TomO1357

I tried CGC's pressing exactly once (for 10 or so books) and it changed absolutely nothing. It looked like they didn't even press the books. Either they didn't or each book reverted 100%. There was no improvement on any of them. Better to use an outside service if you're not going to press them yourself (I press my own usually, I just wanted to try theirs to see how it was)... As to the "quick question" poster before that, why would you clean and press books that already look perfect?

Now you're talking CGC's language! That's exactly what they want you to do

Well, that's true. I guess I should've said they should've only had 10.0's in stead of 9.8's from the start. That makes way more sense. You're right, why do the increments go by 0.5 all the way up to 9.0 (excluding .3 and 1.8), then suddenly switch to 0.2 increments? Why wasn't it just 9.5 and 10.0? Card grading isn't like that. Everyone wants the vaunted 10.0 in cards. At least there's not going to suddenly be a new 11.0 grade in cards... (6 months later, PSA announces the new 11.0) *groans* lol

That last part is what many people fear. It's quite possible CGC executives (who are, in all likelihood, not collectors, at least those on the board since the acquisition) are blind to this fact and just see it as a way to make money. It's not a conspiracy theory, it's a business move. And yes, long-term, it's obviously bad from our perspective - but large companies of all kinds have a history of coming up with short term gains at the expensive of long term value. It can easily be argued there is no difference between many 9.8's and existing 9.9's. Everyone who sends in a lot knows you can send absolutely perfect books and the best you can expect to get is 9.8. I doubt any of those books before were even considered for a 9.9 or 10.0. They aren't spending a lot of time looking at these, you realize. A former CGC grader said he would spend about 30 seconds on each book (modern tier, I would assume). You couldn't spend more than that because there are too many books coming in. If you're doing that all day long, and you get a comic that has no flaws, you're going to automatically say "okay, 9.8" and move to the next book. They should've never even had 9.9's or 10.0's in the first place, since 9.8 was already the established high grade, but there's no going back on that now. If they're suddenly changing the grading standard and giving out more 9.9's, which they appear to be doing, it will make them more money from re-submissions but devalue all existing 9.8's.

No need, and thanks for your opinion...As I said to someone else, perhaps I just expected too much. The colors and flat covers really stood out for me when I first submitted these, and I didn't notice much creasing, so I had high hopes. I try not to put much hope into grades, as I know its unpredictable to a degree and anyway it's the same comic regardless, but sometimes you can't help but invest some emotion. If some issues are under but one or two over, it's no big deal. But when each one comes back less than you'd hoped, it's like someone punching you in the stomach a bit harder with each reveal lol. If they hadn't taken so long to come back, I probably would've felt better about it too...Oh well.

Thanks for your opinion. Maybe I was just expecting too much from them. They are still nice grades for silver age...I only got a small portion of the collection. The original owner had almost an entire run of Whiz Comics, many early Sensation Comics, Wonder Woman, Avengers 1-100+, X-men 1-100+, early Shadow and Doc Savage issues with very numbers on the census, and other rare golden and silver age issues, such as Suspense Comics #3 with that sacrifice/bondage cover.

You're commenting on books I didn't picture and didn't even mention. I shouldn't have said "ALL" in retrospect, since the 0.5 on that issue is obvious, I actually forgot about it when I posted, as I was thinking about the others, so nevermind about that one. The Avengers #10 is comparable to 3.5's I found on the internet, though 2.5 isn't out of the question for it. If it was only that issue, I wouldn't bother posting. The Whiz Comics issue actually looks very nice but I don't have a picture to upload at the moment. It does have tanning to the cover but is very flat and has no significant creasing that can be seen in the light. I was asking people to go by the photos, not the notes, as I feel the notes for these aren't all warranted. Just putting something in a notes section doesn't make it true. Maybe they take off more for light tanning on books than they used to. Well, it is what it is in any case...I'll continue to submit modern books, as they've been quite fast lately, but I'm not sending in anything older in to CGC.

They're mostly: light creasing to coverlight spine stress lines to cover ...although the creasing and spine stress was generally very light on these IMO. I thought maybe some of the detractions were for cover tanning, though they only noted that on ToA #88. Notes are often incomplete in general, if not entirely blank, so maybe light cover tanning was also taken off for on other issues. There were no issues with the interiors, for the record. Idk, I just felt like these presented better than the grades given, whereas usually I'm mostly in line with what's given.

Sorry, I cut off the tops of two above in the pictures, Avengers 32 and 40 were both 8.0. The crease on #40 appears to be a printer's defect, may not be obvious at that angle. There's a drop-like stain or mark on the back of #32, don't know if that should bring it all the way down to 8.0 though, given a general lack of other flaws, idk, what do you think?

I just made a topic on an batch of books I felt were undergraded, please tell me if I'm crazy or not lol. I waited almost an entire year for these SA books to come back and all of them were disappointing and not what I expected. I feel like CGC needs to be accountable for their errors, but we generally all just shrug with the equivalent of "eh, what can you do?" and move on. I understand no company can guarantee they never make a mistake, and grading is by its nature at least partially subjective, but there should be some kind of review process for edge cases. They say more than one grader looks over a book but a lot of times it doesn't seem that way.

Whoops, I cut out the grade on one of these, but it got a 7.5. Has a small triangle-like edge flaw bottom middle, not much else.

I recently received back a batch of 10 silver age books (after waiting A YEAR, or close enough, for them to come back). Now, I know there's always a grade to disagree with and I've had undergraded and overgraded books, it's hit or miss, and so on. I'm also not one to complain about things, I've had faith in the general grading process overall. I've mostly predicted grades right on returning books. But I never had 10 books together that I felt were ALL undergraded to one degree or another. The grades seem to match neither the notes nor CGC's own general description of each grade on the scale IMO. But of course, this is my opinion, and maybe you'll disagree, I don't know. I do know that I feel severely disappointed that I spent around $350 and waited an entire year only to end up with grades that I don't feel represent the books. Right now I'm thinking I'll never send in another economy book and will switch to CBCS to give them a try, which I wouldn't have guessed I would say before. I feel like CGC should be accountable for their work, yet everyone just shrugs and moves on when you get a bad grader...But am I overreacting? Please see some of the pictures below and give me your opinions. NOTE: I'm well aware pictures can hide details but there are no large hidden flaws I could find and few small ones that don't show up at least slightly in the photos. These books were from one original collection, a remarkable collection which had numerous NM silver age and even higher grade golden age, from an older avid collector who passed away. The grader notes specify "light creasing to cover" for a lot, yet before sending these in I examined them closely in the light and they had remarkably flat covers, and I can't find much hidden beneath the slabs now. I'm also not saying they're 9.8's. One has a hard-line printer's crease (which I didn't think normally they take off much for, since its a manufacturing defect?), another has a small triangular-shaped edge-tear/flaw at the bottom-middle cover. One graded 6.5 has a very thin corner crease and almost no other flaws, which certainly doesn't match CGC's own generic description of "An above-average collectible with a major defect and some smaller defects, or a significant accumulation of small defects." Well anyway, enough complaining, I guess. Let me know what you think

I thought about this when I posted that and I knew someone would point it out lol. The thing is, this copy is already in pretty poor shape and not really a key, and I liked the idea of encasing it with a sign. But you have a point. I'm not sending it in anyway

I was excited to see she was signing. I recently got a Comic Cavalcade #11 with some other books, and it's got a cool golden age cover IMO, so for a second I thought: hey, it might be cool to get that signed... And then my jaw literally dropped at the $400 signature price tag. I went to the Boston Comicon in Stan Lee's last year of signing, and his was only $150 if I remember right (plus waiting in line all day). Yeah, long wait, but you also got to see him in person. $400? Wtf? Idk, call me crazy, but it doesn't seem worth it at that price. Feel free to disagree. If you're going to send in for her sig, don't mind my opinion, please post a reply and tell what comic you'll be sending in, I am curious. Thanks.

I don't buy/sell restored books so I could be wrong, but that seems a little low to me. A restored 5.0 sold way back in 2005 for 172.50, and most comics are way up since then. A blue-label 3.0 sold recently for 380.00. Based on that, I'd think a universal 5.0 would probably go for around $600. If you want to half that for the restoration, it would be $300, but I also think some restoration is more acceptable on a book from 1941, and this one also has great eye appeal IMO, so I would say $350.