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High Koality Comics

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Everything posted by High Koality Comics

  1. Also.... ME subs have obviously increased significantly which is probably why they switched from shipping them back overnight to ground shipping. The turnaround time for ME subs has also increased quite a bit which makes it even more frustrating. The "fast track" economy sub I did of 25 in December was graded quickly but 11 had to go back due to case issues. Those then took over 2 months to ship back to me with 3 of those having cracks and needing to go back. So the "fast track" economy sub I did in December still isn't finished due to the amount of MEs and the longer turnarond for them.
  2. It's gotten significantly worse over the last year. A couple years ago I started buffing/polishing out all cases mysefl that arrived with scuffs and light to moderate scratches which actually prevents me from sending back quite a few but is a lot of work that I can't say I enjoy doing. But here's my sub list for close to the last year. The vast majority of the MEs are from cracks, chips and splintering down the sides of the case. If this is in any way indicative of what other customers are going through, I can only assume CGC is spending tens of thousands of dollars a month on ME submissions. I think taking their time while packing the cases into the box and limiting box size to 23 comics and placing a piece of cardboard between each book would probably solve a lot of these issues. They are also inconsistent with how they pack boxes. Some have the thick honeycomb cardboard piece at the top of the box while others just have a piece of their thick bubblewrap instead. The bubblewrap ones always arrive in worse conditions since this allows them to move inside the box a lot more while in transit.
  3. I did want to add something positive though. I think CGC's customer service has improved significantly over the last couple years. Not only is it easy to get a hold of someone, but everytime they are very pleasant and I feel they try to address any issues I have in a very timely manner. Also being able to complete ME subs without having to talk to someone first is great. I'd rather not have to call and bother someone due to a cracked case since I'm sure they have better things to do so this helps.
  4. It's hit or miss with the thick cardboard piece on top. The ones without it definitely have more damage/cracks. I've sent back 39 mechanical errors just this year. Mostly for cracks and shattering. I live in Oregon so I assume the long travel time has something to do with it. A piece of cardboard should be placed between each comic in the box IMO since a lot of it appears to be cracks just from moving back and forth in the box. This is why there is more damage when the thick cardboard piece isn't placed at the top of the box. It allows them to move around too much. I recently received one back that had the cover completely detached when it arrived and then yesterday I received one in which the case wasn't sealed in any way. Despite issues with shipping and packaging, there still remains some significant issues with quality control. I've had multiple subs of 25 now where every single case has significant scuffing outside it. This isn't something I send back for reholdering and just buff out with Meguiar's but it takes quite a bit of time to do this and would appreciate it if they would slow down when loading the box or stop doing whatever it is that causes this. Besides the detached cover comic, the mechanical error turnaround time is what bothers me. I paid to fast track an economy sub of 25 and sent back 13 mostly due to cracked cases. Took less than two weeks to grade and ship which is great but what's the point of paying for fast track if I have to wait another 2-3 months to get half the sub reholdered due to cracks? I of course then have had multiple come back from being fixed for mechanical errors to then have to be sent back again due to a cracked case or other issue that occurred on the way back to me. In regards to the wavy books in the cases, this was significantly worse last year. The first sub I received like this I had assume reverting after pressing or something and cracked them all out since I didn't feel comfortable selling them in that condition. Multiple subs then arrived after that the same way. It has gotten quite a bit better though since then. I don't know if it's part of the heat process when sealing the case or what that causes it. I sub around 400 a year so I don't sub massive numbers like some but I think I sub enough to notice trends and issues with books/cases when they occur.
  5. Bought a JIM Annual #1 CGC 6.0 from Jeff and he shipped super quick, packaged it very well and it arrived exactly as described. Great!
  6. I feel like there's a lot of things they should do but don't.
  7. CGC gives credit for the declared value only. Not grading, shipping or any other fees. They also keep the damaged comics if you decide to take the credit. So if the comic doubled in value since you sent it back, they will only credit the original declared value.
  8. Maybe I forgot to mention this but I'm in California which the CGC rep was aware of. It's not like I can just drive on over to pick them up.
  9. This is one I purchased off Ebay last month. Same thing. Couldn't tell by the photos in the listing and returned it once I received it. This is the same issue # that I posted above but this one was a 9.8. The one above was a 9.6 in case it looked like I was just reposting damage from the same comic. It isn't.
  10. I went over this more extensively in this post: I'm pretty sure this is damage being caused by the box being dropped or handled roughly which pushes the comics out of the inner well. I haven't read every comment in this post so this was probably already mentioned. I've had this happen with 11 comics so far this year from CGC. 5 out of 25 in the most recent sub I got back the other day. Here are the pictures. CGC rep's solution when I called was to fly to Florida to pick them up to prevent "transit damage" or sub through a local vendor which doesn't make any sense since they could still be damaged during transit. I'm not kidding either. These were the actual suggestions he gave me.
  11. A few years ago I got a slab back with an actual small fly encased in it. If they can miss a fly, of course they'll miss small cracks.
  12. I receive boxes from CGC all the time and this has only occurred twice but both times it was this year and in boxes of 25 comics. So of the last 4 boxes of 25 comics I've had sent to me, 2 of them had multiple comics damaged like this (11 comics total). I'm guessing it's because of the weight of the box which causes it to land harder if dropped or roughly handled. I think CGC needs better insulation overall with their shipments since a lot of the times there are a bunch of scuffs and occasional cracks due to there being zero protection between the majority of slabs. Having to buff out scuffs and then cracks causing the need for reholdering are annoying but permanent damage is ridiculous. The thing I don't get is why they aren't on top of this stuff and why their quality control in general is so bad. I'm including an image of my submissions just from this year to show the amount of comics I've had to send back. This is labeling errors, cracked cases and damaged comics. If this is the average amount of issues they have with customers, it seems like they are wasting a huge amount of money each month just correcting errors. Imagine how much faster turnaround times would be if they didn't have to spend so much time fixing problems that didn't need to happen. Someone earlier asked why I continue to use CGC. Selling comics is my primary source of income so it comes down to deciding what makes more sense financially. Should I continue to sub to CGC expecting that on average 2-3 comics of every 25 comic submission I do will be destroyed or should I get them graded by CBCS and then have slabbed books that are worth 25-40% less than their CGC graded equivalents? Pretty dumb that I have to actually consider which is the better way to go.
  13. I'm dealing with something now that's similar to this. 2 out of my last 4 subs that I have received have irreversible damage along the bottom of the comics where it looks like the books tried to escape the inner well and got hung up on the edge causing the cover and inside pages to be damaged. 5 comics in this sub of 25 have it. 8 in a previous sub of 25 earlier this year had it. CGC was unable to fix 4 of the first 8 damaged when I shipped them back which really sucks. I'm fairly certain this is happening because I live on the West Coast and the boxes are being handled roughly or dropped during the long travel time. The first sub with damaged books I had received had multiple books that had slid out of the inner well and were resting on the very bottom of the CGC case. It's obviously disappointing for several reasons but CGC also only reimburses for the initial amount declared on the submission form. One of these damaged books would have been the only one on the census in 9.8 but of course that's not the case any more and was a total loss since the reimbursement didn't cover the cost to press or ship never mind the hundreds of dollars in value of having a graded 9.8 of this book. I called and asked if I can have the rest of my modern subs shipped back in smaller batches rather than 25 at a time since I still have 100 currently at CGC but didn't get a definitive answer on this. I'll most likely also only be subbing maybe 14 max at a time in the future to help prevent this which sucks because I'll no longer be able to do pre-screen subs if this is the case. I'm not really sure what else to do though to prevent this. I'm including pictures of the current batch I got yesterday with damage. Damage is along the bottom and is pretty significant.
  14. Bought another comic from Raj. Packed extremely well and arrived exactly as described. Thanks again Raj!
  15. That guy prints those certificates out himself and still does that. He also includes some weird "how to become a millionaire by selling online" motivational CD-ROM that looks like it was made in the 90s with every purchase.
  16. Great comic shipped quick and packaged well. Would buy from again without hesitating!
  17. Comic was shipped quickly, accurately graded and arrived that way! Thanks again! -Travis