SFilosa--YOU'RE VERY LUCKY!!!

[colmoreman]

To be honest, I find all this, combined with reports of upgrades of other big ticket books recently, to be a bit unnerving too. I will note, however, that I have had some very big collectors tell me that Doug's ability to look at a book through the slab and determine if it's a good resubmission candidate is unparalleled. So I'll continue to give CGC the benefit of the doubt...for now.

 

In the case of the PC TTA's, though, perhaps they just weren't submitted to CGC for the first time until the advent of the new label? I note that Mark's PC TOSs all have new labels. But heck, why speculate when Mark can just answer for himself, since he seems to be checking out this thread?

 

Spot on, Tim! I did not submit the TTAs or the TOSs to CGC until after the new label had come in - October 2003 to be exact.

 

For my part I don't think I've got the ability to spot a candidate for upgrading on resubmission so I just accept the rough with the smooth and get on with life....!

[r100comics]

The most undergraded book I own is my Pacific Coast J.I.M. #93 CGC 9.4 that was graded with the old label. I just cannot see how this book is not a 9.6 (or even a 9.8 !!!). Having also bought and sold the Pacific Coast J.I.M. #89 CGC 9.6 (and examined it closely before it was submitted) I can confirm that my #93 is visibly sharper with 4 pin sharp corners, and a flawless spine without a single stress line.

 

I don't really like playing the re-sub game, but I may need to make an exception with this book one day.

 

[sfilosa]

Interesting post Sfilosa.....what I am to deduce from this is that the Captain is a better grader than CGC or that day 1 CGC wasn't very good and undergraded but they are much better now because they come up with the grades that the Captain had already figured out the first time around.

 

Excuse me if I am a little cynical......but as somebody who owns quite a few slabs I just have this terrible feeling that I may have made a mistake.

 

I know for a fact, that lots of the Captain's resubmits DON'T get a higher grade.

 

And if you call for the graders notes and find out that one grader called it a 9.8 and the other two called it a 9.6, well submit enough and you should be able to get a few 9.8's.

 

Plus, after looking at around 75 of the Captain's higher grade books, I can honestly say I didn't see one bit of slab damage on any of them. NONE!!!

[sfilosa]

One more thing on Pedigree Books, that I believe is

 

A VALID POINT.

 

One of the things that anyone should understand about most SA Pedigrees is that they were UNREAD. What this means is that almost any defect that you can see is the TOTAL EXTENT of WEAR on that BOOK.

 

I have probably 100 SA pedigree books, and in almost all cases, there is not ONE BIT of NON-COLOR BREAKING spine stress lines or corner creases. May non-pedigree books that are NM, but look even better have some non-color breaking wear.

[Captain Tripps]

Shroom,

 

I really don't know the answer other than to say checking the grader's notes and carefully looking at the book is essential if you feel the book has a chance to be upgraded. Many books get upgraded, a lot of them seem to be pedigress. The fact that the book is from a known provenance can give it that extra, subjective edge when deciding between grading the book a 9.4 or a 9.6.

 

All I know is that when I look over boxes of my books (and most are PC's) I carefully scrutinize those which I feel are undergraded, obviously better than 9.4 but perhaps not a definite 9.6. These are perfect candidates as usually there are 2 graders who said "9.4" but one who called it a "9.6". That's why it is imperative to call for the grader's notes. You can save money on those books that were a unanimous 9.4 or 9.6, etc.

 

Another factor is that grading guidelines and standards do change. I think CGC was much tougher on page quality and certain "defects" during one specific time period and "looser" or more forgiving now. Overall, having a pedigree can't hurt as it lends itself to a higher perception or desirability and grading is subjective.

 

Hope that helps. If you only knew the resubs I lost on or didn't get upgrades on, you would understand the joy in getting a 9.6 to a 9.8 or a 9.4 to 9.6.

 

Doug

[g-man]

....just appeared on comiclink..only $5K.

[fantastic_four]

....just appeared on comiclink..only $5K.

 

Seems a little pricier than the TTA 57 CGC 9.6 with ow/w pages that sat for a few weeks on ComicLink about a year ago at under $2K...

[lou_fine]

I really don't know the answer other than to say checking the grader's notes and carefully looking at the book is essential if you feel the book has a chance to be upgraded. Many books get upgraded, a lot of them seem to be pedigress. The fact that the book is from a known provenance can give it that extra, subjective edge when deciding between grading the book a 9.4 or a 9.6.

 

Overall, having a pedigree can't hurt as it lends itself to a higher perception or desirability and grading is subjective.

 

Doug

 

Doug;

 

Nice to see that you have some time to post here again.

 

CGC has always stated that all books are graded "blind". In other words, they don't know who the submittor of the book is and they don't know the previous grade if it has already been sumitted before. I've asked this question before and never gotten a answer to it yet: Do the CGC graders know the pedigree of the book they are grading as it is going through the grading process?

 

Based upon some of the generous grades that I have seen some of the pedigrees received, I am sometimes left with the impression that the graders are intimidated by the pedigree and may grade or err on the high side when it comes to grading pedigrees. The non-pedigrees often appear to be graded more tightly and may be influenced here by the grader wanting to be known as a good or tight grader.

 

For true grading objectivity, the grader should NOT know any of the following three items:

 

1) Who the submittor of the book is,

2) What the previous grade of the book was if resubmitted, and

3) What the pedigree status or provaneance of the book is.

 

Based upon the current process, I believe item #2 is probably fine, although I certainly do have serious doubts with items #1 and #3.

[sfilosa]

I've posted this concept before about Pedigree Grades but remember this:

 

Most pedigree booka have whatever STRUCTURAL flaws and THAT'S IT. The rest of the book is perfect (or shall we say GEM MINT). The colors and gloss are like new, the page quality is fresh and there are rarely any NON-COLOR BREAKING CREASES (which are usually evident on most other books that look perfect but only get a NM).

 

Regarding CGC knowing who the submitter is on a resubmit:

 

If the book was a very high priced book, my guess would be that the top grader (Steve Borock) might know who owns the book. It not like someone tells him, but if he sees a book (say the White Mountain copy of AF #15), he probably has a good idea what the prior grade was and who owns it. I do believe that he would be totally impartial when grading the book.

[tth2]

For true grading objectivity, the grader should NOT know any of the following three items:

 

1) Who the submittor of the book is,

2) What the previous grade of the book was if resubmitted, and

3) What the pedigree status or provaneance of the book is.

 

Based upon the current process, I believe item #2 is probably fine, although I certainly do have serious doubts with items #1 and #3.

 

Lou, I certainly agree with you on #1 and #2. In an ideal world, also #3.

 

But you`re not dealing with robots. In the real world for #3, how in the world do you propose to turn off a grader`s ability to think? Let`s face it, for just about any pedigree book that has prominent markings, such as Church, Reilly, Larson, WM, etc., guys like Borock, Haspel and West would recognize it as a pedigree even without being told. In such instances, I think that #2 is even more important, because even if they recognize the pedigree, they should definitely not be told what the previous grade was. Again, there is the human element that cannot be turned off, and the grader may remember the grade previously given a particularly stand-out pedigree book. I don`t see any way you can prevent that, other than assigning to completely different graders.

 

Now, having said that, I don`t think a book that is recognized as a resub should ever even get to grading until it passes a screening process, where one or more screeners (not graders) should look at the book to see whether any work (pressing or other) has been done to it. If it appears no work has been done and it`s being resubmitted because the owner just thought it was undergraded the first time (the screeners can check the original grading notes to see if it was a borderline copy), then it should go into grading. But if it appears that work has been done, or the book appears to be significantly better (like 1 or 2 grades) higher than previously assigned, I think the presumption should be that it was cleaned and pressed and it should never even make it to grading, and instead should be returned with the original grade.

[sfilosa]

Now, having said that, I don`t think a book that is recognized as a resub should ever even get to grading until it passes a screening process, where one or more screeners (not graders) should look at the book to see whether any work (pressing or other) has been done to it. If it appears no work has been done and it`s being resubmitted because the owner just thought it was undergraded the first time (the screeners can check the original grading notes to see if it was a borderline copy), then it should go into grading. But if it appears that work has been done, or the book appears to be significantly better (like 1 or 2 grades) higher than previously assigned, I think the presumption should be that it was cleaned and pressed and it should never even make it to grading, and instead should be returned with the original grade.

 

Two flaws with that:

 

1) If that was the case, then that means the submitter would have to crack the slab and not send back the label (at least at the time of resubmit).

 

And what's worse is you are now saying that if they do recognize the book, it goes through a DIFFERENT process than a book that is not recognized. That''s just WRONG.

 

2) CGC DOESN'T think that PRESSING is RESTORATION.

 

Remember that CGC has stated their criteria at least on this. For all the bad mouthing people give CGC for not stating their criteria, they have made the PRESSING is NOT RESTORATION, loud and clear.

 

It's not going to change and if it did, it would actually RUIN everything CGC (and third party grading) has done for the hobby (which to me is a great benefit).

[tth2]

1) If that was the case, then that means the submitter would have to crack the slab and not send back the label (at least at the time of resubmit).

 

If the submitter has done some cleaning or pressing, then of course they would have cracked the book out of the slab, and I doubt they would include the label in their resub. If they have not cracked it out, or included the label, odds are they have not done any cleaning or pressing, in which case, as I indicated in my post, I have no problem with the book going through the normal grading process.

 

2) CGC DOESN'T think that PRESSING is RESTORATION.

 

Remember that CGC has stated their criteria at least on this. For all the bad mouthing people give CGC for not stating their criteria, they have made the PRESSING is NOT RESTORATION, loud and clear.

 

It's not going to change and if it did, it would actually RUIN everything CGC (and third party grading) has done for the hobby (which to me is a great benefit).

 

First off, I`m a fan of CGC, and I agree with a lot of the statements that you made in the Marnin thread. I agree that the comic collecting world post-CGC is much better than pre-CGC, and I agree that the integrity of CGC (or any third party grader) must be beyond approach if they are to succeed.

 

But, the pressing thing and seeing books jump in grades to a degree that goes beyond a 50/50 book getting the benefit of the doubt the second time really has begun to bug me. I haven`t participated in any of the pressing threads because there was nothing I could say that hadn`t been said already. However, perhaps now is the best time to introduce a slightly different view.

 

I believe pressing with intent (pressing specifically to improve a comic) is restoration, and pressing without intent (Church stacks) is not restoration. The reason I`ve always accepted CGC`s position that non-disassembling pressing is not restoration is that as a general rule there is no way for CGC to know whether pressing was done with intent or not, unless they`ve got some psychics on their staff. The one exception is if they`ve seen the book in a non-pressed state and then know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the same book has come back in an improved state. Then de facto there has been pressing or some other type of work that has been done with intent to improve the condition of the book.

 

Since CGC has gone on record saying non-disassembling pressing is not restoration, they couldn`t give a book like this a PLOD. However, I think they should give it the original grade which the screener (not the grader) knows the book originally had. Do that enough with some big ticket pedigree books and the dealers and collectors playing this game will stop. Maybe I`m looking at this strangely, but from my perspective this would improve CGC`s integrity rather than undermine it.

 

-Tim

[Timely]

For true grading objectivity, the grader should NOT know any of the following three items:

 

1) Who the submittor of the book is,

2) What the previous grade of the book was if resubmitted, and

3) What the pedigree status or provaneance of the book is.

 

Based upon the current process, I believe item #2 is probably fine, although I certainly do have serious doubts with items #1 and #3.

 

Both #1 and #2 I do not know when I grade a book, nor do I care. I grade based on what I see before me and nothing else.

 

#3 is an impossibility. I actually get paid to know #3, as does Mark and Steve. We are the people at CGC who make that decision. You certainly do not want someone who has limited or no knowledge of pedigrees to make that kind of decision on your book or one you may buy in the future.

 

West

[sfilosa]

And what's worse is you are now saying that if they do recognize the book, it goes through a DIFFERENT process than a book that is not recognized. That''s just WRONG.

 

tth2 - You didn't respond to this part of my comment. If CGC does recognize a book, then it should be scrutized differently? I just don't like this concept at all as it would mean that pedigree books or extremely rare copies of books would be treated differently.

 

 

All I want CGC to do is grade each book based on what they see at the time. The fact that the market has determined that a 9.6 book is worth a lot more than a 9.4, is NOT CGC's fault, it's the MARKETS FAULT. And that's why there are always going to be reasons to resubmit.

[lou_fine]

For true grading objectivity, the grader should NOT know any of the following three items:

 

1) Who the submittor of the book is,

2) What the previous grade of the book was if resubmitted, and

3) What the pedigree status or provaneance of the book is.

 

Based upon the current process, I believe item #2 is probably fine, although I certainly do have serious doubts with items #1 and #3.

 

Both #1 and #2 I do not know when I grade a book, nor do I care. I grade based on what I see before me and nothing else.

 

#3 is an impossibility. I actually get paid to know #3, as does Mark and Steve. We are the people at CGC who make that decision. You certainly do not want someone who has limited or no knowledge of pedigrees to make that kind of decision on your book or one you may buy in the future.

 

West

 

West;

 

Thanks for providing us with some input from the inside. Point taken with respect to Item #3 as you guys should be knowledgable enough to pick out the pedigrees. I know I certainly wouldn't be able to do this when it comes to the multitude of SA and BA pedigrees that are out there. My only concern here was that pedigree books, as opposed to non-pedigree books, might get the benefit of the doubt if a grader is 50/50 with respect to a particular grade on a given book.

 

As for Item #1, I believe in most cases you would not know who the submittor is. You might probably know, however, when Heritage is doing a mass submission proir to one of their major auctions. You might also know in the situation where a major collector is submitting a large run of books. And no doubt you would know if the Church copy of Action Comics #1 or Marvel Comics #1 should ever float across your grading table!

[lou_fine]

I believe pressing with intent (pressing specifically to improve a comic) is restoration, and pressing without intent (Church stacks) is not restoration. The reason I`ve always accepted CGC`s position that non-disassembling pressing is not restoration is that as a general rule there is no way for CGC to know whether pressing was done with intent or not, unless they`ve got some psychics on their staff. The one exception is if they`ve seen the book in a non-pressed state and then know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the same book has come back in an improved state. Then de facto there has been pressing or some other type of work that has been done with intent to improve the condition of the book.

 

Since CGC has gone on record saying non-disassembling pressing is not restoration, they couldn`t give a book like this a PLOD. However, I think they should give it the original grade which the screener (not the grader) knows the book originally had. Do that enough with some big ticket pedigree books and the dealers and collectors playing this game will stop. Maybe I`m looking at this strangely, but from my perspective this would improve CGC`s integrity rather than undermine it.

 

-Tim

 

Tim;

 

Good to finally see your point of view with respect to the whole cleaning, pressing, and resubmit routine that's happening in the marketplace.

 

As a lawyer, I think the key word in your first sentence is INTENT. I don't have a copy of the OS gide in front of me, but I am sure that OS defines restoration as an attempt to improve the book through various artificial techniques and specifically includes cleaning and pressing under this definition.

 

I agree that your solution for fixing this problem may work with certain books, but I also agree with Sfilosa's point that you would only end up targeting the Pedigrees and rare books here. In particular, you would be catching the majority of the GA pedigrees since it should be easy enough to spot a Church book going from 7.5 up to 9.4 or a non-pedigree GA with limited submissions going from 6.5 up to 9.0.

 

The SA and BA books would basically be given a free ride due simply to the large number of high grade books out there making it a lot more difficult to track them on an individual basis. I have also been told that due to the size and structure of the thinner SA and BA boks, they are much easier to successfully press without any signs of it being artificially done. Apparently, it is much easier to spot artificial pressing with the thicker GA books.

 

I know that this is a serious problem, but I don't know what the solution should be without targeting the pedigrees and GA books and letting everything else go. All I can say is that people in the restoration business sure seems to be awfully busy since CGC has confirmed that cleaning and pressing, if done properly, is not considered to be restoration.

[sfilosa]

I do not have the new Overstreet Guide but in the first addition here is Susan Cicconi list of different types of restoration (each has a description ).

 

1. Color Touch-Up

2. Mending Papers

3. Missing Piece Replacement

4. Cover Re-Glossing

5. Mechanical or "Dry" Cleaning

6. Chemical or "Solvent" Cleaning

7. Aqueous or "Water" Cleaning

8. Tape Removal

9. Staple Replacement

10. Spine Roll Removal

11. Deacification

12. Bleaching

13. Trimming

 

Note that the word PRESSING is NEVER USED.

 

Under Spine Roll Removal her comments are: "When correctly done, it is impossible to detect."

 

Also she says that Chemical Cleaning is impossible to detect when performed properly.

 

So once again, even if CGC saw books that had the appearance of being pressed, they might not know if a pressing machine was used or the books were just packed tightly for many years. So they still WOULD NOT KNOW THE INTENT.

[THE_BEYONDER]

Everytime we attempt to discuss the practice of pressing...it becomes an exercise in futility.

 

CGC has made their stance clear:

 

PRESSING IS NOT RESTORATION

 

Taking a 9.2 and pressing it into a 9.6 is not restoring the book, it's merely......?

 

I understand the logic behind CGC taking such a stance....but I fail to see how such a stance can be taken in the absence of DISCLOSURE .

 

Until those that press books admit to it and come clean....what they are doing may not be restoration...but it is indeed dishonest and greedy.

 

If there is nothing wrong with pressing your books... why do those that engage in the practice continue to deny doing so?

[sfilosa]

Until those that press books admit to it and come clean....what they are doing may not be restoration...but it is indeed dishonest and greedy.

 

Why?

 

Is it anymore greedy than saying CGC gave this book a 9.4, but it looks overgraded so they should call it a 9.2. Who's going to do that?

 

Do people in their auction state that the book has Marvel Chipping or is more yellowed than normal or has dirt or a dust shadow on the back cover which is unappealing. NO THEY DON'T.

 

Everyone wants to MAXIMIZE their profit and as long as it is acceptable to CGC (and pressing is), why should they try to MINIMIZE their profit?

 

Can't we all just get along?

[tth2]

And what's worse is you are now saying that if they do recognize the book, it goes through a DIFFERENT process than a book that is not recognized. That''s just WRONG.

 

tth2 - You didn't respond to this part of my comment. If CGC does recognize a book, then it should be scrutized differently? I just don't like this concept at all as it would mean that pedigree books or extremely rare copies of books would be treated differently.

 

Steve, if it was possible, I'd like CGC to screen EVERY book to determine whether it's a book they've graded before. But for comics where massive numbers of issues are in existence without any distinctive markings, and most of which should be relatively identical, I don't think that's possible (certainly not cost-effective). Therefore, the only books this could be done with currently are distinctive books, which for the most part means pedigrees with distinctive markings. I think someone on these boards had proposed a micro-tag of some sort as a solution, so CGC would know whether it was a resub or not, regardless of whether a label had been returned with it. I think the idea has merit, but I don't know whether it would fly, and anyways the "players" would probably figure out some way to find it and remove it.

 

All I want CGC to do is grade each book based on what they see at the time. The fact that the market has determined that a 9.6 book is worth a lot more than a 9.4, is NOT CGC's fault, it's the MARKETS FAULT. And that's why there are always going to be reasons to resubmit.

 

I guess I draw a distinction between the screening process and the grading process. I don't think screening has to be so impartial so long as there is a "chinese wall" between the screeners and the graders. The grading, IF a book gets to the grading process, must be completely impartial. No question there.

 

Again, if a book is resubmitted and identified as such by CGC, but it doesn't appear that there was any work done on it and the owner just thought it was undergraded the first time, then I have no issue at all with it being re-graded in anonymity. I don't think CGC are infallible by any means, and a 9.2/9.4 book that was given a 9.2 one day could legitimately get a 9.4 another day.

 

You're correct that the market incentivizes people to play these games. My solution would remove some of that market incentive. It undoubtedly takes time and money to press properly and then resub, particularly for big ticket books. People would stop doing it if they knew it was a money-losing proposition.