CGC or CGG

[drbanner]

Nik - is that slab damage in a standard PGX well, or the new CGC well?

[BassGMan]

Keith, certainly no reason to apologize for disagreeing. Sometimes a week after rereading my own posts I even disagree with myself.

 

I'm not saying that I think PGX will be the next CGC if they simply hire a resto detection expert. I'm just saying that this probably is their biggest drawback when it comes to gaining the respect of serious slabbers out there, especially those with older books potentially having greater risk to being restored. And regarding the questionable link with Terence Leder? Yup, we all know about that and it does appear somewhat slimy (I said APPEARS as we don't know for sure). But I doubt that anyone outside of this forum knows anything about that, and we are just a fraction of the collecting community.

 

PGX will never be another CGC, but if they hire a real resto guy and spend more money on marketing then they may be a viable, although much much smaller competitor and alternate choice to CGC.

[nik]

Nik - is that slab damage in a standard PGX well, or the new CGC well?

New PGX well.

[drbanner]

Interesting, like you I have not received more than a couple of books with "slab damage" from CGC after submitting close to a thousand books over the years. As you show above, no well design is going to prevent damage when the Postal workers toss your box around like a rag doll...

[comicworm]

Good point to all-

 

sorry Daniel, but if that is you-I have no faith or trust in your company....

 

I do appreciate the responses-but I think PGX needs to do a LOT more than just hire a good RESTO expert.....

[FFB]

Again-if you check out past threads in the comics general forum-you will see that a forum member already submitted a restored comic to PGX and it came back unrestored....

 

funny how all you PGX supporters don't seem to want to talk about that....

 

I have had two of the top restoration professionals in the business tell me that there is a way to remove a comic book cover, solvent clean the book, and reassemble the book, that gets past CGC about 75% of the time. When I asked one of them how many books they'd worked on that are now sitting in blue label holders, the person said "More than a few. More than a few."

 

CGC is not perfect on restoration detection. I think they are good at it, but anyone who believes that CGC is largely infallible is deluding himself.

 

PGX, on the other hand, is borderline incompetent when it comes to resto detection and they need to address this. The sooner the better.

[FFB]

A little

Recently all I have been hearing lately is SCS with CGC books. Even during the contest I get, "is that due to SCS", or "is this do do SCS", and just how better CGG slabs are. Well I personally have not seen alot in my submissions to CGC that have come back with SCS.

 

Well first I get my SS #16 that comes back a PLOD and now to make matters worse I get this

Top left corner

 

I am not pro CGC or anti CGG but

 

1 More times than not they Undergrade - Strike 1

2 Miss restoration (SS 16) - Strike 2

3 SCS with their new designed well

 

CGC is not perfect, but at least for me they have not struck out yet.

 

Hey Nikos,

 

How do you know that happened in the well? Was it one of your submissions?

[nik]

I got from a friend of mine, so in all honesty I have no idea if it was pre or post slabbing.

 

Now I'm no expert by any means, but looking at the book through the slab it looks to nice (it received a 9.4) to have happened post slabbing.

[FFB]

Sid -

I offer you advance apoligies; as I am someone who has some (BUT mainly little to no) VESTED interest in the slabbing of comics. I simply don't agree with your prior post, though I respect you as a poster & collector. At this point in time PGX (or whatever they are going to call themselves this month) have to do more than just just hire a resto expert.

Not only do they miss resto 9 out of 10 times (just a hypothetical figure, you nitpickers!),

 

I agree that PGX needs to bolster their resto checking, but come on. 9 out of 10 times? No wonder PGX feels the need to come here and defend themselves.

 

but they have "questionable" connections to certain sellers.

 

And CGC doesn't? Please! They are partially owned by Jim Halperin of Heritage and god knows who else. Friesen has been secretly running a pressing service for dealers for a long time now, where CGC (apparently) calls certain BSDs and says "Hey, your book is an 8.5, but if we press it, you could get a higher grade. Do you want it pressed?" And you think PGX is bad because one of its submitters has engaged in suspicious conduct? Give me a break!

 

AND they are not accurate on their grading of post 1980 books (too strict- not even comparable to CGC or the layman ).

 

Have you seen the Amazing Fantasy #15 CGC 9.4 White Mountain? Does that book look like a 9.4 to you? Or how about the infamous Action Comics #1 CGC 2.5 from the "Five-O'Clock-Shadow" Pedigree? For every PGX book that was too harshly graded, I can point to around 1,000 CGC books that I disagree with, many of which are very high dollar copies. At the last convention I attended, several major dealers were complaining long and loud about CGC's lack of consistency in grading.

 

Let's not forget that they obviously SHILL here on these boards all the damn time trying to pathetically defend themselves.

 

Yeah, it would be better of them to just let people take shots at them and not defend themselves. How pathetic of PGX to try to answer the accusations.

 

There are just too damn many question marks about them for even a reader like me to trust my money with a company like them should I decide to spend my $$$ on slabbing.

 

So then you must be up in arms over the "recent" disclosure that Chris Friesen is running a pressing service for dealers and has been for some time?

 

PGX has a long way to go, but the way people latch onto relatively minor issues about PGX while ignoring HUGE issues with CGC just leaves me scratching my head sometimes.

[drbanner]

Friesen has been secretly running a pressing service for dealers for a long time now, where CGC (apparently) calls certain BSDs and says "Hey, your book is an 8.5, but if we press it, you could get a higher grade. Do you want it pressed?"

 

How do you know this is true, and not just a Marnin-rumor?

[comicworm]

again-lets not confuse this whole PGX resto issue with pressing-that is an entirely different subject and there have been countless threads on it

 

concerning PGX vs. CGC on resto-you must agree that CGC is better! If not lets crack open a restored PGX slab and send the comic to CGC-bet it comes back restored-no questions asked....

[comicworm]

While it is true that if you read both companie's legal statements-none guarantee absolute resto detection-CGC has a better track record-I'm sorry but when I see a key book on eBay in high grade and it is slabbed by PGX-I am now suspect-I have had bad experiences with PGX-just read my other posts....

 

Grading companies are supposed to take some-not all-of the risk out of buying a graded comic-if they can't do that-whats the point of using their service? or paying multiples of guide for a key book?

[FFB]

Friesen has been secretly running a pressing service for dealers for a long time now, where CGC (apparently) calls certain BSDs and says "Hey, your book is an 8.5, but if we press it, you could get a higher grade. Do you want it pressed?"

 

How do you know this is true, and not just a Marnin-rumor?

 

Nick (Flaming Telepath) said his source told him so and I was told this by a CGC member dealer (not Marnin) recently. Both are independent sources and both said the same thing. I wouldn't have posted the comment if it had just been a Marnin rumor.

 

Anyway, I don't want to get too far down the whole "Is pressing bad or not" debate. I don't have a problem with pressing as a general matter. I don't believe that anything can be done about it and it's not worth it to me to sit around and stress about it when the hobby is supposed to be about having fun. The only reason I brought it up here is because I am tired of people focusing on stupid "faults" of PGX but ignoring the same or worse "faults" from CGC. It is very hypocritical and it also diverts attention away from where the real problems lie (PGX's incompetence at detecting restoration and lack of transparency as an organization.) Of course, CGC has both of these same two problems, albeit to a lesser degree.

[BassGMan]

Sid -

I offer you advance apoligies; as I am someone who has some (BUT mainly little to no) VESTED interest in the slabbing of comics. I simply don't agree with your prior post, though I respect you as a poster & collector. At this point in time PGX (or whatever they are going to call themselves this month) have to do more than just just hire a resto expert.

Not only do they miss resto 9 out of 10 times (just a hypothetical figure, you nitpickers!),

 

I agree that PGX needs to bolster their resto checking, but come on. 9 out of 10 times? No wonder PGX feels the need to come here and defend themselves.

 

but they have "questionable" connections to certain sellers.

 

And CGC doesn't? Please! They are partially owned by Jim Halperin of Heritage and god knows who else. Friesen has been secretly running a pressing service for dealers for a long time now, where CGC (apparently) calls certain BSDs and says "Hey, your book is an 8.5, but if we press it, you could get a higher grade. Do you want it pressed?" And you think PGX is bad because one of its submitters has engaged in suspicious conduct? Give me a break!

 

AND they are not accurate on their grading of post 1980 books (too strict- not even comparable to CGC or the layman ).

 

Have you seen the Amazing Fantasy #15 CGC 9.4 White Mountain? Does that book look like a 9.4 to you? Or how about the infamous Action Comics #1 CGC 2.5 from the "Five-O'Clock-Shadow" Pedigree? For every PGX book that was too harshly graded, I can point to around 1,000 CGC books that I disagree with, many of which are very high dollar copies. At the last convention I attended, several major dealers were complaining long and loud about CGC's lack of consistency in grading.

 

Let's not forget that they obviously SHILL here on these boards all the damn time trying to pathetically defend themselves.

 

Yeah, it would be better of them to just let people take shots at them and not defend themselves. How pathetic of PGX to try to answer the accusations.

 

There are just too damn many question marks about them for even a reader like me to trust my money with a company like them should I decide to spend my $$$ on slabbing.

 

So then you must be up in arms over the "recent" disclosure that Chris Friesen is running a pressing service for dealers and has been for some time?

 

PGX has a long way to go, but the way people latch onto relatively minor issues about PGX while ignoring HUGE issues with CGC just leaves me scratching my head sometimes.

 

Excellent post and rebuttel Scott. I can tell that you went to law school. I know, many people will bash PGX while they are ignoring CGC's problems and sometimes sneaky motives. Again, I relate it to the hometown sports team analogy or just having loyalty to anything, really. When you are loyal to a person, team, company etc. you will often overlook the problems as you feel that you have a grasp on the entire picture and you approve of that picture. But on the other side, sometimes people feel the opposite way about the other side, where they don't give them the same amount of slack and are very critical of them (team, person, company). That's how I see it here.

 

I have to admit that I prefer CGC 100% for selfish reasons. On average they grade my HG Bronze and Modern books higher than PGX and the CGC name on average brings a higher selling price. Plain and simple. If this trend was to reverse I would go with PGX in a heartbeat. My only concern would be if I was submitting Gold or Silver books I would not want to end up selling a restored book as unrestored.

[awe4one]

Friesen has been secretly running a pressing service for dealers for a long time now, where CGC (apparently) calls certain BSDs and says "Hey, your book is an 8.5, but if we press it, you could get a higher grade. Do you want it pressed?"

 

Really? Even I wasn't ready to jump to that conclusion...

 

Jim

[FFB]

Friesen has been secretly running a pressing service for dealers for a long time now, where CGC (apparently) calls certain BSDs and says "Hey, your book is an 8.5, but if we press it, you could get a higher grade. Do you want it pressed?"

 

Really? Even I wasn't ready to jump to that conclusion...

 

Jim

 

I am not jumping to a conclusion, Jim. Just saying what I've been told by two independent sources I trust. One of them, Nick, I can name. The other I can't.

[awe4one]

I am not jumping to a conclusion, Jim. Just saying what I've been told by two independent sources I trust. One of them, Nick, I can name. The other I can't.

 

Wasn't trying to imply it was your conclusion. If true though, it seems damn bold for a grading company, one that's supposedly based on it's impartiality, to act in such an aggressive way...

 

Jim

[precodekeith]

I agree that PGX needs to bolster their resto checking, but come on. 9 out of 10 times?

Did you bother to read the parenthesis directly after that stated JUST A HYPOTHETICAL FIGURE?

 

Have you seen the Amazing Fantasy #15 CGC 9.4 White Mountain?

 

No I have not.

Or how about the infamous Action Comics #1 CGC 2.5 from the "Five-O'Clock-Shadow" Pedigree?

 

Nope. Haven't seen it. My statement was only in reference to POST 1980 books, where I personally believe CGC to be more accurate.

 

For every PGX book that was too harshly graded, I can point to around 1,000 CGC books that I disagree with...

And you have a beef with my "9 out of 10" statement, which was clearly marked as hypothetical? Well, you've listed 2 so far, only 998 more to go...

 

How pathetic of PGX to try to answer the accusations.

 

I don't think the people I believe to be PGX "shills" have ever tried ANSWER any accusations in the posts I've read.

 

So then you must be up in arms over the "recent" disclosure that Chris Friesen is running a pressing service for dealers and has been for some time? .....

ignoring HUGE issues with CGC just leaves me scratching my head sometimes.

 

FFB - "ignoring" implies that I had previous knowledge of said accusations & chose to discard such info. This is not the case. As stated, I am a reader who rarely delves into slabs. CGC would appear to be more reputable to a "casual observer" like myself (who feels burned in my one and only transaction w/ PGX), and if I were to delve into slabs again my $$ would have gone to CGC. However, that was not knowing who was a partial owner, and not knowing of any pressing scheme. Those are revelations to me, and I would certainly take them into account should I ever decide to slab or buy slabs in the future.

[comicworm]

Gentlemen-I have been in business for many years and have multiple college degrees hanging on my walls...but my point is this:

 

it does not paint a very good picture of the stability of PGX when their CEO or owner has to come to these boards and posat under a shill name to defend his company. At the very least he should be using his time to make his company better and at least get a better restoration detection expert....

 

I know in business, I have a lot better things to do then hang out on or around my competitors websites, offices, etc.

 

this is just my opinion-but then again-pressing does not bother me at all either....

 

and some of my fellow forum members would probably want to hang me for saying that....

[FFB]

Sorry, Keith. I was venting a bit. My post wasn't just directed at you. I just used your post as the nearest example of PGX bashing by people who point to things "wrong" with PGX when there are similar things "wrong" with CGC.