Newbies that use Wizard as a grading scale for comics!

[chrisfuccione]

I agree comic grading is alot newer than coin grading and it is evolving but, the exuse for bieng liable if an investor gets an 8.5 is totaly wrong. As was mentioned grading is an art. when one person looks at a coin he may see an MS63 and another person or even better the same person at another time might see an MS64. That is why so many coins get resumitted. and why the coin grading company will regrade coins for a lower fee. About a third of the times they will come back a different grade higher or lower. That is the risk of sumiting anything to a grading company that should be known by anyone before stuff is sumited. My next qestion is does CGC allow resumitals like the coin graders do? CHRIS

[murph0]

Wizard's guidelines for a NM can be pretty strict if I remember correctly from the magazine..they're pretty tight if you follow their "idea" correctly.

 

Brian

[OldGuy]

I've asked them those questions both formally and informally. They will not answer because they don't have a standard that isn't constantly changing. CGC answers to know one. It's their way or the highway.

[fantastic_four]

The problem with Wizard's guide--and Overstreet's in many places for that matter--is that it inappropriately mixes the quantitative and qualitative descriptions for the defects and defect severities listed for each assignable grade. Wizard says a NM can only have two "minor" flaws; it doesn't take an expert at the English language or comic grading to realize that what I judge to be "minor" and what you judge to be "minor" are most often two entirely different measurement ranges.

 

A one inch defect is pretty minor, right? Yes, if you mean one inch on a car, which could have an externally visible surface area of a few hundred feet. And it's pretty minor if you're talking about a scratch on your arm, too, given that teenagers and adults are 5 to 6 feet tall. But on a comic, one inch isn't "minor" since you've only got a front cover surface area of 75 inches or so. A "minor" defect is directly proportional to the size of the object upon which it appears. A comic book isn't all that big, so we all look a little more closely and measure defects in smaller increments than the average 5 to 6 foot person is used to dealing with.

 

Grading is complex enough to conclude that Wizard's grading "guide" isn't a guide at all. It's a quickly compiled summary of a discipline that nobody has fully documented yet.

[read_em-migration]

Here's a slightly different response to the most frequently asked CGC question. This was published in Comic Book Marketplace #93 in their first "Ask CGC" column. Unfortunately the article doesn't say who is answering the questions.

"Why don't you publish your grading standards?"

"CGC uses Overstreet grading standards in conjunction with "market" standards that were based on a survey of top collectors and dealers' interpretation of the Overstreet grading guide, including Bob Overstreet himself. Since Gemstone publishes the Overstreet grading guide already, there is no reason for CGC to publish a second grading guide."

I'm not asking them to publish a book, just their grading standards. On their web site would be fine.

[PovertyRow]

"CGC uses Overstreet grading standards in conjunction with "market" standards that were based on a survey of top collectors and dealers' interpretation of the Overstreet grading guide, including Bob Overstreet himself.

 

This - how to phrase it - is something I cannot believe I am reading...Bob Overstreet "himself" is "making an "interpretation" of the "Overstreet grading guide"??? OK - someone please tell me I am channeling Rod Serling and I am actually in a Twilight Zone dream sequence and will wake up soon.

 

Not to mention the "in conjunction with "market" standards". OK - someone please tell me I am channeling a presidential press secretary and will wake up soon.

 

I am - comedy off - absolutely astonished that such words would be written. They mean absolutely NOTHING, except that there appears to actually BE no standard. Which is a very chilling thought. I'll stop now because the next words out of my mouth are going to be unpublishable.

[fantastic_four]

I think you're misinterpreting the text about Overstreet contributing to CGC's standard; what they mean is they got a bunch of people together and Overstreet was one of them. By "market" standards, they seem to mean that their survey of the "market" was to choose a bunch of well-known dealers and collectors. Who would you have chosen?

 

You're exaggerating to say that there appears to be NO standard. CGC needs to refine their standard, sure. But so does Overstreet and the rest of the industry.

 

Overstreet and Blumberg, the creators of the 1990 grading guide, are very open and positive about what CGC is doing. They realize that their own standard was not perfect, nor will it likely be perfect anytime during any of our lives. I don't know ANY area of human knowledge that isn't constantly innovating, yet it's astonishing how many people react to an area like comic book grading as if all the work has already been done and CGC is only f---ing it all up. Given that Overstreet himself welcomes the input into refining the grading standard that Borock and the boys have worked harder on than ANY of their critics, why are so many people so quick to dismiss CGC's contribution?

[ArnoldTBlumberg]

Just to give credit where it's due, I was NOT a co-creator of the original 1990s Grading Guide. Bob Overstreet and Gary Carter are the authors who put that book together.

 

I also think, depending on the way you take the phrasing, that it makes perfect sense to say that Bob himself offers an interpretation of the original Grading Guide. When you look at how the Overstreet standards as printed in the Price Guide have evolved over the last ten years since the original Grading Guide was published, then the Bob of 2002 would have to be "interpreting" the statements made by the Bob of 1992 to arrive at the standards as they exist today.

 

This isn't a static thing - the market grows and evolves. That's life.

[PovertyRow]

Well, as I said, comedy off - meaning my first two paragraphs were humor (but based in truth.)

 

But the thing is that, not to be nitpicky, you either have a standard or you don't. The classic definition of standard (in this context) is "An acknowledged measure of comparison for quantitative or qualitative value." I hate when people start using dictionary quotes to make a point but I think you will agree that definition is remarkably suited to what is trying to be achieved in comic book grading. And that it has not yet been achieved.

 

Don't get me wrong. I have been hoping for a real standard and do believe one can be created. But the quotes cited above really just sound like public relations speak to a group (collectors) who tend to be very knowledgeable. Opinionated but knowledgeable.

 

Actually I remember reading this in CBM when it first came out and feeling somewhat frustrated at the column.

[ArnoldTBlumberg]

This may seem like blasphemy coming from the guy who just worked on the new Grading Guide, but I personally believe there can never be any such thing as a true standard in grading. Definitions aside, if you want to accept a certain set of guidelines as a so-called "standard" to aid in evaluating the condition of comics, so be it, and that's what we offer with the Grading Guide. But this idea that somewhere out there we will one day find a definitive standard with quantifiable indicators for all manner of defects that everyone will agree on...forget it. Ain't gonna happen.

 

This is probably one of the most subjective endeavors any hobbyist can undertake, and there simply is no one way to go about it. As we state in the book, we're not saying the Overstreet standards are set in stone. We're offering them as guidelines to be utilized if you wish, and that's as much as we could or should hope.

 

Sorry to be pessimistic, but I think the Grand Unified Theory of Comic Book Grading must remain a shining dream.

 

...Of course, there's always the NEXT Grading Guide.

[PovertyRow]

This may seem like blasphemy coming from the guy who just worked on the new Grading Guide, but I personally believe there can never be any such thing as a true standard in grading

 

You blaspheme? Not at all. That is the most direct and refreshing statement I have ever seen on grading!

 

My personal opinion is that there are three concepts to grading standards:

 

1) The most difficult: folks who have been collecting for many years that have a certain concept of specific grades in mind. This is the most difficult aspect to address.

 

2) Of what use is the grading standard put? This relates directly to #1.

 

3) The handling of restoration.

 

#1) The thing that is going to be the greatest inhibition is that a lot of folks have been collecting for many many years. During those years they have adopted within their own minds a concept of what a NM should look like, a VG should look like, etc. Folks have to forget their pre-conceived grade definitions and relate to a standardized definition to a price guide. That is, if the grade definition states that "such and such" defects are allowed in "such and such" grade, and the price guide uses that grading definition, then expect that the general pricing for a specific comic in that grade is so many dollars. A grading definition without a supporting price guide is the same as a price guide without a supporting grading definition - confusing at best.

 

#2) You said "if you want to accept a certain set of guidelines as a so-called "standard" to aid in evaluating the condition of comics, so be it, and that's what we offer with the Grading Guide." Well by gosh, by golly, you are right on. THAT is precisely what a "grading guide" should be. Basically a set of standards that are accepted throughout the hobby. And it should be hinged to a guide that uses historical prices realized for those specific grades. To enforce this, however, you must either make separate grades for books based on age or adhere to the exact same standards for a 1934 Plat book as you would for a 2002 Modern book.

 

3) Standardize, based on real sales reports and not theory, on what percentages of guide various stages of restoration will fetch. We already have this in place. Start with the original grade. Then get the Apparent Grade. Then use a percentage based on the "spread" of those two grades.

 

The thing is that there is no need for everyone to agree on what comprises a specific grade. The REAL thing is that everyone agrees that a particular description represents a particular grade that is then reflected in a particular price guide. They don't all have to agree that a description of FINE is THEIR concept of FINE. Just that - "ok - ABC Grading Guide says this is what a FINE is and XYZ Price Guide says this is what FINE is going for."

 

In this way we can ultimately come to terms. (pardon the pun)

 

 

[chrisfuccione]

It's been a week. Still no respose from CGC!!!! CHRS

[Guest]

The thing is that there is no need for everyone to agree on what comprises a specific grade. The REAL thing is that everyone agrees that a particular description represents a particular grade that is then reflected in a particular price guide.

I think this is the best that we can hope for... there are so many different defects, and they occur in such varied blends, that an overall description of a grade, and the defects that are unacceptable, may be as close as we get.

 

Consider a book with ow pages, 2 1/8 spine stresses, and decreased gloss vs a book with 1 1/4 stress, w pages, and sl. off center. I can't see a way to perfectly quantify grades based on varied defects.