Does prescreening books possibly influence grades? 3 3

[Timed]

Say I sent in 10 books to be prescreened for a 9.6. After the prescreener looks at them, will the grader see that the books all were 9.6 prescreens? Or will the grader not know what grade the prescreen was for?

I know that books can be graded higher than prescreen grade, but if the grader is aware of the prescreen grade beforehand, it leaves me to wonder if there can be some influence on the final grade.

[Lightning55]

Interesting question.  Maybe @The Lions Den can shed some light from his past experiences.

[The Lions Den]

On 8/11/2023 at 9:19 PM, Timed said:

Say I sent in 10 books to be prescreened for a 9.6. After the prescreener looks at them, will the grader see that the books all were 9.6 prescreens? Or will the grader not know what grade the prescreen was for?

I know that books can be graded higher than prescreen grade, but if the grader is aware of the prescreen grade beforehand, it leaves me to wonder if there can be some influence on the final grade.

The grader has to know what grade the pre-screen is for in order to effectively perform the pre-screen. The desired grade shouldn't adversely influence the grader; it actually makes it easier because anything less than the desired grade can often be eliminated rather quickly. For instance, a book with a 1" corner crease that breaks color could quickly be rejected from having any possibility of making the 9.6 threshold. 

[The Lions Den]

On 8/11/2023 at 10:00 PM, Lightning55 said:

Interesting question.  Maybe @The Lions Den can shed some light from his past experiences.

It's all a blur...   

[Timed]

On 8/12/2023 at 6:14 AM, The Lions Den said:

The grader has to know what grade the pre-screen is for in order to effectively perform the pre-screen. The desired grade shouldn't adversely influence the grader; it actually makes it easier because anything less than the desired grade can often be eliminated rather quickly. For instance, a book with a 1" corner crease that breaks color could quickly be rejected from having any possibility of making the 9.6 threshold. 

But the grader is separate from the prescreener, correct?

If a prescreener approves a book as a 9.6, would the grader then have a mindset that the book should be around a 9.6? It is interesting to me, since we all know how subjective grading is. So I am curious what happens if a book is approved for a 9.6 prescreen but the actual grader mentally deems the book a 9.4 

[Aman619]

What I think you are really asking is if the Grader never even sees the books that the pre-grader felt didnt pass the pregrade level. Or if the Grader sees them all but knows which passed and which didnt -- does the Grader ever look at the rejects? (If he does he might disagree with the pregrader) ... same as the Grader may feel that some that passed are NOT 9.6 in this example and reject them.  

My guess is that the Grader only grades the non rejects by the pregrader. Its more efficient that way/ Otherwise just give al the boss to the let the Grader do the rejecting.

But, IS there a separate pre-screener department/level?? (aside from the page counter functions etc) If the pregrader is qualified to grade books, he should be in the grading room full time. Maybe pregraders ARE graders and they switch roles on a schedule to keep them fresh. .. and away from the espresso machine.

[The Lions Den]

On 8/12/2023 at 10:45 AM, Timed said:

But the grader is separate from the prescreener, correct?

If a prescreener approves a book as a 9.6, would the grader then have a mindset that the book should be around a 9.6? It is interesting to me, since we all know how subjective grading is. So I am curious what happens if a book is approved for a 9.6 prescreen but the actual grader mentally deems the book a 9.4 

I've seen many cases where the pre-screen was done by one grader and then finalized by a different grader. I've also seen times where the finalizer disagreed with the grader that did the pre-screen. It's also important to keep in mind that the initial pre-screen is often done fairly quickly in order to narrow down the possible candidates---pre-screens can contain hundreds of books and can take hours to go through. But yes, generally there should be at least two or more people working on a pre-screen.

I always looked at it as the books that make it through the initial pre-screen should at least be worthy of consideration for the desired grade, but it's not an absolute judgement until the book is finalized. 

I'd also suggest to anyone submitting a pre-screen to at least try to send in worthy candidates for the desired grade, otherwise it's just a waste of time, effort and money...

[The Lions Den]

On 8/12/2023 at 12:36 PM, Aman619 said:

What I think you are really asking is if the Grader never even sees the books that the pre-grader felt didnt pass the pregrade level. Or if the Grader sees them all but knows which passed and which didnt -- does the Grader ever look at the rejects? (If he does he might disagree with the pregrader) ... same as the Grader may feel that some that passed are NOT 9.6 in this example and reject them.  

My guess is that the Grader only grades the non rejects by the pregrader. Its more efficient that way/ Otherwise just give al the boss to the let the Grader do the rejecting.

But, IS there a separate pre-screener department/level?? (aside from the page counter functions etc) If the pregrader is qualified to grade books, he should be in the grading room full time. Maybe pregraders ARE graders and they switch roles on a schedule to keep them fresh. .. and away from the espresso machine.

To my knowledge, pre-screens are always done by the graders. And maybe things are different now, but there never used to be a separate department for pre-screens. And the rejects aren't usually looked at after they're rejected, but sometimes even books that pass the initial pre-screen will be rejected during the finalizing process. 

[Aman619]

On 8/12/2023 at 12:48 PM, The Lions Den said:

To my knowledge, pre-screens are always done by the graders. And maybe things are different now, but there never used to be a separate department for pre-screens. And the rejects aren't usually looked at after they're rejected, but sometimes even books that pass the initial pre-screen will be rejected during the finalizing process. 

that makes sense... 

[Timed]

On 8/12/2023 at 11:40 AM, The Lions Den said:

I've seen many cases where the pre-screen was done by one grader and then finalized by a different grader. I've also seen times where the finalizer disagreed with the grader that did the pre-screen. It's also important to keep in mind that the initial pre-screen is often done fairly quickly in order to narrow down the possible candidates---pre-screens can contain hundreds of books and can take hours to go through. But yes, generally there should be at least two or more people working on a pre-screen.

I always looked at it as the books that make it through the initial pre-screen should at least be worthy of consideration for the desired grade, but it's not an absolute judgement until the book is finalized. 

I'd also suggest to anyone submitting a pre-screen to at least try to send in worthy candidates for the desired grade, otherwise it's just a waste of time, effort and money...

Really appreciate your insight into the process.

What happens if the final grader disagrees with the prescreen grade? Is it then sent to reject status right after, or is it looked at once more?

Also, is the final grader given a box that says they are all X prescreens? If this is the case, this would save time for the final grader, but it feels like the process would be more neutral if the final grader was not aware of the prescreen grade until after the books have been graded... this would mean any grade given would be unbiased, whether it be below the prescreened grade, or spot on/higher. 

Edited August 12, 2023 by Timed

[valiantman]

I don't know if this is accurate, but it is logical:

- 25 books pre-screened for CGC 9.6

- Grader looks at all 25 books and quickly rules out 10 which won't be CGC 9.6 because it's easy to see (10 are charged pre-screen fee only)

- 15 books are graded in more detail, and 13 of those do receive CGC 9.6 or higher (13 are charged grading fee, 2 are charged pre-screen fee only)

- Result: 13 books charged a grading fee, 12 books charged a pre-screen fee

If the pre-screener is also the grader, then there might be a possibility that "borderline" books get awarded the pre-screen grade since they are human and the book was on the border between 9.6/9.4.

If the pre-screener is not the grader, then the grader should only grade the already-screened books "as is" and the encapsulation should reject any that don't meet the minimum, putting them with the other rejects.

I doubt if there's any reason that books that aren't on the border between grades would be bumped up to the pre-screen grade more often than something is overlooked on books that aren't pre-screened.

.Errors occur, but I don't know why they would be specific to pre-screening.

Edited August 12, 2023 by valiantman

[Timed]

On 8/12/2023 at 1:39 PM, valiantman said:

I don't know if this is accurate, but it is logical:

- 25 books pre-screened for CGC 9.6

- Grader looks at all 25 books and quickly rules out 10 which won't be CGC 9.6 because it's easy to see (10 are charged pre-screen fee only)

- 15 books are graded in more detail, and 13 of those do receive CGC 9.6 or higher (13 are charged grading fee, 2 are charged pre-screen fee only)

- Result: 13 books charged a grading fee, 12 books charged a pre-screen fee

If the pre-screener is also the grader, then there might be a possibility that "borderline" books get awarded the pre-screen grade since they are human and the book was on the border between 9.6/9.4.

If the pre-screener is not the grader, then the grader should only grade the already-screened books "as is" and the encapsulation should reject any that don't meet the minimum, putting them with the other rejects.

I doubt if there's any reason that books that aren't on the border between grades would be bumped up to the pre-screen grade more often than something is overlooked on books that aren't pre-screened.

.Errors occur, but I don't know why they would be specific to pre-screening.

"If the pre-screener is also the grader, then there might be a possibility that "borderline" books get awarded the pre-screen grade since they are human and the book was on the border between 9.6/9.4."

Yeah, precisely, and I feel it could go both ways - a book that is borderline 9.6/9.8 could just get the 9.6 because the prescreen was for 9.6.

"If the pre-screener is not the grader, then the grader should only grade the already-screened books "as is" and the encapsulation should reject any that don't meet the minimum, putting them with the other rejects."

This is exactly how it should be! The actual grader for the prescreened books should not be aware of the prescreen grade. He/she should grade it normally, as any other non-prescreen book, then only after the books have been given a numerical grade, should the second batch (if any) of rejects be grouped with the others. So the process would be: prescreen to weed out rejects right off the bat, then the remainder of the books are graded normally, and then afterwards, if any of the graded books did not meet the prescreen threshold, they are lumped with the initial rejects. This adds a sort of "blind" element to the grading process.

You summed up what I was thinking/trying to say perfectly. Thank you, valiantman.

 

Edited August 12, 2023 by Timed

[Aman619]

if a prescreener spent time doing weeding out rejects, and then gives them ALL to the grade, then he wasted valuable time. So I believe any books weeded out are not graded by the grader.  What could be the case as Lions Den alluded to I think that when prescreening for 9.6 they definitely weed out up to 9.4, leaving a few to get a second opinion.  THAT would be efficient and allow the grader a chance to slab a few more...Im sure CGC prefers a full grading fee over a reject fee, so long as the grade is defensible.

 

hey is the Blackstone being talked about as buying CGC the SAME as OUR Blackstone?

[Timed]

On 8/12/2023 at 2:33 PM, Aman619 said:

if a prescreener spent time doing weeding out rejects, and then gives them ALL to the grade, then he wasted valuable time. So I believe any books weeded out are not graded by the grader.  What could be the case as Lions Den alluded to I think that when prescreening for 9.6 they definitely weed out up to 9.4, leaving a few to get a second opinion.  THAT would be efficient and allow the grader a chance to slab a few more...Im sure CGC prefers a full grading fee over a reject fee, so long as the grade is defensible.

 

hey is the Blackstone being talked about as buying CGC the SAME as OUR Blackstone?

Yes, there is no reason for initial rejects to be given to the actual grader. But, the ones that pass the prescreen grade should not have a prescreen grade attached to them. The grader should grade the passed books with no knowledge of the prescreen, and if any of the grades he gives are under the prescreen, then those are then grouped with the initial rejects during the QC/encapsulating stage. If that makes sense.

[Aman619]

it does, and yes of course, rejects should be ignored by the final graders.

[The Lions Den]

On 8/12/2023 at 2:27 PM, Timed said:

Really appreciate your insight into the process.

What happens if the final grader disagrees with the prescreen grade? Is it then sent to reject status right after, or is it looked at once more?

Also, is the final grader given a box that says they are all X prescreens? If this is the case, this would save time for the final grader, but it feels like the process would be more neutral if the final grader was not aware of the prescreen grade until after the books have been graded... this would mean any grade given would be unbiased, whether it be below the prescreened grade, or spot on/higher. 

Yes, the finalizer makes the final call on whether to grade the book or reject it. And I'd like to think that all the grades given are unbiased...  

[Lightning55]

Since the screening process is probably pretty quick, a cursory look for disqualifying defects, I would like to see 2 people do the screen and agree on the kickers.

CGC states all books are evaluated by at least 2 graders. If it takes 2 graders to accurately assess a grade, why shouldn't it take 2 graders to kick one out as finalizes.

If it's obvious, like a significant crease on a screen 9.6, ok. But what if the screener evaluates more tightly than the finalizer, and it's very borderline? The finalizer doesn't get any input, chopped out from under him. The screener's opinion weighs more heavily than the finalizer's.

[Gaard]

A  couple of quick points...

- I agree that it must be somewhat of an opinion-based process, due to the many cases of rejected books being passed on a subsequent PS.

- The process of screening the batch must take a significant amount of time. If you subtract all of the rejects, that just reduces the amount of time the graders have to take on the submission. Yet, according to the services page, PSs take an additional 6 weeks.

[The Lions Den]

On 8/12/2023 at 7:00 PM, Lightning55 said:

Since the screening process is probably pretty quick, a cursory look for disqualifying defects, I would like to see 2 people do the screen and agree on the kickers.

CGC states all books are evaluated by at least 2 graders. If it takes 2 graders to accurately assess a grade, why shouldn't it take 2 graders to kick one out as finalizes.

If it's obvious, like a significant crease on a screen 9.6, ok. But what if the screener evaluates more tightly than the finalizer, and it's very borderline? The finalizer doesn't get any input, chopped out from under him. The screener's opinion weighs more heavily than the finalizer's.

The finalizer is always the one that makes the final decision, regardless of what the pre-grader (or pre-screener) thinks. The pre-screener is usually just trying to narrow down the submission and reject the books that obviously don't meet the desired threshold. Once that's accomplished, the graders make the final decision on which books actually make the grade...  

[Tnexus]

I would suspect the final grader sees there are rejects. I really doubt CGC would split up a submission. That's just asking for trouble.