Steven Valdez

On 12/24/2023 at 2:24 AM, VintageComics said:

About 30 years ago I was having a religious debate with a guy about the 10 commandments. 

I soon realized he hadn't ever read the Bible, he'd only seen the movie. 

So then I asked him a specific question about his beliefs, to which he replied: "I don't know. I'm going to have to see the movie again." 

I literally died on the spot.

"I literally died"? That's pretty serious.

Daredevil looks how I feel right now ....

On 12/23/2023 at 4:30 AM, aardvark88 said:

Merry Marvel Marching Society merchandising, t-shirt fun.

That ad page is a work of art in itself.

On 12/23/2023 at 5:53 PM, Lightning55 said:

You've "heard"? They have had pressing available for maybe 20 years! Nothing slips past you. 

Yeah, I've never submitted to CGC.

20 years of pressing, who knew....

On 12/23/2023 at 5:29 PM, VintageComics said:

4 times the headache, 4 times the quality control problems, 4 times the opportunity for something to go wrong, 4 times the hassle.

I would have thought tamper-proof (or tamper-evident) cases would alleviate the majority of concerns, stress and headaches? Well worth the extra 5 minutes of work per case, especially at minimum wage. Or you could get a robot to do it.

On 12/23/2023 at 5:38 PM, boreds said:

He has listings that (apparently) go back beyond 7-8 years... it could be more than a decade.

On 12/23/2023 at 5:32 PM, Silver Surfer said:

Imagine if this goes back 7-8 years, what a mess.

Dang, I feel like cracking out my CGC books now... then again on the other hand I do NOT want to do that!

On 12/23/2023 at 5:29 PM, brute_nm said:

Oh, for sure. With my limited resources, I've found the following cached eBay listings. All from zaneglor circa 2016-2017:

1. ASM #1 7.0 
2. ASM #1 7.5
3. ASM #2 6.5
4. ASM #2 7.0
5. ASM #41 9.0
6. FF #1 4.5

Someone with WorthPoint (like @agamoto) could give way more details

Son of a diddly!

I wonder how many collectors have cracked open their blue label CGC cases only to find books with missing coupons or pages? Any horror stories in this regard?

On 12/23/2023 at 5:22 PM, drotto said:

Plus, they present themselves as experts. So simple things like missing pages, missing MVS, restoration should not get past them.  In fact that is part of how they advertise the value of their service. They can garentee a book meets certain criteria. It is also why they say grading is somewhat subjective, to give themselves some wiggle room. Meaning one grade up or down roughly, not 3 or 4 off.  It is also why they allow pressing and dry cleaning, if they can not reliably pick it up they legally do not want to garentee it is not there.

I've heard that they actually offer their own pressing service... not a fan of pressing, as it's always obvious when it's been done and it's literally a form of restoration.

On 12/23/2023 at 5:08 PM, drotto said:

Until someone with deep pockets and 100k's worth of books takes them to court. You advertise as a grading expert that certifies books and condition, the law will treat you as an expert. 

I could also see a lawer bring a class action suit on the same basis.  This is the US, people love to sue, and we have lots of layers looking for work.

I can see tables of grading experts called as witnesses to argue over books in court.  Could be very entertaining.

It's the same thing as your bank getting hacked and losing your money. They're liable for not having adequate security measures in place.

On 12/23/2023 at 5:04 PM, Bo1983 said:

I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a lot of silver age slabs involved in this!

NO-O-O-O-O!!!! I say that because I have few.

On 12/23/2023 at 4:00 PM, Axelrod said:

Bottom line: this scam wouldn't work if they actually regraded reholder requests.  

That would seem to be an easy fix.

Except for (1) that takes more time and costs them money, and (2) suddenly the number of reholder requests goes way down.  

 

Good point. They really should make it a new policy as a matter of urgency. It wouldn't necessarily be a re-grading procedure, but more of an inspection and verification process.

On 12/23/2023 at 3:44 PM, Buzzetta said:

Also the Ramones. 

Under the LIRR overpass along the walkway is a mural to commemorate that btw.

That is awesome.

On 12/23/2023 at 3:35 PM, JC25427N said:

I'm not sure if you're lumping me in there, so just to be clear, I'm not against it by any means, I work in software development, I just don't think there's an appreciation for how complex it would be to create. I also think some over-estimating might be going on, processing large image datasets can take a really long time, might not be as fast and efficient as people think. 

No, was not lumping you in at all. Appreciate your comments.

On 12/23/2023 at 3:15 PM, Superman2006 said:

That is one option, but I could think of a way that scammers could try to get around even that, but I won't share publicly since I don't want to give scammers any ideas in the off-chance CGC ever goes that route.

I'm intrigued as to how they could pull that off (so to speak) but respect your discretion.

On 12/23/2023 at 3:12 PM, migmtl76 said:

Did CGC actually make a statement ?

No, sorry that was just me clowning around. My apologies.

On 12/23/2023 at 2:21 PM, BCR said:

I’m actually SHOCKED CBCS hasn’t come forward to tell us all why this could never have happened under their watch. 

Every single CGC that has ever been re-holdered is now potentially a counterfeit on some level. Lesser grade, a literal counterfeit…

We can never buy another CGC book as collectors if that book has been re-holdered. Especially if that book is in the thousands of dollars. 

We wouldn't even know if it was reholdered at all, if scammers are up to their hijinx at home.

On 12/23/2023 at 2:30 PM, jcjames said:

Yep. All four sides and any broken seal requires a full regrade. 

For years thin metallic or mylar tape has been used to identify tampered-with electronics or other warrantied products. 

There's certainly been good reason for CGC to have already moved into that type of integrity protection for many, many years now. 

Yep, it's a very simple and effective solution. I have no idea why they haven't been doing it all along, it's not as if it's brand new technology.

On 12/23/2023 at 3:01 PM, Nick Furious said:

It wasn't a real statement.  Was forum parody. 

Yeah, so was my response.

On 12/23/2023 at 2:25 PM, Mdesimone said:

I won a book from aureliaag also back in 2019 and it did ship from Forrest hills queens

Isn't that where Spider-Man comes from?

On 12/23/2023 at 2:12 PM, Sigur Ros said:

Understood.

But I just think the "Inside man" gives a defined time period.  A "limit" to the problem.  An "out".

Where as "we just keep screwing up, we've always been this way" would actually make them look more incompetent.

I dunno.

But if they can blithely hire one dishonest grader without picking up on it, what was stopping them from hiring dozens of them over the past 20-odd years?

On 12/23/2023 at 1:20 PM, Prince Namor said:

You wouldn't have to. The machine wouldn't be doing that. An employee does the handling.

I get why certain sellers would be against it. They have a buddy or two working for CGC who can game the system for them. The idea of blocking that is frightening to them. They could no longer claim to be as expert of a grader, because now they wouldn't know ahead of time what the grade was going to be.

Yep, there's definitely at least one character on here who seems almost violently opposed to any form of software-assisted grading.

On 12/23/2023 at 1:16 PM, mephistopheles said:

Guys can we take AI debate to another thread? 

Good idea, I keep getting 'scamming' and 'scanning' mixed up.

On 12/23/2023 at 1:12 PM, Prince Namor said:

How so? It's a SCANNING program. It's not an Android Super Robot from the Future who cuts open the mylar and counts the pages. You have an employee SCAN it. The most BIASED, easy-to-manipulate part of the process, you take OUT of the hands of a human being who could be BOUGHT, and instead have a computer do it.

So you're saying machines ARE superior to humans. Hey, I agree!