Hiring broker/witness sigs of your books question 0

[StarryNight]

Hiring broker/witness sigs of your books question

Can someone please explain the process a bit in detail on hiring a witness through CGC to sign your books for SS status when you are on the other side of the country. Pricing, trust and other details come into mind. Appreciate it some insight on this without the sarcastic posts please.

[seanfingh]

It is not much different than doing any type of business transaction remotely. You find out which facilitator (the name for the guys that get things signed for 3rd parties) is handling the event at which you want to get stuff signed.  You reach out to them and find out what the costs are. The more you need them to do, the more expensive it will be.  If you can prep your own books, do your own paper work etc. It will likely be less than if you just send them books and they do everything.  But ask your questions up front and be persistent until you are comfortable with the process.  You send them the books (Make sure you are conversant with best practices for shipping books) and you wait to get them back.  If you are the impatient/OCD type, make sure you are conversant with the time tables for the signing, shipping, grading, slabbing and return shipping of books.  Sometimes even fast track can take 30-45 days.

As it relates to trust, get some references. The best facilitators will have dozens of raving fans who will extol their virtues. You can also do a search on this site to see some of their handiwork.

As a guy that sent off 90 books on my 1st submission (and it had some significant hiccups along the way) I know what you are feeling. I did not do a lot of research. I just sent the books and $3300 bucks. For the most part it worked out great, but some of my suggestions are: (1) Do the highest grade books that you can. It may not seem like a big deal when you are in the infatuation stages of Signature Series. But resale has a huge factor that is related to the underlying grade and even if you consider yourself a collector for life, someone, someday, will have to sell them.  (2) Don't hesitate on getting the guys that you really care about. None of us are promised tomorrow and that includes comic guys.  (3) Make friends with other yellow label guys. Do favors and help out when you can. It's not a tight knit community the same it was 10 years ago, but there are great guys who will help you out if you reciprocate.

Have fun and get ready for an exciting part of the hobby.

 

 

[StarryNight]

Thanks for shedding a bit of light on the facilitator process. I definitely should be looking into this since time is a big issue and even though my location is a large metro there is squat for con scheduling for the rest of the year. I've found one I think, but don't see any active listing of sorts here yet.