cheetah Posted February 14, 2014 Author Share Posted February 14, 2014 Pressed books gaining 3 GI - 1 (<1%) Pressed books gaining 4 GI - 1 (<1%) Pressed books gaining 5 GI - 2 (<2%) Pressed books gaining 6 GI - 1 (<1%) this made me go "WOW" 6 grade increments is a HUGE change I would love to see before and after photos of those big jumps. I'm guessing books with long non-colour breaking bends going from 6.5/7.0 to 9.2/4 after a press. I have a couple that I think would press out that way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whomerjay Posted February 14, 2014 Share Posted February 14, 2014 ..... to verify.... this graph indicates that Metropolis overgrades on the average by less than a half an increment ? If so, that's not so bad. I order books from them.... and while usually in the mid grade range, I've been happy enough to keep going back. GOD BLESS... -jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u Yes, I can post the actual numbers when I get back to my office. Overall, their grading is consistent and the reasons for there over grading are consistent. The pressed book comes back 0.5 lower than the raw grade unpressed. If we know how much pressing bumps the books, then we know how much they overgrade. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whomerjay Posted February 14, 2014 Share Posted February 14, 2014 It's a nice experiment, however, I wonder about the conclusions and how they are drawn, given unequal sample sizes and other assumptions. It would be interesting to see the experiment and raw data shared with a community of statisticians to get their opinions. One great free site to do so is http://stats.stackexchange.com/ Did he draw any conclusions? I think he just gave us the data. The raw data was not provided and I've seen plenty of possibly misleading inferences already drawn by thread participants. Not to say the experiment is complete or invalid by any means, but just raising questions before that happens. I'm fairly excited to see a valid conclusion. Understand that this was not an experiment, just reporting on the results of grading that I have collected. It wouldn't stand the scrutiny of a statistician since I've imparted a number of biases through the way I collect and my preference to spend my money on books I want rather than books that what would expand the grade range or number of books/dealer. If you wanted a more rigorous survey of dealer's grading skills, it would be pretty straight forward but expensive and would require the dealer's participation. Have them all grade the same 100 books and then send the books to CGC. That would remove a great deal of variability and make for more valid results. As far as conclusions, the data is there for people to interpret as they see fit. I think most folks expected Metropolis to be the worst graders when, in reality, they are pretty accurate - as long as you understand the most likely sources of over-grading. Jim Payette is often acknowledged as a superior grader and he rates about the same as Metro. Everyone always extolls the virtues of Bob Storms' grading and my limited experience is that they are right. Stephen Ritter seldom gets a mention as far as grading goes since he primarily sells graded books, yet he is a good source or accurately and/or under-graded books. First, let me say I really like these data, and appreciate the effort. It's impossible to design an experiment like this without design limitations that impact interpretation. Major limitations here are buying and submitting bias, and the effect of pressing that may vary as a function of seller. A modest limitation of the CGC whimsy that varies with submission date. My interpretation of these data is that given pressing bumps the average book Jeff buys and submits about 0.5-1.0 (assuming Jeff buys and submits mostly HG given his obsession with top census books; what Joey or Matt grade these prior to pressing would be interesting data), then most of these dealers are overgrading by 1.0 or more, which is a bit if in fact most books are 8.0 or better. A couple are right on, or "as strict as CGC." Welcome your comments Jeff, a few of my assumptions here may be wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheetah Posted February 14, 2014 Author Share Posted February 14, 2014 These are just some of my thoughts: It's pretty clear to me, just from my own perspective, that CGC is pretty consistent with their grading, more so than any of the dealers. Since their business model is to provide for consistent grading services, I think they do a good job of meeting the expectations of the hobby. If CGC has an inconsistency, it is with older graded books as opposed to more recently graded ones. I felt that more than a few of the old label books that didn't get pressed would have received grades lower today than they did originally. The consistency with PQ affects on grade are particularly noticeable. If you buy a high grade book with LT/OW pages, think twice before getting it pressed. It will almost certainly come back with a lower grade. Matt Nelson does a very good job of knowing when a book can benefit from pressing. The fact that none went down in grade is surprising as we see this happen fairly frequently in auction offerings. Dealers can be broken down into three classes: 1) Those who are conservative graders and want to make sure you get a book you are satisfied with, 2) Those who grade as tightly as possible but ignore certain flaws that CGC doesn't, and 3) Those who don't really know how to grade. Those who don't know how to grade routinely grade much too high (and this includes a number of dealers not in the data). If you buy high-grade expensive raw books and you are paying top dollar for them, the only way to make sure you get your monies worth is to review them for defects that the dealer missed and evaluate if pressing is a reasonable option. In my view, the hobby is now grading books in their post-pressed state and discounting NCB bends and creases. Pressing results are regularly factored into the cos of the raw book. Metro folks are not the bad graders they get bashed for, but they do ignore certain flaws, particularly on pedigree books. They've taken to mentioning these flaws in book descriptions but grading them as if the flaw wasn't there. You've got to be your own grader and recognize when they are giving you the equivalent of a Qualified grade. Jim Payette is a good grader but does not take PQ into account. I bought a lot of File Copies from him and these are notorious for low PQ. Take off 3-4 GI for LT/OW pages and he probably falls into the category of conservative graders. If you buy expensive stuff and want to get it graded, you need to learn how to grade or get some assistance from someone who does. If you depend entirely on the dealer, you are going to have some occasional major disappointments. My data are rife with potential sources of bias. Almost all are VF or better books with a lot in the 9.4 to 9.6 range. Dealers may differ in lower grades, but that's not what I collect so I don't have any opinion to share. In the FWIW department, I'm not a pedigree collector or a chaser of top-ranked books. I just really like nice presenting books with as few defects as possible. While I have a lot of pedigrees, it's not always a given that a pedigree will be better than a non-pedigree book. Chasing the top-graded books is a fool's folly as there may always be something with a higher grade. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Semicentennial Posted March 23, 2014 Share Posted March 23, 2014 Wow, what a great post. Thanks for sharing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knightsofold Posted March 23, 2014 Share Posted March 23, 2014 Awesome post! I felt you presented fair info and hope more people make similar posts in the future. Maybe I missed it, but did you post the info on dealers missing restoration? I'm really interested in this one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr Carl Posted March 25, 2014 Share Posted March 25, 2014 Wow, what a great post. Thanks for sharing. +1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sqeggs Posted October 31, 2016 Share Posted October 31, 2016 This thread was brought up over in Grading and Resto and I thought it might merit a bump for those who may have missed it. Too bad Cheetah's not still around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sqeggs Posted May 24, 2017 Share Posted May 24, 2017 I like bumping this thread periodically -- partly because I can never quite remember how it turned out! No surprise about Ritter. My experience with Storms isn't good as Cheetah's was -- but small sample alert. My experience with Heritage and Metro has also been worse. My experience with Harley has been better. Superworld Ted, someone else I buy from fairly frequently, wasn't on Cheetah's list, but I would say his grading can be shaky. He more than makes up for it, imo, by being open-minded in pre-purchase discussions of grades and by being amenable to make-goods on significant misses. MrBedrock and sacentaur 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sacentaur Posted May 24, 2017 Share Posted May 24, 2017 When buying raw in person, I've pretty much gotten away from the the dealer's assigned grade (unless it's too far off, then I don't bother) and instead use it as a guideline while looking at how well the book presents, its PQ, scarcity, any resto, and of course price. For raw online, I tend to stick with the dealers whom grading I trust. Sqeggs 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricksneatstuff Posted May 24, 2017 Share Posted May 24, 2017 (edited) 20 hours ago, Sqeggs said: I like bumping this thread periodically -- partly because I can never quite remember how it turned out! No surprise about Ritter. My experience with Storms isn't good as Cheetah's was -- but small sample alert. My experience with Heritage and Metro has also been worse. My experience with Harley has been better. Superworld Ted, someone else I buy from fairly frequently, wasn't on Cheetah's list, but I would say his grading can be shaky. He more than makes up for it, imo, by being open-minded in pre-purchase discussions of grades and by being amenable to make-goods on significant misses. I think Metro is grading in the dark. The worst grading I have ever seen, other than certain non-comic dealer eBay sellers. Ted is fair. Bedrock is fair. Dave & Adams is good although I have mostly bought slabs there. Nacca is inconsistent- you may score something great or be disappointed. Blissard has been fair. Edited May 24, 2017 by Ricksneatstuff MrBedrock and sacentaur 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
telerites Posted May 24, 2017 Share Posted May 24, 2017 I miss Jeff. I got many a book from his undercoat discards. Great guy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sqeggs Posted August 1, 2018 Share Posted August 1, 2018 Another bumperoo for this fascinating thread. Too bad Cheetah bolted, but I guess Cheetahs are prone to that kind of thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blazingbob Posted August 1, 2018 Share Posted August 1, 2018 (edited) On 1/28/2014 at 9:34 PM, cheetah said: Figure 1 presents the data on the number of books graded/vendor along with the Cumulative Grading Increments each vendor was off. This value was obtained by adding all the Grade Increments from all graded books. A note here, it is possible for a vendor to be wildly inaccurate but still receive a Cumulative Grade Increment of zero. Calling a 9.8 a 0.5 when the next book is a 0.5 but called a 9.8 gives a Cumulative Grade Increment of zero. For those not willing to read the whole thread there were two charts. Here is the first. Edited August 1, 2018 by blazingbob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
telerites Posted August 1, 2018 Share Posted August 1, 2018 This was a great thread and I miss Jeff. I got so many of my Nedors from him as he continued to upgrade and sell off his undercopies. Hope is doing well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricksneatstuff Posted August 1, 2018 Share Posted August 1, 2018 I came around right after he left I think. I hear lots of good things though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
telerites Posted August 1, 2018 Share Posted August 1, 2018 5 hours ago, Ricksneatstuff said: I came around right after he left I think. I hear lots of good things though. Yeah he was a good guy. Awesome high grade collector. Some of his undercopies I bought were 9.0+ peds and he was always more than fair on his prices. Most of the time he would sell at what he paid as he kept a database of all of that. He got frustrated and I honestly forget with what. Maybe stolen books or something like that but I may be wrong - I just remember hu jumped out of the hobby because of it. He posted about it. thehumantorch 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricksneatstuff Posted August 1, 2018 Share Posted August 1, 2018 1 minute ago, telerites said: Yeah he was a good guy. Awesome high grade collector. Some of his undercopies I bought were 9.0+ peds and he was always more than fair on his prices. Most of the time he would sell at what he paid as he kept a database of all of that. He got frustrated and I honestly forget with what. Maybe stolen books or something like that but I may be wrong - I just remember hu jumped out of the hobby because of it. He posted about it. I would be interested to see a link to that post Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
telerites Posted August 1, 2018 Share Posted August 1, 2018 Just now, Ricksneatstuff said: I would be interested to see a link to that post Rick, I doubt my search skills would suffice. I wouldn't even know what keywords to use other than his username. Maybe someone here has a better memory than me and relate the story or find the thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NikoSleeps1991 Posted August 1, 2018 Share Posted August 1, 2018 4 minutes ago, Ricksneatstuff said: I would be interested to see a link to that post same here Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
