Has this slab been cracked and book swapped?

[Comic_Con]

This is only a £30 ($50) purchase but I am 99% sure the CGC has been cracked and book swapped and then resealed but I would like other boardies opinions before returning it to the seller (it was an ebay buy).

 

The issue is there looks to be extra glue/welds in the corners and bottom. The most obvious thing is the bottom end (third and fourth photos) the bottom is not flush. There is about 1-2mm difference. It's hard to see in the pictures but it looks like the bottom was opened as that area has the plastic whitened along the bottom edge from what I assume is stretching the slab open.

 

It doesnt feel like my other 100 CGCs and also the grade looks more like a 9.4 (max) than a 9.8.

 

Any quick boardie responses would be appreciated. Also, if any one has similar photos of swapped book slabs to compare that would be appreciated.

 

 

 

 

[Action252Kid]

I would very seriously doubt that it was swapped -- I know it has been suggested many times on here, but have there ever been any confirmed cases of someone swapping out a book, re-sealing it, then glueing the holder back in place? And to swap out a $50 9.8 book and replace it with a ($20?) 9.4, just doesn't make any sense.

 

I would say 99.9% chance that it's a loosely graded 9.8 rather than some sort of scam. Maybe it looks worse in person, but I don't see anything out of the ordinary with the pics.

 

[Comic_Con]

Thanks for your response. The book back in the day would of been selling for more than $50 and other same condition ones are selling up to $80 (my price is the lower end) e.g. if this is kosher I would be more than happy with it as I won it cheap!

 

Any other opinions. Perhaps I shouldnt of posted a price as I would been thinking the same but taking the pictures on its own merit it doesnt look like any of my other many slabs.

 

[kav]

Since it's just one corner I think it got damaged and the guy tried some kind of repair. Now if all 4 corners were glued...

[mshelton1984]

I just recently received a slab looking very similar to this from a seller on eBay. Mine also looks worse than the grade on the label (9.6 with a small tear and spine rubbing on back cover). Hopefully it's just a QC issue and a case of over grading, but that wouldn't be much better I guess.

[Comic_Con]

Since it's just one corner I think it got damaged and the guy tried some kind of repair. Now if all 4 corners were glued...

 

Didnt consider that maybe the slab was repaired, it's a possibility. The "oozing" of the plastic (or maybe glue) didnt look right. I thought the sonic welding CGC use to seal the slabs wouldnt create enough heat for this effect

 

The top two photos are photos of each corner, if that makes a difference. The bottom sides look ok, the bottom edge at noted is offset.

 

If I can be bothered I may take it SDCC and get CGC to look at it (coming from UK but of a pain to carry for only $50 book.

 

Thanks for all opinions.

[Bomber-Bob]

All it takes is one corner to be opened to change the label. A case was documented here on a Cap 100. The original label was a Purple 9.0, changed and reinserted as a 9.2 Blue. It seems like the conversation on these issues always assume the book has been switched. It is much easier to switch the label. Maybe the dollar value on this 'switch' was relatively small but if you do it on enough books ? The crack, press, and resub game has been played out. This appears to be the next big thing. CGC needs to take a look at these situations. For the benefit of the hobby, I suggest you contact them.

[vaultkeeper]

From those pictures, that book looks like it was cracked out and re-glued. Whether the book was swapped out or not is anybody's guess.

[cousin itt]

How many corners appear to be glued like this? If it's just one bottom corner, it's hard to see how a swap could have been done, unless they were able to pull out the entire inner well, swap labels, then slide the inner well back in. I don't know if opening just one corner is enough to take out the entire inner well.

 

What does the sticker/label on the top of the slab look like? (Not the interior label, but the sticker/label they put on the outside of the slab across the top.) Is it still properly adhered all the way across?

 

(For the curious, here is that thread on the cap 100 with the label swap:

http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=8646401&fpart=1 )

[vaultkeeper]

Every corner you are showing looks to have been tampered with. Because the photos are so close, I can't tell if some of them are front and back pictures of the same corner.

[Bomber-Bob]

Maybe it looks worse in person, but I don't see anything out of the ordinary with the pics.

 

Seriously ? You can't see the glue oozing out of the corner. This is not normal.

[Action252Kid]

Maybe it looks worse in person, but I don't see anything out of the ordinary with the pics.

 

Seriously ? You can't see the glue oozing out of the corner. This is not normal.

 

On a big zoomed in pic, it does look like that -- but if anything, you could say that "glue oozing out of the corner" makes it seem even less likely that a potential crack/reseal/label swap/etc. happened. You'd think if this supposed scammer was "talented" enough to pull all of that off, they would've taken an extra half a second to wipe off the extra glue that was oozing out at the corner.

 

Like I said, it's hard to tell without seeing it in hand -- maybe the corner WAS cracked open and glued shut -- which of course would be bad. But I was mainly trying to say that I doubt someone would crack out a 9.8, put a 9.4 in its place, seal it back up, etc. on a $50 book.

[Bomber-Bob]

I doubt someone would crack out a 9.8, put a 9.4 in its place, seal it back up, etc. on a $50 book.

 

Though we don't know what the book is, if a 9.8 is only 50.00, a 9.4 is probably 15.00 . So the owner cracks a corner, slips out the label, and switches it with a 9.8 label. With not much effort, he gets rid of the 9.4 and makes a profit. He was probably just as motivated to move the 9.4 as make a profit. Additionally, he gets away with it because who's going to challenge if a 50.00 book is real?

Again, for the sake of the hobby, this slab should be sent to CGC.

[cousin itt]

I can see I misread the photos. At first I thought these were all photos of the same corner. Now I can see that the first two photos are of the top two corners. (You can tell this because you can see the top sticker in both photos, and you can tell you are looking at opposite ends of that sticker, because in one of the photos, the sticker looks flat, and in the other, it is clearly lifted.) In those two photos, it sure looks like there is something oozing out of cracks in both corners. That's very fishy.

 

So, the other two photos are of the two bottom corners. From those photos, it doesn't look to me like those two corners were opened.

 

So, how does the sticker on the top of the slab look? Does it look like it could have been peeled aside at some point, then smoothed back down? I ask because, if someone did a label swap, they would have had to go through that sticker to do it.

[mschmidt]

The corner posts are there for a reason - look in through the sides of the slab and check whether they've been broken & glued back together again.

[Action252Kid]

 

 

Just for comparison's sake, here is a book that I submitted to CGC myself and got back in the mail this week. I'm telling you, it's not glue (it's just a rough edge on the plastic). In person, it doesn't stand out as odd at all -- but even in my own pics, it looks like glue. I'm not discounting the potential for someone to swap out a book and try to pull something. But that's just how the slab will look when you take a 10x zoomed in shot of the top edge. It's the same thing when people post pics of staples where the staple is 100x actual size and go "how could a 9.8 have this much staple wear?"

 

 

[cousin itt]

That's interesting. I tried taking photos of the top corners of some slabs I also got in this week fresh back from cgc, and I'm not getting that excess-glue-look. But if that does happen on some books, well, that's good to know.

[Action252Kid]

That's interesting. I tried taking photos of the top corners of some slabs I also got in this week fresh back from cgc, and I'm not getting that excess-glue-look. But if that does happen on some books, well, that's good to know.

 

Yeah I looked through my box and cherry picked that one just to show an example. It was actually the only one like that out of a full box. A couple had some really minor roughness in the area, but the one I posted and the one the OP posted are definitely on the more extreme side.

[The Kaptain]

This has been discussed before. The oozing appearance is just the plastic melting from the sonic welding process. This is normal. Not every slab shows it, but a lot do. Ask CGC.

[Bomber-Bob]

That's interesting. I tried taking photos of the top corners of some slabs I also got in this week fresh back from cgc, and I'm not getting that excess-glue-look. But if that does happen on some books, well, that's good to know.

 

Yeah I looked through my box and cherry picked that one just to show an example. It was actually the only one like that out of a full box. A couple had some really minor roughness in the area, but the one I posted and the one the OP posted are definitely on the more extreme side.

 

I gotta admit, your example has me baffled. It appears you are correct = there is no glue.