Unethical or good business sense?

[wolfling40-migration]

OK.

Hypothetical: You have a key issue that you have scanned in before sending it to CGC. You think it should grade about 3.0 to 4.0. CGC gives the book to you with a grade of 1.8.

You decide to sell it. Would you put the unslabbed scan on eBay and not mention its CGC grade, hoping that, like you, others will think it is worth more (and they can always re-submit)? Or do you fess up to the CGC's 1.8?

 

Mark in Taiwan

[Rickdogg]

I'd just live with the grade. CGC is not perfect, but they are pretty consistent. So if you disagree with CGC's grade by more than 2 grade increments than you have problems with grading

[murph0]

I think that would be okay. If I buy a book from someone, the seller says its VF..I get it and think it's F..when I sell it, I'm not going to sell it and say "I think it's F but the person I bought it from thought it was VF". Same goes for CGC, their grading is an opinion just like anyone elses. Where I DO think it would be unethical to do this is if you get back a QUALIFIED or RESTORED book..break it out of the slab and then sell it as UNRESTORED without saying CGC thought it was restored or qualified. Now that would be the epitome of unethical.

 

Brian

[wolfling40-migration]

I agree with the restored/unrestored thing, but as for not understanding how to grade...seems like this board is loaded with people who have been unsatisfied with grading, even by several points.

[Guest]

I really don't know whether it's cgc's overly picky experts or collectors who just think they know better.

 

I want to know if anyone's sent in a comic, got it back, didn't like the grade, sent it back, and found that the grade was higher than before.

[Gunsmoke]

If you display an unslabbed scan and the book is slabbed, then I believe you are misrepresenting the book. If you are not satsified with the grade and crack it out and sell it, then this scenario is different.

 

However, to represent it as 3.0 or 4.0 without disclosing that CGC graded it lower borders, in my opinion, on misrepresentation. This is a very grey area and if you can live with then I'd say do it. Personnally, I wouldn't feel comfortable doing it.

[aardvark88]

Break the hammered down book out of the slab & sell it on eBay UNslabbed. Cgc's grading is VERY inconsistent depending on which decade or publisher they r grading. Cgc is NOT omniscient. Their staff make mistakes all the time due to the volume they r grading after a deluge of submissions from a major comicon. Different members of this board have cracked slabs, resubmitted & rec'd higher & sometimes lower cgc grades. Purple label coming back BLUE too.

[fantastic_four]

People say a lot of things on these boards. If you get those people in a comic convention room with their slabs, five non-CGC excellent graders, and Steve Borock, though, I bet the vast majority of those claims of overgrading would get discredited. It's easy to exaggerate from the anonymous safety of a computer chair in your home hundreds or thousands of miles away from the people you're talking to, especially when the thing you're exaggerating about is your own comic you paid to slab yourself or that you bought already slabbed by paying more than Overstreet Guide prices for.

 

I am highly interested in thoroughly evaluating any specific CGC-graded comic that someone thinks is more than 1/2 a grade off. The only misgrading occurrence I've found so far that seems suspect is from Gorgo, but CGC said that at least one of his apparently undergraded comics--possibly more than just the one, but Gorgo didn't say--were downgraded due to interior tanning that wasn't noted on the label. I'm interested in evaluating Gorgo's books further, but unless he breaks them out of the slab and describes their condition more fully, those books are inconclusive. And he stopped telling me about them after he and I had a disagreement regarding Methuselah.

 

Until I see some undeniable examples of CGC's gross overgrading, then I have to say that to represent a CGC 1.8 as a 4.0 is unethical at the very least. When you hear complaints about gross overgrading, always remember--the average collector is a minimum of a full grade off when they grade a comic. I think the average grading of the people who post on these forums is tighter than that, but still, you have to remember that with CGC you're getting 3 people's opinions weighed together; with the individuals on this board, you're getting one person's opinion. It's not only common, it's pervasive that people--including me and most others on this board--overlook defects when grading. It is much less likely that 3 people would overlook a defect than one person.

 

If anybody has slabs they think are 3/4 of a grade off or more, please, post scans, descriptions, and fully document the misgrading! I expect that CGC has let a few of those slip by, but if it's more than 1% of all the books they grade, I would be surprised.

[comicinvestor-migration]

Even I agree that CGC is pretty consistent in determining what I feel is an 8.5-9.4 range, but I've seen some freaky grades given at the 4.0-7.0 range ot be sure. This has happened on the over and under-graded ends, and until they (gasp) publish exact standards on their grading practices, how can anyone state that they're consistent?

 

Consistent to what?

[The_Man_Of_Steel]

Consistent to what?

 

Consistent to other books they have assigned the same grade.

[comicinvestor-migration]

Hey MoS, you must be tired from flying around the world looking at all of the CGC books ever graded. Take a break buddy.

[aardvark88]

Did Cgc just arbitrarily change their grading criteria to take into consideration the interior paper quality in the last month? If the bk is TAN or brittle, I can see that lowering the numerical grade. If the pgs are off-white or w-o/w, they NORMALLY just list pg quality on the slab b/c it is on a DIFFERENT scale. Similiar to the OWL chart point scale being separate & DISTINCT from the numerical grade. In the past, Cgc has never taken the TOTAL condition of the comic structure PLUS pg quality into the numerical grade.

[fantastic_four]

I think Overstreet meant for the OWL scale to be integrated into the overall numerical grade. He has mentioned page whiteness in his descriptions for the grades (NM, VF, etc) in both his Grading Guide and his price guides. I haven't seen any words from him yet that say the OWL is to be considered separately.

 

Jennifer Levitt told me via e-mail in early 2001 that page whiteness IS included in the numerical grade. After I saw a CGC 9.8 with "cream to off-white" pages, I called CGC in early 2002 and Mark Haspel reaffirmed that page whiteness is included in the numerical grade. I asked him if that has always been true, and he said yes.

 

I'm still trying to figure out where "Cream" falls on the OWL scale. Overstreet uses the descriptions "White," "Off-white," "Tan," "Brown," and "Brittle" on his OWL card. I have to assume "Cream" is somewhere between "Off-white" and "Tan"; I'm assuming that cream is either OWL 6 or 7.

 

I think you may have a point about CGC downgrading more for page whiteness; I've been assuming that they may eventually downgrade more for it than they have in the past. I've seen a 9.9 with Off-White pages and a 9.8 with Cream to Off-White pages; they may stop assigning grades that high to books with those types of pages at any time. I'd be very interested to know what the highest-graded comic from 2002 is with cream to off-white pages.

[lighthouse]

You know... if page whiteness is included in the numerical grade, then I may start looking for books with Off-White pages...

 

The premise here is that a 9.8 with OW has better structure than a 9.8 with White, since the White pager received no down-grades for paper quality. So if you remove paper quality from the grade, the 9.8 OW is a superior book to the 9.8 W.

 

Books degrade much faster from White to Off-White than they do from Off-White to Cream. So a White book and an Off-White book stored in identical conditions for 20 years might very well both be Off-White. Unless you are storing your CGC copies in absolutely ideal conditions, your 9.8 OW is likely a better book down the road than its White cousin because it will still have its superior structure. If a 9.8 Off-White has the same structure as a 9.9 White, then I think maybe I should be buying OW whenever I can...

[blowout]

that's an interesting point you bring up there lighthouse

i must say some peoples obsession with white pages is a little mistifying though (i can understand cream/tan phobia), i have books with off-white pages that look whiter than ones that supposedly are white!

i don't think that cgc has actually confirmed that page quality forms part of the grade or not, have they?

[fantastic_four]

My best guess is that CGC doesn't add page whiteness in to any cumulative downgrades from other types of defects; page whiteness can only determine the highest grade a comic can get. In other words, a 10.0 can't have anything below white; a 9.0 can't have anything below cream (I'm guessing about that exact number and all others that follow); an 8.0 can't have anything below light tan; a 7.0 can't have anything below dark tan; etc. The highest grades I've seen so far for the page whiteness categories are:

 

• Off-white - 9.9
• Cream - 9.8
• Light Tan - 8.5
• Slightly Brittle - 6.5

If anyone has seen higher grades assigned to those page whitenesses, let me know. My assumption is that CGC considers the mixed descriptions to be the same as the worst whiteness in a mixed description. In other words, Off-white to white is the same for downgrading as off-white; cream to off-white is the same as cream; light tan to off-white is the same as light tan; etc. I assume that because of the 9.9 I've seen with off-white pages; obviously, it wouldn't be a 10.0 with off-white to white and 10.1 with white!

[wolfling40-migration]

I have to say that to represent a CGC 1.8 as a 4.0 is unethical at the very least.

Hold on there. Look at my original post; I never said that I would misrepresent the grade to a potential buyer. I said that I thought that it was higher. My meaning would be to present the book as is and let the buyer decide what grade it is.

I definitely agree that saying something is higher than it was graded by CGC would be absurd.

 

Mark in Taiwan

[Bonds25]

Most books I've sent to CGC came back fairly close to the grade I expected, but I've had several that were WAY off. I had one that I graded a 9.0, and they gave it a 6.5. I have NO idea why, as it was flat, shiny, glossy, no major chips or creases, it had off-white to white pages, and looked gorgeous. Just because CGC said it was a 6.5 doesn't necessarily make it so. If I resold it, I'd probably compromise and say it looks like a VF 8.0.

[greggy]

"Would you put the unslabbed scan on eBay and not mention its CGC grade, hoping that, like you, others will think it is worth more (and they can always re-submit)? Or do you fess up to the CGC's 1.8?"

 

Your original post asked if you should put the unslabbed scan and not mention its CGC grade. This does not jive with what you just said! So...what DO you mean?

 

[greggy]

"Would you put the unslabbed scan on eBay and not mention its CGC grade, hoping that, like you, others will think it is worth more (and they can always re-submit)? Or do you fess up to the CGC's 1.8?"

 

Your original post asked if you should put the unslabbed scan and not mention its CGC grade. This does not jive with what you just said! So...what DO you mean?