Grade only no slab service?

[bababooey]

I would guess that 95% of the cost of getting books slabbed is in the grading.

The only higher costs associated with grading might be the graders & resto check people's salaries. I don't think grading any book would take more than 5-10 minutes and I don't think their pay would be many, many multiples of those people in shipping/receiving, data entry, customer service, quality control, management, legal, marketing or those directly involved with the slabbing process - consider the care (time) that needs to be taken when handling books when shipping/receiving/slabbing - I think the costs would be spread much more evenly across the organization.

 

Also, shipping/receiving & the slabbing process require raw materials, machinery etc..so cost-wise I'd put the grading cost much lower, probably around 30% or less...

 

Nope, I don't believe CGC could afford to price a 'grade only' service much less than the current full service. The cost of slabbing itself is much less than the time taken to do a proper examination, plus all the general handling, processing and shipping of orders. I meant to say 95% of the cost is in everything other than the actual encapsulation. I think, probably.

I would agree with you there, just removing the actual "slabbing process" from the product does little to diminish overall costs.

 

[01TheDude]

I would guess that 95% of the cost of getting books slabbed is in the grading.

The only higher costs associated with grading might be the graders & resto check people's salaries. I don't think grading any book would take more than 5-10 minutes and I don't think their pay would be many, many multiples of those people in shipping/receiving, data entry, customer service, quality control, management, legal, marketing or those directly involved with the slabbing process - consider the care (time) that needs to be taken when handling books when shipping/receiving/slabbing - I think the costs would be spread much more evenly across the organization.

 

Also, shipping/receiving & the slabbing process require raw materials, machinery etc..so cost-wise I'd put the grading cost much lower, probably around 30% or less...

 

Nope, I don't believe CGC could afford to price a 'grade only' service much less than the current full service. The cost of slabbing itself is much less than the time taken to do a proper examination, plus all the general handling, processing and shipping of orders. I meant to say 95% of the cost is in everything other than the actual encapsulation. I think, probably.

I would agree with you there, just removing the actual "slabbing process" from the product does little to diminish overall costs.

 

If someone wants to verify a book is not restored etc- there are less intrusive ways to do this locally most likely.

 

Where I can see this as useful is for those people submitting books to see if they are going to grade out as 9.8 or some specific high grade-- and THEN letting the submitter choose to have the product either slabbed or simply returned with the evaluation. They might even be able to pre-determine what that threshold is during the submission. Something like "Slab this book if it grades out at 9.0 or higher" or whatever number they feel is the bare minimum to bother having the book encapsulated.

 

That would save the submitter a little bit of money on the overall process, stop wasting plastic slabs on books not worthy (in the owners eyes) of being slabbed/serialized into the census. I'm not saying it would be a huge cost difference but the postage and additional processing of the book has to have some price to it.

 

 

[01TheDude]

hmm--- just thought of something. It might backfire if CGC were put in a position where they lose some revenue because books weren't grading out to the customers level of expectation. And this might possibly (true or not-- it might become the public impression) have the effect of pushing a grader to give something they see as a 9.6 a 9.8 grade if the submitter is only interested in 9.8+ graded books getting slabbed.

 

The only way it could work is if that step in the process was unknown to the grader but known to those who encapsulate (assuming they are not one and the same).

[Hado]

I would guess that 95% of the cost of getting books slabbed is in the grading.

The only higher costs associated with grading might be the graders & resto check people's salaries. I don't think grading any book would take more than 5-10 minutes and I don't think their pay would be many, many multiples of those people in shipping/receiving, data entry, customer service, quality control, management, legal, marketing or those directly involved with the slabbing process - consider the care (time) that needs to be taken when handling books when shipping/receiving/slabbing - I think the costs would be spread much more evenly across the organization.

 

Also, shipping/receiving & the slabbing process require raw materials, machinery etc..so cost-wise I'd put the grading cost much lower, probably around 30% or less...

 

Nope, I don't believe CGC could afford to price a 'grade only' service much less than the current full service. The cost of slabbing itself is much less than the time taken to do a proper examination, plus all the general handling, processing and shipping of orders. I meant to say 95% of the cost is in everything other than the actual encapsulation. I think, probably.

I would agree with you there, just removing the actual "slabbing process" from the product does little to diminish overall costs.

 

If someone wants to verify a book is not restored etc- there are less intrusive ways to do this locally most likely.

 

Where I can see this as useful is for those people submitting books to see if they are going to grade out as 9.8 or some specific high grade-- and THEN letting the submitter choose to have the product either slabbed or simply returned with the evaluation. They might even be able to pre-determine what that threshold is during the submission. Something like "Slab this book if it grades out at 9.0 or higher" or whatever number they feel is the bare minimum to bother having the book encapsulated.

 

That would save the submitter a little bit of money on the overall process, stop wasting plastic slabs on books not worthy (in the owners eyes) of being slabbed/serialized into the census. I'm not saying it would be a huge cost difference but the postage and additional processing of the book has to have some price to it.

 

Sounds an awful lot like the prescreen service the CGC currently offers.