CGC should write a book on grading - Thoughts? 1 1

[Hudson]

In another recent thread, there has been some discussion about how CGC grades.  I believe (although I could be wrong) that as “buyers” we appreciate and respect the “tight” grading standards of CGC.  (I cannot speak to the selling side of the house, as I am not in that camp).

Regardless, however, if you are a “buyer”, “collector”, or “seller”, I would think you would want more than anything to see “consistency”.  I don’t think the numeric grade is as important as knowing that any given book with the same defects will be given the same grade, regardless of what day of the week it is or which CGC grader is grading it.

From reading through many threads, I believe there are a few camps of thought on this…

1. There appear to be those who believe that CGC has always graded consistently, from day 1, and that it has not changed. 

2. There are those who believe that CGC has gone through periods of “tight” grading and periods of shall we say “more liberal” grading.  These people appear to believe that CGC grading was at least “consistent” during each individual “period” even if not “consistent” when comparing one “period” to another (say when a different “head grader” was in charge).

3. There are those who appear to believe that sometimes it is a flip of the coin as to what grade a book will receive.   It is likely, we have all seen posts by members who post an image of a book and ask how it achieved a given grade.

So then if CONSISTENCY is the goal of CGC (which I would like to believe it is) AND is the goal of the collecting community in general (which I again believe that it is), then I would like to know how CGC grades defects.  I am going to assume that a book starts at a 10 and that each defect (minor or major) brings that grade lower.  If this is the case, then by how much does each defect cause the grade to fall?

I have heard it said (although I don’t personally know) that an otherwise perfect book, with a full length subscription crease will top out at 5.5.  Does this mean that an otherwise 10 book falls 4.5 points simply because of a subscription crease?  That seems harsh to me, HOWEVER, I can accept this IF it is consistent.  What about other defects?  Does each defect deduct a certain amount until a final score is reached, or is this book looked at as a whole?  What about “overall eye appeal”?  Does that count for anything?

I am asking a lot of questions and writing a “wall of texts” (for which I apologize), in order to make the following suggestion to CGC….

I would like to suggest that CGC write a book on how they grade.  I think this would be a big seller to many collectors and more importantly, it could lead to people feeling more confident that CGC is consistent in their grading (for those who are in the questioning camps).

To begin, I believe CGC should find a collector who has at least a 100 copies of a single SA book (in multiple grades).  This should be the same book (Title and Issue #), so as to make it easy for everyone to compare “apples to apples”. (this eliminates a lot of the issues that could arise in comparing two different books).  They should then start with a high grade copy and take detailed photos of every defect they find and say how much they are deducting for that defect.  In the end they should then show the final grade for that copy.  Then they should move to a slightly lower grade and continue this process until they get down to a 0.5 or incomplete.  For many of the mid grade books, they should show multiple examples.  They could show how two books might at first glance appear the same (say 6.0, but are numerically different or vise-versa (perhaps two books have the same numeric grade but look completely different).

After that they should perhaps find another book (probably modern) where they can do the same thing for say grades 10 – 9.0 (since I am not sure they will be able to effectively cover that entire range with the silver age book chosen above).  This would be the high grade section, usually found in newer books.

Finally they should do a golden age section using a similar principle, however, I would expect less copies of a single book to be available (not sure any collector has 100 or more copies of any given GA book in a variety of grades wide enough to accomplish the goal).  I suggest this as I have often heard the term "Golden Age Bump" and would like to know how the age of the book is taken into account when judging defects.

This is just my thought for day on a possible “solution” to the question of grading consistency.

Before any discussion begins, I want to thank CGC for the opportunity to post suggestions  like these and for allowing collectors a place to gather and share ideas.

[James J Johnson]

There are books on grading already written, published by Overstreet. From what I can see, the CGC's system synonymous with and an extension of that same system whose roots existed in the hobby for about 3 decades or so prior to the CGC. The CGC graders were using that system as the basis for theirs, I would imagine, as the graders were long-time hobbyists, thus grading books for years using Overstreet guidelines before the CGC was established. A few others prior to the CGC had grading systems. Pacific Comics used a 100 point grade scale, 88, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, etc., Alan Hager of Accugrade had one even more complex, as did E. Gerber, who offered the first comic book encapsulation service 20 years prior to the CGC! All these systems were based on the Overstreet guidelines, with far more than the 25 increments than the CGC set up. There was NM, NM+, NM++, NM/MT-, NM/MT, NM/MT+, NM/MT++, well, you get the idea, as if a grader could consistently discern between a 92 (NM++) and a 93 (NM/MT-) with consistency, 100 grades was very ambitious to say the least. 25, now 26 (0.3) pieces of the scale was a more apt fit, far less wieldy to separate, and the hobby standard. For insight into published grading standards, the Overstreet will still do.

[Tony S]

None of the grading companies is going to do a detailed grading guide like you suggest. As a practical matter, they don't want to be lawyer'd to death by customers pointing at some part of such a grading guide in regards to the grade assigned their book. 

A lot of people assume CGC and others must start at 10 and deduct specific amounts of points for specific defects. It is NOT how it's done. If you think about it, the list would be massive. Because every one of hundreds of defects could have a hundred different degrees of severity. It would also be very easy for a book with lots of defects to get into negative numbers if it was a start at 10 and start subtracting. Finally there is "if it already has this, could it also have that?" to consider. 

A closer approximation of grading is more along the lines of "what it the best a book could grade with a 4", moderate color breaking crease on the front cover".  Not how much such a crease takes off. Ultimately there is subjectivity. What is the overall appearance? Which is why there are three graders with one able to "finalize" the grade. 

[Bomber-Bob]

While I think most would love the idea of a published set of grading standards adhered to by CGC, it simply will not ever happen. 

53 minutes ago, Tony S said:

A lot of people assume CGC and others must start at 10 and deduct specific amounts of points for specific defects. It is NOT how it's done. 

I think you are correct. 'If' they follow a pattern of deduction, I think they start at 9.8, not 10.0 . 9.9/10.0 are reserved for books that show no flaws and additionally have outstanding bindery characteristics. Perfect centering, perfect staple placement, 4 sharp corners showing no softness at all, etc. 

[Hudson]

7 hours ago, James J Johnson said:

There are books on grading already written, published by Overstreet. From what I can see, the CGC's system synonymous with and an extension of that same system whose roots existed in the hobby for about 3 decades or so prior to the CGC. The CGC graders were using that system as the basis for theirs, I would imagine, as the graders were long-time hobbyists, thus grading books for years using Overstreet guidelines before the CGC was established. A few others prior to the CGC had grading systems. Pacific Comics used a 100 point grade scale, 88, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, etc., Alan Hager of Accugrade had one even more complex, as did E. Gerber, who offered the first comic book encapsulation service 20 years prior to the CGC! All these systems were based on the Overstreet guidelines, with far more than the 25 increments than the CGC set up. There was NM, NM+, NM++, NM/MT-, NM/MT, NM/MT+, NM/MT++, well, you get the idea, as if a grader could consistently discern between a 92 (NM++) and a 93 (NM/MT-) with consistency, 100 grades was very ambitious to say the least. 25, now 26 (0.3) pieces of the scale was a more apt fit, far less wieldy to separate, and the hobby standard. For insight into published grading standards, the Overstreet will still do.

Thank you for this information.  I knew about some of these past grading systems (such as Overstreet and even the 100 point system), however, I was unaware of others.  Thank you for responding, for your thoughts, and for your very thorough descriptions of these other grading "systems". 

[Hudson]

2 hours ago, Tony S said:

A closer approximation of grading is more along the lines of "what it the best a book could grade with a 4", moderate color breaking crease on the front cover".  Not how much such a crease takes off.

Thank you for providing this insight.  I did not look at it that way. 

[Hudson]

1 hour ago, Bomber-Bob said:

While I think most would love the idea of a published set of grading standards adhered to by CGC, it simply will not ever happen. 

I think you are correct. 'If' they follow a pattern of deduction, I think they start at 9.8, not 10.0 . 9.9/10.0 are reserved for books that show no flaws and additionally have outstanding bindery characteristics. Perfect centering, perfect staple placement, 4 sharp corners showing no softness at all, etc. 

Thanks, Bob.  I had often wondered what qualified as a "perfect 10" (besides Bo Derek of course).

[Bomber-Bob]

6 minutes ago, Hudson said:

Thanks, Bob.  I had often wondered what qualified as a "perfect 10" (besides Bo Derek of course).

Some will argue it's based on a deduction system from 10.0, which would mean I am wrong, but unless CGC publishes it's guidelines we will never know for sure. 

[Bomber-Bob]

2 hours ago, Tony S said:

 Which is why there are three graders with one able to "finalize" the grade. 

Another assumption many have is that if the 3 graders differ, the grade is a blend of the 3. From personal experience, I believe this is the way it works. The first two graders simply give their opinion but it's the finalizer that assigns the grade. If the first two say 9.0 but the finalizer thinks it's a 7.5, then it's a 7.5 . Years ago, you could call CGC to get the grader's notes. The grader's notes would also give you the 3 'votes' . Many used this info to help decide whether to resubmit. Say if the voting went 9.2,9.0,9.0 with a final grade of 9.0, one of the graders thought you had a 9.2. Maybe worth a second try ?

[Lazyboy]

2 hours ago, Bomber-Bob said:

5 hours ago, Tony S said:

 Which is why there are three graders with one able to "finalize" the grade. 

Another assumption many have is that if the 3 graders differ, the grade is a blend of the 3. From personal experience, I believe this is the way it works. The first two graders simply give their opinion but it's the finalizer that assigns the grade. If the first two say 9.0 but the finalizer thinks it's a 7.5, then it's a 7.5 . Years ago, you could call CGC to get the grader's notes. The grader's notes would also give you the 3 'votes' . Many used this info to help decide whether to resubmit. Say if the voting went 9.2,9.0,9.0 with a final grade of 9.0, one of the graders thought you had a 9.2. Maybe worth a second try ?

Three? Quit living in the past, guys.

"CGC guarantees that:

• For all Collectibles (other than Collectibles with the red CGC Memorabilia label), such Collectibles are authentic and have been inspected by at least two professionals."

https://www.cgccomics.com/comic-grading/cgc-guarantee/

 

[Ride the Tiger]

I start at 0.0 and work my way up as I find the positive. Book has a cover..... thats worth a point. Both staples? Now were at 2.0 and so on.......

[Hudson]

11 hours ago, Ride the Tiger said:

I start at 0.0 and work my way up as I find the positive. Book has a cover..... thats worth a point. Both staples? Now were at 2.0 and so on.......

This is an interesting way of grading.

I don't think CGC grades this way, however, as I don't recall seeing any "positive" CGC notes.  CGC typically notes the book's defects in their "grader's notes".

I will say, however, that it is refreshing to see someone (like you) who looks at the positives in life (glass half full).  Way to go. 

[MGsimba77]

I suppose whenever human beings are standing in judgement there's always subjectivity. I'm pretty sure CGC has many graders & they won't always agree on what defects would cause a downgrade. I have 9.6s that look like 9.8s & others less so. I have 9.4s that look better than other 9.4s. 

Anyone that watches an NBA game knows that a foul is not always a foul. In the NFL a catch is not always a catch, a strike not always a strike & sow on...

Unless robots perform comic book grading there'll never be a uniform standard