Ewert Exposed as Trimming Books: Redux

[SignatureSelect]

I don't think Brulato did I think Ewert did the wrong doings without brulato's knowledge. But I could be wrong.

[chrisco37]

Banner provides a list of books from potentially the same submission:

 

Looks like there were a few other nice books from this submission:

 

FF 2 9.0

FF 11 7.5

X-men 3 9.4

X-men 5 9.6

Spidey 8 9.5

Spidey 129 9.6

Adventure 260 8.5

Showcase 30 9.0 (trimmed)

[chrisco37]

After much outcry, Steve Borock responds:

 

I wanted to take a moment to let everyone know that CGC is looking into this problem. I personally have been dealing with this since Sunday morning and, as Bob stated, the FF 3 is already on it's way back to us. We are in contact with several individuals involved with the books in this invoice and are taking this VERY SERIOUSLY.

 

Though there are many debates on these boards about restoration. There is NO debate here. Trimming is not acceptable in any form or for any reason. Many of us at CGC consider trimming to be the most hideous thing that can be done to a comic book; it is a violent act upon a comic book.

 

Many of you will respond to me with questions. We are in the early stages of gathering information so this will be my only post on this thread at this time. As seen time and again CGC stands behind our product, certification, and policies and we will pursue this issue and any individual who feels that the rules don’t apply to them.

[chrisco37]

OK...computer difficulites are snagging me up. I'll continue later unless someone wants to p/up where I left off. Steve's post was on 8/24/05.

[Foolkiller]

I don't want Chrisco's hard work to go to waste, and my conference calls are cancelled this afternoon, so I will pick up the torch and summarize.

[Foolkiller]

One thing out of the chronology, I initially defended Tom and Jason on their involvement.

 

Well, in the kangaroo court of the CGC forum boards, I'm not sure the weight of evidence and type of evidence is really that relevant seeing as a lot of people have already convicted Jason and Tom.

 

I've really hesitated to comment on this thread because, well, I know nothing about the situation really, and all I'm doing is just adding fuel to the fire.

 

The fact of the matter is, Jason presses his books. Not all, but I know it happens on some. I think that's a commonly accepted fact. My knowledge is about as direct as it can be without seeing it go on myself. And whether or not you agree pressing is resto, it is not even close to the allegations being laid here.

 

I don't think Jason or Tom knowingly sold a restored book, or restored (as in trimmed) the book themselves. I don't believe it. There's nothing compelling to point the finger that they either acted or knew about the condition of the book.

[Foolkiller]

An important visual aid from Redhook

 

[Foolkiller]

My call for Jason to respond to the suspicions

 

You're assuming this is a one time thing. If you've been doing it all along, but this ONCE you get caught, it's not just a few grand but several thousand grand repeatedly.

 

Look, I wasn't for Jason having to come on before, but before this gets out of control, I'd hope he will explain this. He doesn't have to name names, and he doesn't owe us anything, but seriously, this looks very bad right now. He was the submitter, and it sure looks like he's got the skill to trim the book. It's going to look very much like it's him.

[Foolkiller]

Jason posts his response to the suspicions, and alleges that he got the book from Marc Schreuder. Additionally posts his position on pressing and now admits to doing it.

 

Dear Forum Members,

 

After careful review of the discussed topic on the Fantastic Four #3 and #10, I felt it important to make a statement of what my position is on this issue.

 

Recently Tom Brulato received an email from Bob Storms of Highgradecomics.com stating that a recent sale of a Fantastic Four #3 CGC Universal Label graded 8.5 which was sold to Bob by me had been professionally trimmed. The following day, I learned that a Fantastic Four #10 CGC Universal Label graded 9.2 that had come from the same CGC submission invoice had also been professionally trimmed. Immediately upon learning this, a phone call was placed to Bob Storms to have the Fantastic Four #3 in question sent back to the CGC to have it regraded and reviewed for restoration and trimming. A phone call was placed to Steve Borock, president of the CGC, to have the Fantastic Four #3 placed into a holder with a purple restored label if in his expert opinion he felt the book had been restored in anyway whatsoever. Without hesitation, a full refund of the purchase price of the Fantastic Four #3 will be issued to Bob Storms. The owner of the Fantastic Four #10 was contacted and was told to withdraw the book from public sale after it appeared on the Website of Doug Schmell and Pedigreecomics.com.

The discovery of the potential restoration of both the Fantastic Four #3 and #10 has been extremely disturbing and disappointing to me on a number of fronts. I absolutely did not perform or commission to have performed any type of restoration on the two books in question, nor did I ever attempt to offer the books for sale with the pre-existing knowledge that they were restored. I find the practice of knowingly trimming or restoring a comic book in any way and attempting to sell the book to anyone without disclosing the restoration deceptive, fraudulent, and unacceptable no matter if the book is slabbed or is sold raw. This is a practice I would never engage in or tolerate on any book anyone else ever sold to me. I know all too well what the feeling is like to have purchased a book for top dollar, only later to find out that the same book had been restored in some way. Before the advent of CGC I, like many collectors, purchased hundreds of books from many of the top dealers in the country only to find out years later that many of those same books from a few specific dealers were restored when the books were ultimately slabbed by the CGC. No refunds were offered by those few specific dealers and I was forced to sell those books found to have been restored at significant losses.

Tom Brulato and I work together on many transactions. He purchases books for his own collection, we purchase books together for resale, and I purchase books on my own to hold for long term and for resale. In those instances were Tom and I work to purchase together, Tom doesn’t really look at the book(s) and trusts my judgment on whether the book(s) should be purchased or not. Tom was a totally innocent party in the instance of the Fantastic Four #3 and only made the phone call to Bob Storms to offer the Fantastic Four #3 to Bob for sale. The restoration work performed on both the Fantastic Four #3 and the Fantastic Four #10 in question can be traced back to collector Marc Schreuder. The books were purchased by me raw and submitted to the CGC for encapsulation under the charter member dealer company name of VIA, a company formerly owned by Rob Ronin, Jason Ewert and Tom Brulato, and currently used by me for submission. It was an error in judgment on my part for purchasing any books which passed through hands of Marc Schreuder or ever selling books to Marc Schreuder, as Marc has committed other past unscrupulous comic related activities. An extensive search is being conducted to see if any other books which passed through Marc’s hands were tampered with and made their way into a holder with a blue universal unrestored label. I have ceased doing business with Marc Schreuder and I am looking into legal avenues to address potential damage caused to my reputation and to the reputation of others. Because of these occurrences, I also have ceased allowing other collectors and dealers to submit their books to the CGC for encapsulation under the registered charter member dealer name of VIA. The only books that will be submitted to the CGC for encapsulation under the registered charter member dealer name of VIA will be books either I or Tom own and have been in our posession. I apologize wholeheartedly to the CGC and to the comic collecting community that any trimmed book submitted to the CGC by me had made its way into a blue universal CGC holder and was ever offered for sale.

I have also been asked what my position is on professional pressing of comic books. I do not consider professional pressing of comic books restoration. I would have no problem commissioning a comic book to be professionally pressed by an expert restorer if I thought the risk / reward ratio was in my favor on a large book in select circumstances. However, I do NOT have a systematic approach where all or a large majority of the books I sell undergo a commissioned professional press job before sale because of my low risk tolerance, my desire to circulate my inventory quickly, the additional costs of paying a professional to press, the additional time the books are tied up, risks of damage to the book, risks of the press job not done right in the eyes of the CGC, and risks that the book would not lead to a universal blue label with a higher grade. I do NOT press books myself. If I ever commissioned to have a book professionally pressed or knew that a book I was selling was professionally pressed, I would have no problem disclosing that information when asked to a potential buyer so that the buyer could make an informed buying decision.

I am committed to do everything in my power to keep my reputation in this business, as is Tom, and I still have incredible faith in CGC’s ability to detect restoration effectively and provide all of us the only source of overwhelming peace of mind.

 

 

Sincerely,

 

Jason Ewert

[Foolkiller]

Some board members feel Jason's post clears it all up for example...

 

 

Thank you Jason for taking the time to clear the issue up.

 

Excellent posts from Steve and Jason

 

Excellent post. Good to hear we NOW know who did it

 

Jason and Steve, thanks for the explanations.

 

 

I hope the people who jumped on the GUILTY bandwagon and threw around the accusations will personally send Jason an apology.

 

Good posts Jason and Steve!!

 

Incidentally, good thing we didn't issue that "apology"

 

 

[Foolkiller]

Shouldn't we hear the other side from Schreuder?

 

Ok, fair enough....Marc are you out there?

However I must say Jason is certainly coming out full force against him risking strong legal repercussions.

 

"The restoration work performed on both the Fantastic Four #3 and the Fantastic Four #10 in question can be traced back to collector Marc Schreuder."

[Foolkiller]

Sfilosa talks about some of the loose ends he sees.

 

Loose Ends:

 

While I was clearly one of those people who said, DON'T JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS, I do feel that a few questions need to be answered.

 

1) Jason bought these raw. What guarantees did he have if the books came back restored? Apparently, this Marc person is not considered the most trust worthy, therefore I would think Jason would want some type of refund if these books did come back PLOD. Or did Marc submit the books thru VIA, and a price was already determined, depending on the grading outcome. I ask that because Jason says that he NO LONGER will allow anyone to submit thru VIA except him and Tom.

 

2) The more interesting part, which has been mentioned before. Jason and Tom SOLD the FF#3 to Bob? How much of a discount did they sell it for? There's one thing for them to consign a book using different outlets (ie. eBay, Highgradecomics, Pedigree Comics, etc.) but to outright sell that not very common book, to another dealer just seems strange. Plus apparently, the FF #10 on Doug's site was from another consignor who bought the books from Jason. Once again, quick flip?

 

Just trying to tie up the loose ends.

[Foolkiller]

Tim is now starting to raise questions about Ewert's explanation as well.

 

Jason, thanks very much for this.

 

First, thanks for clarifying Tom's role (or non-role, as it were) in this.

 

I also appreciate your sentiments regarding your respect for the hobby and CGC, and that you can empathize with those of us who've been ripped off in the past and have no desire to return to the way things used to be.

 

If, as you say, Marc Schreuder was indeed the "man in the trenchcoat" who performed the actual trimming (and did he also do the pressing?), and you indeed purchased the books as raw from him, then I owe you and Tom an apology. Although I have to ask you whether you're out of your mind for dealing with Schreuder given his past history.

 

For the benefit of the collecting community, to protect us from purchasing other restored books that might have slipped by CGC, could you confirm if any of the other books that were submitted with the FF 3 and 10 were also purchased from Schreuder, and if so, which books?

 

Finally, there's one thing that still doesn't quite compute with me, which hopefully you can shed some light on. We know how much was paid for the FF 3 and 10 originally on Heritage. Did you pay more or less than that for the raw books from Schreuder? I'm not asking for an exact number, because that would be none of my business, but just want to know whether he made a profit because I'm still trying to understand the economics of what has transpired here. And based upon what you did pay to Schreuder, did you make a profit, net of slabbing fees, when you sold the slabbed books to Bob and whoever purchased the FF 10?

 

Out of curiosity, would you have ever responded publicly here, with such extensive detail as to what happened, if a big hubbub had not been raised about these books and, in particular, if you and Tom had not been publicly implicated

[Foolkiller]

Jimm questions whether or not Ewert would come on here and name somebody when they were really innocent, little did we know Ewert's capacity to lie at the time.

 

Tim, do you really think Jason would come on here and directly name a responsible party if it were not true? I love ya (in a manly, viking way of course) and appreciate your low tolerance for BS, but I think your being overly skeptical in light of the information and details provided

[Foolkiller]

More questions from Aman

 

We've read a lot of these "now MY side of the story" posts, right? So how did this one stack up? I guess the real questions are more like which statements are 100% true, which only 50%, and which were less forthright? And when do we hear Marc's side of this? Since he was left out to dry, doncha think he's working on a juicy "hey wait a minute!" post himself?

[Foolkiller]

Again Tim expresses his concerns.

 

I'm just pointing out that suddenly everyone's accepting Jason's words as gospel truth. There is a tendency on these boards to accept whoever spoke last as the most true. Remember the "Wheels in Motion" thread? Ian came on, and everyone jumped on the anti-Metro bandwagon because they took Ian's words and view of things at face value. Then Vincent came on and everyone jumped on the anti-Ian bandwagon and took Vincent's words at face value. I'm just urging everyone to maintain a healthy skepticism.

[Foolkiller]

Someone else who uses the expression "the CGC" and raises some concerns.

 

I am confident the folks at CGC and Steve are in total alignment with the story as it was presented here, otherwise Steve and the CGC would have said otherwise. So it is not just who do you beleive (Ewert or Schreuder) in my mind, it is what side do you beleive (CGC AND Ewert together or Schreuder) ? And I am sure if this Schreuder fella is and has been as unsavory as he appears, there might have been a long scolding session of Borock to Ewert for dealing with the guy and putting the reputations of Ewert, Brulato and CGC all at risk. Just something else to think about.

[Moondog]

What was the date of Jason's post?

[Foolkiller]

Date of Jason Ewert's post was August 25, 2005 5:17 PM

[krazykat-migration]

Shhh,..i WANNA SEE HOW THIS ONE ENDS,..

 

Although it dont look good.