Anti CGC

[AtlasFan]

How about non color breaking indents, varying degrees of fading, tanning on the inside covers, different sized cuts....the list goes on and on.

 

It's like trying to discuss the reinvention of the wheel.

 

It ain't gonna happen.

 

You'd have more productive discourse on trying to figure out how to make human grading more consistent than trying to replace it with a machine.

 

 

Roy,

Forget the machine. The goal here is not to replace grading with a computer.

What is required to accomplish this task is to standardize the grading process.

 

This can be done by:

1) identifying all component parts of a comic book

2) identifying all defects that each component can have

3) establish a process of measuring component parts of a comic (page quality, cover gloss, rustines of a staple, etc).

 

All the "machine" or program would do would be to record each defect or measurement and tally up a score. And again, you dont need a computer to do this, it could be done by hand if needed.

 

Bill

[VintageComics]

How about non color breaking indents, varying degrees of fading, tanning on the inside covers, different sized cuts....the list goes on and on.

 

It's like trying to discuss the reinvention of the wheel.

 

It ain't gonna happen.

 

You'd have more productive discourse on trying to figure out how to make human grading more consistent than trying to replace it with a machine.

 

 

Roy,

Forget the machine. The goal here is not to replace grading with a computer.

What is required to accomplish this task is to standardize the grading process.

 

This can be done by:

1) identifying all component parts of a comic book

2) identifying all defects that each component can have

3) establish a process of measuring component parts of a comic (page quality, cover gloss, rustines of a staple, etc).

 

All the "machine" or program would do would be to record each defect or measurement and tally up a score. And again, you dont need a computer to do this, it could be done by hand if needed.

 

Bill

 

We're just going around in circles.

 

You'd need human input to enter the data so we are right back where we started.

 

I'd rather discuss how to make the human process more consistent.

 

 

[AtlasFan]

How about non color breaking indents, varying degrees of fading, tanning on the inside covers, different sized cuts....the list goes on and on.

 

It's like trying to discuss the reinvention of the wheel.

 

It ain't gonna happen.

 

You'd have more productive discourse on trying to figure out how to make human grading more consistent than trying to replace it with a machine.

 

 

Roy,

Forget the machine. The goal here is not to replace grading with a computer.

What is required to accomplish this task is to standardize the grading process.

 

This can be done by:

1) identifying all component parts of a comic book

2) identifying all defects that each component can have

3) establish a process of measuring component parts of a comic (page quality, cover gloss, rustines of a staple, etc).

 

All the "machine" or program would do would be to record each defect or measurement and tally up a score. And again, you dont need a computer to do this, it could be done by hand if needed.

 

Bill

 

We're just going around in circles.

 

You'd need human input to enter the data so we are right back where we started.

 

I'd rather discuss how to make the human process more consistent.

 

 

Categorising & Standardizing the components, defects, and all the stuff I talked about IS a human process. Its ALL a human process to learn how to consistently identify the components and id defects.

 

Knowing the components gives the human a checklist to run through and record the components attributes.

[fantastic_four]

Who is to say that a book with some slight back cover wrapping to the front side is a worse defect than having the staples off-spine or slightly misaligned? These are factors that could be measured, but how their values impact the grade are not clearly defined by the collecting community.

 

I agree--that's why I think the best way to define all that is to have the community do it collaboratively via the Internet. CGC has already come up with their ideas about all this...many of us are just willing to accept their opinions, certainly I agree with most of their grading ideas. Theirs are almost certainly more comprehensive than any set of standards anyone else has come up with--at least you'd think that would be the case since they do it for a living every day. Yet there are those aspects of grading that the community feels that they missed the mark on...and they may have, it's normal, that's how human knowledge works, you keep refining it. Maybe they're not downgrading for manufacturing defects enough--that's just one example out of hundreds of possible standards that could need refining. The usefulness of a written standard isn't even just to refine it--it's to remind yourself and your peers what most people think that standard should be. Sometimes you just forget and need to refer to the standard.

 

A wiki format would probably work fairly well now that I consider it more.

[fantastic_four]

So basically after all that, you`re agreeing with me that it`s too hard, which is what I said in the first place.

 

Probably--I agree that a computer-based grading solution for everyday use is too hard. I don't agree that written standards for CGC or the entire hobby are too hard--that's what I felt AtlasFan was suggesting and you were disagreeing with, at least in part.

 

You think so? Rating debt is a huge business with hundreds of billions of dollars riding on it, as we`ve just seen over the past couple of years. And yet it`s done by very imprecise rating companies with lots of subjective grading. Now you could argue that maybe that`s the problem, since they got things so badly wrong, but I`m sure if there were a better model that could be used, someone would`ve created it by now.

 

At the end of the day, for some things you just can`t replace human judgment.

 

I don't know for sure--I just haven't seen anything in comic book grading that isn't automatable other than arbitrating the aesthetics of how much you deduct for something, humans have to come up with that. It may indeed be impossible...I just can't assume that it is until I identify something a human grader can do that I know a computer can't.

[VintageComics]

Knowing the components gives the human a checklist to run through and record the components attributes.

 

The checklist will never be able to be put into practice because even though you can see (and possibly agree on all) the defects the overlap in score due to size of defects and effect on grade (defects will always vary in score depending on the over all grade of the book that they are found in) will always be infinitely variable.

 

 

[fantastic_four]

How about non color breaking indents, varying degrees of fading, tanning on the inside covers, different sized cuts....the list goes on and on.

 

It's like trying to discuss the reinvention of the wheel.

 

It ain't gonna happen.

 

You'd have more productive discourse on trying to figure out how to make human grading more consistent than trying to replace it with a machine.

 

 

Roy,

Forget the machine. The goal here is not to replace grading with a computer.

What is required to accomplish this task is to standardize the grading process.

 

Totally agree...refine the standard first, write any software to automate grading second. My favorite area of software development is user interface design, and I'm very, very skeptical any system can be created that would be fast enough for dealers and collectors to use. However...graders at certification companies is another thing entirely. Even if entering defects into software is a bit slower, I'm not sure it still shouldn't be done for certification...I'm skeptical but not yet convinced they shouldn't be doing it. I highly doubt it's cost efficient to create such software if CGC is your only user...I greatly doubt the profits at CGC could take a 100K - 250K hit to create such software.

[AtlasFan]

Knowing the components gives the human a checklist to run through and record the components attributes.

 

The checklist will never be able to be put into practice because even though you can see (and possibly agree on all) the defects the overlap in score due to size of defects and effect on grade (defects will always vary in score depending on the over all grade of the book that they are found in) will always be infinitely variable.

 

 

Goodness..such negativity!

 

More than 100 years ago there were many telephone companies. In those early days, you could only call people who used the same phone company you used. This problem was solved then by combining all the companies into one system (MA BELL). During the 1980s landmark court case that broke up the phone company, the argument was made against the divestiture that multiple phone companies would have great difficulty in standardizing communication processes and phone numbers for people to talk transparently from one phone company user to the next.

 

Guess what? They found a solution to standardize the process...that standardization method made way for cell phones and also allows us to call any number in the world regardless of what company the callers' use.

 

I dont see standardizing comic book grading and anywhere near as complex as the phone company example.

 

Each individual defect would have a score. If a book had multiple (or overlapping) defects, each individual defect would be aggregated to derive a final score.

 

To your point, if it was deemed nesessary, one could create a scoring system where certian combinations of defects could be weighted differently than their individual component parts. That would be something that the subject matter experts would have to determine.

 

A process may be complex, but NOTHING is impossible.

[fantastic_four]

The checklist will never be able to be put into practice because even though you can see (and possibly agree on all) the defects the overlap in score due to size of defects and effect on grade (defects will always vary in score depending on the over all grade of the book that they are found in) will always be infinitely variable.

 

So when you're grading a book, how do you deal with that infinite variability in your head? I think it'd help if you provided an example of a set of defects and defect severities that you think can vary infinitely to aid in analysis.

[VintageComics]

A process may be complex, but NOTHING is impossible.

 

It's not negativity, it's realism.

 

It's impossible for a machine to be able to process and balance information the way a human brain can.

 

It's like trying to tell a machine which piece of art is nicer...it's impossible.

 

Anyhow, you guys, I'm trying to be a downer. I just don't see it as being viable.

 

You guys can carry on without me.

 

[AtlasFan]

A process may be complex, but NOTHING is impossible.

 

It's not negativity, it's realism.

 

It's impossible for a machine to be able to process and balance information the way a human brain can.

 

It's like trying to tell a machine which piece of art is nicer...it's impossible.

 

Anyhow, you guys, I'm trying to be a downer. I just don't see it as being viable.

 

You guys can carry on without me.

 

 

Again, its not about the machine, its about the process -- but I know when to stop trying!

[RockMyAmadeus]

And with THREE people assigning an aggregate grade,

 

There is no aggregrate grade. There is a Finalizer, and his grade is law.

 

 

That's not what my certification notices say.

 

(And I wasn't strictly defining the term in the context of my post. The point is, one person, and one person alone, sans any input from anyone else, is not solely responsible for the grade on the label.)

[Ze-man]

Thought you guys discussing the minutia of grading would appreciate reading this.

 

Anybody know who wrote it?

 

 

 

The book I'm working on is a serious treatise on comics. The

mechanics, dynamics and idiosynchoses of printing, and the books themselves...what

makes a book a KILLER. There's NOTHING in the literature about comic quality with

respect to grade. The current evaluatory system is negligent in trying to

accurately apply a heriarichal scale based on nothing more than a number or letter

grade alone (NM 9.4, VF 8.0, etc.)

 

Think gems. What makes one particular 1 carat diamond worth $500,000 and

another 1 carat diamond a $1000 stone, given that both may exhibit NO external

wear?

 

COLOR

internal inclusions

brilliance/cut/proportions

 

The grade scale in place now falls way short in explaining why YOUR Spiderman

1 in VF may look SUPERIOR to your friend's Spiderman 1 in VF/NM or even NM-.

We've seen this over and over in graded books. Lower grades seeming much

sharper, Higher grades appearing very lackluster. Besides the horrendous

inconsistancies and nepotisitc grading that takes place in many grading services,

particularly in comics, there is NO system to earmark the spectacular copies. The

"A" copies.

 

I'm sure you have at least one. A book that is just incredible. Not

just wearless and deserving of a 9.6 to 9.9 on wear factors, but a book that

when you cradle it in your palm, SNAPS with a printed yesterday resiliance. A

book that the pages WANT to stay together even when you try separating them. A

book that when the light corruscates across it, shines with an unmatched

brilliance. That's a "oner". An "A" copy book on an A through F scale and there's no

way to SEE that once slabbed with an overall grade since it's surface features

have been obscured by 2 layers of plastic!

 

You might have a Spiderman 4 that has a tiny tear on the back cover and a

ding on the spine BUT the rest of it is PERFECT, with "A" copy type

characteristics. This might technically only grade 8.5, but this A/8.5 WILL LOOK BETTER

THAN MOST 9.2s and 9.4s with terrible printing dynamics!! (AND BE WORTH MORE),

because that 9.4 with print lines, and horribly miscut is REALLY a "D"/9.4 .

 

The book I'm writing identifies what an "A" copy is for different issues as

each book has it's own separate set of problems that plague it's condition. I'm

drawing from a pool of over 3500 saved images of comics raw and CGCed.

 

For instance: an "A" copy of Spiderman 1:

 

has a royal blue tint to the cover: most are varying degrees of greenish tint

because the prevailing background on that book is a combination of a WHITE

background with sparse blue dots. As the background TONES (yellows), the blue

dots yellow as well (blue + yellow = green). A GREEN Spiderman 1 could NEVER be

an "A" copy, even if the rest of the book were FLAWLESS.

 

has no CHIPS: Top, right OR bottom.

 

does NOT have "high staple" placement. The staples must be in close proximity

to the edge of the spine.

 

does not have the black spine line INBOARD to the front cover on the spine

 

does NOT have transparency in the white areas of the glass cell Spiderman is

captured in. etc. etc.

 

The book I am working on will also have chapters on the underpinnings of the

hobby, and yes, funny stories and how different sellers and buyers are

interrelated.

 

Mostly, I'm working on a real tour de force on the comics themselves and all

aspects referring to their dynamics AS paper collectibles, and

yes...restoration too.

[RockMyAmadeus]

And with THREE people assigning an aggregate grade,

 

There is no aggregrate grade. There is a Finalizer, and his grade is law.

 

A quick drive by post (I like this thread, thanks for all of the input):

 

Speaking as a Finalizer I have had other graders in the room tell me I would be flat out wrong if I gave a book grade X. If I am strongly out-voted by people I trust, I will put my opinion aside and trust in everyone else in the room.

 

But ultimatly, even when a situation like that occurs, the finalizer's grade is what goes out the door. So yes, it is law but there is no hubris.

 

That's why we call ourselves a "Grading Team".

 

 

I just got backed up by the Man!

 

 

Well...sorta.

[RockMyAmadeus]

 

Because we live in a competitive society

 

And everyone knows that a 9.0 is a higher number than an 8.5...until, of course, that very tightly graded 8.5 gets sent back in and gets a loosely graded 9.2, having had nothing done to it in the interim....

 

Does that mean the 9.0 is now worth less than the exact same book it was worth more than, not X weeks/months earlier...?

 

Ayup.

 

Kinda coo-coo bananas, innit... (thumbs u

[RockMyAmadeus]

I can't believe you took the time to type that all out.

 

He was being snide. I, on the other hand, am a huge grading geek...I did it for me, not for him.

 

This post is nicely ironic. And I need more irony in my diet.

[VintageComics]

And with THREE people assigning an aggregate grade,

 

There is no aggregrate grade. There is a Finalizer, and his grade is law.

 

A quick drive by post (I like this thread, thanks for all of the input):

 

Speaking as a Finalizer I have had other graders in the room tell me I would be flat out wrong if I gave a book grade X. If I am strongly out-voted by people I trust, I will put my opinion aside and trust in everyone else in the room.

 

But ultimatly, even when a situation like that occurs, the finalizer's grade is what goes out the door. So yes, it is law but there is no hubris.

 

That's why we call ourselves a "Grading Team".

 

 

[drbanner]

Thought you guys discussing the minutia of grading would appreciate reading this.

 

Anybody know who wrote it?

 

 

Given the excessive use of hard returns mid-sentence, I'd like to say Nerf...but it's probably hammer?

[adamstrange]

Thought you guys discussing the minutia of grading would appreciate reading this.

 

Anybody know who wrote it?

 

 

 

The book I'm working on is a serious treatise on comics. The

mechanics, dynamics and idiosynchoses of printing, and the books themselves...what

makes a book a KILLER. There's NOTHING in the literature about comic quality with

respect to grade. The current evaluatory system is negligent in trying to

accurately apply a heriarichal scale based on nothing more than a number or letter

grade alone (NM 9.4, VF 8.0, etc.)

 

Think gems. What makes one particular 1 carat diamond worth $500,000 and

another 1 carat diamond a $1000 stone, given that both may exhibit NO external

wear?

 

COLOR

internal inclusions

brilliance/cut/proportions

 

The grade scale in place now falls way short in explaining why YOUR Spiderman

1 in VF may look SUPERIOR to your friend's Spiderman 1 in VF/NM or even NM-.

We've seen this over and over in graded books. Lower grades seeming much

sharper, Higher grades appearing very lackluster. Besides the horrendous

inconsistancies and nepotisitc grading that takes place in many grading services,

particularly in comics, there is NO system to earmark the spectacular copies. The

"A" copies.

 

I'm sure you have at least one. A book that is just incredible. Not

just wearless and deserving of a 9.6 to 9.9 on wear factors, but a book that

when you cradle it in your palm, SNAPS with a printed yesterday resiliance. A

book that the pages WANT to stay together even when you try separating them. A

book that when the light corruscates across it, shines with an unmatched

brilliance. That's a "oner". An "A" copy book on an A through F scale and there's no

way to SEE that once slabbed with an overall grade since it's surface features

have been obscured by 2 layers of plastic!

 

You might have a Spiderman 4 that has a tiny tear on the back cover and a

ding on the spine BUT the rest of it is PERFECT, with "A" copy type

characteristics. This might technically only grade 8.5, but this A/8.5 WILL LOOK BETTER

THAN MOST 9.2s and 9.4s with terrible printing dynamics!! (AND BE WORTH MORE),

because that 9.4 with print lines, and horribly miscut is REALLY a "D"/9.4 .

 

The book I'm writing identifies what an "A" copy is for different issues as

each book has it's own separate set of problems that plague it's condition. I'm

drawing from a pool of over 3500 saved images of comics raw and CGCed.

 

For instance: an "A" copy of Spiderman 1:

 

has a royal blue tint to the cover: most are varying degrees of greenish tint

because the prevailing background on that book is a combination of a WHITE

background with sparse blue dots. As the background TONES (yellows), the blue

dots yellow as well (blue + yellow = green). A GREEN Spiderman 1 could NEVER be

an "A" copy, even if the rest of the book were FLAWLESS.

 

has no CHIPS: Top, right OR bottom.

 

does NOT have "high staple" placement. The staples must be in close proximity

to the edge of the spine.

 

does not have the black spine line INBOARD to the front cover on the spine

 

does NOT have transparency in the white areas of the glass cell Spiderman is

captured in. etc. etc.

 

The book I am working on will also have chapters on the underpinnings of the

hobby, and yes, funny stories and how different sellers and buyers are

interrelated.

 

Mostly, I'm working on a real tour de force on the comics themselves and all

aspects referring to their dynamics AS paper collectibles, and

yes...restoration too.

 

There's definitely some hyperbole in the quote, but it reflects aspects of a comic that are sometimes undervalued/overlooked when determining a grade for a comic.

[Mister_Comics]

Things I blame on CGC...

 

1. That oil spill out in the Gulf.

2. WW1 & WW2

3. Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction.

4. Cancellation of MY NAME IS EARL.

5. Spider-Man 3 movie

6. The beer I spilled last week.

7. The extinction of the dinosaurs.

8. Snuggies.

9. Jay Leno.

10. The beer I just spilled.