Petroman

Just got this email notification:

The saying "Hurry up and wait" sure comes to mind.  Honestly, they should make the form take 100 times longer to complete so that submissions are slowed down, not accelerated.  

Come on CGC, you need to expand the 8 month limit on submissions appearing on the my-submissions/tracking page.  I may have made sense when things would be completed in a few months, but now that the TATs are so long it is just another aggravation to your customers.  At a minimum, make it so that submissions that are still processing or have just been recently shipped (last week or so) will appear.  I mean, come on, I've been programming for 30+ years and this is just basic UI/UX 101 stuff.  And if you need programming help, then hit me up :-)

On 12/1/2021 at 5:01 PM, Gaard said:

My 6/18 Modern (delivered 4/29) still hasn't shipped. I'm starting to think my mom was right ... I'm a special boy.

It really does seem that people who submitted books around the price increase are being punished by CGC.  My guess is that it is not intentional and that they just go so swamped by submissions that they had to scramble to find extra storage space for this submissions rush and that this new space was not organized in a way that made a first-in-first-out policy possible.  I do hope that CGC has learned their lesson from this and NEVER pre-announces a price increase again.  What i the point of getting flooded by a ton of books all at the lower price points?  Just not good business sense.

On 11/16/2021 at 7:59 PM, RoLaren said:

 

Received: 11/11/21

Service: WALKTHRU

Shipped: 11/16/21

X-Men #1.

Please FedEx don't botch this shipment.

Out of curiosity, how do you insure expensive books like this through Fedex?  From what I read on their website ages ago they will only insure it for something like $100.  I'm assuming you buy supplemental insurance, but is this easy to do through CGC?  This is why I always use USPS for my more valuable stuff as CGC will have them insure whatever you stipulate in your submission form (at extra cost to you).

On 11/12/2021 at 2:53 PM, Dr. A said:

Dare I ask what MECHANICAL ERROR and MECHANICAL ERROR MAGAZINE are?  Sure doesn't sound good.

Wow, they are actually caught up on submissions.  Great job CGC!!!  I don't know how realistic the turn around times listed for Modern or Economy are.  My last Modern Fast Track went through in just over a month (received on 10/4).  I'd love to know if the regular Modern Slow Track (not the crazy-fast turn around ones) are really taking 131 days or if its something more reasonable like 60 days.  In any event, I think its time for me to renew my lapsed membership and get back in the game!

On 11/1/2021 at 4:19 PM, sckao said:

Everyone's "golden" age is different. I was chatting with someone who grew up in the 90's and their Golden Age was the period with Dark Hawk and Spawn and the 90's X-Men (and cartoons). Now, 30 years later... Those are the comics coming into vogue and being slabbed in quantity. 

I personally disliked most of that time period and find them unreadable... and I note the bad artwork that resulted as the talent pool got diluted from all the extra publishers/comic books being rushed out for print. 

 

I had been collecting for 15+ years up until 1992 then got so sick of all the gimmick covers, multiple covers, bi-weekly issues, insane print-runs, etc. that I stopped collecting cold-turkey.  Keep all my books and took 25 years off.  Now I'm sitting on a mound of that early 90's , most worthless, but a few gems.  Plus my 70's and 80's stuff.  Not as young as I used to be, so time to start paring down the collection and the best way to monetize it seemed to be slabbing and selling online.  This was going great until this year when the grading engines just seized up.  Now we'll have to see what happens with the new tax laws where you might end up getting 1099's for combined sales of over $600.  This will force all of us to get accountants to figure out how we put a cost on storing, moving, insuring, climate controlling, etc. books for many years before selling them.  What a mess that would be.

On 11/1/2021 at 4:05 PM, NewWorldOrder said:

I am still trying to figure out why so many uneducated people keep sending in utter trash to get pressed and graded even before Covid.

If collectors actually cared about their own money CGC wouldn't need half the staff they currently have to grade "real" books. 

I blame the general public more for wasting not only CGC's time with this mound of garbage, but they should be apologizing to all of us for clogging up the line with their disgraceful submissions.   So I hope when most of them get their laughable books back in the mail they lose so much money they cant pay their rent.  Also their spouses or significant other has been cheating on them as well because anyone that stupid deserves to have bad days ahead. 

 

C'mon man, stop pulling punches and tell us how you really feel!

On 10/26/2021 at 7:45 PM, Willbert said:

Now to wait for them to get marked "SHIPPED" so I can get onto that gut punch called grade disappointment.

LOL!  Man, I sure felt that way after my last submission.  I hope you have a better experience!  Good luck!

Ugh, just when you thought things were getting better the TATs for Modern and Economy take a sizeable jump.  Just jumped from:

To:

It looks like there has been no slowdown in submissions.  They should either close down the lower tiers or just raise the prices again (this time with no warning).  Something has to give here.  Too much demand and too little supply.  And honestly, they need NOT worry about people moving over to CBCS.  Looking at their TAT discussions they seem even more swamped than CGC.  And the fact that their president is actually spending time grading books wouldn't give me the sense that they are going about expanding their capacity in the right way.  Come on Blackstone people, you've been there for nearly 4 months now, get this ship righted!

On 10/15/2021 at 4:00 PM, sckao said:

So I had placed a Fast Track order into CGC on October 4, 2021. It shipped (was accepted) Priority via the USPS on October 5, 2021 and was delivered on October 7, 2021.

Today, October 15, 2021, I'm getting a notification that the books (7) are graded and being shipped back.

So things are speeding up or their beta tests are working. 

(I still have other submissions in the queue, of course, but this was a surprise.)

NOTE: I DID NOT WRITE ANYTHING ON THE OUTSIDE TO INDICATE IT WAS A FAST TRACK I THINK... Unless my memory is going... which is possible as I can't remember.  

 

Lucky devil!  My Modern Fast Track was delivered on 10/4 but I don't see it in the system, nor do I really expect to for another month (sadly).  I'm curious to know if you saw the books in the system between 10/7 and today, or did they just suddenly show up as shipped? 

On 10/15/2021 at 9:43 AM, IceHole said:

For those who subbed way back any time before June...we all know there was a rush of volume...straight up end of the world, mail all ya books in flood into CGC...crash the servers ya'll!  And we all thought, well this is all gonna push the TAT's into a long wait.  But some of us subbed before the one week notice of price increases...but our mindset was the same none the less.

But somehow these subs are treated different.  We all fill out the same forms.  But these subs are treated different.  We all mail to the same address.  But these subs are treated different.  And they are being treated different by CGC.

We all see books released in September already at there homes' slabbed.  Why aren't my March subs slabbed yet?  Cuz with our own eyes we see, we treated different...and that's CGC, treating customers differently since May 2021.  Back of the vault different.

I'd agree that it seems CGC is punishing those people who submitted just prior to the price increase.  IMHO it was an incredibly foolish thing for them to even announce the price increase.  They should have just silently raised the prices, and I hope this is how they will do it in the future.  They were already overwhelmed by a large submission backlog, and announcing the price increase likely doubled or tripled that backlog.  

On 10/14/2021 at 2:59 PM, carcrawfordfan said:

Another slow boat Pre-screen order for me:

 

Received: 10/13/21

Shipped: 10/15/21

That's crazy!  When was it delivered?  I'm guessing just a few days ago.  I wonder how they determine which submissions are getting this new grading process.  Dang, sign me up for that!

On 10/13/2021 at 9:07 AM, awakeintheashes said:

That looks promising.  Can you tell us when the books were delivered?

On 10/12/2021 at 5:44 PM, Willbert said:

2 Standard

Delivered: 09/29

SFG:       10/01

G/E/I:     10/06

G/QC:      10/08

Shipped:   10/11

 

 

1 Standard with Custom Label

Delivered: 09/29

SFG:       10/01

G/E/I:     10/06

G/QC:      10/12

Shipped: 

Wow, congrats, if I knew I could that kind of turn around for Standard I'd ship a bunch of books tomorrow.  How could they be delivered on 9/29 and processed so quickly?  They aren't even opening boxes from September yet according to their website.  

On 10/11/2021 at 10:16 PM, Beige said:

In fact stop accepting books until they have the staff and equipment to handle the volume.

Shut down Modern Slow Track and possibly Economy Slow Track too, at least until the submission backlog has been processed.  Who knows, maybe even shut them both down for good if they are still getting enough business on Fast Track Modern/Economy.  I'm sure the investment guys from Blackstone are looking at the numbers.  It is certainly possible that they could be more profitable even with a 40% drop in submissions if the minimum cost per book is $37. 

On 10/11/2021 at 9:47 PM, Beige said:

There are only 2 reasons - negligence or theft. I would hope its negligence - which can easily be fixed, BY MAKING A BLOODY EFFORT TO FIND THE TWENTY MISSING BOOKS!!

@Harshen @joeypost

My guess would be negligence/mistake.  Out of curiosity, which tier(s) were the books submitted under?  I have no idea how CGC processes books once their are removed from their submission boxes, but I'm guessing that they get put into some container (or containers for multi-tier submissions?) so that the books can be easily moved around yet kept together for processing and return shipment.  I would also guess that CGC is managing a massive submission stockpile that is well into the hundreds of thousands, possibly even a million+ books.  Looking for 20 books in that trove of books is the proverbial needle in the haystack, and I doubt that they would dedicate someone to that task.  Rather they would likely just hope that as books get processed in some time sequence order any lost books get found.  I'm not defending CGC, but I do think that the explosive growth they have experienced in the last year has been very difficult for them to manage from a logistical point of view.  Personally, I'm hesitant to send any of my truly cherished/valuable books to them at this point as I don't want to wait for an extended time to get them back and I am fearful of processing errors such have you likely have experienced, or maybe even worse (e.g. books damaged by inexperienced staff).  

On 10/9/2021 at 3:39 AM, Yetti82 said:

2x 25 book submissions Fast track modern, one set with prescreen sent them September 1st. Delivered to CGC the 7th. Went from marked received to shipped in 48 hours. Yet the 50 other books not fast track have been sitting GEI for three weeks now.....

On the plus side it is good to see that Fast Track is working.  I've pretty much decided that for the short term at least, I'll only send Modern/Economy submissions as Fast Track.  What this means for me is that I will be getting far fewer books graded, but at least I am hoping to get them back in a "reasonable" timeframe.  

On 10/8/2021 at 11:06 PM, evmucollects said:

They also just charged me $2,700 for all of the ones stuck in limbo at the same time.  I had hoped that meant they were coming soon, but still in SFG.

That's the real crime here.  You have paid a sizeable amount for a service that has yet to be rendered, and is unlikely to be rendered completely in the near future.  Sure, I can understand why they charge them all at once, but that doesn't make it right.  IMHO the time to put the charge through is when they have graded your book as are slapping the shipping label on them.

On 10/8/2021 at 9:36 PM, skybolt said:

The thing is that slow track grading only went up from $20 to $22 for modern books. It's not like they're making twice as much now.

Agreed, it doesn't seem like a lot.  But 10% extra on a submission of 25 Modern books is still $50.  Not sure what their profit margin is on Modern Slow tier, but an extra $50 on a 25 book submission is likely not immaterial.  And when you look at the Fast Track stuff I think it went from $8/book to $15/book.  So that would end up being an extra $9/book total which is well over $200 for a 25 book submission.  

I'm not saying any of this is right.  I do think the direction of comic book grading is that the cost will go up (or even has gone up) quite a bit to get your books graded in a reasonable time frame.  If you don't want to pay it, then you're likely looking at 6 months to a year to get your books back.  Personally, I'm still trying to figure out which way I want to go.  Fast Tracking to sell quicker and possibly make less profit, or Slow Tracking and have less books to sell in the near term but eventually sell for a higher profit (assuming prices don't crater).  I'm leaning toward the Fast Track route...

On 10/8/2021 at 3:35 PM, skybolt said:

My gut tells me that all the books that arrived at CGC after the price change in late April are all sitting on top of each other in one gigantic room, while the less cluttered room has all the recent submissions. CGC graders are likely avoiding Room A like the plague at this point. 

There is some logic to it I guess.  They are making less money per book on books shipped in under the old rates, and it does seem that the industry is moving toward paying more to get your books back in a timely manner.  I still content that they really screwed up by announcing the rate increase thereby creating this massive backlog (on top of a backlog that was already there).  They should have just raised the rates with no advance warning.  Would have prevented the massive submission boom, and possibly would have even slowed down submissions.

On 10/1/2021 at 1:31 PM, zzutak said:

Maybe the "new process" involves throwing darts at a dartboard.    Books can move from Receiving to Encapsulation in a matter of minutes! 

One quick spin and voila, you have your grade!

On 9/30/2021 at 12:27 PM, Gary Strange said:

Yeah, I just got my membership renewal notice from them a couple days ago.  Definitely not gonna renew when I can only get maybe one job back a year.

Yep, I feel your pain, my membership expires today.  Turned off auto-renew a few months back so will let it lapse.  Will think of getting back in when/if the TAT's drop to a reasonable level.  They've been making decent progress in the box opening (!?!?) backlog, now its the week of August 23rd.  But unfortunately the improved box opening times don't really seem to have translated to shorter grading times.  The only thing I'd consider sending in now would be Express or Modern Fast Track, but I see no rush to do either.

Awesome, this is the third time within a week that they incremented the "now opening" date.  It's a good start.  Hopefully we will start seeing the "Current Turnaround" numbers start to come down too!