The New Owners of CGC 8 8

[Robot Man]

4 hours ago, N e r V said:

I would definitely not buy a used car from this guy.  If he gives you the finger  you’re going to know it too…

 

 

I’m pretty sure I would never buy a car from him. I’m pretty sure I know WAY more about cars than he does. 

I would and have bought many comics from him and if I wanted to sell him some back he would be one of the best folks in this hobby to deal with, 

One thing I would never do is play baseball with him though...

 

[N e r V]

Just now, Buzzetta said:

If I am doing it... 

Either they are charged a fee for general access, or that access to a certain area of the boards are for paid members only or that they wipe away the for sale threads and go down the road of what is considered the cardinal sin of grading and create their own exchange like comic link where a percentage of the sale is captured by the owners.  There is too much money changing hands these days to ignore. 

 

 

You could be right but they’d have to greatly increase their exposure to get anyone to pay to sell on a sales thread here. The sales threads are cool but hardly anything like an auction house or eBay, etc. 

If they are that interested in becoming the next comic link I think it’s more likely they’d build their own exchange from scratch instead of trying to turn a little section of the boards here into an exchange. The sales threads as they are here are raw or CGC books only. If they want to do a real exchange everything would need to be included. I could see them possibly trying a small fee system here but not sure how many sellers would be willing with a smaller audience. I do think that would thin out the sales threads here for sure.

[path4play]

20 minutes ago, N e r V said:

That’s called being priced out of the market. It’s a term that’s existed in real estate as well as other collectible fields for years so it’s nothing new.

I agree though that despite sticker shock on values these days anyone collecting in the cheaper periods should count themselves lucky for what they did get.

There is a history of humans acquiring artworks of great value with "off the market" pricing:  https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/monuments-men

 

Edited July 3, 2021 by path4play

[N e r V]

1 minute ago, Robot Man said:

I’m pretty sure I would never buy a car from him. I’m pretty sure I know WAY more about cars than he does. 

I would and have bought many comics from him and if I wanted to sell him some back he would be one of the best folks in this hobby to deal with, 

One thing I would never do is play baseball with him though...

 

I would. I was a pitcher in little league and based on our height differences I’m pretty sure I know what part of his anatomy would be in peril. 

Besides it’s well known he’s really a Texas Rangers fan and it’s all a front…

[N e r V]

13 minutes ago, Spyder! said:

No, the sky isn’t falling. This isn’t the end of CGC. It’s not going to destroy the hobby. 

So it had to be Ross? You couldn’t have posted Rachel or Monica putting their shirt on?

[Iconic1s]

42 minutes ago, N e r V said:

You could be right but they’d have to greatly increase their exposure to get anyone to pay to sell on a sales thread here. The sales threads are cool but hardly anything like an auction house or eBay, etc. 

If they are that interested in becoming the next comic link I think it’s more likely they’d build their own exchange from scratch instead of trying to turn a little section of the boards here into an exchange. The sales threads as they are here are raw or CGC books only. If they want to do a real exchange everything would need to be included. I could see them possibly trying a small fee system here but not sure how many sellers would be willing with a smaller audience. I do think that would thin out the sales threads here for sure.

I think that all that is really missing is a better search feature.  The sales threads are a pain IMO by the way things just get pushed down.  If you just developed a better search feature and perhaps made users update their thread periodically to ensure they are still active I think you are almost there.  It may be a small deal at first (just raws and CGC) but that could grow as it gained more steam, even if it were just raws and CGC...

What I think is next is Blackstone/CGC creating a division to acquire and grade raw books, and then list them.  I think CGC already pushed it a bit when they bought out CCS and had their own in-house pressing.  Shoot, talk about conflict of interest!  I remember the days when you could actually communicate with Matt at Classics and deliberate on a particular book and decide services together.  That certainly changed when CGC bought CCS!

At this point there is little to stop Blackstone/CGC from hiring a bunch of people to scour estate sales, flea markets, and LCSs etc. all over the country and buy up raw books.  They then run them through CCS and CGC, slap a label of their choosing on them, and then list them on their updated sales thread with new search feature.  Cut out the middle-man (us) altogether!  They would never have to hear us complain about TATs again!

As long as they keep quality relatively consistent they'd get away with it. 

Edited July 3, 2021 by Iconic1s

[Aman619]

28 minutes ago, N e r V said:

You could be right but they’d have to greatly increase their exposure to get anyone to pay to sell on a sales thread here. The sales threads are cool but hardly anything like an auction house or eBay, etc. 

If they are that interested in becoming the next comic link I think it’s more likely they’d build their own exchange from scratch instead of trying to turn a little section of the boards here into an exchange. The sales threads as they are here are raw or CGC books only. If they want to do a real exchange everything would need to be included. I could see them possibly trying a small fee system here but not sure how many sellers would be willing with a smaller audience. I do think that would thin out the sales threads here for sure.

Yes.  I’m not thinking they will monetize in becoming a seller of the products that certify, BUT, you make an interesting point. If they were to create from scratch a new Comiclink style consign or sales platform, they could take the slabs as they are graded and post them for sale ASAP. Submitter decides the ask price, CGC does the rest. 

for all flippers and collectors who slab to sell, it’s convenient one stop shopping, and you save on one or two shipping fees too. 
 

overall though, I think the dollars in Blackstone eyes are more long term. They must think they are buying a key component of the collectibles market cheap, with room to multiply their leverage across all slabbed objects known and to come. 
 

The companies to but stock in perhaps are the plastics the slabs are made from. Gonna be a lot of it going they Sarasota before they are done. Not ghat this is on the same scale as buying Apple suppliers stocks though. 

[N e r V]

31 minutes ago, Aman619 said:

Yes.  I’m not thinking they will monetize in becoming a seller of the products that certify, BUT, you make an interesting point. If they were to create from scratch a new Comiclink style consign or sales platform, they could take the slabs as they are graded and post them for sale ASAP. Submitter decides the ask price, CGC does the rest. 

for all flippers and collectors who slab to sell, it’s convenient one stop shopping, and you save on one or two shipping fees too. 
 

overall though, I think the dollars in Blackstone eyes are more long term. They must think they are buying a key component of the collectibles market cheap, with room to multiply their leverage across all slabbed objects known and to come. 

Yes, anything’s possible and what you bring up about a one stop exchange is certainly not out of the question. You saw this already with pressing becoming available at CGC to reduce one more step in the process if you want.

Without saying to much more on it your long term remark is spot on. This is a foot into a market that they will explore. I don’t know how CGC themselves are feeling today about expanding to other markets to grade/slab but I’m certain others might be interested in seeing how much more can we expand this market to other related fields. CGC has their toes into some cards and magazines but could these be expanded? Pulps? Who knows. Prices there are moving too. Toys? Unlimited there. As much as we have in slabs there’s still a lot of underserved  markets still out there. This could lead to expansion at CGC beyond their current levels.

[Larryw7]

8 hours ago, musicmeta said:

Not sure. After all his mis-deeds were brought to light he sort of vanished. 

I've heard he still submits books via a friend. Hopefully CGC catches it if he's up to his old tricks.

[Professor K]

13 hours ago, lou_fine said:

Exactly what grading standards would these be that you are referring to, as I believe all of CGC's grading standards are undisclosed due to what they claim are for proprietary business reasons? 

Of course, this also rather kind of conviently allows then to shift all over the place with their grading and never ever really be wrong as clearly evident by some of the grades we've seen from the Promise Collection books?    

I feel your pain. I'll reword it as  I hope "whatever grading standards they currently have" don't change for the worse. I'm the type who usually has the honestly enough to call a spade a spade regardless of peer pressure and political correctness, ect.  ButI think at this point CGC does a reasonable job at their work regarding grading (even though that Avengers 6.0 Cream to Off-White graded in 2001 I resubbed last month came back a 5.0 Off-White to White). Yourself and most others here have so much experience that you notice pretty much all the grading discrepancies, which is why you can be critical at times and that's cool. 

What I meant was hypothetically if a business took over another business and changed their "business model" in a negative way in the consumers viewpoint, that could really screw things up long-term. And that has been known to happen in the business world.   A grading service with little or no credibilty would be a terrible thing, but I doubt that will happen here, maybe if any change occurs it will occur for the better. 

[Buzzetta]

1 hour ago, N e r V said:

Yes, anything’s possible and what you bring up about a one stop exchange is certainly not out of the question. You saw this already with pressing becoming available at CGC to reduce one more step in the process if you want.

Without saying to much more on it your long term remark is spot on. This is a foot into a market that they will explore. I don’t know how CGC themselves are feeling today about expanding to other markets to grade/slab but I’m certain others might be interested in seeing how much more can we expand this market to other related fields. CGC has their toes into some cards and magazines but could these be expanded? Pulps? Who knows. Prices there are moving too. Toys? Unlimited there. As much as we have in slabs there’s still a lot of underserved  markets still out there. This could lead to expansion at CGC beyond their current levels.

I genuinely see CCG moving into toys. BUT... here is the thing... 

A lot of the toys that people have been slabbing have reached the point that they are starting to break down.  No one is sending Lionel Trains off to AFA.  But those GI Joes and MOTU He-Man figures that were sent off to AFA at the company's inception are starting to break down.  There was a reason I sold the bulk of my GI Joe collection last year.  Prices went up but I did not want to risk holding a hot potato that broke down in my hand. 

There are two toy grading companies of any value and AFA is far ahead of the competition.  The thing is that the rules are not established across the board.  I will use GI Joe again as an example.  Recently I have been reading that AFA is not grading loose GI Joe figures where the rubber band has been replaced as the toy is considered altered.  Here is the thing.  I don't know of a GI Joe figure of any value that has NOT had the rubber band replaced that still appears in decent shape.   A stretched rubber band tends to break down over the course of 40 years.   You cannot leave them on the card because there are plenty of graded samples of MOTU and Joe figures that are broken on those cards and are jumbles of parts. 

So if CCG moves into toys I am interested in seeing what standards they adopt.  I also don't know how the industry will embrace them considering that there seem to be a lot of people that have graded toys that are breaking within the acrylic casing.  The glue that holds the bubble to the card only weakens over time.  The Star Wars bubbles are decomposing on the card.  Joes are composed of the most brittle plastic ever manufactured.  They are drying out and the rubber bands are drying out and breaking.

So... I am curious as to how this is going to play out. 

[N e r V]

I think there are still a number of untapped areas for CGC. Sports cards would be a big nut to crack with PSA but I can easily see them expand their card grading into non sports cards. Lots of comic, science fiction, fantasy, tv shows, etc.. related cards going back decades for them to mine. They might try larger magazine sized slabs at some point for things like Life magazine or the Marvel and DC treasury sized. Pulps in general might be debatable still but there are a number of them like Analog which are in the digest range which should be fine in slabs. Paperback books for sure. Maybe even some HC books too. With toys I’d open up in certain areas first. Hot Wheels are highly collected and easy to create grading/slab standards. Model kits like the old Aurora are highly collected too. With models you’d have to work out certain sizes to start but there’s enough in certain size formats that would be a starting point. Figures too. Some general sizes, lines to start. Mego for example. Video games. It’s endless. Open a new area, establish it as a standard, move on to your next. The market demand for these things is only increasing without a standard grading or slabbing company so to me it’s money still on the table waiting to get tapped…

[Ryan.]

Pulp slabbing is coming. Count on it. 

[N e r V]

43 minutes ago, Buzzetta said:

I genuinely see CCG moving into toys. BUT... here is the thing... 

A lot of the toys that people have been slabbing have reached the point that they are starting to break down.  No one is sending Lionel Trains off to AFA.  But those GI Joes and MOTU He-Man figures that were sent off to AFA at the company's inception are starting to break down.  There was a reason I sold the bulk of my GI Joe collection last year.  Prices went up but I did not want to risk holding a hot potato that broke down in my hand. 

There are two toy grading companies of any value and AFA is far ahead of the competition.  The thing is that the rules are not established across the board.  I will use GI Joe again as an example.  Recently I have been reading that AFA is not grading loose GI Joe figures where the rubber band has been replaced as the toy is considered altered.  Here is the thing.  I don't know of a GI Joe figure of any value that has NOT had the rubber band replaced that still appears in decent shape.   A stretched rubber band tends to break down over the course of 40 years.   You cannot leave them on the card because there are plenty of graded samples of MOTU and Joe figures that are broken on those cards and are jumbles of parts. 

So if CCG moves into toys I am interested in seeing what standards they adopt.  I also don't know how the industry will embrace them considering that there seem to be a lot of people that have graded toys that are breaking within the acrylic casing.  The glue that holds the bubble to the card only weakens over time.  The Star Wars bubbles are decomposing on the card.  Joes are composed of the most brittle plastic ever manufactured.  They are drying out and the rubber bands are drying out and breaking.

So... I am curious as to how this is going to play out. 

I think things like you’re talking about with rubber bands on GI Joes would  be factored in on grading standards by them. People in comics often forget that CGC has had an impact on what the collectors market generally accepts today with grading much like Overstreet did in the past. Love it or hate it, it’s a fact. I have a ton of toys like Hot Wheels or other blister cards where the glue and bubbles are fine. Those are now 50-60 years old. Storage is as important with toys as comics. Plastic and glue don’t like heat for extended periods.

[N e r V]

1 minute ago, Ryan. said:

Pulp slabbing is coming. Count on it. 

It’s been discussed here several times. I think it’s possible too but you need to figure out how to slab and store them without destroying the overhang part so sizing a slab will be tricky for sure. The ones that don’t have that issue like the digest formats should be their first entry point, IMO.

[aardvark88]

3 hours ago, Aman619 said:

 I think the dollars in Blackstone eyes are more long term. They must think they are buying a key component of the collectibles market cheap, with room to multiply their leverage across all slabbed objects known and to come. 
 

 

More opinions on Blackstone, CGC and Voldy grading:

 

Edited July 3, 2021 by aardvark88
sp.

[Dr. Love]

6 minutes ago, N e r V said:

It’s been discussed here several times. I think it’s possible too but you need to figure out how to slab and store them without destroying the overhang part so sizing a slab will be tricky for sure. The ones that don’t have that issue like the digest formats should be their first entry point, IMO.

I started a very long conversation with them about digests. At the end of the day, they can be done, but not in a way that its guaranteed that the digest can be centered in the slab, but aligned right instead. 

For pulps I dont get how you can even count pages without running the risk of damaging the overhang. They're like a hotel room on newlywed night - do not disturb.

[N e r V]

4 minutes ago, Dr. Love said:

I started a very long conversation with them about digests. At the end of the day, they can be done, but not in a way that its guaranteed that the digest can be centered in the slab, but aligned right instead. 

For pulps I dont get how you can even count pages without running the risk of damaging the overhang. They're like a hotel room on newlywed night - do not disturb.

I could live with that. Not a deal breaker. It has to look better than how they handled this size…

[Courageous Cat]

I don't know, but if it can improve upon the horrible turn around times, then I'm all in 

[Dr. Love]

I had one of those Spideys slabbed too. 

So aligned right wouldnt be a deal breaker for you?  I love high grade digests, they are actually obtainable. Difficult but doable, which is the kind of niche I like.  I passed on a large project to slab mine because I thought anything other than centered wouldnt fly with other collectors. 

 

Edited July 3, 2021 by Dr. Love