Stefan_W

So this is really cool. A Spawn 119 in my last shipment had a crack on the bottom of the slab so it is heading back for an ME submission, but when I looked at the book again I noticed it also had newton rings. Then when I checked it out I saw that the rings actually made the face of Spawn! If it was not for the big crack this book would probably be a keeper because this is so cool. 

10 ME books

Arrived and SFG on 23 June 2022

Moved to GEI on 6 July 2022

My experience so far has been that ME books sit in GEI for about 2-3 weeks before they are slabbed and shipped out. The total TATs are always really good. 

On 7/6/2022 at 10:58 AM, ChrispyC66 said:

Modern Fast Track  8 books - (No CCS)(TAT estimate 20)

• Delivered to CGC (FedEx Gr.) - 6/27/22
• Received/SFG - 6/28/22 (D + 1)
• G/E/I - 7/1/22 (D + 4)
• GQC - 7/5/22 (D + 5)
• Shipped - 7/6/22 (D + 7)
• Delivered - 

Modern 16 books - (No CCS, No FT)(TAT estimate 81)

• Delivered to CGC (FedEx Gr.) - 6/27/22
• Received/SFG - 6/28/22 (D + 1)
• G/E/I - 
• GQC - 
• Shipped - 
• Delivered - 

Darn. I was debating on sending my last shipment fast track and opted for slow track instead. If I went for FT I would have them back by now. 

On 7/5/2022 at 8:06 PM, THE_BEYONDER said:

Maybe Blackstone recognized the potential resub revenue that comes from inconsistent grading....and are doing it on purpose.

They don't need to do anything like that to pay the bills. Just look at the current TATs to see there is a healthy amount of books in the queue at all times. 

I'd like to join up as well  

On 7/5/2022 at 5:57 PM, THE_BEYONDER said:

What happens if the 4 you feel are undergraded..... come  back the same or lower?

Done cracking?

Yeah. If the grade coming back shows I am wrong more than once I am typically done. There have been exceptions along the line but for much more valuable books than these ones. 

On 7/5/2022 at 5:36 PM, THE_BEYONDER said:

Are you resubbing all 8 books?

I am re-subbing the 4 that I believe were undergraded, three will be graded but through Comic Link to go directly to auction (saves money and shipping) and one will not be re-graded at all since in retrospect it was a mistake to send it to begin with. The were lots of lessons in this bunch, and is often the case with comic collecting those lessons cost money. 

On 6/28/2022 at 11:38 AM, Stefan_W said:

Modern slow track 25 books

SFG 26 Apr 2022

GEI 23 Jun 2022

QC 27 Jun 2022

Finalized on 28 Jun 2022 and scheduled to ship out the next day.

The last batch that finalized yesterday had surprisingly good results, and this batch was the exact opposite and was completely and utterly hosed by the grader. The grades and not even close to what I was expecting on the majority of books. Apparently I got the grader again who loves giving out 9.0 to 9.4 on books with tiny flaws that would most often be called 9.6. 

I am going to eat a bit of crow with this one. 

I cracked 8 of the slabs that I figured were worth cracking and only 3 of those were clearly undergraded with one at the borderline. The others were graded correctly. Assuming the ones that were not worth cracking are about the same the overall grading was not as bad as I initially thought (although still a bit tougher than usual), and in most cases I just missed small things that I should have caught before sending the books in. 

Live and learn. 

On 7/4/2022 at 11:44 AM, Stefan_W said:

Ug. So I had a shipment of 25 books come back a few minutes ago. This was the one I complained about in another thread where the grading was ridiculously harsh to the point where it is an automatic re-sub on at least 5 of the books. 

The tape on the top and bottom of the box was torn which was a bad sign, and the box looked pretty rough. I had this before where the books were ok so I just took a deep breath and went through them. Without looking too carefully yet I found 6 books where the cases had large cracks and crushes and two other books with very large newton rings. 

The worst part? None of the books I was going to crack myself were the ones crushed. Oh well, looks like I will be on the phone with customer service again tomorrow. At least CGC is good about fixing such problems. 

Here is the worst example of case damage. FedEx gave this box the full on gorilla treatment. 

Trying to figure out how to safely send this back since it is a 9.8 and for my PC and I dont want to damage the book. I will ask customer service whether it is ok to tape the piece of the case back on, and I can sandwich it between two piece of cardboard or something. 

On 7/4/2022 at 11:51 AM, ADAMANTIUM said:

This may sound selfish, but you said it came back minutes ago? On July 4th? I too have a shipment to come back from cgc, the tracking estimates tomorrow, yet it says loaded on vehicle and out for delivery today as well....

Just curious if I should really expect it today....  ? ? ?

But sorry to hear about your shipment, if you can provide feedback and it comes today, I'll see how it turns out.

 

I am in Canada, we had our holiday last Friday on the 1st. 

Ug. So I had a shipment of 25 books come back a few minutes ago. This was the one I complained about in another thread where the grading was ridiculously harsh to the point where it is an automatic re-sub on at least 5 of the books. 

The tape on the top and bottom of the box was torn which was a bad sign, and the box looked pretty rough. I had this before where the books were ok so I just took a deep breath and went through them. Without looking too carefully yet I found 6 books where the cases had large cracks and crushes and two other books with very large newton rings. 

The worst part? None of the books I was going to crack myself were the ones crushed. Oh well, looks like I will be on the phone with customer service again tomorrow. At least CGC is good about fixing such problems. 

To give give a sense of how fast the Modern tiers (including pre-screens) are moving through - I was sending a box of books to CGC for grading about every 3 weeks or so, which was one or two per month. In June alone I had 6 boxes graded with the last three in the mail this week. There was an ME shipment in there, but that is still crazy fast. I went from having a bunch of orders in the queue to having only two submissions left to grade, plus one other ME, and I am still not quite ready to send in my next shipment. It is really jaw dropping. 

My ME book that they missed putting into a case the first time around just finished way ahead of schedule.

SFG May 27

GEI about a week later (did not write down the exact date)

QC June 28

Just hit shipping so will ship out tomorrow, June 30

On 6/29/2022 at 9:10 AM, irishcritic said:

So from reading the last several pages of posts it looks like prescreen seems to be moving a bit faster, but I don’t see anything about consistency. Are prescreens fairly consistent on the grading or are they throwing out obvious 9.8 books? I’ve always thought that was a bit of an odd tier addition anyway as they have an incentive to hit the grade to charge more for the book. I haven’t submitted at all this year not due to TAT but the inconsistency in grading. Just wondering if prescreen was equalizing some of the consistency?

 

thanks 

I use the 9.8 pre-screen quite a bit. It works for me because it lowers the risk cost in case I hit a particularly harsh grader.

In terms of how consistent the tier is, based on my experience I would say that it is as consistent as the other tiers. That is to say that you can expect to hit one of the tougher graders every 4 or 5 submissions. It is worth noting that I am pretty sure they put their newest graders in this tier, so any toughness is likely due to a new person trying to show that they are precise. 

On 6/28/2022 at 12:20 PM, skybolt said:

The inconsistency in CGC grading will drive a lot of sellers and buyers away from ultra high grade CGC slab market. From a seller's standpoint, it's a huge hassle since A.) not being relatively sure what the grade will be before sending the book to be pressed and/or graded, B.) breaking even or losing money on every 3rd submission graded by a newbie, and C.) having to scan and list 9.0/9.2 graded copies at a loss, even though deep down inside you know these will likely come back as 9.6's or 9.8's if resubmitted. However, if a 9.8 copy of a certain book is only selling for $90, most sellers will not go through the hassle of shelling out another $25, waiting 3 or 4 months for the book to be graded, and then hoping they don't get the same newbie grader again.

From a buyer's standpoint, I can already sense some of their frustration when receiving a 1980's CGC 9.8 graded book that isn't absolutely flawless. I've had a couple of buyers complaining about the book being over-graded because it has one non color breaking tick mark along the spine. At some point these ultra high grade buyers will start noticing that some of their recently graded 9.4 copies looking better than some of their 9.8's, and start asking themselves why they're paying a premium for a 9.8 copy. Yesterday someone sent me a message on Ebay asking if my 9.8 CGC graded copy was completely new or like new. He basically wanted a book that was never handled before (even though all graded books are handled by CGC).

I honestly hate this roller coaster ride of grading high grade books, and am leaning towards buying and selling mid grade bronze age type books instead. At least in that scenario if a book is graded a 4.5 or 5.5, the 5.5 copy will not sell for 3 or 4 times more.

My experience so far has been that this type of hosing happens to me about 20-25% of the time (one out of every four or five submissions). I swear and stomp around for a while and then everything returns to normal, including continuing to send books in. At the end of the day, when this happens I curse myself for not using the pre-screen on that submission. That at least minimizes the loss if the occasional submission gets torched by the grader.  And I absolutely could have used a pre-screen for this one. 

The worst was a book in the batch that I cracked and re-submitted. I could see the presser I used a while back left some fixable flaws, so I opened up the 9.2 case, gave it a solid pressing until I was happy, and sent it in expecting a 9.6 (it did have a small spine tick). After all that it came back a 9.0. 

On 6/27/2022 at 7:30 PM, Stefan_W said:

Modern slow track with 25 books

SFG 26 April 2022

G/E/I 23 June 2022

QC end of day on 27 June 2022

This is awesome  

Modern slow track 25 books

SFG 26 Apr 2022

GEI 23 Jun 2022

QC 27 Jun 2022

Finalized on 28 Jun 2022 and scheduled to ship out the next day.

The last batch that finalized yesterday had surprisingly good results, and this batch was the exact opposite and was completely and utterly hosed by the grader. The grades and not even close to what I was expecting on the majority of books. Apparently I got the grader again who loves giving out 9.0 to 9.4 on books with tiny flaws that would most often be called 9.6. 

On 6/28/2022 at 10:23 AM, faster friends said:

I had thought of that but didn’t look into it because this seller always relists as they have so much inventory. 
 

but the zero feedback bidder is pretty good evidence of fishyness.

Even without the zero feedback bidder, the other bidder who always bids up his books and then retracts is pretty good evidence. 

On 6/27/2022 at 11:27 PM, Troy Division said:

I wouldn't count the $2247 sale as a valid data point.
It was not 'sold' and eventually relisted.
(the 'winner' of the original auction had ZERO feedback and the seller's listing / photos are exactly the same)

I could only presume to know why the original winner bid so high...but do see a repeat bidder (3985 feedback) with 32% of their bids being with this seller.
(They also have 26 bid retractions in 12 months...)
Again, I can only presume to know about that second bidder's behavior too.

 

Nice catch, seems like pretty clear market manipulation at work here. 

Mistakes happen when you send books in for slabbing. Sometimes you get an 8.5 instead of the 9.4 or above you are hoping for and some books become impossible to sell at even grading costs. The money spent on grading is a sunk cost and slabs take up a lot of room so sometimes it is better to just take a loss and move on. That's the way it goes.

On 6/23/2022 at 12:20 PM, Stefan_W said:

Just have some movement ahead of schedule for a slow track modern submission:

Received and SFG on 26 Apr 2022

G/E/I on 23 June 2022

I love this quick turnaround, kudos to the CGC staff for moving things so quickly  

Modern slow track with 25 books

SFG 26 April 2022

G/E/I 23 June 2022

QC end of day on 27 June 2022

This is awesome  

On 6/25/2022 at 11:24 AM, Stefan_W said:

25 modern pre screen slow track:

SFG May 19th

G/E/I June 22

QC this morning, June 25

Super fast! Dont have the grades listed yet, but based on the bill total it looks like I did very well with this pre screen. 

25/25 hit the 9.6 pre-screen with about 80% or so at 9.8, so very happy with the results.

Everything is done and marked for shipping on June 28th. 

On 6/22/2022 at 5:41 PM, Stefan_W said:

Boom!

Modern pre-screen arrived and went into SFG on May 19th, and hit G/E/I at the end of the day today.

I've been super impressed with how fast the pre-screens have moved through over the past few months. 

25 modern pre screen slow track:

SFG May 19th

G/E/I June 22

QC this morning, June 25

Super fast! Dont have the grades listed yet, but based on the bill total it looks like I did very well with this pre screen. 

On 6/23/2022 at 10:03 PM, captainzombie said:

At this point if they raise prices, how much is it going to cost us to slab one book now, like over $30 a book. LOL! They will start to chase people away.

I seriously doubt anyone will be scared away by paying over $30 per book. What will slow submission rates down is big dips in the market where people are no longer making money hand over fist on everything they send in. It looks like that type of market correction is already happening so we will see if TATs start to come down over the next few months.