Stefan_W

Yeah, this also ran through my mind when news of the scam broke. There are ways of fixing the cases to make them tamper proof, but the thousand or so cases I already own will no longer be as desirable. That is a critical part of this story moving forward.

Placing the certification in the sleeve along with the book was an early suggestion in this thread.

I am not sure how much of a response people will get when asking for more detail on a (potential) ongoing legal investigation. I've watched a lot of cop shows on TV and that sort of thing is usually frowned upon in those contexts.

They have a complete list of every book the individual has directly submitted, and can use the earliest known example of a forgery as a starting point and then count from there. They can also check to see if other known examples of forged books were submitted under different names. I am pretty sure that a big part of the time spent the past few days has involved pouring through all of their records and matching them up with tampered slabs. If your statement is meant to imply that more books may surface that broaden things outward I would agree with you. If you are saying it is an intentional "downplay" I would not agree at all.

Are you suggesting that all the You Tubers who watched the how-to video that came out yesterday should put their blow driers away?

Thanks, Mike, I think the statement was excellent. The big question in my mind was whether there would be compensation for those affected and it looks as though there will be. I think this is wonderful news - I felt really bad from the start about people spending thousands of dollars on false books. Ideally the person responsible for the fraudulent slabs will get prison time but that is a much longer process so we will have to wait and let the legal end play out.

Just a guess, but they could still be in the information collecting phase. It is possible that they have a handle on what they have found so far and are looking for info to see if the issue is wider than they currently believe.

I disagree but everyone has the right to their opinion. The one thing I 100% believe, and I think others will agree with, is that if we were all sitting around a table having a beer and maybe some wings while discussing this none of the differences in opinion we are seeing would seem quite so significant.

Yeah. It seems that in the 164 pages and counting of discussion in this thread there is a divide between people who do not believe that work is being done behind the scenes and those who are aware of it, are helping a bit, or assume there is a beehive of activity at CGC right now. Having worked in an area where very public things hit the fan I totally understand the high pressure on the staff dealing with this current scam, and I am pretty positive people are not only working their collective butts off trying to piece everything together but that some of them may have even worked through the holidays (this last part is a guess). Others continue to argue that just because a statement has not come out yet that things are being swept under the rug and this situation is being ignored until it blows over. I don't see this division ending for a while.

If you wanted people to assume that is was not "all" of the work it may not have been the best approach to add "We didn't have to do anything" when voicing the part of people at CGC.

If you honestly believe that digging up and comparing photos (which is important) was "all of the work" that needs to be done as CGC sorts through all of this ..... I have no words. There is a reason why this is taking a while. I only hope that people there investigating were allowed at least some break for Christmas to be with their families.

@comicwiz is doing great work with the help of a few others.

Edit: Sorry, I responded after looking at the wrong link.

Yeah, for sure. What I am seeing is a big mix of people responding. Some people saying they wont buy slabs even though they weren't buying slabs prior to all of this, a few are saying that they will not buy slabs but knowing them I am sure they will if they find a good deal (human nature trumps scams), a few people who legit wont be buying, and a few people who dont care outside of the books that are directly involved. It takes all kinds to fill a freeway. I dont think we will know the impact for a while, and even then it may be hard to piece together given the scope of comic collecting. For example, is someone going to avoid buying a CGC 5.0 pre-code horror book because of all of this? I dunno but I doubt we will see that and with so few sales it would be almost impossible to tell the difference if they do.

The interesting part will be to watch where these books land at auction early in the new year. I am guessing a bit below normal but maybe not as much as people may think unless there is a very good reason to suspect tampering (e.g., a bunch of ticks showing on the CGC image for a 9.8 book). This is what I will be specifically watching in terms of impact.

Yeah. I am just putting the finishing touches on turkey stock so I can make turkey noodle soup and my head was not in the game there.

Probably too big a generalization given that only a few books are known to have been compromised. I think people will be cautious with Hulk 181, NM 98 newsy in 9.8, ASM 234 (edit: should read 238) in 9.8, ASM 300 in 9.8, and maybe a generalized caution with 9.8 books that have MJ inserts. There are also a couple of low print run 9.8 variants that were targets. That seems like a pretty tiny portion of the graded comic marketplace.

Would you rather trust thousands of random viewers on You Tube who now know how to replace books within slabs? I agree that this is likely his line of thinking, but to say it is flawed is a bit of an understatement IMO.

He is a smart guy and the best benefit of the doubt I can give him is that he probably believes that taking this course of action will force CGC to change up their holders (rather than believing he is just another You Tubers trying to use this type of video to grow his channel more). I agree with what you are saying 100% and I don't appreciate his recklessness.

Sorry, I did not bookmark the post. I think it was somewhere around page 100, give or take twenty pages.

In fairness, I am not sure what this topic has to do with the top ten trending comics this week. I am good with people staying in their lanes.

I'm jealous! My 12/1/23 shipment of moderns is still SFG. Congrats on the grades!

People have come forward. I expect CGC to make a statement once they are done with figuring out what happened and how. There is a continual call for a statement from some people on this board, which is understandable, but a large company like CGC is not going to lead with "I dunno" when they communicate with their customers. A statement will happen at some point, and given it looks as though they are investigating first I expect it to have a bit of detail to it. I mentioned early on in this thread that it would be nice to have a list of slab numbers that have potentially been compromised. I doubt it will go this far considering the liability $$$ implications but who knows. It will likely depend on how the insurance coverage is set up.

I can see the messages from Ebay buyers: "I am taking a big risk on your Hulk 181 so I think an offer of about 10-20% of the list price would be fair." The biggest risk to market value is jumpy sellers who are trying to dump and run.

Ok, so you are arguing that because CGC did not release a statement fast enough for your satisfaction a video of how to break into slabs needed to be released? As I said earlier, yes scammers already know this stuff but hundreds if not thousands of people watching it will be hearing about it for the first time.