Petroman

Everyone is free to submit their books to CGC competitors. But from what I've seen on the CBCS boards they are probably even more backlogged and less transparent than CGC. Not sure about PGX, and I've been tempted to send some newer books to them, but I realize that their grading stamp doesn't carry the clout of CGC. Personally I took a hiatus from sending books in but have now resumed, albeit only with MODERN FAST TRACK. I may try a few MODERN subs, and maybe an ECONOMY FAST TRACK but you couldn't pay me to send one in just plain old ECONOMY.

I think that in your supermarket analogy you need to account for the fact that someone is able to jump the line in front of you for the MODERN and ECONOMY lines if they are willing to pay the extra $15/book for FAST TRACK. Its actually pretty much the same as how airport check-in works with economy class and business class.

The reality is that there is a way to jump the queue. It is called Fast Track. It may not put you at the front of the queue, but it will certainly put you ahead of many others who did not elect to use Fast Track. So all of these supermarket analogies are wrong in that they assume no one is getting ahead of you on line. CGC is a for profit business. They have supposedly also hired many new employees over the last year to handle excess volumes. My guess, and its only a guess, is that for grading portion of processing these new graders are learning the ropes by grading mostly (all?) modern tier books as these would presumably be the easier books to grade (and honestly, I believe they are way stricter on grades than veteran graders, but I digress...). This leaves Economy tier in a bad spot as it's likely there just aren't enough veteran graders to grade all of the books that they are receiving. Being a for-profit business, I can completely understand why they would prioritize Fast Track Economy books over regular Economy books as the extra ~$15 book is 100% profit for them. Maybe CGC should have a way to Fast Track a submission that was sent in as Slow Track. Anything past the current Fast Track TATs should immediately jump to the front of the queue. Not sure if people would use this, but it would be an option for customers to get their books back faster and CGC to make more money so could be a win for both.

Modern Fast Track 4/20 - Delivered to CGC 4/28 - Received by CGC / Scheduled for Grading 5/3 - Grading / Encapsulation / Imaging 5/5 - Grading / Quality Control 5/5 - Shipped Very happy with the quick turn around. Grades were mostly in-line except for a few books that had been polybagged. The dreaded polybag crease which turned what looked to be 9.8's into 9.0's. Will need to look at them again, but they looked to be pressed out when sent. Will likely CPR one to see if I can get an improvement. In the meantime, I think I'll take all of my early 90's polybagged out of the bags.

Not sure what you mean by "three were of economy (at that time) value" as max value for both Modern and Economy is $400. The question comes down to whether you submitted them under the Modern tier or the Economy tier. If the former then I would think that you should be getting your books back pretty soon. If the latter, well sorry to say but you're likely in for a long wait. As other are posting Economy tier books send in during August 2021 are still not back. And yeah, looks like you found out a little to late that the only way to get your Modern/Economy books back in a somewhat timely manner is to pay the extra $15 per book for Fast Track.

Totally agree with what you say. If reversion is going to happen it will still take some time. A few years back, when grading was in 1-2 months, it would probably not be enough time for an improperly pressed book to revert. But when these times go to 6+ months, and potentially with adverse conditions that could affect reversion, e.g. humidity, then there is a much greater chance that there would be some reversion when the grader inspects the book. I've never used CCS but would really love to know how well their quick press works as I know I've worked on many, many books that require multiple pressings to remove defects and the word "quick" is not one I would use to describe this process!

I'm sure that it does happen a bit, especially when the grading timeframes are shorter. Not sure how long reversion takes, and depending on environmental factors such as humidity it may never even occur. But yeah, that is a bit scary if a book can be graded and then reverts to something that would be graded lower. Not much you can do about it I guess, and definitely not something the grader could do anything about. I've definitely seen some 9.8 at cons that I scratch my head at as there are clearly visible flaws that, at least to me, would render the book lower than a 9.8. Who knows, maybe the fact that a defect *could* be pressed out makes it less of a defect in some grader's eyes. Hard to know what the grading standards are really, and it seems they can vary quite a bit between grader anyway.

Reversion is definitely a thing, especially if you do no use some degree of moisture during pressing. Personally I've always wondered what degree of reversion, if any, you have with something like a quick press at CCS. Don't know anything about how good a presser this guy is, but I guess that if you're looking to monetize a $60k investment quickly you are pretty much quick pressing most of the collection and just hoping for the best on the grades. Spend a decent amount of time and care on the top 10% and then just press, submit and dump the rest of the cr@p.

Saw that the TAT numbers dropped by roughly 20% yesterday on the MODERN FAST TRACK and STANDARD. The old MFT was 47 days and old STANDARD was 46 days. Slow tracks barely budged, but at least moved in the right direction.

In the day-and-age of slabbed comics maybe somethings gotta give. Things like "bends" will likely be fixed over time simply by being encapsulated. Front cover is most visible part of the book, back cover next. Interior pages will never be seen again while encapsulated. Missing pages would be pretty significant. A missing Marvel Value Stamp should be a grade ding, but hard to see why its significant. A ripped or bent page? Who cares? Front and back cover should be 95+% of the grade.

I think its a fair complaint. Some others have said they don't care much about grader notes, and for the most part I would agree. Who really cares what the grader notes say if the book is a 5.5, 6.0, etc.? But for those books that you send out hoping for a 9.8 or 9.6 worst case that somehow come back as 9.2 I'd like to know the reason why. Maybe its something that could be pressed out, or maybe its just something the submitter missed. I think that especially in that 8.5 to 9.4 book range (and more so for modern books) the grader notes are worth something.

They ghost you because they can. They are pretty close to a monopoly in the graded comic space and have the most well know and desirable "product" on the market. Sure, you can try their main competitor, CBCS, but 1) there may be a slight markdown for reselling their graded books and 2) they are likely even in a bigger mess when it comes to TATs (just snoop around their forums, not much joy there). From my observations on this board, it seems that the best way to get good service out of CGC is to pay extra for it. Go for the MODERN/ECONOMY FAST TRACK, EXPRESS or WALK THROUGH tiers. STANDARD may be okay too. But unless you are a very patient person, stay away from plain old MODERN and ECONOMY.

Out of curiosity were they all the same tier/speed? My last MODERN SLOW got horrible grades. My last MODERN FAST got expected grades. Wondering if they are maybe giving the books you pay more to grade to the experienced graders and the cheap stuff to the newbies...

The Collectible has been inspected by at least two (2) professionals My thoughts exactly! Inspected by at least (2) professionals could certainly mean that 1 person opened the box and 1 person graded the book. Maybe even 1 person encapsulated the book. Now we're already at 3.

Their website says "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.". Not sure if means 2, 3, more. I would guess during times of high submissions, it is more likely to be 2. Still, given the OP's very poor grades on one batch vs. the other it truly makes you wonder whether there are even 2 graders. I saw similar with a few of my subs last year so have just decided to stop submitting for a while. Getting back modern books at 9.2 or less is just a complete waste of money (and time).

Brutal grades on that first sub. Man, a modern book at 9.2 or less is pretty much worthless unless you want to hold onto it for decades. And you got 10 of 25. Ooof.

I've taken the approach to just stop submitting books until the chaos ends. No idea when that will be. But at around $30 grading cost per book now, it just doesn't make sense to send in books that should be 9.8's and have them come back 9.4 or 9.6. Nor do I want to have to keep such books for years and re-submit later as that just means increases storage costs and further resubmissions costs. I've dumped all my 9.4's and 9.6's and will just sell raw when I figure I can get decent value. And really, for newer books, selling raw is more profitable than selling graded 9.4's or 9.6's and means a lot less delay and aggravation.

Exactly what I was thinking! I was pretty spot on with my modern (1990+) book grading estimates for many years, 90% accurate anyway. Until 2021 came along. Then that dropped to maybe 50-60%%, and normally in the wrong direction. This has made submitting modern books much riskier, so I'm taking a break for awhile. I'll let someone else's books be the training fodder for the new CGC graders.

Well this is another aspect of getting books grading. Call it the scratch lottery aspect. You send in some marginal books hoping for decent grades. Doesn't always work, in which case you sell at cost or a loss (if you can even sell them LOL). But if one or two of those marginal books comes back 9.8 it could all be worth it.

Yeah, I have no problem with this. Same as someone who is Platinum on an airline or hotel rewards program. Keep your best customers happy. Its good business. I honestly figure they have something like this for their dealers, but just speculation on my part. Hey, we agree on something :-) BTW Disney World blows, Universal is where its at because at least there you can buy "Universal Fastpass" and skip the lines the whole day. Haven't been to Disney in 15+ years but have been to Universal twice. One Fastpass, one not. I guess it depends on the season, but if its busy Fastpass is the only way to go. Unless you like waiting on 2 hour lines and going on 5 rides in a day. Wow, that's agreement on two things!

Not just elitist. Arrogant and pompous come to mind. A few others too that I'll refrain from posting here. Bottom line, if you want your books graded before everyone else's then pay up for faster tiers or move to the back of the line. And while your at the back of the line, its best not to insult others around you. This whole argument is like someone going to Disney and being too cheap to pay for Fastpass but still feeling entitled to better service than all of the other slow pass customers. Laughable.

This is the crux of it. Its unlikely that the the submitter's expected grades have gotten that much looser as many have posted on this forum that they have seen lower grades. Much more likely that the new graders at CGC are still learning the ropes and seem to err on the side of caution. What this means for many people such as you (and myself) is that it may not be the best time to submit books that you are expecting 9.8's on as there is a much higher chance that you will see many 9.6's and 9.4's. As you state, this makes the book both harder to sell and/or less desirable for your collection. And if you do sell it, you will likely sell it at or close to cost. I've effectively paused my submissions over the last 9 months in the hopes that TATs will decrease and that grading will normalize. In the meantime I see many good opportunities to buy books graded 9.4 or 9.6 at very reasonable prices.

Where do you get your information on what is actually being submitted? AFAIK CGC does not publish any of this.

Maybe my recent submissions have been edge cases, maybe not. I do think that the lower grades seemed to coincide with the massive increase in TATs that started last spring and the subsequent hiring of new graders. I also noticed far fewer grader notes which left me with the feeling that the grading process had deteriorated a bit. Maybe its better now, my last batch was an MFT from September which was received back in Nov.

This is the main reason I have stopped sending books to CGC. My last few shipments came back on average 1-2 grades lower than expected. Just can't justify sending them anything else until their get their house in order.