Petroman

Agreed, I would not use this for any books that are older than say 10 or 15 years, nor would I use it for anything that is worth much more than $200. For relatively recent books that show potential for price appreciation, be it scarcity, new characters, hot artist, etc. I'd use such a service both for PC books I want to hold onto and books I plan to sell online. I would imagine that for the latter case the $10 grading fee would be pretty easy to recoup. The key to all of this would be whether or not the TATs would be *much* faster.

I don't know, but CBCS seems equally, if not more, backed up on their TATs. Not sure if the raw grading stuff is a "back door" with faster TATs. Maybe I'll post something on their TAT forum. In any event, their website still has this service listed: https://www.cbcscomics.com/rawgrade. I definitely see a value in such a service if I can get an accurate grade for half the price and not have to deal with the extra bulk of a graded book for storage, transporting, etc. Seems like it would be an asset when trying to sell on Ebay, and would also just be a good way to know the grade on books you want to keep long term and maybe get properly encapsulated at a later date if they appreciate in value. I'd much rather lug around 125 books in a short box than 5 x 25 book graded short boxes.

Agree that high value books should be slabbed, both for the protection it provides and the bump it gives to resale prices. But google CBCS and their raw grade service. I'm not sure they still offer it, but it is basically a way to get an impartial grade supplied to your books and have them returned in Mylar and sealed with tamper resistant stickers. Obviously the protection factor isn't there, and there is more of chance of someone tampering with the book, but I would be willing to pay for such a service it the turn around times were much faster and the cost say maybe 50%. Likewise, I'd be willing to buy books with such a raw grade, but only up to a certain amount, maybe $200 or so. I see this type of service being very valuable for people that often sell/buy on platforms such as Ebay as it would give an assurance that the book they are buying is of a certain quality. Granted, this assurance wouldn't be as good as that of a slabbed book, but for a lesser valued book I would be okay with this given the cheaper grading cost and faster turnaround time.

Its a great question and it will be interesting to see how things play out. If you ask me there really needs to be something between a CGC/CBCS slab and a book in Mylar. I know CBCS offers/offered a "raw grade" service where books would just come back in Mylar sleeves with some type of tamper resistant stickers sealing the flap. I can see the benefits of such a service, especially for personal collection books and newer books that you want to buy or sell on Ebay that maybe are worth $50-$100 (which is probably a large percentage of the books currently sold, and likely a large percentage of the books currently submitted for grading). Slabbed books are great, but they do present some major issues with storage. A short box that used to hold 125 books now becomes a larger dimension short box that only holds 25 books. Having a slabbed collection with a large number (500+) of books would require a significant amount of space, not to mention the grading cost.

So basically, not only are the turn around times extremely long, but the grades are worse and grader notes are either missing or repetitive. Sure sounds like a losing proposition.

The problem is there aren't really many options if you want to switch. From everything I've read on the CBCS boards they are in even worse shape with TATs. That only leaves PGX as far as I'm aware. I've never submitted to them and I've seen some bad press on them in the past. But still, if you're submitted relatively recent, limited edition books for grading, it may make sense to go with PGX. Their fee's are lower and they advertise a 35 day TAT. Heck, most new books (last 10 years or so) that are submitted anywhere expect a 9.6+ grade, so getting a 9.8+ PGX should be on par with a 9.6+ CGC/CGCS . When it comes to older or key books, I definitely will stick to CGC as resale price seems to be quite a bit lower with PGX (and somewhat lower with CGCS, but the gap is narrowing). In a perfect world I'd send everything to CGC and expect books back within a few months. But at upwards of a year for MODERN SLOW its hard to justify.

That's interesting to know. So approximately 550 orders per day. Assuming maybe 15 books on average per order and you're looking at ~8,000 books per day. I wonder how many they are actually able to grade in a day. Would be very interesting to see whether the number of orders per day is increasing or decreasing. I doubt they would publish it, but I'm sure they are tracking it closely.

Its definitely an interesting comparison between comics and cards. Agree that the card submission volume would be far higher. But at the same time the handling is easier, the grading is easier, and the encapsulation is easier. I'm sure that the amount of labor and time involved is way less to grade a card than a comic as is the amount of space required to store submissions. I'd love to know the ratio of cards to comics though. 1000 to 1 seems pretty high if the cost per PSA grade is $50 min. If it really is 1000 to 1, then they must really be raking it in.

Really wish they would not pre-announce price increases. Just do it. Why would they want to lock in (yet another) avalanche of lower priced submissions. Sheesh, they seemed to punish people who tried to beat the price increase last year as their submission grading times lagged way behind those of books submitted after the price increase. I'm guessing that this time the backlog will not be nearly so big, but still, why bother to pre-announce? Just do it. To date I must say I'm a bit disappointed by the acquisition by Blackrock. I would have expected those Wall St. types to have optimized the CGC business far better after 6+ months of ownership.

Total agree that this is where it is going. I wouldn't be surprised if they just get rid of the Fast Track concept and just up the charges for Modern and Economy by $15 each, so $39 and $50, respectively. This will get rid of the majority of the low margin submissions that are clogging up the system and make anyone submitting books for profit to think twice about submitting a book that will not easily sell for $80+. As to whether or not this is a good idea, I think it depends on the point of view. For the collector/dealer, it will increase costs to get books graded, but should also reduce the time to get books graded. So not all bad. For CGC, I would expect that they will still have a continuous supply of books to grade, now with a minimum cost of $39. I think their backlog would decrease drastically thereby reducing both their warehouse needs and insurance costs. In the event that they see submissions slowing, they can always send out coupons to members to entice them to submit books at a discounted price.

Can you please share with this forum as I think many of us would like to better understand how the mechanics of fast track work considering the cost is $15 per book. Thanks.

This is wrong by my book. There should be zero chance that a modern fast track submission made prior to a modern slow track is ever returned after the modern slow track. And in the case where you have made multiple modern fast track submissions over a few months, then I would fully expect that these books would be returned in roughly chronological order (+/- a day or two). If fast track does not work this way, then I'm not sure how CGC can legitimately offer this service without being in violation of false advertising laws.

AFAIK its still a federal offense to tamper with the US mail, so maybe it you live in the lawless Wild Wild West you should always ship USPS. Then again, your guess is as good as mine as to whether or not this would actual deter anyone. Guess your best bet is to make sure you have adequate insurance. Or just keep your books at home and hope you don't get robbed.

Can't really argue with a plan to 'follow the money'. They are a for-profit business so it sure makes more sense getting paid for a walk through book with a minimum charge of $150 than do deal with a pile of $22 books. Sure, you might say that they make more on a 25 book submission of $22 books, but I'm sure that when you break down the cost of 1) processing time, 2 ) grading time, 3) encapsulation time, 4) encapsulation material cost, 5) shipping material cost then they likely net far, far more on that $150+ walk through book.

I started doing the same in 2017 or so. The process was going so smoothly -- send out 25 books, get them back within a month or two, sell the ones that graded low or that I wasn't too keen on and keep the rest. Repeat every 2 months or so. This process funded itself quite nicely. I'm really kicking myself that I didn't get more books graded from 2017-2020, but not much you can do about it now. And unfortunately, the "plan" came to a screeching halt last year when the TATs increased by a factor or 2x, then 3x, then 4x, etc. and the grades took a nosedive to boot. I think many of us are watching what is going on now in hopes that there is some return to normalcy in TATs and grades. Time will tell. p.s. I've snooped around the CBCS boards too, and what I can glean is that their ship is even worse shape so the only real option in my mind is to stick with CGC and hope things improve.

LOL, sounds like my collection and my approach too :-). Agree, maybe 10% of the books are worth grading, the rest are garbage (for now, but who knows, sometimes they pop later). I hear ya on books like Longshot #2. I've got a Longshot #1 that would normally grade as 9.6 and would sell for about $150. But if I send it now and it only gets a 9.4 then I'll end up selling it for maybe $75. If it gets lower than 9.4 then I'd be lucky to get my grading fees back. During normal times I was fine with sending out groups of 25 books and selling a few (1-3) of them at cost if they came back with lower than expected grades. But if 10 of the 25 come back unexpectedly low then its really just painful to have to go through the whole process of trying to sell them just to recoup grading fees. Too much time and hassle.

Guess it all comes down to your cost basis. I'm sitting on thousands of books from late 80's to early 90's that I bought at cover price or less so my cost basis is quite low. If I sell them raw they may go for a few times cover price, but that doesn't seem worth it to me considering I've been schlepping them around through all my moves the last 30 years. I obviously want to maximize my profit whenever I can, but I'm also trying to get rid of a lot of that I no longer want. Unfortunately the long current TATs and lower grades works against both of my goals. Hopefully as the new graders settle in we will see improvements in both TATs and grading consistency in 2022.

I too doubt that there will be a huge submission rush now. Anyone who did this last time paid a huge time price as it was evident that submission send just prior to the price increase were penalized and actually took much longer to process than submissions after the deadline. Some are sadly still in limbo as they no doubt had huge warehousing issues and thus difficulty in tracking books. If anything, the wise money will just wait until after the price increase to submit books so they they do not suffer a similar penalty/misfortune. It will definitely be interesting to watch their estimated TATs over the next few weeks. Regardless, I still disagree that they should even announce these increases. Just change your pricing on the online forms and be done with it. It looks like they've finally gotten rid of their PDF submission forms for Comics and Cards, so no need to worry about the dinosaurs using them trying to get the old rates.

I think right now its a tough call. Most books I submit that are from 1990-present I expect to get a 9.8 on as I screen them very closely and get any correctable defects pressed out. Unfortunately, what I've seen over the last year is that the grades have been lower on average, and this massively affects the resale value of the books. A $150 9.8 book is worth maybe $75 if it grades 9.6 and maybe $35 at 9.4. Not to mention that the selling times can increase, so you may be tempted to just dump them at cost in an Ebay auction (done this far too many times lol). Personally I'm still on the sidelines. I'd like the grades to normalize and the TATs to decrease, and I'm sure I'm not alone here. As it stands now, I just can't justify long TATs and low grades. Maybe I'll test the waters with a few Silver/Bronze age books to see if they suffer similar grade deflation. Hopefully not, but sadly it will take me 6 months to find out :-(

Sorry mate, you've introduced several facts here that make your submission more than just a "single modern submission", so yeah, seems you are getting pretty screwed with the TAT. Personally I have no experience with anything other than just plain-old-grading, but everything I've seen on this forum suggests that pretty much any possible add-on you do, with the exception of FAST TRACK, makes things take longer, and sometimes MUCH longer. CCS looks like a nightmare to me and I've seen many mention that the various weekly signing events can sometimes take ages too. No idea what is going on with your book, but 8 weeks in GEI seems insane to me unless they sent it off to CCS after it was signed (which seems wrong too). Anyway, hope you get your book back soon! FWIW I've been taking a hiatus from this grading since my membership lapsed in September. My last submission was MODERN FAST TRACK and did come back in a very timely 40 days or so, but TATS have gone up since. I may decide to re-up the membership and send a few more in as MFT, but the only stuff I'd send in now on MODERN SLOW TRACK would be the early 90's I've been sitting on for 30 years which is honestly mostly garbage but can still fetch +/- $100 if it gets a 9.8. I wouldn't even know I was missing most of that LOL.

Well, I hate to say it, but honestly, how much are they making on a single book MODERN submission? Equally, how much are they making on a 25 book MODERN submission? What is the profit per MODERN book they grade? At full-retail of $22, adding in all of the labor an materials I would think they make maybe $5 per book (maybe more, maybe less, but that would be my guess). Now compare that to MODERN FAST TRACK which is an extra $15 per book, so $20 or so profit per book. On a 25 book submission, you go from $125 profit on MODERN to $500 profit on MODERN FAST TRACK. I think it all comes down to business fundamentals, and under that lens it sure does make sense for them to prioritize the books, and customers, who are the most profitable.

On the plus side your STANDARD order was processed in a very timely manner. I think everyone needs to just deal with the fact that unless you get lucky with the new super fast MODERN SLOW TRACK process you are going to be waiting for quite awhile for anything that is MODERN or ECONOMY SLOW TRACK. And if you happen to do CCS pressing, then you will be waiting the maximum amount of time -- likely upwards of 1 year at this point. Sure, these extended times suck, but as CGC is a business they are prioritizing the books that people are paying them more to grade. I don't think anyone can really argue that this makes good business sense. With respect to CCS, I think the general consensus on this forum is to get your books pressed by someone else and then send them to CGC versus going the insanely slow CCS->CGC route.

I guess my point was that it doesn't make economic sense for them to suspend FT as they are making much more money per book on it. Yes, this is to the detriment of the slow track books, but maybe they don't really care as much about them since their profit is pretty limited there. I do agree that whatever is happening now is an absolute logistical nightmare for them as they need to warehouse (and insure) all of the books they have in their possession. What they should probably do with all of the modern and economy slow track orders is to instruct the customers NOT to send in the books until they are told to, i.e. let the books stay with the customer until they are nearing the window where they will actually be able to grade them. At this point the customer would be instructed (via email most likely) that it is time for them to mail in their order. This would greatly alleviate the logistics around having to warehouse books for 6+ months and would decrease any insurance liabilities that they would have for safekeeping these books. All of the other tiers could remain as is since their processing time is relatively short compared to the slow track books. And yeah, if people keep flooding them with fast track, standard, express and walk through then the TAT for slow track would continue to increase but at least the customer would still be in possession of their books. Quite honestly, if the flood of higher tier books continues then it really is a dream scenario for CGC as they will make much higher grading fees.

Why suspend FT, they are making $15 more per book with that. If anything they should suspend MODERN SLOW TRACK as I would guess that is the tier that gets the most submissions. Or maybe its just time to raise all the prices again to stem the flow of submissions. But this time, please don't announce it, just freaking do it so you don't get a massive backlog of books at the old price that takes 6+ months to go through.

Completely agree. If you really want to spend web development $$$ then I would focus on 1) removing the 8 month limitation on seeing your old submissions in the list and 2) more accurate/up-to-date TATS. Anything that could give the clients more transparency into where their submissions are in the processing phases would be greatly appreciated and would probably cut down on the number of calls they get from people asking where their books are. On the plus side, I guess it is a good sign that CGC are investing in their website.