Lightning55

3rd attempt to derail this thread toward a discussion on the long dead Hulk 180/181 debate.

Agree 100% with this. When you go to sell your books, or your loved ones sell them, you want to get the best price. You can lose potential buyers because they notice flaws on that 9.8, flaws that cause them to not invest their money in what they consider a substandard 9.8. In most markets, as the pool of potential buyers decreases, so does the price, typically. But you could get lucky and find a buyer, and you only need one. One who also buys the grade on the label only.

Yeah, just double up on trying to dredge up that beat-to-death topic, completely unrelated to the OP. I hope you are unable to suck anyone in, but I don't hold out much hope for that. At least it took 243 pages to emerge.

Just slightly Off Topic. And no one has ever discussed THAT before.

On the main thread, out of 200+ pages, there are about 25 posts that provide factual information. The rest are opinions, from wild to mild, in all directions. Speculative confirmation of earlier speculation. To be expected, in this type of weighty situation, but hard to slog through them all.

Nice for the "guy", but irrelevant to anything happening here.

Most people, I would think, don't want this happening, casting a pall on a popular hobby. Although a few CGC haters are overjoyed. For me, it won't have any direct effect. I'm just tired of the fear mongers and alarmists out there speculating about how the sky will fall. The reality will be that almost nothing will happen, almost nothing will change in the marketplace. And far from sitting back, you are yelling fire in a crowded theater. For some reason you are trying to create fear and doubt in people's minds. Your ludicrous statement, as soon as your 4 day detention was over, something like "worst case scenario" was made to stir the pot, see if people would fall in to your way of thinking. I believe a couple did, so success??? And now you want to plant some naive idea that everyone is at home sharpening screwdrivers in preparation of a mass comic substitution hysteria. There's one on every forum, and you're that guy.

The non-MVS Hulk 181 cannot be raw. It has to already be in a capsule/well to be swapped in as a unit, unless you have also seen a video of someone swapping raw comics into sealed capsules. Doing that is not at all like popping a frame. Gonna look bad, if you could even do it. Maybe if you have your own supply of inner wells and frames. And the sealing equipment, another 5 figures for that. I won't say someone won't try. There's always some yahoo who will try anything, like getting their tongue frozen to a metal pole. People doing this every day, all day? No, not going to happen. It's a fantasy, all in your imagination. One in a million (which is still too many).

It's not as easy as it sounds, and may require very deep pockets. Keep in mind that you are going to need 2 CGC copies. Let's say you don't have either, but you want to get a blue 9.4 and a green 9.0 to swap in for it. Besides the crack and reseal challenge, you'll have to pony up about $16k for the components. And take your chances that you are not found out. If you want to start higher up, a green 9.2 into a blue 9.6 case, that will cost you $23k. And if going for big money, no whammies, you need to start out with a $56k 9.8 blue. Then find something green that could pass for a 9.8, which sure won't be easy. At least another 10 grand for that, totaling $66k+. So now, armed with your sharpened screwdriver in one hand and your trusty heat gun in the other, you stare down at $66k worth of comics and you're gonna risk the crack and reseal. Hope you had some practice. Yeah, tons of people every day will be doing this. No. And the lower the grades, to make it more affordable to do it, the reward drops exponentially. Low grade green CGC copies really aren't a lot less than their blue counterparts. Not enough to incur the risk.

A lot of gloom and doom here. The grading and slabbing of comics is just an evolution. A lot of people like it, or it wouldn't have grown into the enterprise it is today. I see it only getting bigger as the years pass, like it or not.

100% correct. The one that killed me a few pages back was the post quoting himself to bump his "Comic Apocalypse" that apparently did not get the response and affinity he was hoping for. But at least now all his Prepping will pay off.

My understanding of it is that it works in a very targeted manner. This allows a weld (plastic surfaces melting together) without heating up the entire frame. It's joined on a molecular level at these surfaces, but it still is not as if it was a single piece of plastic in a mold. And it isn't applied around the entire perimeter of the frame. So it has vulnerability, but you are supposed to see the seam fracture if separation is attempted.

The tan cat is so fast I can't even see his paw moving. Much like every cat that scratched me as a kid. Faster than the eye could follow.

I know you are just using it as an example, but it is likely CGC did not miss the MJ variant, because it originally was not an MJ variant. The case, and a swapped in lower grade MJ variant were sent in for "correction". At least so it seems for the book in the thread title. CGC has had their share of errors and QC issues, so not meaning to excuse them at all, especially in this mess.

If I was curious enough, I would. I have some slabs worth less than grading costs. But I'm sure if we give it a beat, someone will try it for us and report the results.

That is a Catch 22 type of thing. If it reacts to heat, it will react when being welded, right from the getgo. Or trigger if exposed to hot temps, so indicating a false positive for tampering. But maybe a side benefit of telling you that the comic was exposed to excessive heat.

Definitely could smooth out surface scratches. We're supposed to be able to see visible deformities or fractures where the seams are reattached. Like light retracting in an odd way, similar to the pieces of glass in a broken mirror. A new case should look smooth and even as your eyes follow the line of the seams, close to perfect. A compromised case should have visual interruptions that give it away. I have only cracked a half dozen cases, by force. They could in no way be rejoined to look new. But that is a woefully poor exemplar. Maybe someone with more CPR experience could shed some light on this.

This, for sure. Every case coming in for reholder has to be treated as suspect. On either reholder or ME, you have to put a Declared Value on the form. I would first check that the DV indicated is correct for the comic, quick lookup at GPA. And the higher that DV is, the more carefully I am looking at it. Only $150? Cursory check that it is in the same condition as the grade states, maybe 2 people have to agree. Also checking against lists of target fraud comics - inserts, MVS candidates, etc. Anything suspicious, it's detoured to the graders. Over X dollar amount, automatic trip to the graders to at least be re-authenticated, if not completely regraded.

Also true. But the scam comics, compared to all CGC comics is again a micro-sliver of those traded. Think of all the titles, the different eras, it's enormous. But the scam comic issues in play are likely a few targeted issues over and over. The CGC-enabled copies are the ones CGC is responsible for. If someone can prove that the case is not tamper-evident, that would open them up to more claims. But until such an example is unearthed, CGC has no involvement in those direct swap and reseal comics. We have to see how things play out, but I am sure there will be a shortage of patience. I would like to see something soon, because following this thread is a full time job.

CGC is definitely on the hook for anything they reholdered after initial grading, and this can be tracked. Probably not on the hook for any original submission that left their facility and was later swapped. Maybe unless someone could absolutely prove the case could be altered with no sign of tampering, defeating their tamper-evident claim.

That's true, possibly, as it stands now. But it's way too early to speculate that there won't be a development that makes it possible to determine that cases have been compromised. CGC has to examine these cases to find out how they resealed them so well, and if it was actually accomplished, or just overlooked, not enough scrutiny.

If CGC can show any markers, evidence of tampering on a case, they are off the hook. They don't warrant the case to be tamper proof, just tamper evident. If it has been altered (and CGC wasn't involved in the altering, an example being a direct swap and reseal by a scammer), that's not on them, no liability. And so they cover only the alleged CGC-aided swaps, possibly occurring during the reholder process. Bear in mind that CGC collectors make up a minority of comics collected worldwide, raw comics still prevailing. Of those, an even greater minority collected are 4-5 figure CGC comics. When talking about the number of units, it is a thin sliver of the market.

In a Championship Boxing match, the worst case scenario would be getting knocked out in the early seconds of the first round. Fight over, go home. Or to the hospital, if warranted. This scandal is more like a heavy body blow, one that takes time to recover from. You're not down, you're not out, but reeling a bit, scrambling to buy some time as you regain your footing. I believe this scam involves much more than the few hundred slabs mentioned. Could easily be in the thousands. But there are many things that will help mitigate the damage to CGC. Some submitters, like myself, don't deal in high value comics, so no exposure. Some may never even hear of it. It may turn out that altered holders, once more carefully examined, have a particular "tell" that reveals that they have been compromised. And we will know what to look for. Could be that people are somewhat appeased by the remedies CGC might offer, whether it's a tightening of standards, added security features, re-casing legacy holders, compensation for losses incurred from the scam, etc. Decisions, probably very costly decisions, will have to be made as more information becomes available. Business, for CGC and the hobby in general, will go right along, maybe altered slightly, call it a slight limp for now. Over time, barring any new incidents, the limp will go away. Not the memory of it, but the effects. We'll see how things progress in the coming months.

I got lost with this: "Someone in the middle who works or has worked for Joe Blow might be slipping their own books in with the larger submissions with or without others' knowledge." Don't want to be lost, but here I am.

Yeah, I feel like I went back to page 85 accidentally.