Major Quality Control Issues with CGC Slabbing. 0

[eWolverine]

I've received several books back recently that have had very noticeable scratches and scuffs on the face of the slabs. Even worse, one of my most prized comics came back slabbed in a magazine tray and the book was shoved to one side of the slab (way off center - see photo). That's the equivalent of framing a piece of art with an uneven or off center border (looks horrible). Does anyone at CGC look at the books before they are sent to customers? There appears to be no QC process. CGC, please get it together - you're losing credibility as the most trusted grader of high value comics very rapidly.

[The Lions Den]

On 3/26/2022 at 10:06 AM, eWolverine said:

I've received several books back recently that have had very noticeable scratches and scuffs on the face of the slabs. Even worse, one of my most prized comics came back slabbed in a magazine tray and the book was shoved to one side of the slab (way off center - see photo). That's the equivalent of framing a piece of art with an uneven or off center border (looks horrible). Does anyone at CGC look at the books before they are sent to customers? There appears to be no QC process. CGC, please get it together - you're losing credibility as the most trusted grader of high value comics very rapidly.

This isn't as unusual as you may think.

From the looks of it, they had a temporary shortage of the proper inner wells. So, in cases like this, they sometimes use a larger holder and attach a wedge (a small piece of plastic attached to the interior holder) to secure the book so it doesn't move around. In some cases, they'll actually attach two wedges to keep the book from moving.

I'd agree this isn't as attractive as having the book encased and centered in the proper well, but the book does look like it's pretty secure. 

There have been occasions where I've had certain books reholdered because I wasn't happy with the presentation, and that certainly could be an option in this situation...  

[Gaard]

Looks like maybe they forgot the wedges?

[Randall Dowling]

On the bright side, you've got a nice copy of the first appearance of Wolverine.  

[THE_BEYONDER]

On 3/26/2022 at 11:10 AM, The Lions Den said:

This isn't as unusual as you may think.

From the looks of it, they had a temporary shortage of the proper inner wells. So, in cases like this, they sometimes use a larger holder and attach a wedge (a small piece of plastic attached to the interior holder) to secure the book so it doesn't move around. In some cases, they'll actually attach two wedges to keep the book from moving.

I'd agree this isn't as attractive as having the book encased and centered in the proper well, but the book does look like it's pretty secure. 

There have been occasions where I've had certain books reholdered because I wasn't happy with the presentation, and that certainly could be an option in this situation...  

This isn’t okay.   Customers are paying for a particular product/service.   You don’t Macgyver someone’s submission because you’re out of the proper parts.

[The Lions Den]

On 3/26/2022 at 6:29 PM, THE_BEYONDER said:

This isn’t okay.   Customers are paying for a particular product/service.   You don’t Macgyver someone’s submission because you’re out of the proper parts.

Believe it or not, this happens more often than you'd expect. And while I agree it's not OK, I've been seeing this type of thing for at least 20 years... 

[THE_BEYONDER]

On 3/26/2022 at 6:54 PM, The Lions Den said:

Believe it or not, this happens more often than you'd expect. And while I agree it's not OK, I've been seeing this type of thing for at least 20 years... 

This is a first for me.  I understand awkward slabs for awkward size books, but there’s no excuse for slabbing a Hulk 180 this way.

[The Lions Den]

On 3/26/2022 at 6:57 PM, THE_BEYONDER said:

This is a first for me.  I understand awkward slabs for awkward size books, but there’s no excuse for slabbing a Hulk 180 this way.

If you think of it in terms of a manufacturing process it becomes easier to understand---it's a volume driven operation. I'm sure the standard holders for books from that era are some of the most common holders they use. And while it amounts to more work for the folks in encapsulation, they're not going to shut the entire process down just because they run out of one specific holder...   

[shadroch]

This is ridiculous.  Would that even fit in a CGC comic box? I'd imagine this would turn off a very large percentage of potential buyers. 

Utterly unacceptable. 

[The Lions Den]

On 3/26/2022 at 7:26 PM, Sold! said:

Is this book in a magazine slab?

The magazine holders are about an inch taller and over an inch wider than the comic holders, so looking at this photo I would say no. But this book does appear to have a more appropriate inner well...

Edited March 27, 2022 by The Lions Den

[The Lions Den]

On 3/26/2022 at 7:20 PM, shadroch said:

This is ridiculous.  Would that even fit in a CGC comic box? I'd imagine this would turn off a very large percentage of potential buyers. 

Utterly unacceptable. 

The question I have is whether this was originally done properly and then it shifted during shipping. The wedge is supposed to keep the book stable, not force it over to one side. I have seen wedges fail before---after all, they're only a thin piece of plastic sealed to the inner well...  

[Lazyboy]

On 3/26/2022 at 5:29 PM, THE_BEYONDER said:

This isn’t okay.   Customers are paying for a particular product/service.   You don’t Macgyver someone’s submission because you’re out of the proper parts.

Is that the wrong kind of slab? Or is that copy miscut and had to be put in a larger slab than that issue would normally get?

On 3/26/2022 at 5:57 PM, THE_BEYONDER said:

This is a first for me.  I understand awkward slabs for awkward size books, but there’s no excuse for slabbing a Hulk 180 this way.

Incredible Hulk 180 is immune to miscuts?

Edited March 27, 2022 by Lazyboy
typo

[MattTheDuck]

It's not that easy to tell from pictures, but in looking at your picture and the slabs I have, it doesn't appear to me that your slab is any wider.  Your book is almost all the way to the right of the inside of the slab, whereas in the ones I have the books are more centered with between 1/2" and 3/4"on either side of the book to the outside edge of the slab.  Still seems like a CGC slabbing error of some kind.

[Get Marwood & I]

It doesn't look like a magazine holder to me, if I compare it to another copy (as best as I can given that one is a flat scan, one an angled photo). The label data distancing all appear to be equal so it seems that the book is just as far to the right as possible within the holder.

I wonder if @eWolverine means that his book is in one of the deeper, annual sized holders? The shadowing might indicate that. I had a regular sized book in an annual sized holder once and I didn't like it at all as it looked wrong - the book looked like it was swamped in it.

  

[Qalyar]

On 3/27/2022 at 5:00 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

It doesn't look like a magazine holder to me, if I compare it to another copy (as best as I can given that one is a flat scan, one an angled photo). The label data distancing all appear to be equal so it seems that the book is just as far to the right as possible within the holder.

I wonder if @eWolverine means that his book is in one of the deeper, annual sized holders? The shadowing might indicate that. I had a regular sized book in an annual sized holder once and I didn't like it at all as it looked wrong - the book looked like it was swamped in it.

  

Agreed. That's not a magazine holder. If nothing else, you can tell by the amount of whitespace on the label.

It probably is one of the "thick" holders, though. Ideally, these are used mostly for annuals, 100 pagers, that sort of thing, that are too chonky to fit in the normal slab safely, but every now and then they seem to bust them out for totally normal books. My Labyrinth: Masquerade got one of these for the normal copy, although both the Cagle variant and the virgin cover got normal slabs. It bugs me less than my old-style slabs with the loose edge label, anyway.

The badly off-center slabbing is a separate issue, though.

[Artboy99]

On 3/26/2022 at 4:29 PM, THE_BEYONDER said:

This isn’t okay.   Customers are paying for a particular product/service.   You don’t Macgyver someone’s submission because you’re out of the proper parts.

I agree, especially when you consider how long customers are waiting. A year later to receive an arbitrary decision isn't the solution.

Additionally, I have received the reverse: a book in a holder that is too tight.

[Lazyboy]

On 3/27/2022 at 5:54 PM, Artboy99 said:

I agree, especially when you consider how long customers are waiting. A year later to receive an arbitrary decision isn't the solution.

Additionally, I have received the reverse: a book in a holder that is too tight.

That is something that should never happen.

[The Lions Den]

I thought I'd do a comparison of how a common book like the Hulk #180 should look when encased in the proper holder. These pictures are of a book from roughly the same time period. Please note how the book is snug but not overly tight in the inner well, and no wedge was required. This is what I would consider an excellent job by the encapsulation team... 

 

 

 

From what I can see, the book lays perfectly flat with no evidence of rippling or warping. There is a very small gap at one side but virtually no gap at the top or bottom, which ensures that the book won't move around much in the holder unless subjected to extreme SCS... 

Edited March 29, 2022 by The Lions Den

[Phill the Governor]

On the contrary, I've had more than half my submissions coming back with inner wells that are so tight, there is now new damage from the stress of inner well of the book/ warping in the case, at the very least

 

Even worse,  other books that I included written notes for, regarding the conservation work I had done, hoping to ensure the correct Conserved labels. And yet, those books were graded UNIVERSAL - unrestored. I literally told CGC "hey, these books were conserved and had this conso work done..." and they still incorrectly graded them as unrestored. Insane. When you're doing work on books, subbing them and they come back Universal, it makes one think "hey, how many other books are in Universal slabs with undisclosed conso or resto work??".

[The Lions Den]

On 3/29/2022 at 3:46 PM, Phill the Governor said:

On the contrary, I've had more than half my submissions coming back with inner wells that are so tight, there is now new damage from the stress of inner well of the book/ warping in the case, at the very least

 

Even worse,  other books that I included written notes for, regarding the conservation work I had done, hoping to ensure the correct Conserved labels. And yet, those books were graded UNIVERSAL - unrestored. I literally told CGC "hey, these books were conserved and had this conso work done..." and they still incorrectly graded them as unrestored. Insane. When you're doing work on books, subbing them and they come back Universal, it makes one think "hey, how many other books are in Universal slabs with undisclosed conso or resto work??".

Neither of these things should be happening...