comicjel

Don't you run the exact same risk by buying a raw book that looks to be in NM, selling it to someone, and they get it graded and find out it is color touched? Wouldn't they still want their money back from you? All that said... you have any raw high grade ASMs #1 - #50 for sale??

I hear you, but there are so many more variables to consider. Color touch, trimming, stains, replaced staples, replaced wraps, pressing damage - these are hard for even a seasoned collector to always catch when buying a raw book. Others that are hard to assess the effect to the grade... foxing, dust shadows, small chips, oxidation, etc. If you only buy raw books because of your concern about a missing MVS in a universal holder, you are opening yourself up to a bunch of other things that you may miss and be burned by if the comic is graded later. I would bet that there are many more raw Hulk 181s with replaced wraps than there are universal 181s with missing MVSs.

I'm starting to wonder if there are not multiple books out in the population that have the same cert number - I know we have not seen this yet, but it would not shock me at this point!

FWIW, the two SW 8 9.8s show the following: #4046486007 - per GPA sold 9/12/22 for $749 (GoCollect does not reflect this sale in their records) - per GoCollect sold 11/17/22 for $802 and has a scan of the book - right top corner looks soft to me, but hard to see too much else (it is a direct edition) #4046486008 - per GPA sold 6/26/22 for $645 (GoCollect does not reflect this sale in their records) - per GoCollect sold 8/22/22 for best offer under $700 (it is a direct edition) Not sure too much can be gleaned here, but I will leave it to the experts (Comicwiz, Sledge and Brute most notably)

With yet another example of a clearly inferior book in a 9.8 holder and uncharacteristic grader notes, I wonder if there was a loophole in the reholder labeling software, where a cert for a lower grade book could be changed to a 9.8, and have it save that way as if it had originally been graded as a 9.8. It would explain a lot!

Agree! - I added an edit to my post on this.

This would make complete sense - the Terrazzas' really only needed books that, in their estimation, were good enough to pass as 9.8s, and as Grendel013 pointed out, they needed them to already be inside inner wells, before they went to the "reholder" department. Once there, they already had access to the needed 9.8 labels (through the label database / printer) - remember there was a reference in their filing to them printing duplicate labels of higher grade books. Unlike the outside scammers, the Terrazza's only needed the inferior books, they did not need to have or steal actual 9.8 books (which may have drawn more attention or be in a more secure holding area). If we find that this 23 book submission is definitely the Terrazza's submission, how could the inside scammers and outside scammers independently choose the same key books to use in their scam??

I agree, it appears to be a crime of both opportunity and margins... the lower grade substitute books needed to be readily available and much cheaper than the higher grade counterparts to keep the scam rolling along. Also, as was emphasized a lot at the beginning of this thread, he was picking specific books that were commonly being sold in high volumes everywhere, which allowed him to hide his fraud sales amongst the volume of legit sales. However, there is still a lot we have not figured out about this scam, and there are possibly books that were swapped, but not reholdered, so maybe he was reholdering certain types of books, while just swapping other types.

You may be right, but he was not that careful with other aspects of the scam - like switching from non-MJI to MJI and non-newstand to newstand; and especially not thinking that the buyer of a one-of-a-kind type book (ASM 252 MJI 9.8) would not draw at least prospective buyers to look at the last sale of the book. And Comicwiz found that the Avengers 57 SS 9.6 appeared to have changes to the actual book between being graded and reholdered, which implies book was removed from inner well and then reholdered somehow. So I still feel all those 350 reholdered books are suspicious.

I think it might be the opposite... if they determine that the book has been swapped, they likely keep it "as is" for evidence, but if they determine that it has not been swapped, they are giving it a new cert, keeping the same grade, and returning it back to the owner. I just do not trust that the scammers were getting any of their books reholdered for no reason (or just to get a custom label).

I suspect you are being facetious - they won't pull stuff like that. I do wonder how any of their reholdered books are being cleared though - if I were CGC, knowing how the scam worked, I would just assume all reholdered books by these guys were tainted somehow, even though it is not apparent how. If they later discover that they were getting inside help, those "cleared" books will all need to be recalled! If I knew a crook broke into 10 homes, but only 7 seemed to have things missing, I would not conclude that he did not steal from the other 3 homes, I would surmise that they have just not figured out what he stole from the other 3 yet.

Major props for pulling this together!! 👍 When I see three! JIM #83s... one in 8.0, one in 7.0, one in 6.5... knowing how this scammer operated... just makes me wonder what these guys accomplished that is not on our radar!!

Love seeing that overhang on the top!

Wouldn't it be ironic if the EBAY sale was a shill sale to pump up the price before actually trying to sell it later??

Sometimes when I buy a book that has pressable defects, or has some dirt on back cover that I know could be easily cleaned, I almost feel it is already in the grade it would be after said clean and press - those types of flaws kind of become invisible to me. It's enough that they could be removed.

I believe it is now recognized as the Windy City copy

I was concerned that we would get to this point - you could see it coming down the pike a mile away as the 350 list was not increasing - CGC was always going to draw the line at the reholdered books. I get that CGC can not compensate for every CGC comic that has ever been graded and then tampered with (and "not" reholdered) - there would be no way to manage that. I may be wrong, but I suspect that CGC would like to compensate collectors for the portion of the 2,000 books that were swapped by "these" scammers (I know that Matt would want that done), but CGC is likely concerned about creating a precedent of compensating tampered non-reholdered books for the whole population of comics that they have ever graded. I do think that they could (and should) separately carve out the 2,000 or so books that were graded by these scammers, and provide compensation if it can be shown that the scammers swapped the books and did not leave a reasonably noticeable trace on the outside holder, since IMO, if CGC had better quality control with the reholdering, they would have caught them and banned them well before they could successfully grade 2,000 books. The precedent, therefore, would be that CGC is compensating for these books because they did not catch their reholdering scam sooner and ban them - and go ahead and say that these 2,000 books are being singled out for just this reason. It would be good PR, and the right thing to do. As an aside, If CGC is determining that scammers can tamper with their cases without leaving a "reasonably" noticeable telltale sign, then the only option, as I see it, is to provide scans of every comic that CGC has ever graded, because even a new holder will not protect the books that have already been graded.

This book appears to have been sold prior to the scam being uncovered - I suspect that the purchaser sent it to get checked by CGC (even though not on the "list") to be safe. Might explain why it now has no grade?? - but that is just a guess. That book does look like it could be a legit 9.8 to me (at least compared to other books he received 9.8s on) - but who knows if it remained the same book by the time CGC saw it again (and who knows if it is complete inside??)

... and remember that they also added a note under the "verify" scan to contact them if you suspect counterfeiting (or something to that effect) at the same time. Clearly they discovered something back then!

Unfortunately, I think that both sides are happy to keep the books in question at the listed 350.

Only having the conversation because someone thought the book was trimmed, and I don't think so. But I hear you... getting harder to defend every day!

I doubt my eyes are better! - but I think we are saying the same thing... that we don't think that there has been any trimming

Funny, I focused on the "A" too! - yes, all 3 looked identical to my eyes.

If you scroll in on the 8.5 and 9.0 the top that looks like additional cover is actually a shadow - I do not think they have been trimmed (but who knows??)