CGG Books " Comic Grading Group " Initial observations

[OldGuy]

OG, from what I remember that 9.2/8.5 was a Dark Knight Returns #3 right?

 

You are correct.

[THE_BEYONDER]

OG, from what I remember that 9.2/8.5 was a Dark Knight Returns #3 right?

 

You are correct.

 

I never did send them anything.....

 

I wonder if my free trial is still available.

[FFB]

Raises an interesting question. If you send a book in a CGG well to CGC for grading, will CGC crack the slab for you?

 

The label is sealed with the comic (CGG) This would tell CGC what CGG graded it. You would have to cut the label off first, before sending it to CGC.

 

And you know this how?

 

I have CGG graded comics

 

I don't mean "How do you know that the label is sealed with the comic."

 

I originally asked whether CGC would crack a CGG slab if you sent it in for grading that way. You said "You have to cut the label off first before sending it in."

 

I said, "How do you know?"

 

It appears that I should have just replied thusly:

[RS]

Raises an interesting question. If you send a book in a CGG well to CGC for grading, will CGC crack the slab for you?

 

The label is sealed with the comic (CGG) This would tell CGC what CGG graded it. You would have to cut the label off first, before sending it to CGC.

 

And you know this how?

 

I have CGG graded comics

 

I don't mean "How do you know that the label is sealed with the comic."

 

I originally asked whether CGC would crack a CGG slab if you sent it in for grading that way. You said "You have to cut the label off first before sending it in."

 

I said, "How do you know?"

 

It appears that I should have just replied thusly:

 

Sorry about that I am at a BBQ and surffing via wfi drinking not eating yet.

 

CGC would take it out of the cgg shell for you. A friend ask them about that awhile ago.

[Guest]

I thought I might add some thoughts as I clarified my perspective after reading some of the posts here. The key word in the titles of both CGC and CGG is "grading". There is obviously some debate here as to whether or not individuals would "have" a CGG book in theri private collection.

 

I keyed my thinking here off a post recently about somebody that was throwing in the towel on buying raw comic books on eBay...simply too many rip-offs.This is really the purpose of CGC or CGG: to verify grade. Thus the demand for graded comics, especially by CGC.

 

Now it seems to me that anything that takes the risk out of grade is better than buying raw. Sure, CGC has some ancillary benefits, superior restoration check, higher prestige etc. Nevertheless, the feedback i have seen here is that other than a better restoration check, CGG does seem to provide reasonable grades.

 

To the extent I believe the graded book, either by CGG or CGC is about the right grade, I have reached the conclusion that I would readily buy books graded by either service. My experience, including with most sellers on the forum, is that the books I buy raw are about 2.0 over-graded. I feel very confident in stating that CGG or CGC will reduce that amount to a negligible level.

 

What about restoration? What about it? I have to worry about it when I buy books raw right now. At least i get the grade part right with CGG or CGC. Right now I have two demons to deal with condition and restoration. I hardly ever run into restoration anyway so that is not the big issue. The big issue is grade. If I get the grade about right I have overcopme at least 80% of the demons.

 

Frankly if I don't like the CGG slab I can always crack it and resend the book to CGC for a more permanaent archival quality encasement. Additionally whatever you think about the CGG case, it is no secret that CGC seems to think swapping out their case every seven years is a good idea. How expensive and inconvenient will that turn out to be? Second I can crack the CGG case myself and simply store the book raw in mylar. The point is I have acheived my objective which is to pay the correct amount of money for a properly graded book. In the meantime if CGG books are selling at a discount versus CGC books I would suggest that that is an arbitrage opportunity, especially with higher dollar books. I can buy it, crack it, send it to CGC, wait 4, 5 maybe 6 months for it to come back and then store it for the next 20 years which is what I do with my investment grade books.

 

If I am more entrepenuerial and have patience I can wait forever and then resell them under a CGC level for the higher dollar that that brand brings.

 

One more point. Out of 30 books I sent in one came back as having color touch. I had no idea. It didn't get by CGG, so they must be catching minimally obvious restoration at least. I saw an ASM 1 in 7.0 graded by CGG on eBay today. It was labeled as restored. Obviously CGG is not a pushover for pushing through restored material or we woukldn't see this kind of stuff.

 

To reiterate my main point : so long as either service grades my book correctly the main point of a grading service has been served. Frankly even the plastic case is an ancillary benefit, mostly serving the benefit of reselling the book. The primary origin of these services was to eliminate the risk of buying raw books. My hypothesis is that both services will serve thsi need adequately. Should CGC fail to minimize their wait time, they will lose business as CGG coniunes to eliminate grade risk at a cheaper price and a more expeditious turnaround time. Any questions?

[sterlingcomics]

All sounds good but if sellers continue to take advantage of letting restoration slip through CGG's cracks (already documented here) you may find this restoration demon to rear its ugly head. People will bend the system to suit their own needs to make money. Remember how much a restored book is worth relative to its unrestored brother. Caveat emptor.

[FlamingCarrot]

Well said, 4Gem.

[BassGMan]

Gem, very good. You even impacted my own thinking a little bit as I rarely come across restored books in my dealings as well. My main concern though is public perception. This perception is quite negative overall on these boards. But I wonder how the perception compares to that of CGC off of these boards. Tomorrow I will be listing about a dozen key ASMs on Ebay including a #1,97,98,102,121,122,129 and more. The #1 is a CGC and the rest are CGGs. Should be interesting to see how they do as it will be my largest CGG sale to date. All the CGGs are Calm-mix books so I was not worried about restoration anyway.-----Sid

[Guest]

All sounds good but if sellers continue to take advantage of letting restoration slip through CGG's cracks (already documented here) you may find this restoration demon to rear its ugly head. People will bend the system to suit their own needs to make money. Remember how much a restored book is worth relative to its unrestored brother. Caveat emptor.

 

As noted on these boards earlier, a significant number of restored books have also made it through CGC. So CGC does not guarantee to eliminate the demon of restoration in any case.We don't know which books slip through, we only know which books get caught. In Wondercon there was a heated debate over dinner as to how pressing was acknowledeged by CGC. Steve said it was not of concern in asmuch as if you couldn't detect it, by definition, they could not label it as such. So already pressed books are getting through, we know that.

 

From my personal files, two books that have long been sold, and not cheapies either: I got back both as being "trimmed" I sent both back a few months later. The book of the two that was FAR more valuable came back the second time as blue label, thus creating "instant" wealth for me. The second came back as trimmed again. I had measured both and compared both to other covers I had for comparison. I thought neither was trimmed. Yet CGC was wrong at least one out of two times.

 

I am worried about restoration just like everybody else, but I don't think that CGC is the magic bullet. They do provide considerable safeguard, however.

 

As far as your auctions Sid, I have bid on a few CGG books in the last 4-5 months thinking I could get them a little cheaper. To my surprise I have yet to win one as the prices acheived were relatively in line with similar CGC books. Good luck and I think they will do well. I wish some ASM 9.4's under 100 would show up in CGG so I could try for a few bargains myself, actually.