Grading Comparisons Between Dealers 3 3

[Headless Horseman]

That's some pretty impressive work Cheetah,and thank you for tackling it and sharing your results with us. (thumbs u

 

[jimjum12]

I'll bet a dollar I know who dealer 3 is...

 

..... probably Payette or Stoltz. GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

 

At this point, my rankings are

3

5

6

4

7

1

2

.....although I'm tempted to give a little more weight to some of the ones that had more samples in their groups..... as a bonus for depth and availability.

[Johnny545]

My ranking would be the same as Jimbo's.

[rjpb]

The focus on presumably higher grade books GA/Atom Age books may not accurately represent a dealers overall grading acumen, but it is a grade range more likely to be slabbed by the buyer and in which a single Gi can significantly impact FMV. It's also a grade range where eye-appeal tends to be more uniform, an aspect of grading CGC appears to value less than many in the collecting community do.

 

I wouldn't get too wrapped up in a dealer to dealer comparison when the numbers are not too far apart. In addition to the potential skew due to pressing, CGC themselves are not always consistent. Both "gift grades" and "hammered grades" that would find reasonable dissent among collectors and dealers could also distort comparisons.

 

Given all the variables, including uneven sample sizes, I would hesitate to make too much of the numbers, with the exception of dealer #2, as I mentioned before, whose sample size and percentage of overgraded relative CGC books were both large enough to show a distinct trend.

 

I'm curious as to whether you assigned a grade yourself before submission. Presumably it was evident early on that Dealer #2 was a softer grader than the others, so if you continued to buy I have to guess that you generally found the price agreeable anyway or their scope of inventory made them difficult to ignore.

[Tri-Color Brian]

There are several dealers I know of that would fit #2. I avoid all of them. I think it is important to provide the names of the test subjects so the public may be better informed about those dealers. Perhaps a general boycott would force them to shape up...

Edited January 29, 2014 by tricolorbrian

[jimjum12]

Another consideration is the individual examples that varied by only one increment(up or down) should probably receive LESS weight, as CGC themselves seems to vary to that degree also. GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

[Walt_Flanagan-migration]

I guess my first question to you would be why did you continue to spend money with D2 if they were consistently overgrading? Addiction?

Figure 1 presents the data on the number of books graded/vendor along with the Cumulative Grading Increments each vendor was off. ]

[adamstrange]

I don't care how the dealer grades it as long as I want the book in question at the price quoted.

 

I guess my first question to you would be why did you continue to spend money with D2 if they were consistently overgrading? Addiction?

Figure 1 presents the data on the number of books graded/vendor along with the Cumulative Grading Increments each vendor was off. ]

[rjpb]

Another consideration is the individual examples that varied by only one increment(up or down) should probably receive LESS weight, as CGC themselves seems to vary to that degree also. GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

 

I agree completely. There is no one "accurate" grade for a book, even among compatible graders. My thought is that every book has at least a two and sometimes three grade range, any one of which most would assess as being reasonable.

[Walt_Flanagan-migration]

D2 def has issues. put it this way. for every 3 books they sell they are off by an average of 4 point-grades. that's a lot of money loosely hedged out there (put up for grabs) and puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the buyer to scrutinize and make sure they know what they are getting. that they can accurately grade themselves.

 

if D2 can avoid the return, they are bound to be making some serious coin because of the consistent overgrade.

I don't care how the dealer grades it as long as I want the book in question at the price quoted.

 

I guess my first question to you would be why did you continue to spend money with D2 if they were consistently overgrading? Addiction?

Figure 1 presents the data on the number of books graded/vendor along with the Cumulative Grading Increments each vendor was off. ]

[keever]

Thank you for doing this Jeff. I had asked for this in the thread you started about being done with the dealer who pulled all their Church books (you know who I mean though I see you are not naming names - yet). You are providing a great service. I just got 5 more books back from CGC that I bought from that particular dealer and sent to Joeypost to be pressed, 3 came back at their grade, one was two of your grade increments overgraded, and the 5th was 6 increments overgraded (called a 9.0, came back 6.0)! The sad story of my prior 5 books from them was told in your "I'm done" thread. I'm guessing they are either dealer 2 or dealer 4 on your list. Keep feeding us more statistics please.

[Sqeggs]

Thank you for doing this Jeff. I had asked for this in the thread you started about being done with the dealer who pulled all their Church books (you know who I mean though I see you are not naming names - yet). You are providing a great service. I just got 5 more books back from CGC that I bought from that particular dealer and sent to Joeypost to be pressed, 3 came back at their grade, one was two of your grade increments overgraded, and the 5th was 6 increments overgraded (called a 9.0, came back 6.0)! The sad story of my prior 5 books from them was told in your "I'm done" thread. I'm guessing they are either dealer 2 or dealer 4 on your list. Keep feeding us more statistics please.

 

Metro. Was the mystery of the pulled Church books ever solved? They have a few listed on their site, but I think most are still gone.

[Sqeggs]

One of the advantages/disadvantages of collecting full runs of CGC-graded books is that you get to buy raw books from vendors and get them graded in order to fill in the holes. Sometimes you get good surprises, sometimes you get bad ones. I’ve been doing it long enough now that I’ve built up a pretty sizable data base of raw-to-graded books and I thought it would be a good time to divulge some of my data in regards to which vendors grade well and which ones grade poorly. There is always a lot of talk on the boards as to who sucks and who doesn’t. I think my information will be a surprise in some ways, and reinforce opinions in some others.

 

First off, here is how I set up may data. The 10.0 grading scale is a qualitative scale that doesn’t reflect quantitative difference between books. As such, I have prepared my data based on ‘Grade Increments.’ A Grade Increment is the increase in quality from one grade to another. So the difference between 5.0 and 5.5 is 1 GI. Similarly, the difference between a 9.6 and a 9.8 is also 1 GI. For each of my books, I recorded the grade advertized during the sale and the CGC assigned grade once it went through the grading process. If a book was sold as at a grade higher than it received from CGC, I recorded the Grade Increment as a negative. A book I bought as an 8.0 but which received a 6.5 from CGC received -3 GI. A book bought as a 6.5 that graded an 8.0 received 3 GI.

 

Virtually all of the books I had graded were Golden Age books. I sent them all through Matt Nelson or Joey Post for prescreens and pressing, if appropriate. With those I sent through Matt, there were books where he identified problems that I had not seen. These books were returned to me then to the vendor and were not included in the data. These returned books may skew the data to give the vendors a falsely elevated score as books that were graded much too high have been excluded from the analysis.

 

As you might expect, pressing of the books also may give the vendors a falsely high score. A book that warrants a 7.5 prior to pressing may grade 8.5 after pressing. While this throws a degree of uncertainty into the results, the books I buy are usually fairly expensive and I’d like to preserve their value so we will just have to live with a little uncertainty.

 

As far as the data goes, I have collected data on seven vendors. I have graded anywhere from 7 to 78 books with the seven vendors. All the books were graded between December 2012 and January 2014 so the results reflect recent grading trends.

 

I have not, at this time, provided data on exactly who the seven vendors are. I thought it might be interesting to discuss the data and see what preconceptions we have concerning who is ‘good’ and who is ‘bad.’ You will have to play along if you want to see the data related to the names.

 

The data and its discussion will be presented in the next post.

 

Fascinating stuff. May I ask whether these were all online purchases or whether you bought some at cons or in some other face-to-face way?

 

 

[cheetah]

I'm curious as to whether you assigned a grade yourself before submission. Presumably it was evident early on that Dealer #2 was a softer grader than the others, so if you continued to buy I have to guess that you generally found the price agreeable anyway or their scope of inventory made them difficult to ignore.

 

I bought a part of a collection, altogether a couple of hundred books. After the first cull of books that were generally accurate as to grade, I began grading them myself and made an offer based on my grade. Some were accepted, some weren't. I included myself in the grading data.

[Artboy99]

D2 is clearly a dealer that has an inventory that others do not as the buyer was repeatedly purchasing. I know who they are.

 

[cheetah]

Another consideration is the individual examples that varied by only one increment(up or down) should probably receive LESS weight, as CGC themselves seems to vary to that degree also. GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

 

I'll work up some standard deviations for each vendor and present that. It should give an idea of how consistent each dealer is.

[cheetah]

I guess my first question to you would be why did you continue to spend money with D2 if they were consistently overgrading? Addiction?

Figure 1 presents the data on the number of books graded/vendor along with the Cumulative Grading Increments each vendor was off. ]

 

Oh, look, my first shill! Go away.

[cheetah]

Thank you for doing this Jeff. I had asked for this in the thread you started about being done with the dealer who pulled all their Church books (you know who I mean though I see you are not naming names - yet). You are providing a great service. I just got 5 more books back from CGC that I bought from that particular dealer and sent to Joeypost to be pressed, 3 came back at their grade, one was two of your grade increments overgraded, and the 5th was 6 increments overgraded (called a 9.0, came back 6.0)! The sad story of my prior 5 books from them was told in your "I'm done" thread. I'm guessing they are either dealer 2 or dealer 4 on your list. Keep feeding us more statistics please.

 

Metro. Was the mystery of the pulled Church books ever solved? They have a few listed on their site, but I think most are still gone.

 

Still gone. No response to the two emails I have sent asking about it.

[cheetah]

 

Fascinating stuff. May I ask whether these were all online purchases or whether you bought some at cons or in some other face-to-face way?

 

 

All were on-line except the bulk of Dealer 2 which were mailed to me in bulk to review.

[cheetah]

D2 is clearly a dealer that has an inventory that others do not as the buyer was repeatedly purchasing. I know who they are.

 

I'd be interested in hearing the guesses. I'm of the opinion that folks will be surprised on some and not on others.