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Will CGC offer UV-Light Protecting Slabs in the Future?
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34 posts in this topic

First of all, you sort of changed your argument midway in that last post, I don't know if you realized it.  You assert that you did not say that only 1% of collectors want to display their books, but then later say something roughly equivalent by claiming that the people who would take advantage of UV protection are only a small minority.  You have not proven this.  You are simply making extreme statements about the percentage of customers who would want a thing based on a heuristic at best.  I strongly suspect that your math is wildly speculative and probably very wrong.  You do not know for a fact that every single person with 1,000 slabs each only displays ten or fewer at a time.  You do not know that every dealer has 99% of their slabbed inventory hidden away.  I don't expect that you have done nearly enough research to be able to authoritatively make any such claims.

Even if (giving you benefit of the doubt) you are correct on those percentages at this very moment, values change over time.  I recall when CGC first started the people who graded books at all were a minority group.  The argument back then was along the lines of, "why would I lock a comic book in a plastic prison so that I could not open it and appreciate the art and story inside?"  Many people still feel the same way today, but look at how popular slabbing has become despite this argument!

Even if the sheer number of comics stored in darkness purely for investment purposes on its own vindicates your estimate, value still exists in having those comics UV protected by default, well in advance.  Eventually, those books will be sold to collectors who may choose to display them, and many buyers will perceive greater intrinsic value in those books if the slabs include UV protection without them having to worry about it.

UV protection also serves to support the long-term value of the grade itself, in that fading can damage a book.  Grading companies are already on record saying a book is a certain grade, then encapsulating it to preserve the integrity of that grade.  I argue that a lack of UV protection has already introduced an integrity problem with many of the graded books being sold online.  Many graded books may have been improperly displayed without UV protection for perhaps years at a time.  Some of these books have likely faded (some severely) as a result.  Education about the danger of sunlight to books is not universally communicated to new collectors.  Those faded books are then sold online as though they were higher grades because they are still slabbed with their original number.  If you re-graded them today, you might take a value hit as a result of the undisclosed fading.  This factor alone introduces legitimacy concerns about the grade and diminishes the value of the core product.  Hopefully, we don't start asking for "expiration dates" on grades, but if you're a futurist, you are maybe already thinking of that as a possible outcome.

4 hours ago, shadroch said:

Changing to an UV resistant slab would make older slabs obsolete...

You said it yourself:  this would make the old slabs obsolete.  I completely agree.  Thing is: companies would much rather make their own products obsolete with a newer version than allow a competitor to force them into obsolescence.  Before you say it can't ever happen to CGC, remember the lesson of Netflix to Blockbuster Video.  Try to appreciate that there are already grading competitors in this very field who are well-positioned to take such a step.  I think it would be wise of CGC to anticipate this potential threat.  I suggest doing the actual market research to evaluate whether there really is only a small minority of customers who want and would pay for UV protection.  What if you're wrong?  What if the demand is much higher than anyone realizes?

5 hours ago, shadroch said:

...and worth less

I also agree that older slabs would be worth less: their perceived value would certainly take something of a hit.  This is already a pre-existing problem, though, with people wanting to re-slab a book just to get a new case, or a custom or "matching" label.  This minor devaluation is not, in my opinion, a legitimate enough reason to not do it.  Many people buy the latest smartphone every couple years because they simply want the latest and greatest product.  Some people don't, because their old phone serves them well and still works fine for their needs.  This would be no different.

I believe that UV protection is an inevitable evolution of grading to offer greater long-term value and more overall stability and integrity to the product.  WATA is already doing it for video games.  Other grading companies, CGC included, are simply behind the curve here.  In order for CGC's new video game grading service to be competitive, they will have to offer everything WATA does and more.  This means that the research into UV protected plastics is likely going to have to happen regardless as part of that initiative.  It will make its way into card and comic slabs before long.  Even if no one working at CGC today has any plans for it to happen, I expect that UV protection will become a standard feature of all graded slabs on all collectibles.  People will expect it in much the same way as they expect their phone to also have a built-in camera.

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2 minutes ago, vheflin said:

CGC wouldn't want the liability of collectors confusing UV-protection with UV-proof.

They already have that confusion simply with the word "protection" in that they don't really offer any at all when it comes to UV.

5 hours ago, shadroch said:

Thats eight million books. Do you think there are 80,000 books  on display?

Absolutely.  Easily.  Handily.  Without question.

Comics publishing is a billion dollar industry.  Batman alone sells like 80,000 issues monthly.  130,000 people attend San Diego Comic Con daily.  If every comic book fan had just 1 slabbed comic, their absolute favorite book on display, you would hit 80,000 without breaking a sweat.  Many people have entire walls full of comics on display, showcasing dozens or even a hundred or more slabs in just one collection.  There are well over 2,000 (last count I saw was like 2,300) comic book stores in North America alone, and I think it is probably fair to say that most of them have at least a few graded books on display for sale at any given time.  Many stores have substantially more graded inventory than that on walls or in display cabinets.  Stores alone probably have a combined minimum of ten thousand graded books on display at any given time.  I imagine it is probably closer to 20k-30k on average.

These are only the books on display at any given moment in time, though.  Displays change as collections change hands.  Books that weren't on display before suddenly go up on walls, while others that were on display disappear into a box or storage unit somewhere.  This happens constantly, all the time, every single day.  That means that the number of graded comics that have ever been displayed (and therefore would have benefitted from UV protection at some point) is a much higher percentage of all books graded than just the 1% you suggest.  I would estimate that at least 20% of all books ever graded could have at one point or another been served well by having UV protection built into the slab.  Over time, that percentage will only climb higher as more books cycle through more collectors' hands.  Eventually, you'll end up closer to the exact opposite of your estimate, where 99% of all graded comics will have been on display at one time or another.

Feel free to run the numbers yourself, though.  I doubt there is any way for one of us to prove the other wrong definitively.

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CGC has slabbed over seven million books.  If the other guys have a million, this makes a market of eight million. If you are so passionate about it and believe there is demand, why not develop a product yourself and take it to market. License it to the highest bidder. 

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10 hours ago, ronnieramone said:

Speaking as a comic book collector, I too have been wondering why the industry leader, CGC, has not actually taken any true leadership position in offering UV protection in their slabs.  To me, it seems like the obvious place to do it, and kind of what we are paying for to protect the grade of the books.  Would not a slabbed 9.8 comic left in direct sunlight no longer be a 9.8 ?  

And a CGC slab with UV protection left in DIRECT sunlight would also no longer be a 9.8.

 

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Ask a comic dealer how many of the 130,000 people at Comic Con collect comics or buy slabed comics.

There is a reason why there are fewer comic dealers each year.

You seemed  to think there are 80,000 slabs on display. Lets say its double that, maybe. Which means 95% or more slabs have no need for it, but everyone is going to pay more for it.  That doesn't seem like a a great plan. It might be a big enough niche for an after-market product but unless the production costs somehow drop, it doesn't make sense.

I'd rather spend $100 on aftermarket UV protection for a book or two than $5 on every slab. 

I must admit I have zero desire to display a comic. Slabbed or framed. My walls have framed Schombug and Alex Ross prints and framed Captain America convention sketches from the 80s. When I had more space, I had more paintings and statues on display but not comics. 

 

 

 

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1 minute ago, Mephisto said:

And a CGC slab with UV protection left in DIRECT sunlight would also no longer be a 9.8.

 

Do people bring their slabs to the park?  Or leave them on their dashboards?  I live in Arizona, the sunniest state in the nation, and have plenty of wall space with no direct sunlight.

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3 minutes ago, shadroch said:

Do people bring their slabs to the park?  Or leave them on their dashboards?  I live in Arizona, the sunniest state in the nation, and have plenty of wall space with no direct sunlight.

There are definitely some dumb spoon collectors out there. 

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43 minutes ago, Mephisto said:

And a CGC slab with UV protection left in DIRECT sunlight would also no longer be a 9.8.

 

Depends on how long it was left there.  8 months in direct sunlight, you'd be correct.  Even 99% UV protection cannot guarantee against that sort of carelessness.  Direct sunlight over shorter periods of exposure or ambient UV in a room with blinds?  99% UV protection would do a lot to maintain the grade.

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1 hour ago, shadroch said:

Ask a comic dealer how many of the 130,000 people at Comic Con collect comics or buy slabed comics.

 

Ask a single comic dealer at one convention?  That's not terribly scientific.  If a person were only ever going to buy 1 slabbed comic, they would buy it at one show, once, and then not even talk to the other dozen dealers or any at all on the next visit.  My mention of the number of people attending just SDCC alone was merely a demonstration of the scale and market penetration of this hobby, which I think you underestimate.  If we're going to use heuristics, let's at least look at some established concepts like the Pareto Principle, aka the 80/20 rule.  Prolific throughout economics and nature as well, it states that 80% of outcomes result from 20% of all causes.  In CGC terms, that means that 80% of CGC slabs are likely sold to only 20% of the most avid collectors.  That means that the other 80% of slabbed comic owners are much more casual in their collecting habits.  These are not people who have 1,000 slabs or even 100 in a single collection, but a dozen or fewer, maybe even only a single graded comic that means something to them personally.  By that estimate, you're looking at 20% of all graded books (as many as 1.6 million slabs!) in the hands of either mainstream consumers or casual collectors who do not often buy comics, but do own a few.

I can only imagine how many of these people assume the slab they paid for is UV protected as part of CGC's "superior preservation."  Except we all know that it isn't.

Yes, I am passionate about comics and protecting them, especially those in my collection.  I feel that not including UV protection in graded slabs is a huge oversight on the part of all the major grading companies, and at a certain point it is just plain irresponsible and short-sighted.  There is room for disruption in the space.

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