Back again with CGG (along with CGC)

[FFB]

 

Sid,

 

When you put it that way, you sound like a real b a s t a r d.

 

Love,

 

FFB

 

 

Scott, hey, I am just being up front about what just about evey other dealer is doing who tries to make short term profits off of trends. Should I try another method? Do you have one that works better than this? -----Sid

 

No, I was just breaking balls with the b a s t a r d comment. As long as you're honest about what you're doing, and as long as you don't advertise CGG as being "just as good" or "almost as good" as CGC in your auction listings, I have no issue with what you're doing. It is not really any of my business. I think it's a bad idea to submit to CGG for the reasons I mentioned earlier, but it's not the same as sellers who actually deceive people.

[FlamingCarrot]

OH OH KEYBOARD TOUGHGUY BACHELOR OF COMIX IS ON THE RAMPAGE!! EVERYBODY RUN!!!

 

OH MY GOD I"M SO SCARED IN REAL LIFE I"M SHAKING!!!111

 

 

[supapimp]

Remember how a few days ago I said that I hadn't seen you say anything mean in a while? It looks like you were just allowing the pressure to build before the big blowup. You are in rare form since BellaDonna came here.

 

see how i just uses your quote and not four in a roll? it's not that hard and much more courteous to other forumites than scrolling past that [!@#%^&^], can you do that or are you that lazy of an arse? back on topic, thunderkitten made an appearence earlier in the week.

[FFB]

Remember how a few days ago I said that I hadn't seen you say anything mean in a while? It looks like you were just allowing the pressure to build before the big blowup. You are in rare form since BellaDonna came here.

 

see how i just uses your quote and not four in a roll? it's not that hard and much more courteous to other forumites than scrolling past that [!@#%^&^], can you do that or are you that lazy of an arse? back on topic, thunderkitten made an appearence earlier in the week.

 

Are you talking to me?

[BassGMan]

I believe he is referring to BOC

[supapimp]

no, i'm referring to anybody that has a "quote" overkill problem, but i was replying to bono's post regarding BOC.

[BachelorOfComix]

OH OH KEYBOARD TOUGHGUY BACHELOR OF COMIX IS ON THE RAMPAGE!! EVERYBODY RUN!!!

 

OH MY GOD I"M SO SCARED IN REAL LIFE I"M SHAKING!!!111

 

 

What a coincidence. Every time you type on your keyboard, some insufficiently_thoughtful_person starts posting.

[FFB]

Remember how a few days ago I said that I hadn't seen you say anything mean in a while? It looks like you were just allowing the pressure to build before the big blowup. You are in rare form since BellaDonna came here.

 

see how i just uses your quote and not four in a roll? it's not that hard and much more courteous to other forumites than scrolling past that [!@#%^&^], can you do that or are you that lazy of an arse? back on topic, thunderkitten made an appearence earlier in the week.

 

Are you talking to me?

 

I believe he is referring to BOC

 

no, i'm referring to anybody that has a "quote" overkill problem, but i was replying to bono's post regarding BOC.

 

I don't understand what you mean?

[deathlok]

Remember how a few days ago I said that I hadn't seen you say anything mean in a while? It looks like you were just allowing the pressure to build before the big blowup. You are in rare form since BellaDonna came here.

 

see how i just uses your quote and not four in a roll? it's not that hard and much more courteous to other forumites than scrolling past that [!@#%^&^], can you do that or are you that lazy of an arse? back on topic, thunderkitten made an appearence earlier in the week.

 

Are you talking to me?

 

I believe he is referring to BOC

 

no, i'm referring to anybody that has a "quote" overkill problem, but i was replying to bono's post regarding BOC.

 

I don't understand what you mean?

those people should seek help with their problem.

[supapimp]

[supapimp]

you KNOW you're NOT being funny.

[DiceX]

BG,

 

If *any slab is better than selling them raw* is what you're after, I may have a better alternative.

I have several CGG slabs that I cracked without breaking the posts.

I can send them to you and you can slide your book in the inner well, and use your home printer to make your own label for whatever grade you think would sell the best.

Then put the well back in the slab and reseal the corners.

Believe me. I've done it to see what it looks like.

It's near impossible to tell it's a home slab job.

 

Instant money.

 

S C R E W You

 

Good comeback.

[FFB]

Remember how a few days ago I said that I hadn't seen you say anything mean in a while? It looks like you were just allowing the pressure to build before the big blowup. You are in rare form since BellaDonna came here.

 

see how i just uses your quote and not four in a roll? it's not that hard and much more courteous to other forumites than scrolling past that [!@#%^&^], can you do that or are you that lazy of an arse? back on topic, thunderkitten made an appearence earlier in the week.

 

Are you talking to me?

 

I believe he is referring to BOC

 

no, i'm referring to anybody that has a "quote" overkill problem, but i was replying to bono's post regarding BOC.

 

I don't understand what you mean?

 

 

You have just witnessed the comic book message board version of extensive professional restoration.

 

[deathlok]

Remember how a few days ago I said that I hadn't seen you say anything mean in a while? It looks like you were just allowing the pressure to build before the big blowup. You are in rare form since BellaDonna came here.

 

see how i just uses your quote and not four in a roll? it's not that hard and much more courteous to other forumites than scrolling past that [!@#%^&^], can you do that or are you that lazy of an arse? back on topic, thunderkitten made an appearence earlier in the week.

 

Are you talking to me?

 

I believe he is referring to BOC

 

no, i'm referring to anybody that has a "quote" overkill problem, but i was replying to bono's post regarding BOC.

 

I don't understand what you mean?

those people should seek help with their problem.

you KNOW you're NOT being funny.

I was actually going for witty.

[BassGMan]

BG,

 

If *any slab is better than selling them raw* is what you're after, I may have a better alternative.

I have several CGG slabs that I cracked without breaking the posts.

I can send them to you and you can slide your book in the inner well, and use your home printer to make your own label for whatever grade you think would sell the best.

Then put the well back in the slab and reseal the corners.

Believe me. I've done it to see what it looks like.

It's near impossible to tell it's a home slab job.

 

Instant money.

 

S C R E W You

 

Good comeback.

 

Dice, these days sometimes it is hard to know who is being serious, who is joking, and who is being purposely offensive. Since I don't know you very well I do not know which of those it is for you. If you were being serious then I very literally meant what I said in my response. I have fun here but I don't join in on the insufficiently_thoughtful_person games. If you were trying to be funny then you should make it a little more clear, or at least more obvious. The last thing I would ever do is to lie or deceive somebody with a comic book. I hardly think selling CGG graded books is anything of the sort so I do take offense to what you seem to have implied.---Sid

[RS]

Are you talking to me?

 

" You talking to me?

 

You talking to me?

 

You talking to me?

 

Who the hell else are you talking too?

 

talking to me?

 

Well I am the only one here

 

Who the do you think yor talking too. oh ya ok "

 

Travis Bickle

 

 

Sorry Drunk again

[DiceX]

BG,

 

If *any slab is better than selling them raw* is what you're after, I may have a better alternative.

I have several CGG slabs that I cracked without breaking the posts.

I can send them to you and you can slide your book in the inner well, and use your home printer to make your own label for whatever grade you think would sell the best.

Then put the well back in the slab and reseal the corners.

Believe me. I've done it to see what it looks like.

It's near impossible to tell it's a home slab job.

 

Instant money.

 

S C R E W You

 

Good comeback.

 

Dice, these days sometimes it is hard to know who is being serious, who is joking, and who is being purposely offensive. Since I don't know you very well I do not know which of those it is for you. If you were being serious then I very literally meant what I said in my response. I have fun here but I don't join in on the insufficiently_thoughtful_person games. If you were trying to be funny then you should make it a little more clear, or at least more obvious. The last thing I would ever do is to lie or deceive somebody with a comic book. I hardly think selling CGG graded books is anything of the sort so I do take offense to what you seem to have implied.---Sid

 

I *was* joking.

But now, I'm serious.

 

I did not mean to make it sound like you would deceive anyone.

I was trying to make *yet* another point as to why I have no respect for CGG.

I have nothing against Daniel. He seems like a likeable guy.

But there are more than enough shady events to prevent me from ever doing business with them.

 

If you truely do love comics, you'd think about it a little deeper.

You say you love the hobby, yet you say you will exploit any way of making an extra dollar from it.

I remember about 10 years ago there were a lot of people saying the same things.

"I love comics" "I love the hobby" etc.

There was a point at which the house of cards came tumbling down.

There were people that made a lot of money, but left the hobby in ruins and seemed to lose their love of it once the cash cow was gone.

These were the same people claiming how much they loved comics while they were cashing in on it.

 

I have nothing against you. You seem like a nice guy.

But such beliefs make me question what your actual intentions are.

Do you love comics? Or are you milking it for what you can get, then move on to the next "HOT" thing?

 

Back on topic...

Why deal with someone that has made mistake after mistake, and has yet to make any effort to look like anything other than a shady operation?

Why feed the greed?

Honestly, I wouldn't use them if they graded for free and had a 5 day turnaround.

I don't think they are good for the hobby...*MY* hobby.

I love comics, and would love comics if they weren't worth a penny when it came time for me to sell one.

Sure, I sell some books to fund others, but I'm not out to rape anyone out of a dollar...at any cost.

[FFB]

Are you talking to me?

 

" You talking to me?

 

You talking to me?

 

You talking to me?

 

Who the hell else are you talking too?

 

talking to me?

 

Well I am the only one here

 

Who the do you think yor talking too. oh ya ok "

 

Travis Bickle

 

 

Sorry Drunk again

 

I've noticed that your writing lately has seemed different. Your skill with the English language seems to swing from a high of "relative proficiency" to a low of "similar to the Nigerian email scam."

 

What gives? MPD?

[lighthouse]

For the purposes of this post, I am putting CGG in bold red letters and CGC in bold blue letters.

 

Lord knows I am not the poster-child for doing what's right... I know, because I asked him... and by "him" I mean the ceramic dragon that sits on my desk glaring at me... I call him "Lord", because "FunnyFaceWiseDragonLord" was too hard to type...

 

But as I was saying... Lord knows I am not the poster-child for doing what's right... members of both political parties and every world religion would find fault with how I live my life...

 

But I could not, in good conscience, submit a book to CGG with the intention of reselling it. I just couldn't do it. Not given what I know about the service.

 

Do I rip my customers off? Of course I do... Every dealer does... Every dealer makes a few sales that leave them silently jumping up and down over the fact that they finally found someone dumb enough to buy that item that should have sat in the boxes for the next five years... And no matter how much I may try to mark such items down to lessen the pain, there are still purchases that my customers make that are just plain stupid, throwing their money away. But I can take solace in the fact that I purchased the item at market price, did nothing to it, and resold it at market price. His purchase may have been stupid, but I didn't take advantage of his stupidity. I only benefitted from it, and there is a difference.

 

If I have customers flocking to buy some "hot" book from me, I have no problems charging them the market rate for that book. None whatsoever. If I have a buyer willing to pay $500 for my RRP Superman 204 and that's the going rate, I don't feel bad at all about charging that for it. Because the fact is, at that moment in time, my replacement cost makes $500 the right price. And I did nothing to artificially inflate the value of the book.

 

Now to the question of CGG:

 

If I submit a book to CGG with the intention of selling it, I am buying a value-added service to be performed on the book, with the explicit intention of selling it for a higher price than it would without that service. There is no way that I could do that with CGG in good conscience, no way at all. Because the service performed does not have the value that is ascribed to it. In my eyes, it's no different than me choosing to color-touch a book to make it "appear" better so that it will sell for more money. I perform a function on the book and sell it for more money as a result because that function adds the perception of value. That's the case with CGG as far as I am concerned. There is a perception of value that can be exploited by unscrupulous dealers, but it is only a perception. It's no different than the guys walking around the 1977 San Diego show with freshly color-touched books cashing in on the perception of added value.

 

CGG's problems are so pervasive at this point that no sensible person can make the case that their service adds value. We have all seen that their service adds the perception of value, and clearly that's the motivation that Sid and others want to cash in on. But no one can legitimately make a case that their service adds value. The holder isn't archival, there is no reliable restoration-detection performed.

 

CGC is another story entirely. I honestly believe that every book in a CGC holder has value added as a result. It may not be a lot in some cases. It may not be enough to justify the slabbing costs in some cases. But there is value added.

 

Friesen, Borock and Litch know what they are doing. They know comics. They know restoration. And their time is valuable. Even if Chris only looked at a particular book for 30 seconds as part of the resto detection process, that look is valuable. Chris can find more restoration in a 30-second look than most of us can find in 10 minutes. How much is 10 minutes of your time worth? Even if you disagree with whether Borock and Litch said your book was a 9.2 instead of a 9.4, what about the books that come back at 7.0 when you were expecting 9.2? They found a significant flaw that you hadn't. They protected you from delivering a product to a customer that might cost you that customer's business.

 

Mistakes can happen, and we all like to point them out over and over and over again, but I haven't heard anyone suggest that the number of gross errors by CGC is more than 0.1%, it's probably substantially lower than that. I have experienced one out of nearly 1500 CGC books that have passed through my hands. This year, while set up at WonderCon, I noticed that one of my 10s had a flaw that was clearly not allowed in a CGC 10. Clearly the book was damaged during encapsulation, long after three graders had agreed it was a 10. I knew they wouldn't want a mistake like that in circulation and I gave it back to Paul for a credit. So the next census will reflect one fewer 10 than it did before. We can all tell stories about this book or that book. But no one has suggested there are all that many of them.

 

I don't feel bad at all about selling a book in a CGC holder at all. Because even if the added value is less than the amount paid for encapsulation, there has been a value-added service performed on the book. With CGG, that just isn't the case. With CGG, I have sent my book to Eugene to have it color-touched, so that an unwitting consumer will pay me more money. I just can't do that and sleep at night...

 

Not if I also plan to pay strippers to sell my comics that fell off the back of a truck...

 

And I trust that Sid knows this isn't directed at him personally. I eat red meat, hire teenage girls to work for me, convince them to start stripping for a living, swear like a sailor, never answer emails, ship slower than Montgomery Wards, listen to Tori Amos, and laugh at cripple jokes. Sid's a better person than I am without a doubt. But in this case, I am on the other side of the fence...

[Smokinghawk]

Hey, you guys need to realize that I would be submitting to CGG for the one and only purpose of selling these books on Ebay. I won't be keeping the dang things. This decision is from a business perspective. Considering the cost, but much moreso the time involved with CGC slabs, it is just not wise to submit my fairly inexpensive Economy books, and hype-driven Moderns to CGC. People DO buy CGG books. And as long as you get a halfway decent grade, the CGG slabs sell for MUCH MORE than selling the same book raw. Believe me, I've done it both ways. So, tie up your books for four months with CGC and then sell them? Or make a little less money but turn the books over a heck of alot faster with CGG? Just a business decision guys, and I think a pretty good one. I'm not talkin' about 'Tec 27 of AF #15 ya' know. Mostly just books with a FMV under $200. ------Sid

 

 

I didn't have as much luck with modern CGGs. Just a week after a 9.8 Batman 608 variant went for $180 in a /C, I posted my 9.8 in a /G and it only went to $100.

 

Oh, and on another note--for whatever it's worth, keep in mind that Daniel has denied any relationship between TD and his restoration checker.