Would you be okay with the company, CGC, buying and selling raw comics?

[kav]

They are going to have to charge a decent premium to cover their costs of having them graded. Would someone be willing to pay that premium or at that point would you just buy it slabbed?

Yep and since the raw would come without the 'guaranty' it would be kinda worthless. Pay more for basically nothing much.

[PovertyRow]

Let's just say, for interest sake, that CGC opened a buy/sell marketplace, and they themselves, were the ones buying and selling...Every raw book that they offer for sale, would also have undergone their thorough restoration check, and have been graded by a minimum of 2 graders plus the finalizer. ...

Would you have a problem with this? If yes, please explain why.

 

I would have a problem with that. It is the wedge in the door opening to CGC's possible downfall. Set aside the conflict of interest. Imagine the furor over books that, if submitted after buying from CGC did not come back at least in the grade stated. I can't see CGC opening themselves to this.

[thirdgreenham]

I get it, guys, but they never did guarantee any grade to begin with, right? And the grading process is supposed to be the same, so there shouldn't be any wild grade swings. No fewer than if you cracked a book out and did a straight resub.

 

If it catches on, they could offer grading of comics without going through the encapsulation process. They could charge $5-10 less, per book, or whatever they felt the retail cost of that hard case should be.

 

 

[1Cool]

Worst case scenario would be a person from CGC getting a large batch of books in for pre-grading and then gives them a lower grade just to make an offer on them and then selling them as raw high grade. I think they should remain the experts who are above the selling industry rather than being part of the selling industry.

[Buzzetta]

There would still be a conflict of interest-they could give gift grades or overlook iffy resto to bring in higher prices....no I don't think this is a good idea. Just imagine all the headaches as people buy a book, then send it to get slabbed and suddenly it's not as 'good' as it was advertised to be....

 

Exactly this

[Doktor]

Conflict of interest all the way. It's just asking for problems. Even problems that might NOT exist now & maybe it would be handled on the up & up. But all it takes is that one manager or whatever to "round up" on a grade once, then again, then again and again and again & all of a sudden, their books get the benefit of the doubt on grading & resto check, but the books submitted by customers don't. Their books get priority over submissions. Their books that were sold as X-grade raw suddenly either come back below that when they grade it for a 2nd time or books that might have gotten that "rounding up" benefit suddenly are now slabs during the actual submission.

 

I mean, who wins when the customer (you/me/whoever) is going to disagree with a grade of the seller, when the seller is the one who you're going to send the book to for actual grading later?

 

Unless you were talking completely grade-less "here's a bunch of scans of a book, best offer takes it" situation where they didn't actually grade their own books, but let the market decide the grade & price together. And even that is a little iffy with maybe "is that resto?" getting the benefit of the doubt because it's "their book".

 

There's just a whole can of worms that something like "impartial 3rd party also is now sometimes the 2nd party with a financial interest in the grade of the book" that is a whole big bag of bad.

[oldbsturgeon]

There was something written above that I thought was odd. I imagine someone working for a comic grading company likes comics but they aren't allowed to buy them if they work there? Really?

[vaillant]

Let's just say, for interest sake, that CGC opened a buy/sell marketplace, and they themselves, were the ones buying and selling. They could carry the competition's slabbed merchandise, if they wanted to, but would never buy and sell their own company's graded comics. Every raw book that they offer for sale, would also have undergone their thorough restoration check, and have been graded by a minimum of 2 graders plus the finalizer. The only difference is, the books wouldn't be in a CGC slab, and so they would be offered raw in a mylar. Buyers would still have confidence that the grade is sound. I'm not sure if there would be a conflict of interest, or a perceived conflict of interest, as the comics offered wouldn't be in their slabs at all.

 

Would you have a problem with this? If yes, please explain why.

I would just drop slabs and offer the graded books in a Mylar/Holder that can be easily opened and trashed, together with the label, and a "dampering-proof" seal of warranty. (thumbs u

 

That would actually make me buy a lot more graded comics.

[jimjum12]

It will never happen.

 

CGC is owned by the Certified Collectibles Group, which started with NGC in 1987. One of the strictest rules about working for CGC is that you CANNOT, under ANY circumstances, buy or sell comics. It's not allowed.

 

That wall was erected at the very beginning, and NGC is the lion's share of the CCG's income, by far. What goes for NGC goes for the rest.

 

.....this.

 

 

.... and in addition, the whole concept of CGC is contingent upon their status of impartiality....which would go out the window if they were to enter the marketplace that they have elected to oversee. The whole idea of certification would become questionable without the tamper proof slab...... unless of course, they were grading raw books to go in mylars for the end consumer, as a cheaper and slightly quicker (presumably....) way to verify someone else's inventory..... higher end books, maybe, functioning as a specialized type of escrow service ? GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

[Bosco685]

Yep. Classic conflict of interests.

 

 

 

-slym

 

Agreed. Although, with raw books involved would a grading standard now be published to outline why a certain assessment assigned? And what if someone submits a book for encasement, and the resulting grade differs?

[wombat]

I get it, guys, but they never did guarantee any grade to begin with, right? And the grading process is supposed to be the same, so there shouldn't be any wild grade swings. No fewer than if you cracked a book out and did a straight resub.

 

If it catches on, they could offer grading of comics without going through the encapsulation process. They could charge $5-10 less, per book, or whatever they felt the retail cost of that hard case should be.

 

 

Who is really going to pay $5 - $10 less as opposed to just buying it slabbed? Seems like that would be a very small group of people.

[thirdgreenham]

Conflict of interest all the way. It's just asking for problems. Even problems that might NOT exist now & maybe it would be handled on the up & up. But all it takes is that one manager or whatever to "round up" on a grade once, then again, then again and again and again & all of a sudden, their books get the benefit of the doubt on grading & resto check, but the books submitted by customers don't. Their books get priority over submissions. Their books that were sold as X-grade raw suddenly either come back below that when they grade it for a 2nd time or books that might have gotten that "rounding up" benefit suddenly are now slabs during the actual submission.

 

I mean, who wins when the customer (you/me/whoever) is going to disagree with a grade of the seller, when the seller is the one who you're going to send the book to for actual grading later?

 

Unless you were talking completely grade-less "here's a bunch of scans of a book, best offer takes it" situation where they didn't actually grade their own books, but let the market decide the grade & price together. And even that is a little iffy with maybe "is that resto?" getting the benefit of the doubt because it's "their book".

 

There's just a whole can of worms that something like "impartial 3rd party also is now sometimes the 2nd party with a financial interest in the grade of the book" that is a whole big bag of bad.

 

The graders wouldn't know who's books they were grading, similar as to how it is supposed to work right now.

 

Doesn't matter if you disagree with the grade, it's only CGC's opinion.

 

If you trust in them when they say they don't know who's books they are that they're grading, why wouldn't you trust in them if they are now selling?

[thirdgreenham]

I get it, guys, but they never did guarantee any grade to begin with, right? And the grading process is supposed to be the same, so there shouldn't be any wild grade swings. No fewer than if you cracked a book out and did a straight resub.

 

If it catches on, they could offer grading of comics without going through the encapsulation process. They could charge $5-10 less, per book, or whatever they felt the retail cost of that hard case should be.

 

 

Who is really going to pay $5 - $10 less as opposed to just buying it slabbed? Seems like that would be a very small group of people.

 

That would be only an option for those who want it. Yes, the group is small, but there are some out there who only want CGC's resto check and opinion, and when they receive their slabs, they crack them right out.

[Santos208]

Sounds like a greag idea. I would def. be a customer.

[Transplant]

It will never happen.

 

CGC is owned by the Certified Collectibles Group, which started with NGC in 1987. One of the strictest rules about working for CGC is that you CANNOT, under ANY circumstances, buy or sell comics. It's not allowed.

 

That wall was erected at the very beginning, and NGC is the lion's share of the CCG's income, by far. What goes for NGC goes for the rest.

 

And workers would still not be allowed to buy and sell comics. That part would not change.

 

[Transplant]

Posted on 4/21/2014

 

Mark Haspel and Chris Friesen, two of the world's foremost comics experts, have rejoined the CGC team as grading consultants.

 

SARASOTA, Florida — The Certified Guaranty Company® (CGC®), an independent member of the Certified Collectibles Group (CCG®) of companies, has hired Mark Haspel and Chris Friesen as consultants.

 

“We couldn’t be more thrilled to have Mark and Chris back in the CGC fold,” said Paul Litch, CGC primary grader. “With their return to the grading room, there is a heightened sense of enthusiasm, and we feel stronger having the original team back together.”

 

Mark is one of the world’s leading comic book experts with a particular focus on Golden Age comics, Silver Age comics, restoration detection and pedigree comic books. As a dealer, Mark was involved in the discovery of the famous Spokane pedigree collection. Mark, an original member of the CGC grading team, has seen more pedigreed comic books than almost any other professional. He is a grading advisor to Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide and has consulted on grading for Sotheby’s.

 

As a part-time CGC consultant, Mark is strictly prohibited from grading any comics he submits.

 

Chris Friesen has been a comics professional since 1987. He knows the secrets behind the latest restoration methods by constantly studying techniques from this hobby and others. This knowledge and analytical attention to detail, makes Chris one of the world’s foremost restoration detection experts in comics.

 

CGC CEO Steven R. Eichenbaum comments, “We are pleased that Mark and Chris have rejoined Certified Guaranty Company as consultants. Their knowledge and experience in comic book grading and restoration detection add tremendous depth to CGC.”

[RockMyAmadeus]

There was something written above that I thought was odd. I imagine someone working for a comic grading company likes comics but they aren't allowed to buy them if they work there? Really?

 

Clarification: Commercial buying or selling, which means they can't buy or sell them as a "dealer." The official verbiage is: "CGC does not buy or sell comic books and does not have a financial interest in the comic books that we certify. In fact, employees of CGC are prohibited from buying and selling comic books commercially."

 

Yes, they can buy them personally.

 

Here's an explanation from Scott Schechter, VP at NGC:

 

Most of the people who work at NGC genuinely love coins. Some are collectors and joined NGC so that they could pursue their passion full time. Others, if they are not actively collecting, appreciate coins enough to buy something now and again when it strikes their fancy.

 

If we prohibited all full-time employees from buying or selling coins, period, that policy would make it impossible for collectors to work for NGC. Instead, full-time employees cannot own or have financial interest in a dealership or buy or sell coins for a commercial account.

 

The reason for this is simple: to eliminate potential conflicts of interest. Just imagine grading coins for a customer that are nicer than the coins you have in your own inventory…how impartial could you be? That’s a situation that we would never let happen at NGC.

 

We think this policy is an important and meaningful discriminator among grading services, which is why we post it on our website. The reason that we word it with the qualifier, “commercially,” is simply to be honest and accurate. Certified Collectibles Group employees do follow a detailed compliance procedure to aid enforcement of this policy, but despite that inconvenience (and it can be a headache) we don’t want to preclude anyone who is truly passionate about rare coins from joining NGC.

 

Substitute "CGC" for "NGC", and there you go.

[Transplant]

There was something written above that I thought was odd. I imagine someone working for a comic grading company likes comics but they aren't allowed to buy them if they work there? Really?

 

Clarification: Commercial buying or selling, which means they can't buy or sell them as a "dealer." The official verbiage is: "CGC does not buy or sell comic books and does not have a financial interest in the comic books that we certify. In fact, employees of CGC are prohibited from buying and selling comic books commercially."

 

Yes, they can buy them personally.

 

Here's an explanation from Scott Schechter, VP at NGC:

 

Most of the people who work at NGC genuinely love coins. Some are collectors and joined NGC so that they could pursue their passion full time. Others, if they are not actively collecting, appreciate coins enough to buy something now and again when it strikes their fancy.

 

If we prohibited all full-time employees from buying or selling coins, period, that policy would make it impossible for collectors to work for NGC. Instead, full-time employees cannot own or have financial interest in a dealership or buy or sell coins for a commercial account.

 

The reason for this is simple: to eliminate potential conflicts of interest. Just imagine grading coins for a customer that are nicer than the coins you have in your own inventory…how impartial could you be? That’s a situation that we would never let happen at NGC.

 

We think this policy is an important and meaningful discriminator among grading services, which is why we post it on our website. The reason that we word it with the qualifier, “commercially,” is simply to be honest and accurate. Certified Collectibles Group employees do follow a detailed compliance procedure to aid enforcement of this policy, but despite that inconvenience (and it can be a headache) we don’t want to preclude anyone who is truly passionate about rare coins from joining NGC.

 

Substitute "CGC" for "NGC", and there you go.

Good thing Mark is a consultant and not a full-time employee AND that he can't grade his own books, because that man can buy and sell some books just from what I've witnessed on the con floors. He always manages to beat me to most of the good books at dealers.

 

So either he's not doing it commercially or that loophole of not being a fulltime employee makes it okay.

[skypinkblu]

Steve B. said that was one of the rules he insisted on when he set this up, and was why he collected OA. He also said that there were changes when Mark came back. Edit: Steve was long gone by then.

I was told by someone else, it was part of Mark's new contract, he is doing this above board.

 

There were rumours about others buying and selling before, but as with all rumours, who knows. I do know I was on line behind Mark a few times at shows, so he's certainly never hidden anything..

 

[Iceman399]

I get it, guys, but they never did guarantee any grade to begin with, right? And the grading process is supposed to be the same, so there shouldn't be any wild grade swings. No fewer than if you cracked a book out and did a straight resub.

 

If it catches on, they could offer grading of comics without going through the encapsulation process. They could charge $5-10 less, per book, or whatever they felt the retail cost of that hard case should be.

 

 

Who is really going to pay $5 - $10 less as opposed to just buying it slabbed? Seems like that would be a very small group of people.

 

That would be only an option for those who want it. Yes, the group is small, but there are some out there who only want CGC's resto check and opinion, and when they receive their slabs, they crack them right out.

 

Why not have an option for just resto check program in which books could be checked for resto by CGC and not slabbed. Mind you I would rather them fix their TAT's than add new services or gimmicks like fancy signature exclusive labels.