2022 CGC Grading Contest Season 1 Summer Edition (#3) Round #4 Results 4 4

[Black_Adam]

Thanks for the hard work @CGC Mike and my apologies for stinking the contest up with my putrid guesses! 

[stynxno]

Best of luck in the tie-breakers! 

[flashlites]

On 8/9/2022 at 3:06 PM, zzutak said:

I've posted this before, but I think it's worthwhile to share it again.

Back in the mid-2000s, Ed Jaster (who had recently joined Heritage Auctions) told me the "trick" to having your books certified by CGC was to max out your invoices rather than submit only a few books.  "Sometimes you'll be higher than CGC, and sometimes you'll be lower; but if you're a decent grader, your average grade should come pretty close to CGC's."

CGC's proprietary (and still unpublished) grading rubric necessarily allows for judgment, and different graders may interpret/apply a given standard differently.  Blemishes/defects can be overlooked or discounted for any number of reasons.  The bottom line is that a given book may not always receive the same CGC grade if it's submitted several times (although the various grades assigned will almost certainly be within an increment or two of each other).  This fact (not opinion) will be obvious to anyone who's done an initial prescreen and then had the rejected books accepted on a later, identical, prescreen.  This is not meant to be a slam against CGC; I know of no collector who can/will assign the exact same grade to every one of his/her books every time he/she looks at 'em.

So, just for kicks, recalculate your total Contest #3 score using "signed deltas": -2 for your guess being 2 grade increments too low, -1 for your guess being 1 grade increment too low, 0 for a bullseye, +1 for your guess being 1 grade increment too high, +2 for your guess being 2 grade increments too high, and so on.  What's your cumulative 20-book tally now?  Did the errors to the low side and high side more or less balance out?  Or is your tally way negative or way positive (in which case you're consistently being too strict or too lenient with your condition assessments)?

Chances are your score using signed deltas will be much smaller than your score using absolute/unsigned deltas.  If that's the case, your errors are balancing out (which is exactly what Ed predicted would happen for a decent grader).  Here's an example using my own Round 1+2+3+4 guesses (20 books):

• 5 Bullseyes = 0
• 3 times my guess was one grade increment too low = -3
• 7 times my guess was one grade increment too high = +7
• 3 times my guess was two grade increments too low = -6
• 2 times my guess was two grade increments too high = +4

My total signed delta score would be 0 - 3 + 7 - 6 + 4 = +2 for the 20-book challenge.  That's an average error of one-tenth of one grade increment (0.1).    Compare that to my total absolute/unsigned delta score (my actual contest score) of 20, or an average error of one grade increment per book.  This is exactly what Ed Jaster predicted would happen for a person whose grading standards are essentially in line with CGC's.

Until next time!   

Thank you for this! I remember you posted something similar after the last contest. This time I did the math and as suspected I am grading too strict and need to loosen things up a bit to get closer. But to get closer we need practice and the experience of seeing a book before and after. So for those of us that don't send in dozens of books a month, this contest is the only way to get those comparisons. 

[kav]

On 8/9/2022 at 1:06 PM, zzutak said:

I've posted this before, but I think it's worthwhile to share it again.

Back in the mid-2000s, Ed Jaster (who had recently joined Heritage Auctions) told me the "trick" to having your books certified by CGC was to max out your invoices rather than submit only a few books.  "Sometimes you'll be higher than CGC, and sometimes you'll be lower; but if you're a decent grader, your average grade should come pretty close to CGC's."

CGC's proprietary (and still unpublished) grading rubric necessarily allows for judgment, and different graders may interpret/apply a given standard differently.  Blemishes/defects can be overlooked or discounted for any number of reasons.  The bottom line is that a given book may not always receive the same CGC grade if it's submitted several times (although the various grades assigned will almost certainly be within an increment or two of each other).  This fact (not opinion) will be obvious to anyone who's done an initial prescreen and then had the rejected books accepted on a later, identical, prescreen.  This is not meant to be a slam against CGC; I know of no collector who can/will assign the exact same grade to every one of his/her books every time he/she looks at 'em.

So, just for kicks, recalculate your total Contest #3 score using "signed deltas": -2 for your guess being 2 grade increments too low, -1 for your guess being 1 grade increment too low, 0 for a bullseye, +1 for your guess being 1 grade increment too high, +2 for your guess being 2 grade increments too high, and so on.  What's your cumulative 20-book tally now?  Did the errors to the low side and high side more or less balance out?  Or is your tally way negative or way positive (in which case you're consistently being too strict or too lenient with your condition assessments)?

Chances are your score using signed deltas will be much smaller than your score using absolute/unsigned deltas.  If that's the case, your errors are balancing out (which is exactly what Ed predicted would happen for a decent grader).  Here's an example using my own Round 1+2+3+4 guesses (20 books):

• 5 Bullseyes = 0
• 3 times my guess was one grade increment too low = -3
• 7 times my guess was one grade increment too high = +7
• 3 times my guess was two grade increments too low = -6
• 2 times my guess was two grade increments too high = +4

My total signed delta score would be 0 - 3 + 7 - 6 + 4 = +2 for the 20-book challenge.  That's an average error of one-tenth of one grade increment (0.1).    Compare that to my total absolute/unsigned delta score (my actual contest score) of 20, or an average error of one grade increment per book.  This is exactly what Ed Jaster predicted would happen for a person whose grading standards are essentially in line with CGC's.

Until next time!   

 

[jcjames]

On 8/9/2022 at 1:06 PM, zzutak said:

I've posted this before, but I think it's worthwhile to share it again.

Back in the mid-2000s, Ed Jaster (who had recently joined Heritage Auctions) told me the "trick" to having your books certified by CGC was to max out your invoices rather than submit only a few books.  "Sometimes you'll be higher than CGC, and sometimes you'll be lower; but if you're a decent grader, your average grade should come pretty close to CGC's."

CGC's proprietary (and still unpublished) grading rubric necessarily allows for judgment, and different graders may interpret/apply a given standard differently.  Blemishes/defects can be overlooked or discounted for any number of reasons.  The bottom line is that a given book may not always receive the same CGC grade if it's submitted several times (although the various grades assigned will almost certainly be within an increment or two of each other).  This fact (not opinion) will be obvious to anyone who's done an initial prescreen and then had the rejected books accepted on a later, identical, prescreen.  This is not meant to be a slam against CGC; I know of no collector who can/will assign the exact same grade to every one of his/her books every time he/she looks at 'em.

So, just for kicks, recalculate your total Contest #3 score using "signed deltas": -2 for your guess being 2 grade increments too low, -1 for your guess being 1 grade increment too low, 0 for a bullseye, +1 for your guess being 1 grade increment too high, +2 for your guess being 2 grade increments too high, and so on.  What's your cumulative 20-book tally now?  Did the errors to the low side and high side more or less balance out?  Or is your tally way negative or way positive (in which case you're consistently being too strict or too lenient with your condition assessments)?

Chances are your score using signed deltas will be much smaller than your score using absolute/unsigned deltas.  If that's the case, your errors are balancing out (which is exactly what Ed predicted would happen for a decent grader).  Here's an example using my own Round 1+2+3+4 guesses (20 books):

• 5 Bullseyes = 0
• 3 times my guess was one grade increment too low = -3
• 7 times my guess was one grade increment too high = +7
• 3 times my guess was two grade increments too low = -6
• 2 times my guess was two grade increments too high = +4

My total signed delta score would be 0 - 3 + 7 - 6 + 4 = +2 for the 20-book challenge.  That's an average error of one-tenth of one grade increment (0.1).    Compare that to my total absolute/unsigned delta score (my actual contest score) of 20, or an average error of one grade increment per book.  This is exactly what Ed Jaster predicted would happen for a person whose grading standards are essentially in line with CGC's.

Until next time!   

That's an interesting metric. 

I finished with 28pts total for 20 books or 1.4 average grade increment off per book.

6/20 bullseyes

1/20 overgraded by 1 grade +1

3/20 overgraded by 2 grades +6

1/20 overgraded by 3 grades +3

3/20 undergraded by 1 grade -3

4/20 undergraded by 2 grades -8

2/20 undergraded by 3 grades -6

Using your metric I finished with -7 per 20 books for a -0.35 average grade increment per book... so apparently I undergrade a bit more than I overgrade. 

Very fun contest - this was my first time doing this kind of contest, I've done the other contests, but this one always seemed a bit more intimidating to get 5 books all at once! 

 

[Sandflea]

Thanks CGC Mike for inviting me to this contest; very fun indeed! 

Best of luck to the tie-breakers!!!  

[Electron]

Big thanks to Mike for all the hard work to make this happen. It’s my first time in a grading contest and I had a lot of fun, especially the reveals. Good luck to those left for the tie breakers! 

[silverseeker]

On 8/9/2022 at 12:18 PM, CGC Mike said:

@Electron @TheGeneral @comicginger1789 @Old Fashion PB and J

Congrats to the Fantastic (top) Four! Good luck with the tiebreakers...

[CGC Mike]

Here is a link to the tiebreaker round.  

@Electron @TheGeneral @comicginger1789 @Old Fashion PB and J

 

 

[Albert Thurgood]

On 8/10/2022 at 4:06 AM, zzutak said:

So, just for kicks, recalculate your total Contest #3 score using "signed deltas": -2 for your guess being 2 grade increments too low, -1 for your guess being 1 grade increment too low, 0 for a bullseye, +1 for your guess being 1 grade increment too high, +2 for your guess being 2 grade increments too high, and so on.  What's your cumulative 20-book tally now? 

Very interesting! My score went from a horrible 34 to 9 (and from 9 to 1 in round 3).

Thanks for this insight.

And of course, thanks to CGC_Mike for all the work in running this competition!

[Axe Elf]

Oh sheesh... I was expecting to have 24 overall, but I completely spaced my Round 3 score.

It's ugly, but 29 it is.

Still, I think last time CGC was off by something like 34--so they're getting better!

Must be the new Quality Control measures...

[JollyComics]

I missed the opportunity on this 3rd contest but I never saw so many points for all the contestants.  This must be a tough one.  Good luck to the top contestants.

[Cat]

I think there's been some kind of clerical error, Mike. You've got me in last place, and nothing up until now was leading me up to that. 

[sagii]

Had a blast. can't wait for the next one!

[HighRadArt]

I didn't compete but have to give a shout-out to Mike for all the time he spent doing this.  Hopefully the powers to be at CGC realize how much work is involved with this grading contest.  Thanks Mike.  

[Yorick]

On 8/9/2022 at 12:58 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

@Yorick so close!

You're only one point back!!!  That's a 0.5 grade!

Maybe CGC can just put all of us here on the payroll and we grade from home! 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 8/10/2022 at 6:21 PM, Yorick said:

You're only one point back!!!  That's a 0.5 grade!

Maybe CGC can just put all of us here on the payroll and we grade from home! 

I'll play properly next time 

[Hibou]

Thanks for a fun contest, Mike! I'm happy with #34... I think I under-graded most of these.

 

[Lpgk]

This was my first time and was a good exercise in seeing how accurate I am. I ended up in the bottom third, but I don't have a lot of experience with GA and early SA, so I took big hits on those. However, I did ok with the rest and my last round really shined, 3 out of 5 bullseyes. 

I like to think I am conservative when I grade. If I can tend to undergrade raw books, I'll get a bump when I actually send them in. That being said, I got 6 bulleyes over the contest. Of the remaining books, 6 of 14 were undergraded, 8 of the 14 were overgraded. 

Enjoyed the contest and looking forward to next years! Thanks CGC Mike!

[CGC Mike]

On 8/10/2022 at 4:54 PM, Lpgk said:

Enjoyed the contest and looking forward to next years! Thanks CGC Mike!

You won't have to wait that long.  The fall edition signup starts October 1st.  Mark it on your calendars, everyone.