Petroman

Great, so we've learned: This is your first submission in 2 years. It was opened the day it was physically delivered to CGC. It was immediately moved to Scheduled for Grading (SFG). So what tier did you submit under? Was the box marked in any specific way to make the people at CGC open it in favor of other boxes? Was it hand delivered or shipped via a volume carrier like UPS, FEDEX, USPS? Many people on this forum are trying to glean what might be happening to submissions they have made many months ago so the more specific you can be the better.

I'm confused then. The term Received (in CGC speak) has nothing to do with the date something was actually delivered to CGC. It's just the day it was actually opened by CGC. So are you saying your package was actually received (i.e. opened) the day it was delivered to CGC? This is not normally the case unless you have marked the package with EX or WT for the express/walkthrough tiers.

Don't want to burst your bubble, but once books are received they now go immediately to SFG, so I don't think that status really means anything these days. Once the status changes to GEI you *should* be close to getting them back. Normally they will ship within a week or so of the GEI change, but there seem to be some outliers where it takes much longer (no idea why this is). Hopefully you did not submit books under the ECONOMY tier as from what others have lamented here they only now grading ECONOMY books from late July/early August 2021.

Okay, I looked back at my scan for that 9.2 book. It was an ASM 361 and the color breaking crease was probably about 1/2" not an inch. I would still contend that 1) a 9.2 is an appropriate grade for this book as there were no other major flaws, and 2) I have seen many books graded recently at 9.0 or worse with flaws that are not as bad as this crease. I mean c'mon, a 9.2 isn't a great grade, but it not horrible either. But throw a 9.0 or worse on a modern book and it is just a really bad grade and will pretty much render the book worthless. I'm okay with true defects lowering grades, but bends and other pressable defects should not have this effect IMHO.

That is just wrong to give a modern book an 8.5 without a pretty major flaw. I've gotten 9.2's back with 1" long color breaking creases on a corner. A few spine ticks or cover bends should never drop it below a book with a 1" long color breaking cover crease. I sure hope they can rectify this situation or there will be little faith in CGC grades going forward.

Last MFT processed very quickly. Current one not so much. And they've already charged me for both my open orders which seems a departure from the past where I get charged once the books are graded. Would send some more books in but at $500+ per MST 25 book sub I need a few more books back first that I can flip to cover costs. I would say that charging upon Received is a pretty effective way to slow submissions as if most folks are like me they don't want to float CGC thou$and$ on books you will not get back for 4+ months.

You're probably right that this is the impetus for the severe grading on NCB defects. I guess its worked, maybe too well as the CCS machine seems to have seized up. Right now the only reason I'd send books via the CCS route is to have someone store them for 2 years for $15 a book.

Yes, this is the most frustrating bit. Worst case the book should come back as a 9.6. But getting a 9.0 on a book with no flaws that break color is just incomprehensible. I've seen this plenty of times too. The nebulous "slight bends to cover" with a 9.0 grade just makes no sense. Or slight polybag crease. If you can put a book in a mylar sleeve and the defect is not visible then it shouldn't even be treated as a defect. In fact there is a good chance that having a book slabbed for a few years will effectively press out these "defects" anyway.

These grading discrepancies are are really scary. It seems like many have reported them (myself included) but there is little recourse other than to take your chances or stop sending books for grading. As per their website: "Grading is a team effort, with multiple CGC professionals examining every collectible to ensure accuracy and consistency. CGC's graders enter a grade for each collectible into CGC's computer system. A consensus is then reached on the final grade of the collectible." Is this still the case or do the increased submissions volumes mean they can no longer do this? At least that could explain some of these wide grading discrepancies.

I've always wondered how CGC handles packages like yours that arrive damaged. I would want them to take pictures of it and send them to me so that I can file an insurance claim from the shipper (and maybe even just have them ship the books back to ungraded). If they don't do that, then I can't see an insurance claim working. And you then get the double whammy of grades.

I'd take the glass half full approach and say that there are very good buying opportunities for books that were grading 9.0 - 9.6 in the last year. Many of these books are severely undergraded and many of the "defect" are easily pressed out.

Not pointing fingers at who's job it may be, but rather that the information on the website may not be particularly accurate.

The economic "laws" of supply and demand would say that there is far more demand than supply. The way to fix this is to either increase the supply, e.g. graders, or raise the prices to lower demand. I know they have been doing both, but apparently they have more to do on both fronts. Personally I would just get rid of FAST TRACK and make the entry into both MODERN and ECONOMY be the current tier + FAST TRACK prices, e.g. $39 for MODERN and $50 for ECONOMY. Maybe label the increase as SURGE pricing (a la Uber) and if the demand ever abates they can roll back some of the price increase. Not sure that will ever happen though...

What is the TAT for them updating that web page. I'm guessing 2+ years. Maybe more. Heck they can't even get their "Now Opening Packages..." page updated to be anything close to the actual dates.

FWIW you're not alone. This is a recurring theme on this board. Some submissions grade out well, while others get hammered. And yeah, pressable "defects" like bends or light polybag creases end up dropping the book down to 9.0 and below. I'm okay with color breaking creases and spine ticks dropping the grade, but c'mon, a pressable bend and what would be a 9.8 ends up a 9.0? As you said, it then ends up being a CPR candidate which is just more time and money.

Did CGC change the timing of when they charge your credit card? I think all of my past submissions were charged when the books actually got graded. Now I'm seeing charges go through right when they are received and move to SFG. I'm okay with this if they quickly move through the process and I get the books back in a few weeks. But man, this will really suck if the books won't be returned for 3+ months. Maybe this is their way of slowing down submissions? If so I can see it working as $500+ for a 25 book MODERN submission that won't be returned for 3 or 4 months will likely preclude most folks from having more than 2 or 3 submissions open at a time.

It appears as the TAT on CGC updating their website has gone up. I too have a submission received by CGC on 5/2 that was entered into their system on 5/9. So whatever the "Now opening..." date shows (currently 4/18) is off by at least 2 weeks. Thus it makes you question the veracity of the other numbers on that webpage. Personally I don't look at them much, but I do prefer seeing them go down on average every time they update it. This was not the case this week, so it could be that they are experiencing another submission surge. My last several MFT submission have been completed in much faster times than that page would indicate, and many of the people reporting numbers on this site show MODERN submissions being turned around in 3-4 months. ECONOMY is the nightmare, and I feel sorry for those waiting 9 months (and counting).

My guess is that MODERN is by far the tier with the biggest volume. I would also guess that the new graders that they have hired over the last year+ only grade MODERN tier books, and thus the reason why the TATs for MODERN and MFT have come down quite a bit. This would leave the veteran graders to grade WALKTHROUGH, EXPRESS, STANDARD, ECONOMY FAST TRACK, and ECONOMY -- in that order. Thus it seems that plain old ECONOMY is the ugly stepchild getting very little love. Just conjecture on my part, but the stories I've read on this board about ECONOMY would seem to support it.

I don't think that "Now opening CGC comic packages..." date means much. I sent in a MFT submission that was delivered to CGC on 4/19 and I received it back Monday (5/9).

That's strange. My last completed MFT sub was received on 4/28/22 and I received it back this week. It started in SFG for about a week, then GEI for a few days then Grading/QC to Shipped. I have an MFT sub that was delivered this week 5/9/22 and it is in SFG.

The problem I have with this "wasted effort" is that because of the time and cost involved I don't have the desire to CPR most of these books (unless the grade was egregiously bad). If a book I expected as a 9.8 comes back a 9.4 or 9.6 I'll just dump it on Ebay at cost or a slight profit. There will definitely be some opportunities to buy undergraded books from 2021+, especially those with notes like "light bends" etc. (if there are any notes available LOL).

Yeah, I'll agree with this. I would say that in the event of an unexpected grade, in my experience over the last 6 months, that grade has been lower than expected pretty much every time. And yeah, this seems hit or miss per submission -- some entire submissions have come back as expected, and others have come back with much lower grades than expected. For those of us trying to monetize collections we've had for years, the latter result really hurts the wallet!

I was in the same boat and stopped submitting for 9 months or so. CGC seems to have turned the ship around a bit so I re-upped my membership and am now submitting. That said, I would *not* submit anything under ECONOMY tier unless you use the FAST TRACK option. From what I've read on these boards all of the other tiers seems to be in fairly decent shape these days. One word of caution though -- grading seems to have gotten quite a bit tighter so you may see that grades are lower on average. Oh, and if you decide to use CCS for MODERN/ECONOMY then expect a very lengthy TAT.

Also an interesting point. So if they didn't fast-track the post-CCS books through grading then they might have major reversions prior to grading thereby nullifying the effects of the quick press (thus making the service potentially worthless). So press it and grade it quick so that it can get a higher grade, then let it possibly revert to a lower grade when slabbed. Seems like gaming the system a bit to me. But then again, I have always felt that the grading of pressable defects has been way too harsh. Things like "bends" and "indents" are far more benign than color breaking spine ticks or creases, yet they can have major impact on grades, especially in the 9.0+ range.

This is a really interesting point. I've always wondered about exactly what CCS does for a "quick press". If they are not using moisture, which I kinda doubt they are, then there is a very high chance that there will be reversions after the pressing processes. Yes, for the book to revert to it's prior state this will take time, but with such long TATs it is certainly likely. I've also been pressing books for a few years now and really a quick press will only work for a certain percentage of books. Many defects will require some degree of moisture to press out, and also require time, meaning that you will likely need to repeat the moisture->pressing loop several times to achieve the desired result.