justafan

On 8/10/2022 at 10:10 PM, Atomic Ponkie said:

Huh? The Stray Dogs variant is legit though, not a bootleg. We aren't really pointing at CGC. It's more like they tried to let out a fart in class, except it ended up being loud and now we're all akwardly staring at them. 

this is a perfect and colorful analogy of what CGC did and how bad it stinks.

On 8/10/2022 at 4:26 PM, THE_BEYONDER said:

Even I don’t own a tin-foil hat this big...

I know but I'm grasping at whatever excuse I can think of to believe CGC does NOT have a systemic fraud problem here that goes to the top.  I think I'm in the denial phase of this whole mess.

On 8/10/2022 at 4:12 PM, NewWorldOrder said:

I agree 100% on the Con exclusives.   Are also saying Dealer to Dealer sales of their inventory they bring to the show be banned as well?  Just curious

Yeah, but only if that happened before the doors opened.  He was saying dealer to dealer sales of regular convention stock and wall books prior to the doors opening should be restricted as well since the regular fans don't get as many opportunities to find good deals if the dealers buy up all the best deals and set a new convention market price for them.  You end up with 2 markets: the pre-opening market and then the regular hours convention market with markups.  I've heard stories of dealers buying some of the best books for their own collection thereby reducing the stock that the regular convention attendees have access to which is why many collectors attend conventions.  I realize that is one of the trade industry perks of being a dealer/exhibitor and incentive of buying a table at a convention to sell.  However, I have felt like the only way I can be assured of a fair convention experience is if I also buy a dealer table to get the exhibitor badge and early access to level the playing field. If enough "collectors" start doing that how will that affect the convention experience for dealers and convention attendees? 

On 8/10/2022 at 3:40 PM, Aqua Lantern said:

On a Thursday? 

IIRC they have not done on-site grading since before the Pandemic.

Yeah that seemed odd to me too but I do know big shows open thurs-friday and I thought I heard mention of it in Jason's excuse video or early on that he had these for sale at a show the week before where he may or may not have gotten them graded.  In any case, I have no idea as I haven't submitted for onsite grading since before the pandemic so if CGC hasn't done any onsite grading since 2019 then that kind of answers my question.

On 8/10/2022 at 3:40 PM, THE_BEYONDER said:

I’m confused as to why it matters if they were graded on-site or not.

Why it would matter is I was suggesting that being at the show CGC graders and employees doing this on the sly unofficially and unbeknownst to CGC corporate might have been able to get away with a negotiated pay for grade rate without the oversight of Sarasota. In other words, maybe this could have been a rogue employee or group of them that made a deal with Black Flag reps to have the books graded with guaranteed 10.0 and 9.9 copies. However, this is seeming less likely if there were no onsite grading at the shows Black Flag attended 2 weeks prior to C2E2 and it is sounding more likely that CGC just screwed the pooch on the authenticity of the cover and went with the acetate cover grade rather than the overall book grade.  At least that is what I'm hoping for even if it isn't the truth. 

I suspect what CGC will ultimately admit to is a misjudgement on the interpretation of the book's aftermarket cover being authentic and a new standard that authorized acetate covered books are only given the acetate cover grade and not the overall book grade going forward.

On 8/10/2022 at 2:23 PM, thehumantorch said:

Should exhibitors and influencers and people who are in the building get to line-up and purchase exclusives and limited items before it opens to the general public?  Isn't the purpose of these shows to sell to the general public?  And I understand that it's hard to police, and some of these sellers are more than happy to sell and may not sell out without selling to exhibitors and influencers. 

Certainly when an exhibitor/influencer buys up 75 copies of a book and many people waiting in-line miss out it's certainly not a good look.  And if that exhibitor/influencer is buying most of those copies for other exhibitors/influencers who aren't at the front of that line isn't that a form of line cutting?  

No, I think that should be banned. I've been against pre-show vulturing of books and deals by exhibitors and vendors before any of the VIP ticket holders or general admission ticket holder are allowed in.  I was listening to Thoro Comics breakdown of Gem's youtube and one of his guests, Tito from Kingdom Comics, shared this same opinion that NO ONE should be allowed to buy con exclusives before the doors open to general attendees. Con exclusives are for the fans and attendees of the show, not the dealers and exhibitors.  He went further to state that the practice of exhibitors selling to exhibitors before the show opens to the general public should also be stopped.  It isn't fair to people coming for deals when all the deals have been scooped up and are now being forced to pay secondary convention market prices before the show even opens.   I wholeheartedly agree with this but I doubt anyone would be able to police that.  The only way would be to let everyone start going in when they allow the dealers to enter to start setting up.

He says this around the 1:40:00 mark.

On 8/10/2022 at 1:53 PM, wardevil0 said:

if you check the serial numbers you can see the "grade date" is in July

Yeah but were they graded on July 28th in Sarasota or were they graded on July 28th onsite at an earlier Con Black Flag was at?  Sorry If I'm responding to posts that have already been answered but I'm falling behind in this thread..

On 8/10/2022 at 1:23 PM, manetteska said:

Or how about the census for the actual underlying book? Out of 55 non-signed submissions, 0 above 9.8

 

I can get where CGC might have just treated it as a double cover variant and graded both the acetate and original cover separately but assigned the acetate cover grade overall to achieve those 10.0 and 9.9 grades.  Normally, if that was the case, I'd be ok with it saying 10.0 Acetate Cover, 9.8 Black Flag Comics Edition cover on a Blue Label but I still can't get over the fact that they even allowed this bootleg with 4 staples in a Blue label.  It should be green or purple label any day of the week.

On 8/10/2022 at 11:23 AM, wardevil0 said:

This morning I bought Chik-fil-A on the app while in my car.  When I got to the restaurant, I walked right past the people in line and got my order.  No problem.

Variant covers and convention exclusives often sell out before everyone who wants one gets one.  Very common for SDCC, BotCon, etc.  No problem.

CGC certified a manipulated comic as "blue label universal," and has demonstrated they will provide 1x 10, 3x 9.9, and 6x 9.8 for these items to be ready on the day of sale.  BIG PROBLEM.

 

If we had 8x 9.8s and 2x 9.6s in a Qualified green label, this would be a non-issue.

The key difference here is chik-fil-a advertises their app and it's free to download and use.  Every chik-fil-A customer has access to the app and can do the same thing.  You can choose not to use the app.  It would be like saying every convention attendee had access to a Black Flag app that they could have been allowed to purchase the con exclusive ahead of the con opening but that also granted them early access to the con to pick up their items without having to wait in line. 

If everyone attending the con who wanted the hideous UF4 acetate bootleg "knew" that they could just make a side deal with Black Flag before the con and could actually get access to the booth before the doors opened (he began selling to the alleged line cutter "influencers" 15 min prior to the doors opening to the public but while a bunch of exhibitors and VIPs were still in line) to buy in bulk, don't you think many would have opted to do that, too?  No, Black Flag and the side-deal hustlers are not off the hook on this one.  BIG PROBLEM for them and any convention promoter and dealer planning to do exclusives in the future.  This should be a valuable lesson to be learned by them.

On 8/10/2022 at 10:41 AM, Dimez said:

This is untrue

please elaborate on the truth.

On 8/10/2022 at 8:42 AM, Jimmy Linguini said:

The Black Flag exclusives were graded on sight at the con - the Stray Dogs were graded in Florida.

Seems like that is a very important part of the story.

very interesting indeed....perhaps a little less oversight and a little more opportunity for bribes occurring with the on-site convention CGC grading team than when in Sarasota?

On 8/9/2022 at 10:44 PM, Axelrod said:

Legal angle that may not have been brought up yet, for all the people saying why can't CGC just own up to a mistake and unlist these, and maybe refund Black Flag the grading fees, etc.  

There is approximately a 0% chance that Black Flag commissioned this variant without getting an assurance from CGC ahead of time that it would get a Blue Label.  I'm not suggesting grade-buying or specific guarantees of any particular grades like some are also speculating, just, Blue Labels.  Were CGC to back out now and say, "sorry, actually we won't count these as Blue Labels anymore even though we told you we would," they would then be liable to Black Flag.  They'd have to pony up, not just the cost Black Flag paid for the commissioning and the grading, but for Black Flagg's lost profits too (and, as we have seen, these things are selling).   CGC is not going to go that much in the hole on this.  They just won't.   

BINGO! and this is the real reason these books went HOT.  Once it was proven and guaranteed that they could be graded by CGC as Universal and also achieve a 10 or 9.9 they became a sure commodity and why those IG/Whatnot/influencer folks were willing to go in and buy $10-16k worth.

However, I do disagree that they couldn't find a middle ground solution with this mess and go back on their word to Black Flag. Actually they could totally do just that and it wouldn't cost Black Flag anything he hasn't already lost in reputation from this past weekend.  Assuming they wait to announce it until after the Boston Comicon.  Once Black Flag sells out of his stock (assuming he isn't boycotted) he won't suffer any actual financial loss from CGC backing out.  In fact it may make him more money.  He's already got his graded copies that he intends to sell. It would make his copies the only graded copies available to sell and drive the value higher.  What does he care if no one else can get theirs graded after the Boston Comicon?  It makes his way more valuable with a census of only 10 for each different cover.

The fix is in and the game is rigged as we've suspected all along but now they've pretty much just rubbed it in our face. Not nice, CGC.  Not nice.

On 8/9/2022 at 4:22 PM, Dimez said:

9.9s and 10s are basically Retailer Incentives at this point. They are not available to the public 

I'm thinking this has been done for retailers in the past judging by the defects on this ASM #218 CGC 9.9.   I have perfect books with no wrinkles and less ink rub/soiling than this that were graded 9.6 with graders notes indicating ink rub similar to this. It also has a spine miswrap and off-white to white pages to boot.  I feel like the only thing preventing this from being a 9.8 or lower was whatever deal the submitter worked out with CGC at the time.  Stuff like this and now the UF4 9.9 and 10.0 submission ratios pretty much proves these grades are for sale but just not for regular submitters.

On 8/8/2022 at 3:11 AM, godzilla43 said:

Nice video. Nothing wrong with this "variant" and nothing wrong with influencers, shops.. buying huge stacks of these. Everyone is just a hater

Funny thou like mentioned here this all started from one exhibitor being mad that he did not get one even thou he was in the line before even VIP access opened. Does anybody care for the normal attendees?!? What is the point of buying VIP tickets to these conventions?!? Maybe there is some additional benefits but getting those low print exclusives definitely ain't one of those.

VIP tickets are only worth buying if you care for the freebees that are included when you get to the con or the photo ops/panels/autograph packages.  I learned long ago but far too late that buying to get in early to buy exclusives and get the best deals is a waste of money.  Any new dealer stock has been picked clean of any deals several times over by the other dealers setting up.  Any newbie dealer showing up for their first con is surrounded by dealer sharks feasting on their mis-priced/unpriced items and steam-rolling them on bulk deals that they later regret when they see the other dealers being swarmed by customers buying up the newbie dealer's original stock at a higher markup to VIP and regular con attendees when the doors open.  Though some dealers prefer selling out early if it lets them recoup the cost of the convention table and travel expenses and allows them to spend the rest of the convention as a buyer.  I might have to try it out at some point.

On 7/22/2022 at 10:28 AM, MAR1979 said:

I bet many FF252s are missing the tatooz and easy to speculate where most have gone

Im buying up all the ff252 copies with tattooz to preserve as many as i can. Im starting a gofundme. Save the ff tattooz!

On 7/17/2022 at 4:35 PM, BigLeagueCHEW said:

@jjonahjameson11 Well Well Well, this is back on Heritage along with another newsstand copy.

What did it sell for a while back $16K?

Wonder if it is the same owner

Wow, where/when did it sell for $16k?  GPA doesn't have any sales above the $9200 GPA high for a Direct Edition on Dec 15 2021  Everything since has been $6300 or lower. What are the private sales going for on newsstands? last recorded newsstand was only $4500. Last 9.9 went for less than the current newsstand 9.8.  Newsstands distribution numbers weren't that much less than their direct counterparts in 1988. even with the damages they may have sustained on the rack I guess a couple of competing bidders really want these 2 copies.

I think I have 6 copies of the ASM 330 jcp variant.  Not sure why I keep buying that copy but I tend to pick it up when I find it cheap.

On 6/30/2022 at 7:31 PM, ADAMANTIUM said:

So target has them too? Is there any specialties to be considered with them? Or has the mill been glossed over, I was thinking it might or might not have the treats that some marvels do but idk.

 

 

 

I did. wondered if there was anything good in them or if they were target variants?  I don't collect DC moderns so I didn't bother to buy any.

Nothing to see here.

We might be splitting hairs here but I'm curious to what other picky collectors prefer and if it matches my own preference.  What is your preference if you had to choose between 2 copies of the same book where:

Book 1: has a perfect wrap & centering on the front and back cover but Off-White to White pages

OR

Book 2: has White Pages but a slight miswrap (no more than a 1/16" to 1/8" miswrap along at least half the front or back covers.  Assuming the same CGC grade and even the same eye appeal (i.e. no significant difference in defects or severity for lower graded copies) and staples are perfectly aligned on the spine apex.

Which book do you choose:

Definitions of a perfect wrap and centered book:

When viewing the book from the front cover straight on you can see no part of the back cover along the spine.  Vice versa for the back cover.  When viewing the back cover you can see no part of the front cover along the spine.  In some issues, there's a black line dividing the front and back covers and it is perfectly aligned along the spine apex where the staples should be.

A well centered book has the title, banner bars, and cover text along with price and publisher boxes perfectly aligned with the top, bottom, and sides of the book square with no diagonal or off-centered appearance.  Off-centering can occur with miscuts or miswraps.  Off-centering can also mean if the cover was cut a little too high or low on the top or bottom edges by the factory cutting off part of the title at the top or part of the UPC and cover text at the bottom.  Same for a miswrap that cuts off too much of the art on the right side including part of the Comics Code.

Definition of Page Quality:

White pages: whether visibly whiter interior pages and (or cover if also white) than the other copy in comparison if raw OR stated on the label for graded copies.

On 2/23/2022 at 11:03 AM, FlyJ said:

Hi All,

S basically I am just getting back into my old collection mainly Bronze and Modern with a few Silver aged. Lets just say the passion is coming back! with that being said I have recently posted a few books on the "Spare a Grade thread" and am seeing allot of really helpful members mention pressing and cleaning and its benefit on the books grade/aesthetics. My question is would it be a bad idea to buy a presser of my own and learn on some less important books or is that a very stupid idea? im seeing pressers going for like $200 which im fine with as I assume getting a book pressed will cost around $20 (I could be way off!)

anyway is it a bad idea to buy my own presser and how much does pressing cost in general.

I think it would only be a bad idea if you planned on going from 0 to pressing your most valuable/sentimental books expecting great results without going through the process of learning and mastering the craft.  As an amateur presser I'm gaining confidence and skill but I'm still a ways down the road from pressing any books I'm not willing to completely destroy.

On 2/18/2022 at 9:49 PM, Randall Dowling said:

Yes, these things have and do happen.   But I've come to understand and respect the work that a very small number of individuals do as quality work and isn't the garbage manipulation some have embraced.  Unfortunately, some of the people engaged in this are pretty big names in the hobby.

In fact, there's only one person that I would send my books to if I was going to have them pressed, whose work I've seen and been impressed by.  His name rhymes with Chloe Most.  

I would too but thats also why hes so backed up. 

On 2/17/2022 at 9:09 PM, The Meta said:

I have no issues with their TAT

There has been a huge influx of submissions 

I have issue with employees who don't respect the industry they are in and treat the job like they're working at McDonald's 

Its a corporate culture issue, and needs to be addressed before I sub more books

The problem may be that the new graders hired at cgc are being paid like theyre working at McDonalds.