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The innovative grading concepts of PopCultureCertified.com and NewKadia.com

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I saw some auctions on E-Bay where the seller, PopCultureCertified.com, was sort of pitching a new grading certification service they devised. They don't slab books; they just give it a look-over and print you a certificate with a breakdown of the grade. They're no real threat to CGC due to the lack of slabbing. Here's a link to their web site:

 

http://www.popculturecertified.com/index.html

 

The reason I'm bringing them up is because they are using a grading scale that contains some innovations that Overstreet should be using. Their system has some striking similarities to another company called NewKadia who also have their own grading system that I think Overstreet should borrow some facets from, which is one of the many recommendations I fed to Arnold Blumberg back when he was asking for input on the new grading guide. The particularly important thing about NewKadia is that they use a grading checklist. This is a tool that I think EVERY seller should be using. Not for every comic, of course, but for the expensive ones--the ones where the tightest possible grading is very important. Here's a link to NewKadia's grading certificate:

 

http://newkadia.safeshopper.com/99/cat99.htm

 

The facet I think Overstreet could benefit from which is common to both of these alternative grading systems is that they use several pre-defined categories to assign a grade to, then they determine the overall grade based upon an average of the individual grades assigned to the categories.

 

I'm not saying that I think the grading categories of these two companies are necessarily ideal; I'm still mulling them over. Nor am I saying that their proprietary grading scales are useful. Both of these companies have chosen to ignore the Overstreet scale that the rest of the industry uses; I think it's to their great disadvantage that they do this. PopCultureCertified uses a letter-grade, which they pitch as being just like we are used to from school. I find this to be inferior to the 10-point scale because it's harder to do statistical analysis on letters unless you convert them to numbers. NewKadia uses numbers, but they use a scale from 1 to 8; it'd be easier for their customers and for the acceptance of their grading ideas if they'd conform to the standard everybody has chosen to use. Overstreet's grading criteria have a LOT of room for improvement, but it's accepted and it does a lot of things right. Companies like PopCultureCertified or NewKadia would do themselves and the comics community as a whole a greater justice if they integrated their own ideas for innovation with Overstreet's.

 

Anyway, back to their innovation. Do you guys agree that assigning grades to individual grading categories and tallying up an overall grade is superior to Overstreet's current grading process? If so, what do you think about the grading categories these companies have devised--should they be changed, or are they already right on the money? If CGC showed us a breakdown of scores given to a standard set of grading categories, I think a lot of complaints about their grading would go away. It also has the potential to improve their communication amongst themselves; once they assign their own grades to a set of categories, comparing their individual scores to the scores given by the other two graders could add a new level of precision to their process.

 

To aid in comparing the grading categories used by these two companies, below is a summary of the ones they use (PopCultureCertified uses 10 grading categories, whereas NewKadia uses 7). Also note that I am going to e-mail both of these companies and invite them to comment in this thread.

 

NewKadia's Grading Categories PopCultureCertified's Grading Categories
Free of tears at staple? Initial overall look of the comic book, front and back covers
Inside pages Check Cover tightness, corners check
Flat Inspected cover, binding tightness, tears
Cover free of tears (other than edges & corners) Centering, overall manufacturer production
Cover corners sharply cut Inspect for Folds, bending, creases, including subscription creases
Cover colors reflect Check Cover for Markings or Wear
Cover clean Check for Markings on Inside
Page Count, page completeness check

Suppleness/Brittleness check - cover
Suppleness/Brittleness check - internal pages
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FYI, the owner of NewKadia just wrote to me and made the following clarification to one of my opinions about how they don't use the Overstreet grading scale:

I just read the posting and just one item I'd like to clarify. We DO USE the Overstreet Grading System. Although we assign a numerical grade in each category, we then CONVERT the overall grades to the Overstreet system.

 

The purpose of the numerical numbers is to give the buyer guidance as to what's right and WRONG about each book.

 

By the way, the NewKadia grading chart is copyrighted.

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dude, i received so much spam mail from newkadia over the years since they started, it was so annoying and frustrating. i even used the remove from mailing list and it still didn't work. finally i just emailed them and asked to be removed, how did they get my email address? im guessing eBay when it first started out before they stopped showing email address's. it's situations like this where i'll never ever deal with new kadia. mad.gif

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My name is Jim Drucker and I created the NewKadia.com Grading Chart at www.NewKadia.com. The previous note is pretty informative but I wanted to make one clarification. We DO use the Overstreet Grading Scale. All our books are graded from Near Mint to Poor. The "grades" we assign are merely an assist for the buyer to recognize the defect in each book.

 

For example, a book can be graded "Very Good" for a host of reasons. Our "grades" indicate to the buyer whether the book has been graded down due to a cover tear, or a dirty cover, or a loose staple. Some collectors don't mind certain types of defects but want covers without tears. Other people will take covers with tiny tears, so long as the inside pages are white. Our grading chart merely points out each book's defect. Each book gets an OVERSTREET GRADE, our points merely focus the buyer's attention on the problem with each book. Take a look at our copyrighted grading chart at www.NewKadia.com

 

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My name is Jim Drucker, the President of NewKadia.com.

 

I'm sorry if you've had a problem with our emails, but we do NOT send spam. Our emails are OPT IN and operated by Microsoft's bcentral system. To get off the mailing list click the LINK at the bottom of the email. This is stated at the very top of every email. Regardless about 5% of the people who want to be removed from the mailing list send an email asking to be removed. However, these replies are not forwarded to us by Microsoft. The CORRECT way to remove yourself from our OPT IN list is to click the link at the bottom of the email.

 

About 3 years ago, when our website started (and before we really understood the whole concept of spam), we did take some email addresses from ebay. OOPS. Sorry, now that we understand the politics of spam...and are more experienced, we just don't do it at all. SORRY SORRY SORRY. You must have been one of the 100 or so addresses we got that way. It was the wrong thing to do, and we will never do it again. I hate junk email and wouldn't do it to anyone else. We did in the early days for about 2 weeks, but heck, it was a mistake. I aplogize to you for it.

 

Jim Drucker

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