should be around 9.8, yet books like that either get a 9.6, 9.4, 9.2 or even less than the 9.0 depending on who is doing the grading.

Then it irritates me with the books from the 80's and 90's, it has turned into a guess game on your grades with these books and expect to probably get the worst grade possible.

Agreed. I think what bothers me the most is getting dinged for production type defects. If I sent in a book with a small spine stress line expecting a 9.6/9.8, and it comes back a 9.4, I can live with that. On the other hand, I don't think it's fair to get a 9.0 grade on a book like Batman #497 or Amazing Spider-Man #400 where the die cut cover creates an indentation within the inner cover. Even if you get this pressed out, it'll still revert back to its original form once the die cut cover presses up against the book again. 

On 5/26/2022 at 8:27 AM, pirog said:

As of about 2 months ago i have noticed grades on moderns are 0.2 (especially if it is in 9.8 zone) to 0.6 lower than in past 2 years...undergrading can hurt the industry just as much as overgrading...submitters will be much more hesitant to send in now in my opinion...once this happens the pendulum will likely swing back to a more normal accepted standard level...the power of free markets is strong...

I would at least understand CGC's approach if they overgraded books during slower times and undergraded when they are flooded with submissions. At least this approach forces the market to adjust for that time period. However, when 2/3 of submissions are still being graded per past standards, it becomes a quality issue for CGC for the remaining 1/3. If they wanted to grade books harshly then it needs to be across the board and not just based on certain graders. Consistency is key.

On 5/25/2022 at 4:09 PM, cd4ever said:

8.5-90 seems a very fair grade for a polybag crease. Would you rather it be a 9.8 with a crease down the back cover? 

I've had the same issue with X Force #1. I always get those pressed before grading.

My 3/7/22 received SMT just went into G/E/I. Here's hoping the books don't go into Grading/QC until early next week. If they switch to shipped in the next couple of hours I better brace myself for a bunch of 9.6/9.8 books graded as 8.5/9.0.

On 5/25/2022 at 1:50 PM, thingsofstuff said:

So, I guess I still have a bit, which is OK. The interesting part is that when I got refunded the difference in a pressing overcharge from the June price change, they told me they were working on books "received" June 1.  That phone call/email exchange was April 25.  My books were delivered on May 3 but "received" June 21.  So I figured maybe in a few weeks.  Hopefully they are getting close to your books.  Now I'm wondering if I have to renew in order to get my books graded as my membership is up at the end of the month.  

I hate to say this, but both of our submissions are likely buried under a mountain of other submissions, which were received before the price change last year. They could find them tomorrow or it could easily be another 4 to 5 months before they see the light of day.