MyNameIsLegion

I'm still waiting on an answer as to how the 350 can be the total number of books that are suspect if this guys has sold a great many more books over the course of 15 years on eBay. Not necessarily every book that was swapped went back to CGC, some may have been sold or traded off into the wild. Every serial number of a CGC he every sold is just as questionable as the ones that he submitted to CGC. If CGC didn't catch the swap, then the average customer may not either. Blue label for Blue label ASM#300's could have been swapped from 9.8 to 9.4. Then He sent legit raw 9.8 to CGC to get another slab to swap with another 9.4. That would be the simplest scheme given the high number of the same books to keep a pipeline going and not risk being caught by CGC every time.

and you got it from.....

I doubt anything even close to that happens- each individual or entity that sends a book back in and finds it to be less than the state grade will be informed of such (you'd hope) They are the only one's CGC is obligated to inform or compensate. Also, broadcasting the specific of the fraud would not be disclosed so publicly in a criminal or civil case. That would not be in CGC's best interest, or in the interest of prosecuting the fraudster.

What about all the eBay sales that @comicwiz has been tracking? Wouldn’t all books sold by the fraudster be suspect? CGC only directly know which books were submitted to them directly. But it’s just as conceivable that he swapped books and sold them without laundering them to CGC. In fact the ones he sent to CGC might have just been the ones he couldn’t pass off or he just needed to prime the pump to get more cases and books to swap out. The contagion extends to all books he touched that were slabbed.

that's probably true- some hourly wage slave took that 9.8 and 9.4'ed it in the sleeving and slabbing process. You should probably subtract .2 off any book after it's slabbed. Older, more fragile books probably suffer a half grade hit in the slabbing process. It was always a leap of faith sending off a book to some "authority" to bless it with a grade. Now that we've sobered up and know that Santa isn't real what is the real value of the service and the grade? Does the census really mean much? Does it make sense to pay a premium for the highest graded copy of any book? Was it really three books in the census in three different grades over time?

unless it's missing the CF, MVS, MJ Insert, had rusted staples, tape, and the interior paper is brown and flakey like Mrs. Smith's Pie Crust. You just don't know do you? You don't have the benefit of inspecting the interior BEFORE you make the purchase. I"m kinda sick of this smug "buy the book, not the grade" mantra. Can't do that if you can't see it. That WAS the point of CGC. That ship has long sailed and been set on fire, by the market, and CGC themselves. They are a commodities broker, not a third party grading service. At this point, I'll take MCS over CGC.

Well practically speaking we can’t reholder them all. This is really a chain of custody issue, as @comix4fun pointed out about 200+ pages ago. All slabs that currently reside with their original submitter aren’t really in question (unless they are cracking their own to swap) It’s the ones that change hands and purchased from a 3rd party that are in question. In my mind this is probably solvable via an app or website that tracks chain of custody when slabs are bought and sold. Again, CGC could turn this into a profit center by having members subscribe to this online registration and verification site. Then slabs that are registered command a premium over hooker slabs prowling the back alleys online where you get what you get and you takes your chances!

Here's a possible invisible barcode strategy that doesn't require printing a unique barcode for each inner sleeve and holder. Inner sleeve: preprinted X# of sleeves with 12345 Holder: Preprinted x # of holders with 6789 specific copy of ASM-252: Normal barcode: 123456789(not visible on the label)-A2345gh595 where the trailing digits are specific to the individual copy of the book graded. The inner sleeve and holder comprise the verification of the sequence expected for a specific book. There's little chance a scammer could find or know, sight unseen what the inner and outer sequence is to match them or marry them with the same book in a lesser grade to swap out. When CGC receives a reholder they scan the inner and outer well to verify the invisible barcode. Fast and efficient. Is it 100% foolproof? No, nothing is 100% Not ever, but it's a possible improvement that could be cost-effective.

This is where my head is at as well- the inner sleeve is the key to a two part verification system to ensure that inner and outer components of the slab are original. This is probably a more low cost way to implement a layer of security that hardens the target and dissuades fraud. Something like this: applied to the inner sleeve in addition to the holder that doesn't detract from the view of the comic and is only visible with the correct equipment. Invisible Barcodes For Retailers And Manufacturers Barcodes and barcode scanning has come a long way over the last few decades and has mainly focused on making them easier to read. To that end, there has been development and an identified need within a range of industries to create “invisible” barcodes. These invisible barcodes are created by using specialized ink that emits a fluorescent “glow” when exposed to certain kinds of lights such as ultraviolet (UV) or infrared (IR) light. This essentially makes the barcode hidden to the naked eye. There are many reasons for barcodes of this nature including aesthetic, as to not ruin the look of a product, as well as brand authentication, security or tracking. Industry & Application Uses Brand authentication – This has become a major problem worldwide over the pass few decades. This includes everything from pharmaceuticals, fake meds from China, to cosmetics and luxury goods such as fake wallets and handbags. Fake products whether imported or not create lost revenue to the manufactures and possible litigation issues to the sellers. Package design – Many manufacturers and retailers use packaging with branding and colored designs leaving little room for visible barcodes. Invisible barcodes can be applied without using valuable real estate or interfering with the design. Additionally, these can be applied at different locations on the packaging, allowing barcoding scanners to easily read the codes no matter the positioning on the package. Product Identification – Serial numbers and warning labels can utilize invisible barcodes to identify product information including product issues and requirement or possible recalls. https://www.universeoptics.com/invisible-barcodes-for-retailers-and-manufacturers/

I don’t fully understand the nuance of green versus qualified blue, it seems to imply 2 different numerical grades. But the submitter gets to choose? Are they presented with both numbers and then given the choice after it is graded? Can you request a reholder from one to the other after the fact? Is this another avenue for some monkey business too?

Lots of straw here. We haven’t spent a lot of time discussing the inner well, but this isn’t anything approaching a five figure investment, you pulled that number out of your butt. Gaming the inner well is likely the easiest of material components of a slab to replicate. I think you have an image in your head of some dork with a butter knife an exacto blade and some superglue trying to swap the inner well? Why do that when you can just stick it in a brand new one? You think CGC has some special stock of those that cannot be reproduced exactly for relative pennies? Any petroleum derivatives are the most easily fabricated substances on earth at scale and in prototyping. You can prototype an entire sports shoe from China for hundreds of dollars, this is child’s play. I think there was a link earlier in this thread to PSA card blanks and sealing machines on Alibaba. If the eBay of China is openly advertising the materials and equipment to fake authentication then the idea is not fantasy, not theory, not an outlier or a rarity. It’s a viable business model with minimal barriers to entry. Downplaying this thread as an isolated incident and labeling anyone that says otherwise as alarmist, or whatever is intellectually dishonest. You don’t want any of it to be true. Nor does any other collector with six figures invested in CGC assets that factor prominently in their projected net worth and future retirement that factors into the rationalization in their head and to their wives on why they should spend thousands on comics magically worth more for the blessed sacraments bestowed upon them in a plastic shell.

yeah I wondered something similar on the insurance side of things about 40-50 pages back. Not sure anyone took it up, I've slept since then and don't have a sharp enough machete and napalm to work my way back that far. Another fraud scheme you could pursue would be to file an insurance loss on a bunch of 9.8 slabs that were swapped out DIY with lesser grades. A little fire damage or outright theft would be enough to obscure any holder tampering. Then take your insurance money and slab the real 9.8's again.

au contraire - the hobby existed for 60 years without them- one might argue that CGC is why the hobby is going down the tubes. All the money is getting siphoned into a narrow corner of the market (slabs) at increasingly inflated amounts. No one is reading comics, they're just entombing them unread in a plastic coffin hoping their stock in that issue rises. After the boomers cycle out, younger generations will be left scratching their heads wondering what all THAT was about and at some point Goodwill is going to see trunk-loads of slabbed books not worth case cost. CGC was marketed as a service, it's initial raison d'etre seemed to make sense. But for the last 10 years CGC has been unabashedly NOT a service, but a product. You are buying the plastic case and the label. CGC is probably due what happened to comic publishing and then comic stores in the late 90's when they almost went under. Greed and unsustainable growth NEVER end well for most people. But the few people that do profit from it will run it into the ground on the way down with nothing but fervor and trumpets.

I think the only solution here would be to not use pins constructed of the same materials and therefor vulnerable to the sonic welder, like rivets. But that goes back to my earlier point, time and cost added to the process of holdering or opening to reholder. The sweet-spot for them will heavily favor efficiency and cost at the expense of quality and security. what would really be the kick in the teeth is they turn this into an opportunity to offer "enhanced slab options" A bomb-proof slab that's guaranteed to be secure for 2X the price. Standard pricing remains in the current holder. Any reholder order comes with a "free" press and regrade of the books. There's just so many ways to monetize their lack of quality and make it a profit center at the customers expense.

so, the new strategy for selling in this post-Holdergate world is to highlight BA slabs that have scratches and nicks, scuffs and surface wear to ensure it hasn't been monkeyed with. Just lay those new slabs out on the floor around the litter box and let the cats trample them a bit.

I don't think it's done to be airtight or watertight- it's just "good enough" to make it fast. They didn't build these to be reusable either. They designed them to be quick to assemble firstly, and reholder if necessary because they have thousands to do a week. Anything to shave off time and increase their throughput.

Respectfully, I think we underestimate machine learning. Once you establish the lingo, (CF, LRC, spike tick, spin stress, etc etc) It's going ot learn pretty fast. Having such a large data set is a huge advantage. Eventually it would be telling you how many times the notes were incongruent with the images.

Even more importantly, CGC has the scans, grades and notes on hundreds of thousands of books. AI wouldn't need to be trained in real time so much as loaded with reference examples of books, especially SA to Moderns for all grades, with a multitude of examples of the cumulative defects that were (in theory) used in arriving at the final grade. I know Roy likes to wax poetic about the human element, the je ne sais quoi if it, the touch the feel of paper, the fabric of our lives, the smell, oooh that smell, can't you smell that smell, blah blah. Well that's the point, to remove the subjective bias of individual graders that governs the difference between a 9.4 and a 9.6m a 0.6 and a 9.8. Each grade of a specific book can be instantly weighted against the average of all previous examples of books in that grade, with similar defects, instantaneously. Humans can't do that. Imagine bouncing every 8.0 Hulk 181 ever graded against the current copy under consideration to determine if the grade is in range. also pointed out in this thread, once the mechanical and procedural aspects were properly set aside (goal posts!) AI could be the pre-screen agent, and the QC that is sorely lacking now as CGC incorporates AI into the grading process iteratively. You don't need 45 full time graders, you probably need less than 10 once you eliminate the need for pre-grades, multiple graders, QA etc. the current process is founded on the limitations of the human element, AI eliminates off of that. I realize that's scary for some people, people will lose their jobs or be freed up to do other things, which is sometimes euphemistic for "you're job is obsolete" THAT'S the underlying anxiety of the naysayers. Suddenly their feelings of superiority and expertise, that they are better graders than 99% of other dealers and collectors is moot. The eventual progression of this is that you could prescreen a comic with your phone from an app from someone like CGC to get a pre-screen estimated grade of your book to see if it's a good candidate for slabbing. You make it a subscription rather than a service. There are so many possibilities and business models of how this could be monetized it's crazy, but not so scary as some would want you to think. those with their head in the sand, or elsewhere wind up in a self full-filling prophecy, because they are the first ones to be displaced, left behind, and obsolete.

Stickers!

wait, isn't slabbing it yourself the problem?

hmm, my Batman #181 missing the CF and all my MJI did sell at MCS, some just this week....

OMG that 's AI......

anyone think there's an insurance angle here? A collector files a loss because they recertify or reholder a book that was tampered with and it come back a lower grade and worth significantly less? What the biggest $$$ amount known to be dodgy so far? $15K?