Ive lost ALL confidence in CGC - UPDATE on page 221 2 2

[Flaming_Telepath]

I did want to give my regarding the statements that we pay CGC for their opinion. That is FALSE. We pay CGC for their expertise, knowledge "training" (if any), and their service. If I want an opinion, there's a perfectly functioning grading forum where other members are very knowlegeable and reach the same grade that CGC does if not, they're very close.

 

I respectfully disagree.

 

If we were paying for their expertise, knowledge and training...we'd want a few more details regarding that expertise, knowledge and training.

 

And right now...we don't have any. We have no clue who looked at our books, what experience they have, what knowledge they might possess, or what training they may have undertaken.

 

The only thing that matters to customers is that Big Number...which is simply an opinion rendered by faceless employees with no transparent credentials.

 

Who Is Grading Your Comics? Meet CGC’s Grading Team!

 

Right, so some of them have faces, and a few of them have some background. But which one of them graded my books?

 

And what qualifications has Dan Wiseman got? And what training did Brad Bradley go through? And for how long?

 

And this Vince Oliva? Has he ever been a dealer? Did he read comics as a kid? What about Gemma Adel?

 

It's slightly off-track to the main discussion, but I stand by my assertion that CGC is selling the number - the opinion - not the training, experience and expertise.

[mschmidt]

If you quote a post and can type your reply under it(like I am doing now) but while you are doing so the original post is *poofed* by mods the quote and your reply will still be posted.

 

the post was there for less than ten seconds, was not quoted, and he wasnt in the thread during the entire event, didnt post, wasnt lurking.

 

additionally there were also things from PMs, as I said, not going dig it all up, this a digression from my point.

 

 

Everything thing he has said and done in this thread is attacking people raising legitimate concerns about CGC.

 

Company Man/Mod,

 

clear bias.

 

You're accusing me of bias after pretending that a grading company who doesn't disclose any of their employees is somehow more transparent than CGC?

 

Here are my sole two posts about your strike:

 

Yeah, it was removed. It was the usual "come & see me in person at show X" sort of thing.

 

how are we to learn if the offending post is not known?

 

How about using some common sense and simply refrain from posting that someone should come see you at a particular show, with the implication that fisticuffs will be involved? :shrug:

 

I was reading the thread till posts started to get yanked - CBT got a strike for the type of post that gets you a strike every single time.

 

A real smoking gun indeed

[RockMyAmadeus]

Because it's not a "screw up."

 

It's an opinion, of *this* book, at *this* time, on *this* day.

 

And yes, you're perfectly right: a 9.6 and 9.8 can often be interchangeable.

 

There are books that are definitive 9.6 and 9.8.

 

The problem is that there is no 9.7 grade. I have seen thousands of books that "in my mind" I call a 9.7 and decide if I should give it a 9.6 or 9.8 depending on certain factors, one factor being "Will this book look like a 9.6 or a 9.8 in a holder".

 

You also can't have a 9.1, 9.3, 9.5 or 9.7 grade in the scale, as it would make it even more difficult to be a consistent grader.

 

PQ can change depending on the lighting. I had more trouble with PQ at onsite grading than I did sitting at my grading desk in an office.

 

This is where I disagree with you, and have said so for years (and I suspect the NGC guys might have mentioned it to you once or twice. )

 

You have said "in your mind" it's a 9.7. So have I. So have others who are really familiar with dealing in that range.

 

But there is no "9.7" grade. Yet.

 

Far from making it more difficult, it would definitely make it more consistent, and we don't even need to go it alone: NGC and PCGS adopted the same standard (MS60-MS70) when they opened their doors. (Actually, I think NGC might have resisted the MS61, 62, 64, and 66 for a year, but I don't quite remember.)

 

Not only would it benefit the consistency of the grading, it would DEFINITELY help to smooth out the vast price gulfs in the market. As it is, especially in the Copper and Modern eras, anything less than a 9.8 (with exceptions) may as well be tossed in the trash. But if there's a 9.7 grade, it would smooth out the rough patches, and make 9.6 and below much less of pariah grades.

 

And no longer is it $500,000 for a 9.6 in the high end Silver Market, and $100,000 for a 9.4...that $250,000 9.5 would fit right in, and be a grade that more people would feel comfortable with. WITH those grades, graders are no longer having to make (what could have serious financial ramifications for the owner) "will this look a 9.6 or 9.8 in the case" decisions. It looks like a 9.7!

 

In any event, I agree with you, there are dead on 9.6s, and dead on 9.8s. But there are also books that are dead on 9.8s sitting in 9.4 slabs, and dead on 9.4s sitting in 9.6 slabs.

[Rhymenoceros]

 

Who Is Grading Your Comics? Meet CGC’s Grading Team!

 

 

What I want to know is with all the beard going on at CGC how we don't have more facial hair encased with our books...

[CBT]

 

You're not really ignoring a user if you're still commenting on them. (thumbs u

 

I am ignoring what ever he is saying

 

His presence is no end of amusement

[kav]

Speaking of quality over price...I have begun to buy organic food, which is, as those of you who buy it know, much more expensive, generally, than "regular" food.

 

But...when you consider the poison that we all ingest on a daily basis, especially in the face of genetic modification, and the fact that the "real" price of unfiddled with food is much higher than what we pay, it begins to look like a bargain.

 

 

Organic is so confusing.

All I know is the organic stuff looks shriveled up and unappetizing and the people walking around the health food store look like zombies....

I'll take a Big Mac every time....

[pickycollector]

In the end... Buy the book, not the label. CGC is one player in a game where the most important player is yourself. Use CGC's word as an opinion only, and combine it with information provided by the seller, the community and your own judgement (which will get better the longer you're in the hobby.)

 

Just my .

 

All in all, it's not exactly a model for consistency and in truth, you're likely to get more consistency (please note I didn't say 'more accuracy', as that's a whole other debate) buying raw books from the same dealer over and over again.

 

And yet we, the market, put so much store by these entombed collectibles that we are willing to pay huge premiums for exactly the same item we could have bought outside of a slab, solely on the basis of the Big Number.

 

But that Big Number can change in the blink of an eye, as can the fetching shade of the label, obviously.

 

Does nobody else grasp the lunacy inherent in this scenario?

 

CGC will make mistakes. CGC will continue to be inconsistent. It's not just because 'they're only human', but also because their internal processes contains flaws and also because the whole model is ripe for being gamed.

 

If more people truly understood this, we'd have a much more stable market, IMHO.

+1 and +1

 

Two posts that should summarize all this thread

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

 

It's probably why many dealers are starting to move cheaper books raw with tight grading. They don't need to invest the money.

 

 

This is a KEY point.

[RockMyAmadeus]

But you didn't cover the flip side of that, which is MAYBE CGC is overpriced (in some areas), and that was the reason for the outcry when they raised fees. It was not *NECESSARILY* because the consumers are "thrifty" or "cheap", but also perhaps because CGC doesn't provide *enough* value for the price.

 

If I sell dairy cow milk, and price it at $49 a gallon, are my customers "cheap" because they won't pay that? Or am I overpricing my product? In this case, I'm overpricing my product, which is what I suggest CGC is doing.

 

Come on, Roy, you gotta read what I'm saying!

 

 

 

Fair comment. I didn't even weigh the variables when CGC raised prices because as a consumer of their product, whether I pay $125 or $150 for a $3000 walk through makes relatively little difference to me but I can see your point of view though and raising prices on cheaper tiers can make using their other services challenging for some markets.

 

It's probably why many dealers are starting to move cheaper books raw with tight grading. They don't need to invest the money.

 

Thanks for explaining.

 

 

How is this for a look at the cost of a CGC grade vs. the value.

 

For a book published in December, 1979, you can get it graded for $25 per book but only if you send in at least 15 of them for the value tier with a $150 max value per book. If you don't want to spend that minimum of $375 then you have to pay $35 per book. These are all without discounts, and all without fast tracking. Currently non-FT value or Economy takes roughly 3-4 months.

 

For a book published one month later, in January, 1980, one book can get graded for $7 less than the value tier ($17 less than economy, or roughly 50% of the cost of economy tier), you don't have to reach a minimum book threshold, and a modern can have a max value $50 higher than the value book and still qualify for this less expensive service. Oh, and modern books get turned around in roughly half the time of a value/economy book even without fast tracking.

 

So does that one month difference in publishing time really require that much of a difference in grading fees? If it did, I wouldn't do so much hand-wringing about whether or not to submit pre-1979 books for grading.

 

You and me both! It's a very difficult decision! I have literally hundreds of 1975-1979 books sitting here, gathering dust (on their bags, of course!) that I would like to get slabbed, but cannot get past the economies of it.

[divad]

Speaking of quality over price...I have begun to buy organic food, which is, as those of you who buy it know, much more expensive, generally, than "regular" food.

 

But...when you consider the poison that we all ingest on a daily basis, especially in the face of genetic modification, and the fact that the "real" price of unfiddled with food is much higher than what we pay, it begins to look like a bargain.

 

 

Organic is so confusing.

All I know is the organic stuff looks shriveled up and unappetizing and the people walking around the health food store look like zombies....

I'll take a Big Mac every time....

 

So, that it explains it . . .

[PovertyRow]

 

Maybe it's because the prices being charged are *more than* the value that price provides to the average CGC consumer.

 

Example: a single 1976 Marvel comic book worth $100 in the slab costs $35 (before discount) while a single 1980 comic book worth $100 costs $18 (before discount.)

 

There is functionally no difference between that 1976 Marvel and that 1980 Marvel. It takes exactly the same amount of effort and cost to grade...but it's (almost) twice the price.

 

CGC has clearly demonstrated that they *can* grade that book for $18...so why do they charge almost double?

 

This isn't the only example, there are many such inconsistencies in the fee structure.

 

This is a very telling point to me. I was in that exact predicament. I've got a couple of short boxes of very HG BA Horror. I was going to submit a large number of them but waited until I had the necessary funds. When CGC almost doubled the price I put them back on a shelf. A lot of any potential profit was now taken by the CGC fee.

 

RMA is spot on. These 70s books require no extra effort to grade. Their general value would not be an insurance impact, and if the value of some keys etc is higher, that is already taken care of by the increased CGC fees for books of certain values.

 

As RMA says, If CGC can still grade moderns at $18, no reason they should not be able to grade BA at the same rate.

[CBT]

You're accusing me of bias after pretending that a grading company who doesn't disclose any of their employees is somehow more transparent than CGC?

 

I did no such thing, and you know it. The first time you tried to misquote that post, I had to repaste the entire thing because you cut out my main point, and tried to attribute another FALSE point to me.

 

Just like you are doing now....

 

Do I really have to go back and paste in here again? I advocated no other company, I am not anti-CGC. CGC is intentionally ambiguous, and have no accountability.

I never said one thing about employees or who they were. That was brought a couple dozen pages later by someone else, and now you are trying to back fill it into what I said.

 

 

You are doing their work of damage control in this thread, just like you often do in any thread like this. Whether its because you're a mod, or in tight with them, doesnt matter. Which by the way I have said through my posts about the fact that I believe you are.

 

Which of course the people trying to argue with me about it still ignore. But, that's how the little cliques work on this board. I have no desire to derail the thread and help those with an agenda keep it off CGC and what they did/failed to do.

 

If you say "I swear I am not a mod" then I believe you. But you are in so tight you might as well be, and you are still biased and playing the role of company man.

 

 

as for the strike

 

that was a long time ago, and as I said to another. Make a thread, and I'll be happy to go back and dig it all up. It involves posts, PMs, a mod, another forum, and a bunch of other people.

 

It has nothing at all to do with what you posted. Which is of course, more untrue things. I did not say what you just tried to imply with those quotes. I never told anyone to meet me anywhere.

 

 

 

 

 

[manetteska]

Like a dog with a bone.

[Comicopolis]

 

Maybe it's because the prices being charged are *more than* the value that price provides to the average CGC consumer.

 

Example: a single 1976 Marvel comic book worth $100 in the slab costs $35 (before discount) while a single 1980 comic book worth $100 costs $18 (before discount.)

 

There is functionally no difference between that 1976 Marvel and that 1980 Marvel. It takes exactly the same amount of effort and cost to grade...but it's (almost) twice the price.

 

CGC has clearly demonstrated that they *can* grade that book for $18...so why do they charge almost double?

 

This isn't the only example, there are many such inconsistencies in the fee structure.

 

This is a very telling point to me. I was in that exact predicament. I've got a couple of short boxes of very HG BA Horror. I was going to submit a large number of them but waited until I had the necessary funds. When CGC almost doubled the price I put them back on a shelf. A lot of any potential profit was now taken by the CGC fee.

 

RMA is spot on. These 70s books require no extra effort to grade. Their general value would not be an insurance impact, and if the value of some keys etc is higher, that is already taken care of by the increased CGC fees for books of certain values.

 

As RMA says, If CGC can still grade moderns at $18, no reason they should not be able to grade BA at the same rate.

 

Touching 1970's DC books can be detrimental to your health.

[CBT]

Like a dog with a bone.

 

keep buying those ottleys

[PovertyRow]

 

Maybe it's because the prices being charged are *more than* the value that price provides to the average CGC consumer.

 

Example: a single 1976 Marvel comic book worth $100 in the slab costs $35 (before discount) while a single 1980 comic book worth $100 costs $18 (before discount.)

 

There is functionally no difference between that 1976 Marvel and that 1980 Marvel. It takes exactly the same amount of effort and cost to grade...but it's (almost) twice the price.

 

CGC has clearly demonstrated that they *can* grade that book for $18...so why do they charge almost double?

 

This isn't the only example, there are many such inconsistencies in the fee structure.

 

This is a very telling point to me. I was in that exact predicament. I've got a couple of short boxes of very HG BA Horror. I was going to submit a large number of them but waited until I had the necessary funds. When CGC almost doubled the price I put them back on a shelf. A lot of any potential profit was now taken by the CGC fee.

 

RMA is spot on. These 70s books require no extra effort to grade. Their general value would not be an insurance impact, and if the value of some keys etc is higher, that is already taken care of by the increased CGC fees for books of certain values.

 

As RMA says, If CGC can still grade moderns at $18, no reason they should not be able to grade BA at the same rate.

 

Touching 1970's DC books can be detrimental to your health.

 

I wish I had known that sooner!

[PowderedH2O]

I will say this. I have read many pages of this. As a longtime collector of PSA graded sports cards, ANY thread which was anti-PSA would be poofed by 10 AM on the first business day after it was introduced on their chat boards. Give CGC credit for letting you guys debate.

[manetteska]

Like a dog with a bone.

 

keep buying those ottleys

 

 

I thought I was one of the privileged few to be on ignore.

[Balham's Finest]

I have no desire to derail the thread and help those with an agenda keep it off CGC and what they did/failed to do.

 

Bloody hell, you have a funny way of showing it.

[CBT]

I have no desire to derail the thread and help those with an agenda keep it off CGC and what they did/failed to do.

 

Bloody hell, you have a funny way of showing it.

 

if someone intentionally mis attributes things to me, not going to let it lie, ever