carcrawfordfan

On 3/6/2024 at 8:37 PM, CGC Mike said:

If anyone is still experiencing problems with the online submission form, please send me your name, customer id number, company etc... via PM.  

Still happening. Is this sitewide??

I have been collecting, buying, looking up GI JOE for almost 30 years and have never seen that. I am weary of it as well. Maybe reach out to FHE??

On 12/28/2023 at 12:37 PM, wiparker824 said:

They’ve been out of office for holiday. I believe 22nd and 25th.

I had a magazine order arrive a few days ago and another one ship today. It was in Grading/QC for an abnormally long time after being charged (pre-screen), I kind of figured this might have something to do with it. 

On 12/28/2023 at 10:35 AM, VintageComics said:

Cards are much older than comics and much larger in scope, much like sports have always been more popular than comics. It stands to reason that there will be more card activity and the card hobby will be larger than comics. 

Coins are the same, meaning much older than cards and therefore the coin hobby is much larger than cards as well. 

Remember, million dollar coins have been the norm for some time. Million dollar comics are very recent. 

Yeah, I don't really get this stance. Cards have been and will be more heavily traded than comics for as long as I can ever remember. Besides the fact that cards are based on sports, just think of availability and logistics. Cards are much smaller and easier to send in the mail, house, collect, vault, etc. Cards are also sold just about everywhere that retail exists where comics do not have that. Anyways, I am involved in both hobbies and have been for over 30+ years each. I do agree that cards have had way more scandals and most people don't seem to care at all. Cards are altered every single day and still graded by the grading companies and outed all the time. Nothing ever changes and more and more money just keeps changing hands. I would suggest cards are at a too big to fail crossroads as so much money is involved and invested.

Last year was horrible. This year??? I can't believe how good the guest list was compared to the traffic in the room. Many of the tables are sold out, so someone has to be set up. Could be all sword and siding guys a la Wizard. I really don't know what to expect or if I can even go based on last year. 

On 9/20/2023 at 7:48 PM, justinsl said:

So I just had a submission shipped (or shipping tomorrow, 9/21, according the tracker page) that was received on 9/1 and probably shipped by me like a week and a half before 9/1. Standard modern grading, 25 comics.

But--and this is why I am mentioning this, because I want to note this win somewhere--I feel like I hit the jackpot with whoever the grader was, because this shipment has six 9.9s in it and six 10s. Almost half the submission over 9.8! This has never happened to me before, my previous record was maybe three 10s and two 9.9s in a group of 25.

Wow. What kind of books??

On 12/16/2022 at 11:32 AM, Archaeos said:

Got myself a copy of the Dell Otto variant as think it’s his first cover work for spawn and it looks great! 
 

Nothing to see here. Nice book!

Anyone have any tips on removing mailing labels from Magazines before sending in? I have done a fair amount of googling, but nothing seems definitive. Any advice? Thanks!

On 10/14/2021 at 4:03 PM, Petroman said:

That's crazy!  When was it delivered?  I'm guessing just a few days ago.  I wonder how they determine which submissions are getting this new grading process.  Dang, sign me up for that!

Yes, it was delivered a few days earlier. Second time in a week I have gotten 1 or 2 day service on Slow Boat Modern Pre-Screens. I still have many orders sitting from as far back as April (ccs) and July (just grading). These are new orders under the new pricing. All my other orders are pre price increase.

Another slow boat Pre-screen order for me:

Just had a 25 book modern pre-screen get checked in today and go straight to g/e/i. I ran errands all day and just checked and it was marked as shipped for 10/11. I still have 4/7 stuff sitting at CCS in process and many other prescreens sitting in g/e/i from as old as late july. Weirdest thing I have ever seen. I was also charged today as well, so it is going out the door.

10/8/21

25

1,270

PRESCREEN - MODERN

Shipped

10/11/21

On 9/7/2021 at 8:55 PM, ChrispyC66 said:

Not anymore. Check the status explanations. Quality Control/Finalized is the new status before Shipped.
Grading/Quality Control and Finalized/Imaged/Shipped was split into G/E/I - QC/F - Shipped.

All mine says Grading/QC before shipped. It goes GEI/GQC and then shipped. it has been that way since they flipped it over a few months ago or whatever. I don't get QCF. 

On 7/20/2021 at 2:53 PM, Count D. Monet said:

Cards? Years and years? They've only been around for one year  We're talking about comics.

I am talking about PSA. 

On 7/20/2021 at 1:19 PM, Count D. Monet said:

They've had this policy for 20 years.

They did not really ENFORCE this until recently and it was only on certain cards. They started hiring staff a few years ago to solely concentrate on upcharging people. Before it was on egregious examples like Jordan rcs and things of that ilk. I didn't get upcharges for years and years and now get them in almost every order. I am sure the new CGC investors are all over this as they have some familiarity with PSA and card grading. 

This is what PSA (card grading) has been doing for years. I figured this was finally coming here. I hope it isn't widespread. 

9 hours ago, Domo Arigato said:

This is a game I've been following for a while......and as you mentioned.....you definitely should have kept that copy.  The PS1 market is heating up quickly, and the first Tomb Raider game for it in high grade is not an easy one to find. 

Honestly, I'm a bit surprised that it didn't happen sooner.  I know everyone is all about the Nintendo's.......and the Mario's.......and the PokeYerMoms.......etc. etc etc. until I want to puke........but the PlayStation consoles have always been massive sellers.  On the top five list of best-selling game consoles......the PS2 holds the number one spot......the PS4 is number four.....and the PS1 is number five. 

If you narrow that list down to just Home Game Consoles (no handhelds, etc).....the list looks like this:

1. PS2
2. PS4
3. PS1
4. Wii
5. PS3

I also see people on Facebook all the time that keep wondering why Tomb Raider sells for any kind of money......and I keep wondering why they keep wondering why.  It's a MASSIVE franchise and this game started it all.  The Tomb Raider game was a huge hit when it came out in 1996, and they've released 12 main title games since then (not counting mobile, etc) on multiple systems, and the franchise is still going strong today, 25 years later.  It's had several big budget movies based off of it, and another one is in the works now.  And that's not even taking into account all the toys, action figures, statues, lunch boxes, t-shirts, comic books, graphic novels,  etc. that have been based off of it.

So, frankly, Mario can suck it. 

Here are the sales I've tracked for the sealed or graded PS1 Tomb Raider game over the last year or so:

On 11-2-2020........Tomb Raider (sealed but ungraded and with a huge price sticker on the front) sold for $3,250 on eBay

On 11-4-2020........Tomb Raider in 8.5 (A++) Wata grade sold for $3,350 on eBay

On 2-1-2021..........Tomb Raider in 9.2 (A+) Wata grade listed for starting bid of $7,000 on eBay and one smart bidder sniped it at the end.

On 3-8-2021...........Tomb Raider in 9.4 (A) Wata grade listed for $12,995 buy-it-now on eBay and was quickly pulled before it sold.  I suspect this might have been the one that just sold in the Heritage auction, but I don't know for sure.

On 3-16-2021..........CIB (opened but complete in box) Tomb Raider in 9.4 Wata grade sold for $1,725 on eBay

At this point, people seemed to realize that eBay wasn't the best place to sell this type of game, and listings/sales dried up completely there (I think the Heritage sales that followed showed that they were correct).

On 4-2-2021........... Tomb Raider in 8.0 (A) Wata grade sold on Heritage for $26,400

on 7-11-2021............Tomb Rider in 9.4 (A) Wata grade sold on Heritage for $144,000

So......in the last nine months of watching eBay and all of the major auction houses for listings of this game......I've seen one sealed ungraded copy........one opened (CIB) graded copy......one 8.0 graded copy........one 8.5 graded copy...........one 9.2 graded copy..........and one 9.4 graded copy.

(Almost forgot......Metropolis has a 6.5 graded copy listed for sale on their website right now for $20,000).

It may not stay that way......and the recent Heritage sales may start shaking more loose......but for right now, it's just not an easy game to find in high grade condition (Wata 9.0/VGA 85 or higher).  Especially when you compare it to a lot of other popular franchises that have dozens or hundreds of high grade copies that still sell for huge amounts.

Another thing people will have to consider if they have a high grade raw or VGA copy of this game they want to sell on Heritage.  First, they're going to have to get it graded by Wata (Heritage does not sell raw or VGA graded games).  And now that these recent sales have happened, they are going to have to use either the Speed Run or Warp Zone grading tier with Wata......which includes a 2% charge of the games value in addition to the grading fee for any game valued over $2,500.  Which means getting high grade copies of this game slabbed by Wata is no longer going to be inexpensive.

 

Yeah, I feel like a real insufficiently_thoughtful_person for some of the stuff I sold years ago. I was doing a pretty good job finding sealed copies of rarities and flipping them graded for 20-50x what I paid, but I can see the market has really matured in the last few years. I still have 8 or 9 long boxes of sealed games that are mostly not graded, but most of them are Xbox/Ps2 era and up with only 1 or 2 long boxes of older type stuff. I currently have a decent 20 game package at VGA with Assassins creed first print for Xbox and PS3, a few early CODs, Bioshock 1s, Halo GOTYs, Uncharted 1s, Dead Space 1s, Shadow of the Colossus, NBA Jam 1st for Genesis, Bill and Teds for NES and some other random stuff. I will have to go through and see what I have that needs to be graded. I hope CGC designs a good case and the value is there. That can only help alleviate all this backlog everywhere. 

1 hour ago, darkstar said:

The Mario 64 sale isn't repeatable. It is effectively a first to market auction after Heritage and WATA primed the market for two years. The important thing to note here is what the other titles sold for across all platforms, especially the ones that weren't 9.8s. Like the original Tomb Raider for Playstation selling for close to 150k. 

That is the craziest sale imo. I sold a VGA graded copy 5-6 years ago. IIRC it was an 85 or 90 and it probably sold for 2k or so. I will probably go jump off a bridge soon as a result. 10K I could believe, 100k+ is staggering. 

2 minutes ago, justin said:

They probably saw the $$$ Wata has been rolling in. If anyone has a chance of taking them on, I'd guess it'd be CGC.

VGA has been around waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay longer and seems to sell for more in most instances. Wata has the worst cases of any grading company I have ever seen in my life. You couldn't pay me to own one of those unless it was for resale. VGA (AFA) and Wata are both backed up to the moon like CGC, PSA, BGS and almost every other collectible grading company, so the markets probably have room for competition. 

2 minutes ago, csaag said:

also from the article

 

"Additional investors in today's transaction include Roc Nation; Michael Rubin, founder and executive chairman of Fanatics; SC.Holdings, a growth equity platform; Mastry, founded by Rudy Cline-Thomas; Andre Iguodala; Daryl Morey, President of Basketball Operations for the Philadelphia 76ers; and Main Street Advisors, a leading investment advisory firm to prominent athletes, recording artists, and other leaders across entertainment and business."

 

76ers president?    first the Ben Simmons debacle - now this....

Daryl Morey used to work at a local movie theater near me when he was a young lad. A few of my good friends worked with him and say he was crazy smart. 

I didn't see this posted anywhere else yet. Please remove if duplicate.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/blackstone-to-acquire-certified-collectibles-group-271625149366

9 hours ago, 1Cool said:

I walked up to a dealer who I know gets in some decent stuff right after he finished setting up and noticed he had a Moon Knight 1 on his wall mostly covered by other books.  I asked him how much and he said "they are $25 plus you get a free X-Factor 1".  I said "Sold, but you said they so you have more?"  He says "sure, I've got a stack of them"!!  I couldn't say SOLD fast enough but the funny part was the couple dealers digging through boxes had to watch as he handed over 12 copies of both books and the only other books he had in bulk were X-Men 150.  Love being at the right place at the right time.

. I must have just missed those. I saw the 150s, xmen 1s and crisis books he had. Good work.

7 hours ago, Tnexus said:

WGTC's "Insider" Daniel Richtman who seemingly is credited with everything they post. I'd put zero stock in that trash website.

Agreed. Fake news/sources and total garbage site. 

13 minutes ago, Ant-Man said:

Now Oct 15-17.

Same weekend as Motor City Comic Con and Indiana Comic Con. Totally idiotic. 

1 minute ago, I like pie said:

I think it looks the same as any other copy.

Ok, well people asked why it sold for more and I gave you an explanation. You can believe it or not. 

1 minute ago, I like pie said:

I have. There are a couple of shady sellers darkening the image and bamboozling buyers.

That is not true. It legit has a darker cover on some of them. I have seen it myself. I can't account for every seller, but don't spread misinformation. I personally don't think it should sell for any sort of premium.