ExNihilo

"You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain."

I think it's understandable to want to give the benefit of the doubt and believe that your issues just happened to be bad luck. I've used them a few times and agree that none of the submissions ever went as smoothly as some other facilitators here. I always got my books back and never had any drop in grades (thank goodness for that), so they do provide the service as advertised. I just think it could go a little smoother. I also think, after reading only a small portion of the links that have been unveiled, that our circumstances are not the exceptions, but unfortunately sound to be more of the norm. Though, there is that whole "the squeaky wheel gets the oil" analogy and it's possible there are a large number of satisfied customers who just don't feel the need to speak up.

Some creators have gotten upset in the past with stealth witnessing (I think Starlin and Liefeld come to mind). Other creators just don't want their sigs witnessed (Byrne I believe). In the case of Starlin and Liefeld, I think they refused to sign books if they caught wind you were subbing to CGC. I think...i don't have any anecdotal evidence myself, only piecing together what i've read on other parts of this board. But yeah, from a legal standpoint, i'm not sure the creators could do anything about it. They could however claim exclusive signing rights with other grading companies which could potentially affect CGC's bottom line. So in that regard, it's probably in CGC's best interest to just play within the confines of the rules established by the creators.

"Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get."

Oh man, found this gem from @Zevgoli. Poor guy had to endure a bad deal with DWC AND Paradise Comics.

Is it this one? https://www.cgccomics.com/boards/topic/398897-anyone-deal-with-desert-wind-comics/?tab=comments#comment-9370409 (EDIT: I'm still relatively new so I've never read it, but this already seems like quite a rabbit hole...)

I'm not sure how much traction you're going to get seeking advice on an active facilitator who uses the boards frequently. This isn't Paradise Comics we're talking about here.

I hope that trend of consistency holds up. It's probably going to be difficult because the ASM#800 run had soooo many issues because of poor paper quality and the size of the book, but I would really like if most of my books came back 9.6 or 9.8.

The rep I spoke with said that unsigned and signed exclusives were the same price. And that they rarely sell unsigned books at their booth. I think this is how they're able to navigate the argument about signing fees since all parties have to pay the signing fee if they want to submit to CGC. The argument that the pre-signed books should have part of the signing fee baked in no longer holds water if both unsigned and signed books are sold for the same amount. However, under that situation, the person who buys the unsigned copy ends up paying a premium since JSC's signature is assigned (on his website) a value of $20. Unless in cases where he carries both signed and unsigned books, he reduces the price of the signed books to match that of the unsigned books (but I doubt he would leave money on the table like that). I dunno, starting to be a lot of "what if's" and different hypotheticals. Enough to make one's head spin.

Depends. I think if the line is long, you message the witness to come over when you're close. Or the booth will flag down CGC to send a witness. If the line is short enough, the witness will stand there with you.

Customer A brings/buys an unsigned copy for $20, then pays JSC's $30 signing fee. Total cost, $50. Customer B buys a pre-signed copy for $40, then pays JSC's $30 signing fee. Total cost, $70. Half of the last page (182) in this thread is devoted to that subject, as is the thread I started in the Signature sub (assuming the hypothetical situation you're referring to is the same one that I'm thinking of). In the end, the person buying the pre-signed book is inexplicably forced to pay another $20 when that amount should be credited towards the $30 signing fee.

To me, as soon as the buyer received the book and left you eBay feedback, that should be the end of the transaction. It is the buyer's responsibility at time of receipt to inspect the goods and determine whether or not it is to their liking. Depending on how descriptive you were with your sales post determines who's in the right or wrong here. If your post specifically stated "9.8 copy guaranteed" without any support to back it up, then you were in the wrong. If you simply said "NM, but i'm not a professional grader, please refer to photos", that's on the buyer. I would think something like a popped staple would have been apparent to either you and/or the buyer upon receipt. What the buyer chooses to do with his book is up to him and you should in no way be responsible for it (unless you guaranteed a certain result). The popped staple could have be incurred by him, by a press, or somehow through shipping. In any case, it should have been caught when he first received the book. He certainly should not have requested a refund and keeping the book, that just makes no sense. That said, the incorrect shipping address was on you. Had you maintained your records, you would have gotten the book back and it wouldn't have progressed this far. From there on out, it just appears to be a case of degrading communication by both parties to the point where he just no longer wants to deal with you, perhaps because he doesn't think it's worth the hassle anymore, especially given how he feels he's currently overspent on CGC fees as well as spent money shipping to a phantom address. I mean, depending on how many or how few books he sent for grading, the grading fees alone could have cost him as much as $80 (shipping to Sarasota, pressing/grading fees, return shipping to SF). I'm not sure the evidence points to him being an active scammer. If he was, he never would have sent you the book back in the first place. That said, he doesn't sound like the kind of guy I would want to transact with so it's good to notify other boardies to add him to their blocked list. A call to arms though seems excessive.

This to me, might be the worst part about the whole thing. If it leaves a bad taste in your mouth, that memory will linger with you for as long as you have that book. And what's the point of having something in your collection that you have a negative connotation with.

It really makes me wonder how much CGC is losing since customers are reducing the number of submissions since they have to make a financial decision between paying out the creator for the signature or paying CGC to have it signed. At the end of the day, I feel like more people are content with the signature and the experience more so than having a signed slab. Heck, you probably even get your fair share of people like RMA who skip the signing and the slabbing entirely due to disagreeing with the entire greed and business side of it all. I guess what I'm saying is, CGC is probably not seeing as much money come through their doors as a result. Is it going to hurt CGC's business? No. But I'm sure they would appreciate an increased revenue stream. I feel like they could step in and have a discussion with the creators to help voice the concern of the community. I feel like they would have more clout than we would individually.

This might get more responses from the EBAY Blocked User List Even then, based on what I've read, eBay has really strong protections for buyers so I'm not sure what help or assistance the board can provide that might help you get your money or book back.

I'm really not sure what's more absurd, creators who charge you different rates if you are submitting to CGC, or the ones who charge more for signing lenticular's (Fabok), or key books (Liefeld)? Like, it doesn't take you any additional effort to sign your name on this versus that. Whether I sub to CGC or I don't isn't robbing you of your livelihood. What books I choose to have signed and what I choose to do with them afterwards has no bearing on you whatsoever, so why charge a premium for it. I certainly think there's plenty of blame to go around. You can blame the creator for being greedy. You can blame the exclusive agents/facilitators for force feeding bits of information in order to make a few extra dollars for themselves. You can blame CGC for encouraging these sort of tactics from the creators to begin with. And lastly, you can blame the speculators who continue to push demand for these products. So long as demand continues to run high, the voice of the fans will be drowned out because creators know that if fans are priced out and don't buy, there's always a line of speculators willing to pay the cost.

Geez, all this for $1? It depends on who's paying, but if the seller is paying the shipping fees, don't jip me by mailing Media Mail where there's the chance for it to be opened and damaged. USPS certainly doesn't care about the contents of the package as much as you do when they go back to put everything back in place. I ship my raw books sandwiched between 2 or 3 layers of priority mail cardboard (2 layers cardboard, book double bagged/double boarded, 3 layers cardboard). Yes, I know the priority mail cardboard is thin, but when there's a total of 5 layers, it feels pretty sturdy...that and anymore cardboard and it wouldn't fit in my envelope. Then of course I throw on 2 or more "Fragile - do not bend" stickers on either side of the envelope. All of that and the package weight comes in at 8oz's. First Class mail comes with a tracking number and for like $1.50 more, I can insure it up to like $100.

10 long boxes? Geez. Yeah, I've reached a point where I no longer yearn for yellow label books on major keys the way I did when I first started this journey. The increased cost and the decreased demand pool makes it harder to break even on some books. And while, i'm not looking to flip my books to make a buck, it doesn't make sense to submit the books yourself at a cost that is potentially greater than what you could have otherwise spent on the open market. And for the rest of the non-keys, the joy is in the experience of getting the books signed or knowing that the creator of a favorite story or art personally signed one of your favorite pieces. And if that joy is soured by absurd expenses, well, it defeats the purpose of the signing. Excellent point. Thanks @RockMyAmadeus for all the well thought out points. That's exactly the kind of discourse I had hoped to hear when I first posted this topic.

How much of a difference in price are we talking here? When shipping single raw books, I always ship first class and it's like $4 insured. Are sellers REALLY saving that much with Media Mail?

Look, all I'm asking is for them to have a table top microscope so I can get in there and really check the spine and edges. Like, how hard is it to wheel in an electron microscope? Is that too much to ask?

At the very least set it below your cost basis. I automatically reject all offers below my breakeven unless it's a book I want to move and am willing to take a loss on.

Agreed. By all accounts, his table was packed the entire convention. And you're right, the number of people who spoke up are probably very small. I imagine the rush of SDCC probably compelled a lot of people to just say "eff it" and move on to whatever they wanted to see/do next at the convention. As a result, the people working the JSC booth probably figured there's no shortage of willing paying customers. It actually makes me wonder, does anyone know if the books sold out? It was limited to a print run of 1000 so it seems low enough that it would have, but I haven't heard. I actually started a thread over the weekend, but as you can see...I'm not exactly terse. :P

Yeah, but you're looking at a difference between $2,800 and $1,100. Do I really need a set of 9.8s? Or is $1,700 and a set of 9.6's going to make me happier? I've bought from Dre before and will absolutely be going back to buy more in the future, but in this case when you have to weigh buying a multiple of 9, cost becomes a factor. Now, if you were only interested in buying one book, then yeah Dre probably would have been the way to go. If anything, it's far less stressful when you know exactly what you're paying and what you're getting. It sounds like the extra $30/book related to the CGC signature rate surprised quite a few people.

Why not just set the listing to automatically reject offers below a certain threshold?