MAY1979

On 8/31/2024 at 7:00 PM, Jordysnordy said:

That’s a heck of a price for the seller

Especially given the 445 series

On 9/1/2024 at 11:12 AM, Shaun Hill said:

I don’t understand the punishment bid idea. Are people that mad about someone else buying a thing that they feel good about making them pay more, even at the risk of getting stuck with an overpriced thing they may themself not want? Seems a little juvenile to me. 

 Be very quiet or the auction houses who love the way it pads their bottom line will send folks after you. Even eBay has done that! (to the mods who may see this post please note; that is official USA public record)

On 8/31/2024 at 2:28 PM, Yorick said:

I wouldn't mind if they had a better sticker design...

The sticker is tantamount to abuse IMHO.  As for the original poster it sucks what happened, but Clink will do right by you.

BTW @Comic_Collector you can tag them to this thread same as I did to you - type @ then comiclink and it will populate.

P.S.  Never, ever, never, ever permit direct bank account draws/access to anyone, unless it's a regulated industry like a utility and even then still best not to do so. Also never allow it to another bank or a finance company as their attorneys are better than yours!

On 8/27/2024 at 1:32 PM, comicstock said:

I don't have a lot of experience with this but I wouldn't do it.

Things can happen...

I'd seriously consider waiting until sometime next year.  Poke around Comics General section to see why...

On 8/31/2024 at 9:42 PM, Stuk said:

I am just asking (or has this already been asked?), because, well, this is a discussion forum: If someone recently paid a few hundred $$ for a Premium or Elite Membership with the expectation of submitting enough books for grading to make those fees worthwhile, but now is holding off on submitting because the books are coming back bent and seemingly damaged by the CGC slab/process, well, then what?  The easier answers seem to be: (i) you're out of luck, chump, and you just lost some money, or (ii) when CGC finally addresses this issue in a fair and forthright manner including, above all, fixing the problem (!), it will honorably give everyone a, say, 6-month or 9-month or 1-year membership add-on/benefits (as opposed to making us re-up with more cash for no fault of our own).  Are there other possible answers? Is this issue too small to matter? I suppose in the grand scheme of things, getting all my already bent 43 and 44 slabs fixed would be more important than the membership issue, but the membership issue is a real thing, right? It is paid for with a certain reasonable expectation, which expectation is being denied shattered by no fault of the customer. Just asking.

Only avenue is a Credit Card Chargeback dispute however odds are very low on a Membership situation.

I too am in that boat and will use my membership credit from last Dec on a Video Game sub.

removed - argumentative.

On 8/31/2024 at 6:51 PM, bc said:

 

Pure speculation: Could it be that one of the encapsulation/ultrasonic welding machines isn't properly calibrated to handle the increased welding post swap-gate? That explains why not every submission is being impacted - it might be a station devoted to certain tiers.

-bc

IMHO Far more plausible if vice-versa.  Meaning 1 or 2 "good modern stations" with all others bad.

On 8/31/2024 at 5:31 PM, Iconic1s said:

You know, the more I think about this… IF it really is due to warping while the plastic cools (outside the jig) it could also be being caused by something as non-nefarious as the encapsulation room being cooler than it was previously… if the ambient temp was lowered significantly (to make employees comfortable for example) that may be effecting how the plastic cools 

Maybe the move to the new facility??

How about same space as pre-1975 submissions?

The official message is Banana Bending and associated Damage is "normal", what is their incentive to investigate?

On 8/30/2024 at 5:59 PM, Rick2you2 said:

If he is buying and selling at a profit, you are under-bidding, IMO. He can’t lose money on every deal and make it up in volume.

and if its simply a power trip or ego type thing?

On 8/31/2024 at 12:03 PM, Brandon Shepherd said:

I would love to send it back but I purchased this several months ago. I don’t recall the book being curved then, or the color breaking spine tick. I put the book away and haven’t looked it over until this morning. 

Maybe the well curved over time?

The Color BREAKING spine Tick is definitely in your pic!  It's difficult to tell if in CGC's pic (furthest below) due to them always using excessive brightness which obscures detail.

Yours




CGC's

On 8/31/2024 at 11:47 AM, electricprune said:

Are you ok with it, or are you going to send it back?

Nothing wrong with being OK with it, except you paid 9.8 money for a 9.4 or 9.6 book.

On 8/30/2024 at 5:32 PM, EastEnd1 said:

 

I would delete that post if I were you.  Don't think CGC Mike is going to like it.

 

You made that more difficult by quoting it

On 8/30/2024 at 5:16 PM, Sweet Lou 14 said:

In all seriousness, while I understand the sentiment that "FMV is a myth" and also fully understand that two motivated people are all it takes to set the hammer price in an auction, the ASM #100 cited above is a good example of what I'm experiencing.

Here is the 9.6 WP copy of ASM #100 that I won for $1,800 on ComicConnect in January 2023:

It's a beautiful copy.  So nice it even has ComiConnect's version of the extra special sticker on it (QES).

ASM #100 is notorious for centering issues, some uglier than others.  I decided to buy this book because the white along the spine wasn't too thick and it's also close to even.  To that point, it was the best-centered 9.6 I'd had the opportunity to bid on.

What's the FMV for this book?  GoCollect says $1,700, while citing recent 9.6 sales that range from $1,052 to $2,133.  There are plenty of 9.6s of this book being traded.  It's not the sales volume of, say, ASM #300, but it's a common book and very easy to find.  So an FMV of $1,700+ certainly seems about right, and I'm OK with having spent $1,800 on mine.  I know my style of collecting is not the way to go if you want to get bargains.  This is the life I have chosen.

So now this one comes around on ComicLink:

Another great copy!  Plus it has ComicLink's version of the extra special sticker -- the highly coveted CVA!  The centering is not absolutely perfect, but it's as close to perfect as you're ever likely going to find.  The only thing I'm not crazy about is the older CGC case.  But I can live with that.  I had been hoping for better centering and decided to go after this book.

When I show up to place my last-second bid, the bidding was already at $1,700.  Damn, that means I'm probably going to have to go over $2,000 for this book.  I generally have a good instinct for what it's going to take to win, so I shot my shot and I came out on top.  $2,376 smackeroos, almost right up to what I bid.  One of those "damn, I'm glad I won but I wasn't really expecting to win for anywhere near that crazy high bid I put in" moments ... I get those a lot.

So what's the lesson?  Either the $1,800 - $2,376 spread is just part of the random noise in the market, and I got unlucky that someone aggressive was bidding on this one whereas I'd been more lucky the previous time, or there really is a $576 difference (nearly 33%) in value for the better centering.  Or ComicLink has more eyeballs than ComicConnect.  Who knows.  But now my goal is to sell the other 9.6 and hope to close that spread a little bit so that the premium I've paid is a little less steep.

I had another example this week (won't go into detail) where I snagged an arguably underpriced 9.6 OW/W copy of a book earlier this month, then paid a hefty premium for a nice 9.6 WP copy.  Again, it could be random chance or luck or a genuine market difference for the white pages.  But again, I'll be trying to get a good price for my OW/W copy and hoping I'm right that I did in fact score a bargain on it.

Not directed at you

I think the  folks who are smug about white pages and perfectly centered wraps in their posts on this forums over the years have in effect created a premium for those. Specifically on pre-1976 books.  It actually would have been in their own best interest to keep quiet!!!

On 8/30/2024 at 4:10 PM, GeeksAreMyPeeps said:

If the issue is arising from a slight mismatch in the size of the inner holder compared to then inner well (with either the former being slightly too big, or the latter being slightly too small) on a batch of materials, then there is a big unresolved question as to how many "bad" product they ordered. I imagine that they would be unwilling to simply trash the supplies that are causing the problem, but I wouldn't be surprised, assumign they still have a lot on hand, if they decided to put those aside, and then just use small amounts here and there going forward, until they're all gone. Probably on new customer orders, who maybe don't know what to look for when they first start submitting, or on very low value orders or infrequent customer orders.

If your hypothesis is correct that is some next level evil!  Means even if the issue is mostly resolved at some future point it still won't be safe to purchase from any outlet in which the buyer does not hold all the power. 

Hey Dealers, auction houses and other various and sundry Comic Book sellers, "no return policy" = NO SALE!

On 8/30/2024 at 3:13 PM, electricprune said:

You very well may be right. I believe I have seen 1 pre ‘75 book on YouTube. I’ll have to try to find it.

Either way, this is a Modern Tier issue.

+ Magazines as @Yorick mentioned 3 posts above from this one.  

On 8/30/2024 at 3:08 PM, Yorick said:

My Comiclink order arrived yesterday.  Most books of my wins/order were in the older cases or the competitor's cases.  I did have a Heavy Metal magazine in the order that has the above illustrated parabola on the heat-formed inner well backside portion.  Keep in mind that the front inner well is not subjected to vacuum forming.

Each of the book's corners are sitting snug, and the magazine will be fine if I keep it stored spine downward.  If I lay the CGC'd cased magazine flat face-up, over time I'm certain the center of the book will warp downward.  I tried to take some pictures last night, but without proper lighting it is hard to see.  Maybe I'll try and take some new photos today...

Personally I'd return it and if they refuse to accept that, then file a dispute for a charge back. My guess is the dispute wont be needed, they seem smart enough to realize losing future business and negative social posts over a single Magazine is not a good tactic.

If the Auction Houses start to feel some pain perhaps they'll actually grow a pair and demand CGC fix it and or remunerate them.

On 8/30/2024 at 1:31 PM, LordRahl said:

If you are correct, I do not think this will blow over like other scandals. Swapgate, Ewert, etc. blew over and people forgot very quickly because CGC relatively quickly "rectified" the issues. Whether or not they actually rectified them is somewhat debatable but at the end of the day, irrelevant. The perception was that they fixed it and that's really all that matters. 

As collector I hope I'm wrong.

Logically to the Execs in Blackstone who have CGC under their auspices here are some plausible scenarios:

1) No changes - meaning the damaging of books continues. Bonus's are decided and those Execs polish their resumes and walk into another cushy position at a larger Fortune 500 firm than Blackstone. This the next Execs problem.

2) No changes - meaning the damaging of books continues. Bonus's are decided and those Execs plan the sell off CGC before profit dips enough for shareholder to potentially notice.  In effect the next firms problem.

3) No changes - meaning the damaging of books continues. Deny, Deny Deny and as with other scandals this goes away. After all look at the lack of awareness or cognitive dissonance in other threads here - also the large submitters who continue to submit unimpeded and continue to sell to the uninformed. The sheep then absorb and regurgitate the ridiculous message that the damage is normal.

Based on the Socials I've seen, message is spreading and vast amount folks are not happy. The question is, are they tip of iceberg or not? If the California folks are smart, which they may not be, they can Marketing/Social Media Blitz this issue as their go-live date approaches. CGC cannot defend or say the matter is fixed as to do so it renders their previous statements as falsehoods thus opening themselves to potential large ramification$.

On 8/30/2024 at 1:19 PM, LordRahl said:

I have no idea what either of those "scandals" was about but I fully agree that people will stop caring...IF they fix the issue. Unfortunately so far they have shown a remarkable unwillingness to fix it.

I still think they are in way too deep.  If they do fix it, that totally invalidates their statements about it being normal. Then they are open to potential ramification$.  The only way to prevent that is to keep damaging books at minimum at same rate they have been.

On 8/30/2024 at 12:00 PM, KirbyCollector said:

I'm just tired of the flippers. You put out a respectable number and find you're the 2nd highest bidder. Fine, I can live with that. Seeing the winner post the page on CAF within 72 hours of the auction end and try to squeeze an extra 10-15% of it, though... man. 

On 8/30/2024 at 12:18 PM, Dr. Balls said:

I always wonder how successful those flips are - I mean, I know we have our thread, which is interestingly useful, but I would be curious to find out how many times these flips work.

Long after the afterglow of their profit is gone, the vile stink of the flipper remains.

On 8/29/2024 at 11:05 PM, Stuk said:

Regarding COMICLINK (and maybe ComicConnect too?), unless I am mistaken, they have stopped showing back cover images (what the h--? So we are expected to bid $$$ without being able to see the back cover, but that's a different topic) and their zoom function has always been very substandard. So that combination coupled with a strict no returns policy is bad news given bend-gate. At least Heritage and MCS and even Ebay have useful zoom capabilities. For example, because of this, I recently passed on a modern 9.8 SigSeries on Ebay because, when I zoomed in, I clearly saw a bend worthy of a post in these pages. I do think MCS is generally quite reputable. I'd not be surprised to see them start to deal with this in one way or another.

Regarding ComicLink or Comic Connect: on nearly all items they provide images of merely 1/6 of the Collectible, meaning only the front not the back nor the 4 sides.  3rd party grading or not they would have a difficult time winning a Chargeback Dispute, against anyone willing to walk the Card Issuer through and explain as I said that Merchant only presented 1/6 of the possible views and that on collectibles that is paramount. Remember regardless of outcome the Merchant pays for all associated Dispute costs.

Unlike CGC, I don't think CLINK or Comic Connect can afford a huge increase in Chargebacks not to mention banning long term customers over say a $250 book that was banana bent. Nor will it be good for them for number of bidders decrease (already in progress) due to loss of trust.

They have 2 options as I see it:

1) QC control on their consignments!  CLINK for example will need to look at each CGC slab to ensure each 9.4, 9.6 and 9.8 Comic is flat within the slab - this is best option in terms of Consumer Confidence.

2) Supply a hires pic for each of the 6 sides of a slab. This option may shield them from Chargebacks but if  pics are not super clear on the edges it will lead to an ultra negative perception. After all who will bid if they know they may be wasting their money.

@COMICLINK

I've paged Comiclink to see if they will comment on their Return Policy on post Nov 2023 CGC slabs that have "banana bends"/warping/concaving. This way folks reading this thread at least will know if safe to bid on 433 series or higher slabs at their Auction venue

Hello CLINK folks,

Apologies for putting you on the spot but it's critical for many posting here to know that we will not get stuck with damaged 433 and higher CGC series slabs if purchased via your platform.  This likley will affect many books you have at auction right at this very moment. Hoping you will give us an answer that will allow us to maintain the trust you have built the last 25 years.  As believe me there are recently slabbed 9.6 and 9.8 comics you currently have at Auction on my want list, but I've ruled them out due to being way, way too risky given the issues reported in this thread.

Mike may want to have a rush order put in for that :

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On 8/29/2024 at 8:11 PM, GeeksAreMyPeeps said:

The problem with this is that as long as the problem goes on, the less likely people are to submit books. Those that do may not be aware of the issue, so won't be looking.

I wish I had caught up on this thread a month ago, before my membership renewed, so I could put a pause on renewing, since I won't be submitting anything until this is taken care of. (And I was prepping a decent batch to send in, but they're mostly for the PC, so I especially don't want to risk it.)

I've had to pivot as well and will be submitting Video Games to eat up my Membership Credit. I flipped my renewal to off Mid July when i received the first "it's normal" from CS.

On 8/29/2024 at 7:10 PM, jharvey said:

I received back 38 vintage comics within the last week and none of them were warped. 

that follows the pattern. Which means post 1975 books do not need to be damaged.  Still I ain't chances on any high grade vintage slabbed in 2023 or 2024 unless I am able to hold it in hand an view the sides first.  

^ i can clearly see color breaking spine damage in the 3rd and 4th pics. What was the grade of that book?

The book might still be ok as a PGX 9.8?  Based on their actions one might conclude CGC desires to be the next PGX . 

I will say if was in the market for either of the books in the first 2 pics that based on what I see it would be a Hard no hesitation Pass ! 0r0d, my apologies for the bluntness.