Are prices still climbing or have they eased up a bit??? 43 43

[jjonahjameson11]

On 5/19/2023 at 8:02 AM, Microchip said:

I'm going to have to disagree.

People are paying these silly multiples squarely because of their confidence in the grading provided by CGC, and they're confident in the incremental grading differences.

None of us would be writing here on this forum if this wasn't staggeringly the case. 

 

@COI The confidence in the grading is irrespective of the CPR game.  Though your points are quite valid.   

 

[Ryan.]

On 5/18/2023 at 11:06 PM, Mark Warren said:

But in order for that to happen CGC and CBCS--really the entire professional grading industry--would have to be caught in some kind of grading scandal that made the whole "9.x" end of their grading scale look not just subjective but arbitrary, or worse, subject to outside influence or favors. And

This very thing happened last year, when CGC was effectively caught selling ultra high grades during Acetategate. It was a huge scandal that everyone collectively lost interest in approximately two weeks after it happened. 

[DC#]

On 5/18/2023 at 7:36 PM, mjoeyoung said:

High grade two dimensional collectibles like baseball cards are relatively easy to grade. I think most people could look at different grades of baseball cards and objectively determine which cards are higher grades.  Grading high grade comic books is much more complicated, and subjective.  

From my experience the card grading situation is exactly the same if not slightly worse. If you have never had the pleasure yourself, watch some unboxing videos as people are completely dumbfounded at cards with no discernible flaws getting a 9 or even a 7 or 8.   And cards that are seemingly the same condition coming back with wildly different scores.  And never any notes to understand what happened during the grading process.
 

So like comics, it is easy to see which have been “run over by a truck” - but the differences at the upper end are harder to see or accept or validate.    Cards may be worse because of their size and the microscopic attention the graders place on things like surface condition.    People on this forum are pretty good at guessing comic grades with nothing but some poor photos pasted on a website.   Card people have to use jewelers loupes or other magnification to try and find any tiny defects.   

Edited May 19, 2023 by DC#

[mjoeyoung]

On 5/19/2023 at 7:00 AM, DC# said:

From my experience the card grading situation is exactly the same if not slightly worse. If you have never had the pleasure yourself, watch some unboxing videos as people are completely dumbfounded at cards with no discernible flaws getting a 9 or even a 7 or 8.   And cards that are seemingly the same condition coming back with wildly different scores.  And never any notes to understand what happened during the grading process.
 

So like comics, it is easy to see which have been “run over by a truck” - but the differences at the upper end are harder to see or accept or validate.    Cards may be worse because of their size and the microscopic attention the graders place on things like surface condition.    People on this forum are pretty good at guessing comic grades with nothing but some poor photos pasted on a website.   Card people have to use jewelers loupes or other magnification to try and find any tiny defects.   

What you are describing is a more rigorous grading process. That makes it less art and more science. It also makes the results more reproducible. The fact that they use a loupe to inspect the cards is a good thing. 

With comic book grading there are so many allowable defects and discernible flaws in high grade books that there is too much room for interpretation. In reality, a CGC 9.6 is more equivalent to a baseball card PSA 7.

The problem is trying to shoehorn the old grading system into an updated system that allows for very high, near perfect grades.  Old school grading was almost all qualitative.  It was a given that all books had defects, but the books looked better and better as the grade increased.  The grading system ended at a point where all the defects were relatively minor.

The new grading system starts off with the premise that you can somehow quantify the remaining defects to allow for incrementally higher grades above the old school system in a definitive way.  However, the grading scale uses qualitative wording to define the tiers from 9.2 to 9.8.  What is the difference between "some" wear and "minor" wear?  What is the definition of "negligible" or "several"?  I don't have a copy of the new guide, so maybe they address this ambiguity. 

The grading system needs to be reworked to be more rigorous

First thing is to get rid of the 1.8 grade. Good minus is 1.5 and then you have Fair at 1.0 and Poor at 0.5.  There is really no need for an incremental grade here.

At the high end you have to reduce it from 9.0, 9.2, 9.4, 9.6, 9.8, 9.9 and 10 to 9.0, 9.5 and 10.  There is not enough of a real difference to allow for 6 grades.  CGC defines all of the grades from 9.0 to 9.6 as "a very well-preserved collectible."  I agree, so they all get the grade of 9.0.

A 9.5 would be be defined by some strict number of total defects allowed.  A definition that would use precise quantitative language.  Something like "2 total front cover defects are allowed, which may include no more than 2 non color breaking spine ticks no greater than 1/4" in length, 1 bindery tear no greater than 1/8", a vertical miswrap no greater than 1/8", etc.,  3 total back cover defects are allowed, etc. and 5 total interior defects are allowed, etc., etc."  If you eclipse any of these numbers, the book gets a 9.0.

Less art, more science.

Of course, it could be that I'm just too cynical to trust in the current system. Or maybe I spend too much time in threads like this or this.  

Edited May 20, 2023 by mjoeyoung

[Happy Noodle Boy]

On 5/19/2023 at 7:28 AM, Ryan. said:

This very thing happened last year, when CGC was effectively caught selling ultra high grades during Acetategate. It was a huge scandal that everyone collectively lost interest in approximately two weeks after it happened. 

Wow. I've just started going through the "C2E2 Variant Drama" thread and this stuff is just nuts. Why does anyone still trust CGC? Why does anyone do business with them? I guess that for resellers CGC slabs must still be profitable, but why would someone slabbing a book for their own personal collection still use CGC after this? Their grades can be bought. Why isn't everyone who ever got a green label for a married cover demanding that CGC give them blue labels now? Man, I'm glad I never bothered getting my books slabbed.

Maybe next time someone wants a gift grade they can throw some extra cash in with their CGC submission? Supposedly three graders look at each book so you'd have to include enough cash to bribe all three of them, so you would only want to do it on a big money book, but maybe the next person sending an AF 15 to CGC can throw in an extra three-thousand dollars cash and get a nice grade bump? 

What a racket.

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

On 5/19/2023 at 11:56 PM, Mark Warren said:

Wow. I've just started going through the "C2E2 Variant Drama" thread and this stuff is just nuts. Why does anyone still trust CGC? Why does anyone do business with them? I guess that for resellers CGC slabs must still be profitable, but why would someone slabbing a book for their own personal collection still use CGC after this? Their grades can be bought. Why isn't everyone who ever got a green label for a married cover demanding that CGC give them blue labels now? Man, I'm glad I never bothered getting my books slabbed.

Maybe next time someone wants a gift grade they can throw some extra cash in with their CGC submission? Supposedly three graders look at each book so you'd have to include enough cash to bribe all three of them, so you would only want to do it on a big money book, but maybe the next person sending an AF 15 to CGC can throw in an extra three-thousand dollars cash and get a nice grade bump? 

What a racket.

Sad part is that definitely wasn't even the first time. There have been others. Look at the Invisible Comics

or

the Promised Collection (many WAY over graded and even one with completely wrong back cover CGC "didn't catch" )

[Ryan.]

On 5/20/2023 at 12:56 AM, Mark Warren said:

Why does anyone still trust CGC? 

It's a fair question and I think anyone that has paid close attention to CGC's practices over the past few years doesn't trust them at all but will continue submitting, for various reasons. 

The corporate gatekeepers in the mechanical errors thread will defend CGC to the death because they earn a living exploiting CGC, and that's completely fine, though annoying. 

Some continue to submit because they just like having their books slabbed and there really is no legitimate competition. Their closest competitor has been caught in their own scandals and incompetence. 

Neither of these reasons require trusting CGC. Trusting any corporation to be anything but driven by its bottom line is misplaced idealism. At this point, the market has maintained that CGC is the leader in resale value and collectible desire. That will change at some point, as all things do, but no one knows when so the train rolls on.

I legitimately thought that them selling grades with no doubt that's what they were doing was going to be the beginning of the end but here we are with no one caring.

Edited May 20, 2023 by Ryan.
Grammar

[Robot Man]

People will trust anything that makes them money. As will many buy from Satan for the right price. The love of the medium has LONG past us…

[Ryan.]

On 5/20/2023 at 10:50 AM, Robot Man said:

The love of the medium has LONG past us…

Flippers and dealers are but a tiny fraction of people engaged in this hobby. People, lots of them, still do buy comics because they like them, and many even read them 

[Dick Pontoon]

On 5/20/2023 at 11:20 AM, Ryan. said:

Flippers and dealers are but a tiny fraction of people engaged in this hobby. People, lots of them, still do buy comics because they like them, and many even read them 

I do.

[Poutine]

je ne peux pas lire

Edited May 20, 2023 by Poutine

[valiantman]

On 5/19/2023 at 9:38 PM, mjoeyoung said:

In reality, a CGC 9.6 is more equivalent to a baseball card PSA 7.

The most submitted CGC comic is Amazing Spider-Man #300 (1988) and the most submitted PSA card is Upper Deck Ken Griffey, Jr (1989).

0.03% CGC 9.9 for ASM #300 <--------> no equivalent for PSA

5% CGC 9.8 for ASM #300 <--------> 4% PSA 10 for 1989 UD Griffey, Jr.

15% CGC 9.6 for ASM #300 <--------> 30% PSA 9 for 1989 UD Griffey, Jr.

17% CGC 9.4 for ASM #300 <--------> still on the 30% PSA 9 for 1989 UD Griffey, Jr.

35% CGC 8.5, CGC 9.0, and CGC 9.2 combined for ASM #300 <--------> 40% PSA 8 for 1989 UD Griffey, Jr.

[NewWorldOrder]

On 5/20/2023 at 8:20 AM, Ryan. said:

Flippers and dealers are but a tiny fraction of people engaged in this hobby. People, lots of them, still do buy comics because they like them, and many even read them 

Flippers and dealers are also collectors.

Yours truly,

Corporate Gatekeeper

[Ryan.]

On 5/20/2023 at 6:32 PM, NewWorldOrder said:

Flippers and dealers are also collectors.

Yours truly,

Corporate Gatekeeper

[CGC Mike]

I have cleaned up this thread.  Lets keep it on topic, and stop the nonsense posts.  

[Courageous Cat]

Killjoy 

[THE_BEYONDER]

On 5/20/2023 at 9:51 PM, Courageous Cat said:

Killjoy 

I got scrubbed 

[Microchip]

Steve B has out done himself.   The current Clink auction is packed full of top GA, SA, BA books, and OA.   I'd normally post a few examples, but the question of where to start, and where to stop was just too confounding, Steve really is excelling over with Josh.

[valiantman]

On 5/22/2023 at 12:25 AM, Microchip said:

Steve B has out done himself.   The current Clink auction is packed full of top GA, SA, BA books, and OA.   I'd normally post a few examples, but the question of where to start, and where to stop was just too confounding, Steve really is excelling over with Josh.

Sorting by the highest bids will put most of the best items at the top: https://www.comiclink.com/AUCTIONS/preview.asp?_SORT=YES&returning=1&code=2023may&f1=arp&ODire1=DESC

[THE_BEYONDER]

On 5/22/2023 at 10:18 AM, valiantman said:

Sorting by the highest bids will put most of the best items at the top: https://www.comiclink.com/AUCTIONS/preview.asp?_SORT=YES&returning=1&code=2023may&f1=arp&ODire1=DESC

That Kirby page from Hulk 3 is pretty cool 😎