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Cole Schave collection: face jobs?

Started by namisgr,

4,963 posts in this topic

mschmidt

mschmidt

Posted
Posted

 

With certification, you have institutionalized the standards in a manner that fast-tracks transaction dynamics, anonymizes the players, and fortuitously, you have a supporting cast of venues willing to anonymously market and move slabs.

 

Taking away the anonymity from auctions/consignments would be a step in the right direction. Buyers should have a right to know from whom they're buying, not just who the middle man is.

 

Is that common in any other field?

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jimbo_707

jimbo_707

Posted
Posted
It's sounding like everyone was expecting CGC to see ahead of time how the system was going to be gamed and should have taken precautions.

 

Doesn't the FBI fix problems after they happen? If some of the finest intelligence agencies in the world can't predict the future, why would a bunch of comic graders?

 

It's just not possible.

 

There are always people that are going to game the system. The person doing the RSR's is probably one of the best at finding loopholes and from what I've heard always has been. How do you stop someone like that?

 

I hear what you're saying.

 

But in my opinion this loophole was caused by the grading standards. I think many here, myself included, believe that the impact of the spine roll, and the impact of backside and spine defects are not being properly weighted into the grade.

 

The same can be said about shrunken covers. There is more grade reward in pressable defects than there is penalty in defects caused by over-pressing or improper pressing.

 

It's not too difficult to see why someone would take advantage of this situation. It was foreseeable.

 

You could line up any group of board members (let's choose any from this thread who seem to dislike CGC) and have them write grading standards and run the company, and someone somewhere would game the system.

 

It's easy to look back in hindsight and say "oh look, we should have stopped that!".

 

It's near impossible to prevent it by creating a perfect system.

 

True enough, but CGC needs to adapt more quickly, even if getting ahead of scammers like Mark Wilson isn't entirely possible. The response was too slow and too ineffective in the case of RSR, and it appears to be too slow in the case of Costanza'd books, too, because it seems like pressed books with (admittedly slighter) cover shrinkage are still getting rewarded.

 

If people would stop sending their books to CCS to get pressed until the shrinkage issue were fixed, with data from CCS as proof, something tells me there would be a solution lickety split.

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mschmidt

mschmidt

Posted
Posted
Harder penalties would be a great idea. (thumbs u

Put RFID on the slabs, and you will be able to detect movement of the slabs. It`s cheap, harmless and effective.

Wal-Mart does it, and not many people even know about it!

 

 

That video was debunked by Snopes:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/rfid.asp

 

(RFID tags have no built-in batteries or power supplies; they're activated by radio waves sent out from RFID readers which emit just enough power to trigger the tags and have a limited range limit, so Orwellian nightmare scenarios involving avaricious corporations tracking the locations of every one of their products all over the globe are not yet a reality.)
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ComicConnoisseur

ComicConnoisseur

Posted
Posted

 

With certification, you have institutionalized the standards in a manner that fast-tracks transaction dynamics, anonymizes the players, and fortuitously, you have a supporting cast of venues willing to anonymously market and move slabs.

 

Taking away the anonymity from auctions/consignments would be a step in the right direction. Buyers should have a right to know from whom they're buying, not just who the middle man is.

RFID would do exactly that. It would take away anonymity and leave a trail.

 

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jimbo_707

jimbo_707

Posted
Posted

 

With certification, you have institutionalized the standards in a manner that fast-tracks transaction dynamics, anonymizes the players, and fortuitously, you have a supporting cast of venues willing to anonymously market and move slabs.

 

Taking away the anonymity from auctions/consignments would be a step in the right direction. Buyers should have a right to know from whom they're buying, not just who the middle man is.

 

Is that common in any other field?

(shrug) No idea. Sometimes consignors are known (for instance with the Thompsons' books, or with some of the well-publicized keys that have been on the block). Sometimes board members mention when they have particular books in an auction. Craig Barnett advertised on E-Bay that it was his Baker GCE in the last C-Link auction. It's a free market, so you can vote with your $$$ - just don't bid on an item if you don't know who the consignor is.
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Ditch Fahrenheit

Ditch Fahrenheit

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True. But this "particular" game was low-hanging fruit.

 

I don't if I'd call it low hanging fruit when really, it seems only one person found that loophole.

 

 

:)

 

Only one person has been identified in "this" thread, and only because of the severity of the modification and the existence of high quality before and after pics.

 

The real game changer for all of us was, as you stated, the existence of high quality before and after pics (online). These boards have done wonders for helping collectors and the CGC graders to catch onto many things that were done to books. Either things that many don't care about (pressing, light dry cleaning) and the things I think most of us care about (micro-trimming, RSR, improper pressing, etc).

 

As to profit:

Money wise, the money is bigger because many books are now worth more money.

 

Profit percentage wise, even though books were worth less "back in the day", so many books were screwed with and most collectors and dealers could not tell. Certain people were making a huge profit, just with poor trimming, solvent cleaning, married pages and covers, staples re-placed, spine reinforcement, pieces replaced and color touch. People were putting color touch on an ASM #50 even though the book only sold in VF for $15 because a FN was only $5 Huge mark up on thousands and thousands of books.

 

There is sooooo much restoration that is detected now, as well less books being restored because of 3rd party grading and educated collectors/dealers. It is no longer worth getting caught screwing with books that do not sell for big bucks (And, no, I am not talking about proper pressing and proper dry cleaning).

 

Yeah, I completely understand. Take regular spine roll for example. In the old days the marketplace was full of spine rolled books because it was a normal result of improper but common storage methods. Now, they're rare as hen's teeth. Why? Because pressing technology became more and more commonplace, and because the old grading standard wouldn't allow a minor roll in anything above a FN/VF. The defect, the grade standard, and the technology to remove the defect combined to create a high demand for these books because of the potential for high profit.

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comicwiz

comicwiz

Posted
Posted

 

With certification, you have institutionalized the standards in a manner that fast-tracks transaction dynamics, anonymizes the players, and fortuitously, you have a supporting cast of venues willing to anonymously market and move slabs.

 

Taking away the anonymity from auctions/consignments would be a step in the right direction. Buyers should have a right to know from whom they're buying, not just who the middle man is.

 

Is that common in any other field?

(shrug) No idea. Sometimes consignors are known (for instance with the Thompsons' books, or with some of the well-publicized keys that have been on the block). Sometimes board members mention when they have particular books in an auction. Craig Barnett advertised on E-Bay that it was his Baker GCE in the last C-Link auction. It's a free market, so you can vote with your $$$ - just don't bid on an item if you don't know who the consignor is.

 

Provenance, more often than not, can elevate a piece from the status of ordinary to extraordinary. It isn't uncommon for collections to surface from people of tremendous influence or stature, who had a positive effect on the hobby, were well known curators and/or stewards of a particular collecting category. I'm more inclined to believe anonymity is a by-product of the way goods are sold online, but rarely if ever do you see the deliberate attempt to scrub traces of pedigree or provenance for the sake of a grade bump in the way it's been done in the comic hobby.

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originalisbest

originalisbest

Posted
Posted

 

With certification, you have institutionalized the standards in a manner that fast-tracks transaction dynamics, anonymizes the players, and fortuitously, you have a supporting cast of venues willing to anonymously market and move slabs.

 

Taking away the anonymity from auctions/consignments would be a step in the right direction. Buyers should have a right to know from whom they're buying, not just who the middle man is.

 

So successful sellers should give up their customer lists?

 

Laughable on the very face of it.

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Straw-Man

Straw-Man

Posted
Posted

 

With certification, you have institutionalized the standards in a manner that fast-tracks transaction dynamics, anonymizes the players, and fortuitously, you have a supporting cast of venues willing to anonymously market and move slabs.

 

Taking away the anonymity from auctions/consignments would be a step in the right direction. Buyers should have a right to know from whom they're buying, not just who the middle man is.

 

So successful sellers should give up their customer lists?

 

Laughable on the very face of it.

 

i laughed, rolled my eyes, and both shook and scratched my head simultaeously on that one.

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jimbo_707

jimbo_707

Posted
Posted

 

With certification, you have institutionalized the standards in a manner that fast-tracks transaction dynamics, anonymizes the players, and fortuitously, you have a supporting cast of venues willing to anonymously market and move slabs.

 

Taking away the anonymity from auctions/consignments would be a step in the right direction. Buyers should have a right to know from whom they're buying, not just who the middle man is.

 

So successful sellers should give up their customer lists?

 

Laughable on the very face of it.

 

i laughed, rolled my eyes, and both shook and scratched my head simultaeously on that one.

I'm very close to simply boycotting consignment items/anonymous auctions. I prefer to know where my money is going. Feel free to laugh all you want - I'd rather make people laugh than cry.

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