RockMyAmadeus

So...?

"They call me....MISTER Doofus!"

However you want to parse words. He bought a shady product. There's no parsing on my part. That's a dodge on yours. Here's what you said: The buyer didn't pay a lot of money to a shady company. If you're going to hold me to absolute perfection on what I say and what I mean...and I respect anyone who does that, and encourage it, even if it's not always my favorite thing in the universe...then let's all have the same standards, right? Whether the buyer bought a "shady product" is only opinion, obviously. PGX doesn't think it's shady, of course, and the seller doesn't have a problem with PGX' reputation, regardless of what they think of it....and the same holds true for many others. There have been 2,156 sales in the last couple of months of comics with the letters "PGX" in the title. Clearly, there are people who disagree with your opinion, to whatever degree. Now...*I* share the opinion that PGX is shady, and there is no doubt in my mind, which is why I openly declare them fraudulent. But...still....until it is adjudicated in a court of law, that is just my opinion. And no buyer can ever be held responsible for other people's opinions. "Too bad! You should have known better!" is not a valid defense, unless you can prove that the buyer actually DID know better...and it's STILL not a defense against the commission, or the conspiracy to commit, fraud.

This already happens and is the point of slabs to begin with. They are graded and sealed by a third party. Once it is opened chain of custody is completely gone and it could be any book. Are you referring to Signature Series books? Because chain of custody has no meaning to slabbed books outside of that. That's not the point of slabs. The point of slabs is to provide a tamper resistant case which makes it more difficult to alter/change the grading opinion of a third party grader. As mentioned above, and in previous posts...proving it's the same book is fairly easy, especially with a well worn copy.

It's not difficult to prove it's the same book. Auction houses and other entities do it all the time, for identification purposes of pedigrees and/or previous auction appearances of specific books. All that is needed are pictures showing production markers (cut, centering, squareness, for example) and wear markers (visible creases, stains, etc.) With an X-Men in the lower mid-range, it wouldn't be difficult to prove it's the same book at all. Provided this is the book in question: https://www.ebay.com/itm/1963-MARVEL-X-MEN-1-1ST-APPEARANCE-MAGNETO-CYCLOPS-BEAST-PGX-4-5-CBCS-CGC-IT-/173375280518?hash=item285df8d586%3Ag%3ALG0AAOSw-UBbLFK9&_nkw=x+men+pgx+4.5&_sacat=0&_from=R40&LH_Complete=1&rt=nc&LH_Sold=1&nma=true&si=GseEzKa0y59iFEUrdbdG00hKrJw%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&_trksid=p2047675.l2557 ...then it would be rather easy to demonstrate that this is the same book.

The seller is a shady company...? Because the buyer didn't buy the slab from PGX.

It goes to common sense and protecting yourself. If a buyer isn't willing to put some effort into looking out for their own best interest then so be it.  Again, not a lawyer....but I don't believe "goes to common sense" is a legitimate defense in court. But seriously...it doesn't absolve anyone from responsibility for mistakes, either their own or of someone whose opinion they relied on, and/or bad faith actions. "You should have known PGX was a scam!" isn't going to fly. Not saying due diligence is not necessary...but especially in this case, the buyer absolutely exercised it, by sending it in and having it appraised by another appraiser.

Yes. No. Repeating it doesn't make it so. The motives of the buyer for getting it certified by CGC aren't relevant to the point, which was this: Unless you mitigate that risk...as this buyer did...by sending the book out to be inspected by another appraiser, or simply inspect it yourself. This is an actual fact...assuming the buyer has told the truth...of this case. His motives for doing so aren't relevant to this fact. Did the buyer send it to CGC hoping for an upgrade, as Red84 stated? Possibly. But here's what the buyer actually says: So, his stated motive was because the seller suggested (which he did, if not "really") to get it CGCd. Could he have been secretly hoping for an upgrade, and/or higher price? Maybe. We don't know, and stating one way or the other is making an assumption. But none of it has to do with the fact that the buyer, instead of merely accepting whatever risk was inherent in buying a book you cannot inspect yourself, instead mitigated his risk by choosing not to follow that route, and inspect the book himself.

Also, the seller isn't sucking up anything. The book never had value equal to what they received. Plus, they have the same option of going to the person who sold the book to them. This point ought to be highlighted. The point made by Callaway is incorrect; the seller isn't "sucking up" anything, because the book was never worth what a book without two missing pages would have been. So, no, the seller wouldn't be losing anything, nor would he be "getting screwed." He would simply be getting what he was always entitled to in the first place. The book's fair market value was never...at any time...what that book with all its pages would have been, no matter what other factors (like an increase or decrease in numerical grade) would have impacted it, and no matter who was aware...or not aware...of that fact. Pretzel logic, for sure.

No.

This has already been gone over. CGC doesn't say that. This is an industry perception, not a statement by CGC, as detailed in a previous post. But...even if they DID say that, the response is "so..? And...?" So it "invalidates" the grade. And? Does that have any effect on the book? Barring damage, the book is exactly the same, is it not? Can it be RE-certified? Of course. Will it maintain the same grade? Maybe, maybe not, but that's because grading is subjective. ...which still doesn't mean that any mistake can be made, and the buyer is responsible for the ramifications of that mistake, because "too bad! You knew what we were!" And...again...we're not talking about about grading, which is subjective.

Again, not a lawyer...but I imagine "you should have KNOWN they were incompetent/fraudulent. Too bad!" is not a defense for shifting the burden of responsibility onto a buyer acting in good faith, or that it allows anyone to benefit at someone else's expense, regardless of who knew what and when.

Correct. Because of the industry-wide....but thoroughly and totally erroneous...idea that slab sellers are selling a "package", rather than a comic with an opinion attached to it, if sellers are going to insist that their PGX slabs CANNOT be cracked...which, as a layman, I believe is totally and completely unenforceable legally....then they should be sold at a substantial discount from even RAW books, since there is a measure of pressure assumed and implied to not be able to inspect the item for yourself, or send it to anyone else to inspect, since that would mean you weren't "returning what you purchased." This is the logical end result of "you can't crack open a slab." Of course (planting tongue firmly in cheek)...PGX COULD offer an "independent inspection" service, whereby you took a book certified by them, had them open it in your presence, you inspect it, and then have it reslabbed in the exact same slab...you know, totally regardless of what you found. One can see the absurdity of such a situation, yet this is what is indirectly advocated by the "you can't open the slab!! That makes it no longer what you purchased!!" crowd.

Good afternoon! I'm right here.

Unless you mitigate that risk...as this buyer did...by sending the book out to be inspected by another appraiser, or simply inspect it yourself. The argument for "cracking all PGX slabs upon receipt" has probably gotten a lot more advocates because of this situation.

Me too. Probably different pages from yours, though.

Not relevant. It doesn't matter who tore the pages out; only that they were. And it doesn't matter whether the seller knew about it or not; he was the sole beneficiary of the result of the mistake. Once the mistake is discovered, the seller has to "make good" since he...and he alone (again, assuming he was the submitter)...benefited from this mistake. Unless PGX was involved in a conspiracy to commit fraud, then they shoulder no financial burden for this mistake, other than possibly the fees they were paid, because they did not benefit in any way from it.

Why? PGX bears no responsibility..ethically or legally...in this transaction for anything other than the fee they charged for their worthless opinion. They didn't tear the pages out. They didn't submit a book with torn out pages to themselves. They didn't benefit from their mistake. They aren't responsible, outside of what I just mentioned.

It's not anything that happened. Assuming...gotta remember the caveats!...that the buyer did what they said, the book didn't change at all. Slabs are not inviolate "packages." It is an appraisal, an opinion of condition, and nothing more. The buyer took the book out of the case of that appraiser, and put it in the case of another appraiser. The book is what matters, not the slab.

Driving a car 50,000 miles is nothing even remotely equivalent to cracking a slab. The rest of the analogy necessarily fails.

I do find it fascinating how easy people find it to tell the buyer to suck up a couple thousand dollar loss, when....provided the buyer did what he claimed (and, as usual, the buyer hasn't come back to the thread that I've seen) is accurate...the buyer didn't do anything wrong, and several things right, such as sending it to an independent appraiser to determine if the original appraisal was relatively accurate (since grading...not pages missing...is subjective.)

This sums it up quite well.

Grading is subjective. You are not expressing my "rules", nor did I "advocate" anything that you're suggesting here. It's nothing even remotely close to what I've said, which is why Lazyboy reacted with a "confused" reaction. You've invented a scenario that bears no resemblance to anything I've said. Grading is subjective. Missing pages is not. That's the sum of it.

I once got a Batman #429 CGC 9.8 with a piece of cardboard tape to the front of the slab....with my address written on it...and a piece taped to the back. Neither piece was big enough to cover the sides of the slab. Guess what happened...?

I wish I could say this was tin-hat conspiracy...but, sadly, it's not. Far too much of the market thinks of the slab as inviolate, and that's a real tragedy, not to mention, a situation that would be custom made for fraud and corruption.