Stefan_W

Until the F5 on your keyboard has been completely worn out.

The problem with the movies is they were not particularly good and in some cases outright bad (hello, Rise of Skywalker), and although nostalgia is a powerful thing it can still only take you so far. The streaming stuff is also a mixed bag with Mandalorian being exceptionally good and Boba Fett being tedious and largely boring. This is a lot like what Marvel is experiencing right now - make good stuff and people will flock to it, but start making piles of poo emojis and things will go downhill in a big hurry.

A local person has been slowly selling me his run of ASMs. I picked up issues 86-128 yesterday. Not taking a pic of every comic in that group but here are some of the highlights.

That is really strange, it is usually in the PDF regardless of whether it is on the web page. Hopefully they figure it out soon.

I had that happen once - try checking the shipping summary notification PDF they sent to you the day it shipped out. It should be listed there.

I sent it in via FedEx from Canada. My personal ticker always starts when the box arrives at CGC

Group of 20 MODERN Arrived at CGC - June 5 SFG - June 8 G/E/I - June 8

I am pretty sure the new employees are grading the bulk moderns that cycle through. The ones that last get bumped up to older books that require more extensive checks, and I image the ones who are long enough for that to happen get paid more, with the lifers who make the most handling the walkthrough high value books. At least that is how I would do it.

I like it! I wish all slabs had multiple grader estimates on them.

My recent ME sat in QC for a couple of weeks which was a first for me. Maybe there was a shortage in cases or shipping boxes, or something along those lines.

I was thinking of including a picture of myself making a very annoyed face but I thought that may be pushing it.

The books have been graded and slabbed, sent in for a reholder, sent back for an ME, and are now going back again with the same issue that was there the previous three times. I am going with the note.

Update: I called today and the customer service rep was very apologetic, and said it should have been fixed. I asked her to put an extra note in the file about changing out the inner plastic sheath. I ended up getting the international return label within an hour instead of the usual 3-5 days so that was a big bonus.

Here is the story of the two slabs in the attached photos: I sent in a reholder submission that included these two - both had scuffing on the back. The reholder was done, and when I checked out the books the same scuffing was there but a bit worse. I phoned CGC and asked whether they change the plastic sleeve on the inside or just change out the case, and the rep assured me that both are changed during a reholder. Fine, I explained what I saw and sent these two back as an ME. While they were sitting in SFG, CGC changed their ME policy so I figured there may be an issue if it is not fixed this time around. I just got the two books back, and when I checked them out - surprise surprise, the exact same issue. It seems unlikely that I would have the exact same issue in the same spots three times in a row so I am guess just the holder was swapped, and this did nothing to fix the book. I am a bit annoyed but willing to wait and see what CGC does about it. I paid for the books to be fixed, but if the process will in no way, shape, or form fix the issue with the slabs then I paid for nothing. I get that CGC may not want to cut into the inner sleeve for fear of causing damage to the books leading to a grade reduction. But why take books back that will not be fixed? Plus with the new policy changes I am not even sure what to do about this now. Anyway, pics below. Excuse the glare it is really tough to take good pics of this type of issue.

I went after the Batman 20 really hard tonight and was still beat out. The Batman GA books in general seemed to be selling for very strong figures.

About a year and a half ago I started pressing myself, and I have caught major flaws like this during the pressing process. You see things as you work on a book because you look at it very carefully. In any event, all I said it that it went through a bunch of hands/eyes and no one caught it. Whether the presser is responsible for catching it really doesn't impact on what I was saying.

Comic buying has been slow lately but picked up a small group of bronze age books - these are the highlights.

When I was really frustrated by this issue I called CGC and when I questioned whether the inside sealed bag was being changed out during a reholder I was assured that it was. Evidence suggests otherwise, and I believe that what you are saying is actually the case. If they have defective inner sealed bags the way to fix it is to swap those out, but doing so is probably time consuming and it presents a risk of damaging the comic. The easier approach is to just swap the case and leave the comic in the sealed bag, but if that is where the damage is this approach does absolutely nothing, or worse than nothing if the inner bag is scuffed even more in the process.

I think you may be right, and I will probably get a taste of it this week. I had two slabs that were not quite as bad as the example above but bad enough so I sent them in and paid for a reholdering for both. I got them back from the reholder a couple of months ago and they were even worse than when I sent them so I did an ME. The ME was sent in a while ago but the books sat and then this new policy came in. They made it through the system on Friday so should be in my hands by the end of this week. I am going to be a very angry lad if the issue is not fixed this time around since I will no longer have an ME option. Fingers crossed that this does not happen but I will post an update here either way.

Nopers. The books I have that are like this are scuffed on the inside of the cases. Products on the outside do nothing - and yes, I did try before realizing where the scuffing is.

I will put a twist on the discussion. At the start of the pandemic when prices were slowly starting to go up I decided to put a bunch of silver age raws up on Ebay. They were getting snapped up like crazy which was great because I used the cash to pay off my bills (another story for another day). One of the books was an early X-Men comic that I bought from Heritage. They said it was an FN, and I thought that was optimistic and listed it as VG/FN. It sold in the rush. A few weeks later the buyer came back to me and said he sent it in to CGC and it came back with a green label because there was a page missing. I felt terrible because I did not count the pages - I trusted the book was complete because Heritage said it was, and so I only looked at the condition. However, the guy who bought it got the book, sent it to a presser, and then it went from the presser to CGC. My opinion was that although I made a bad mistake and was more than happy to try to make things right, the buyer also played a role in this as did the presser. It went through 4 hands (Heritage, mine, the buyer, and the presser) and no one spotted the missing page so it did not feel like the blame was all mine. I offered him two choices. He could send the book back to me for a full refund of what he paid on Ebay (which he correctly did not take) or else I could refund the value difference between what he paid and the value of the qualified book. He took the second option and I ended up giving him about a 1/4 refund or something along those lines and he was completely happy with it. In no way, shape, or form, did I ever even remotely consider compensating him for the grading part of it - I believed and still believe that it is 100% his responsibility to check his books before sending them in.

My two book ME submission has been sitting in QC for coming up on two weeks now.

They put stickers on the back of slabs? spoon, finally had CL stop doing that #$$% after years of waiting. I think it is counterproductive because some buyers simply wont use the site because they dont want the pain of removing them.

A small scratch does not bother me personally and I have some silvers in cases with scratches on them in my PC, almost all from auction houses where they did not list the slab flaws. However, when I buy comics though I understand that nothing is forever and eventually I will move on from them. I try to avoid future selling headaches by making sure the cases are fine for resale if one day I need to do a quick sale to buy something I want more.

With all due respect, the questions you are asking are worded in an odd way. What I would and would not buy does not determine what someone else would and would not buy. If the item is listed as having a scratched case and someone doesnt care they can buy it, and if someone does care then can avoid it. The responsibility is to let the customer know. I have a table at local comic shows and customers can look at raws or slabs to whatever degree they like prior to purchasing. I would rather someone knows about deal breaking flaws before forking out cash than after. When I list slabs for sale in my comic group I note all flaws to the slab. Again, people make up their own minds but there needs to be full disclosure up front for deals to be fair.