RockMyAmadeus

That was like a quickfire episode of point/counterpoint.

No. If it is disclosed, it need not be disclosed in the title. It's not hidden, nor is there an attempt to minimize it. It is plainly stated. Disclosure is the key, not where and how it is disclosed.

"past performance is no guarantee of future results."

This is going to be my Carbo costume for Halloween:

You read that from your original copy, didn't you...? So jealous.

Disagree with you completely, totally, and entirely, for reasons already stated, here and in other threads. Could not possibly disagree with you more strenuously. My evidence? The coin hobby didn't collapse into chaos when the "tween" grades were added. In fact, it made things more consistent, and substantially "smoothed out" the market, which would be its greatest contribution. None of the "chaos" you describe happened. And there were people in coins voicing the exact same concerns. Borock has stated, on many occasions, that he couldn't decide if a book was a 9.6 or a 9.8, and he wished that there was a 9.7 grade he could give. My question to him was "and...? Why couldn't you?" That question still stands.

No problem. I don't like the way eBay does that these days, either. You said you don't deal with CGC on a regular basis, so getting a subscription to GPA wouldn't make much sense for you, BUT...George, the owner of GPA, has said many times that the occasional GPA request is perfectly acceptable and encouraged, so if you deal with this in the future, I'm sure you'd be welcome to ask for those recorded sales prices.

Not surprising to me, and I'm not casting aspersions on CGC. Again, I'm talking about a specific program that I doubt is in place, and which you seem to have confirmed is not in place, but would be useful, precisely BECAUSE it is a way to control "standards drift", which happens with everyone, even finalizers. It has nothing to do with sitting with finalizers and reviewing individual books, because, while that helps to conform individual graders with and to each other, it does nothing to address institutional drift. ...which means there's a hole in the process that could be addressed. And institutional drift (which is very real, and very observable...see the "2011 loose grading period") CAN be addressed by comparative anaylsis, every few months, as Bomber-Bob described above. "How do these recently graded X.Xs compare with the same grades we gave 6 months ago? A year ago? Two years ago? Five years ago?" "Secret shopper", in one form or another, is used in many other industries, and would be useful at CGC, too. ..and that's the beauty of the subjective art of grading: you're not wrong. Neither is anyone else with the qualifications I noted above.

Those are the ones recorded on GPA that I linked; the Aug 15 sale at $2700 (record price) and the Jul 23 sale at $2500.

By the way...the OTHER 9.6 that is for sale, that is priced at $5,000...again, anyone can ask any price they want. But that seller says "looks like a 9.8!" If you want to get a 9.8 price for it, you have to convince CGC to put it in a 9.8 slab. I have lots of books that "look like 9.8!" that aren't anywhere near 9.8. I understand completely: people don't pay for my opinion...at least not on eBay. That's why, if I want $500 for a 9.8 New Mutants, I have to slab it and have it grade 9.8. But...that all said...there HAS been a significant shift in the last ten years towards buyers being willing to take much bigger risks, especially with sellers they trust. In 2004, if you were selling an X-Men #108 that you graded "9.8!" or "mint!", you'd be very lucky to get $50 for it. But put it in a slab, and now it's worth $700-$1400. Someone got $1400 for one. Now, that same copy, in a 9.8 slab, is worth about $500...but there are a lot more people willing to pay a much closer price....say $100, or even $150...for one described as "mint!" or "NM/M" I wouldn't hesitate to pay $150 for a "NM/M" Lange's Sports copy.

Here is GPA for TOD #10 at 9.6. Highest price ever recorded for a Universal 9.6 is $2700. The two sales before that were $2500 and $2650. Here is your listing, no? Priced at $4,000. $4000-$2700 = $1300. $1300/$2700 = 48.14%, or close enough to 50% for the sake of the argument. Your book is therefore listed at 50% higher than it is ever sold for in that grade. Again: your book, your price. No one disputes that. But...if you think this book is overgraded as a 9.6, it seems odd to not only price it at "9.6 price" (which it is not), but 50% higher than the highest recorded sale for that grade, ever. No...? Let's be completely frank, here: you didn't start this thread because you were undecided and wanted to hear other views...you started it so that you would get agreement with your position. There's nothing wrong with seeking agreement, but if you're just looking to get agreement, you should state that upfront, so people don't waste time trying to state their positions if you're not open to considering them. Not meaning to bust your testes unnecessarily, here. I have spent tens of thousands of dollars with CGC, over a decade+ (meaning, I've put my money where my mouth is.) I believe in CGC's mission, and in the principle of third party grading. I support CGC as "the only legitimate resource" for third party grading. That all said, I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if CGC didn't have some inhouse quality control in this regard. I didn't remotely suggest that they "train their graders and then cut them loose w/o any further review." I suggested a VERY SPECIFIC program that is almost certainly not in place at the moment. As CGC is a functional monopoly, there are many things it doesn't have to do, because they don't need to to compete.

The comments of the people who post on the CBCS forums should, generally speaking, be given the same weight as your typical speculation blog.

Not in dispute. It's a thought exercise. What would happen if the first appearances of the Waynes and Joe Chill stopped being an "added bonus" and STARTED being the focus of the value of the book...? Too strange? Too wacky? In this market, I'm beginning to wonder.

That's more Kevin's thing.... I kid, I kid! Mostly!

It's the only example I'm concerned with.

So, something that occurred to me that I hadn't considered before: as, admittedly, stories and storylines have lost ground in importance related to first appearances, would it stand to reason, if this trend continues, that the importance of 'Tec #33 will evolve to focus on the (relatively important) first appearances of Thomas & Martha Wayne, and Joe Chill, rather than being the first time Batman's origin is told...? Seems a rather bizarre thing to me, but...I can't help but think that the market's obsession with "first appearances" over "classic stories" will trickle down even to this mega of mega-keys. 5 years ago, I would have considered such a thought to be quite ridiculous...of course, it's the origin of Batman that drives the value of this book, not the first appearance of characters who are officially dead throughout nearly the entirety of Batman's existence. But now....I'm not so sure anymore. Thoughts...?

Inescapable. Part of the human condition. But mitigateable, if I may coin a word, by not relying on any one source, but gathering a consensus from sources that have proven themselves capable of trust and honest, self-critical analysis.

Threads/examples like this make me lean toward agreeing with your viewpoint on establishing a 9.5, 9.7 tweener grades. While CGC does not do comparison grading, most of us do. We compare books like this to others to 'logically' arrive at a grade. Maybe I have a 9.6 that looks near flawless with just the tiniest flaw, so how can this be a 9.6 with such a blatant flaw ? Or I have a similar corner issue and got a 9.0, thus feeling cheated and amazed this book got a 9.6 . From my own personal experience, I do not like this as a 9.6 but I understand the argument that it's okay as a 9.6 . These are great points, Bob. And I want to stress to all (as I often have in the past) that your grade isn't incorrect. Neither is mine, or anyone else's, because grading is subjective. If you see it as a 9.4...or even a case for a 9.2...your grade is just as valid as anyone else's. Nobody is wrong, here, provided A. the people giving opinions are qualified to do so (and I think you're more than qualified, as are the other people in this thread, and I hope the feeling is reciprocal), B. the people offering opinions don't have a direct vested interest one way or the other (which can, admittedly, sometimes be difficult to suss out) and C. the people offering opinions can provide a reasonable justification for their view, as most everyone here has. The fact that we're quibbling between 9.4 and 9.6...or even 9.2...proves that the system works. It's not "well, I think it's a 7.5, and you're clearly smoking crack if you think it's a 9.6...it's got a 2 inch color breaking crease!" You're completely correct: all of us who have experience with more than a handful of slabs compare grades automatically. "How did this get a 9.8, and this is only a 9.4??" I've mentioned in the past that I subbed a Wolvie Litd Series #1 at WWLA onsite (sigh!) in 2008...it got a 9.4. There's no reason it shouldn't have been a 9.8, and, as I chronicled on the boards, I cracked it, did nothing to it, and resubbed it under a 9.8 pre-screen....it got the 9.8 it should have been all along. Something tweaked the grader who saw that book, and to this day, I don't know what it was...but I sent it back through, and the multiple people (pre-screeners and graders) who saw the book agreed with my ultimate assessment. So, while CGC can't do comparative grading, it would behoove them to take a moment every few months or so and do a "quality check", to make sure they're being consistent, and not subject to "standards drift" (which happens to EVERYONE over time!) Examining 20 or 30 books in each grade, with their notes, wouldn't hurt them. In fact, management should be sending through "quality control" invoices at random intervals, "secret shopper" style, and comparing those to previous control invoices to ensure quality control in grading, if they're not doing so already. "This is what a 9.6 looked like in Feb of 2018....and this is what one looks like now. Are we consistent? Why/why not?" And while the "tweener" grades won't ever solve the problem of grade disagreement..."I think it's a 9.4, not a 9.5!"...it WILL smooth out the market quite a bit, and make the buying public feel more secure about grading differences.

No.

Divad apparently doesn't have a complete collection of OPGs....

That's a mighty big spread.

As I said before, based solely on that (blown up) one corner, you're undergrading the book. If you think it's no better than a 9.2, I do find it interesting that you've priced it at a very-high-for-9.6 price. And not just any 9.6 price...you've listed it for 50% higher than it's ever sold for in 9.6, ever. It's nearly twice the 12 month avg, and over twice the 2017 avg. Don't misunderstand: you have the right to price it at any price you want, and think you can get. I just find it interesting that you think it's a 9.2 but you've priced it where you have. Understandable; people don't pay for your opinion, they pay for CGC's. I think it's a tad insulting to suggest that CGC graders might have graded this "in a hurry", as if the graders don't always give their best effort. They may disagree with you, me, and each other, but I don't think any of them half-arse it by being "in a hurry." Just my opinion on the matter. It is also important to note, once again, that we are talking about the difference between "NM" and "NM+"...or, even "NM-." Quite a bit different from the bad old days.

That is not correct. Check again.

The raw copies are all around 7.0 -7.5 would it be worth sending them to CGC? Hard to say, as there's very little data, but based on the single 7.5 sale at $250 for JLA #179, I'd say yes. In fact, I wouldn't think twice about it.

Those are the latter Whitmans, and some of those are quite tough (like the JLA #179.) You should list all of those individually, especially if they're high(er) grade. You also have a SUPER KEY in the DC Presents #22 Whitman. The last 8.0 sold for $1500.