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ASM #252 CGC 9.8 Record Sale - something fishy going on? - Holder Tampering Incident confirmed by CGC
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Started by spidermanbeyond,

9,030 posts in this topic

Timed

Timed

Posted
Posted
On 12/19/2023 at 6:48 PM, Timed said:

One of my biggest concerns now, is if this fraud tactic has been used for any type of books, not only MJ ones. I don't see why not; there would be less money to be made but definitely still money.

Looks like my biggest fear has come to fruition.

With the qualified Hulk 181 confirmed swap, it now shows that this goes far deeper than we know.

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Nick Furious

Nick Furious

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On 12/20/2023 at 10:26 PM, Timed said:

Looks like my biggest fear has come to fruition.

With the qualified Hulk 181 confirmed swap, it now shows that this goes far deeper than we know.

It's too bad that all of this sellers listings have been taken down.  It would be interesting to at least know how many of the books he sells have been re-holdered.  That in itself should tell a story in light of the other information we know. 

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Microchip

Microchip

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Here's another book ripe for similar fraud.   The combo MJ, newsstand copy is super rare but out there.   A newsstand 9.8 is a $3k book, then add on the MJ rarity, and it's the right combination for the FOMO buyers out there.

I'm keeping a copy of my purchase on the Clink as reference for future provenance referencing.  

 

 

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Timed

Timed

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On 12/20/2023 at 10:30 PM, Nick Furious said:

It's too bad that all of this sellers listings have been taken down.  It would be interesting to at least know how many of the books he sells have been re-holdered.  That in itself should tell a story in light of the other information we know. 

His sold listings, or at least 30 of them, are still visible for me.

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sledgehammer

sledgehammer

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On 12/20/2023 at 10:36 PM, Timed said:

His sold listings, or at least 30 of them, are still visible for me.

70% of them are in custom labels, and they are all keys.

I did a search of Forest Hills CGC (the location city of the ebay seller in NY), and it brought me to a dealer on the CGC site called Royal Collectibles

https://www.cgccomics.com/comics-dealer-locator/dealer/1398/

Word of advice, don't click on their website. I had to quickly click off whatever it was, and I shut off my computer quickly too.

I have to think there is at least a remote chance that a big submitter in that area might have some relevant info or connection to the ebay seller.

Anybody know, or are him or her?

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Heronext

Heronext

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On 12/20/2023 at 11:42 PM, sledgehammer said:

70% of them are in custom labels, and they are all keys.

I did a search of Forest Hills CGC (the location city of the ebay seller in NY), and it brought me to a dealer on the CGC site called Royal Collectibles

https://www.cgccomics.com/comics-dealer-locator/dealer/1398/

Word of advice, don't click on their website. I had to quickly click off whatever it was, and I shut off my computer quickly too.

I have to think there is at least a remote chance that a big submitter in that area might have some relevant info or connection to the ebay seller.

Anybody know, or are him or her?

Royal Collectibles is a regular comic shop.  I know it but I've not been in years. Queens is home to 2 million people.  I don't see a clear connection 

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Timed

Timed

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Going through the sellers' visible sold listings on eBay, a vast majority just scream scam.

In what world is this IH 181 an 8.5? CGC cert lookup. Heavy spine ticks, bottom right corner crease, foxing... this is like a 6.5 or 7.

Genuinely wondering now if this dude indeed had some "favors" done from someone at CGC.

 

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sledgehammer

sledgehammer

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On 12/20/2023 at 10:46 PM, Heronext said:

Royal Collectibles is a regular comic shop.  I know it but I've not been in years. Queens is home to 2 million people.  I don't see a clear connection 

Good. I have no idea how big Forest Hills is.

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sledgehammer

sledgehammer

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On 12/18/2023 at 8:21 AM, sledgehammer said:

One of his sales. Graded in October, and auctioned in December. 9.8 ASM 238

I'm no expert, but look at the bottom LFC.

Somebody else can tell me if what I'm seeing would pass for a 9.8

https://www.cgccomics.com/certlookup/4343218001/

 

Every book I looked at seemed questionable.

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Nick Furious

Nick Furious

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On 12/20/2023 at 10:46 PM, Timed said:

Genuinely wondering now if this dude indeed had some "favors" done from someone at CGC.

I'm not giving much credence to the "inside man" theory.  I really think it's much more likely that he just found a loophole in the re-holdering option and exploited the heck out of it.  

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paqart

paqart

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On 12/20/2023 at 5:15 PM, VintageComics said:

OK, but it's not personal. It just wasn't clear to me what you were saying. 

Correct. If they regraded the book, it's very unlikely this book gets a 9.8 which leads me to believe it wasn't regraded. 

It depends on what you choose on the form. 

If you tell CGC that you think they made a mistake and missed the MJ insert, they won't technically regrade it as though you were paying a grading fee.They'll treat it as an internal error and reholder the book with the correct designation, but I am fairly certain if you notify them that they made a mistake and missed the MJ insert, they will inspect the book to make sure the MJ insert is in there before designating it as such. 

If you JUST send it as a straight reholder, say, telling them that the slab cracked when they returned the book to the submitter, they would just replace the holder. You COULD possibly even request a custom label I suppose, but then that still doesn't explain how the MJ insert designation got added to the new label because that's not a "straight reholder" procedure.

The sticky part in your theory is how the MJ designation got added. It doesn't make sense that they would just add the designation on the new label without looking inside the book to verify it was there.

I suppose it's POSSIBLE that they just forgot to look at the book for whatever reason, but it just sounds unlikely to me. 

In order to add that new MJ designation, I believe someone, somewhere inside CGC (likely a grader or pregrader) would have to check for the MJ insert before labelling it as such. 

 

Could they have caught the MJ designation and missed that it was a fugly 9.8? That's possible I suppose...but again, weird to me because I believe it would need to at least be a pre-grader inspecting the book for the MJ insert (counting pages) and so it seems unlikely. I don't think they would just have someone working in encapsulation do this work. Someone in encapsulation may not even know what an MJ insert is. 

It is a bit confusing because there are multiple combinations of possibilities, but I think we're on the same page now, aren't we?

I have to agree with this, for psychology reasons alone. If someone tells me I made a mistake, I tend to look it over very carefully to determine 1) is it true, 2) how did I make the mistake.

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Heronext

Heronext

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On 12/21/2023 at 12:02 AM, Nick Furious said:

I'm not giving much credence to the "inside man" theory.  I really think it's much more likely that he just found a loophole in the re-holdering option and exploited the heck out of it.  

Maybe the "special relationship" he has alluded to is as a customer who does a lot of reholdering & spends a lot on custom labels.  I'm wondering how he reseals books, and if it's so undetectable, why even get them reholdered.

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Nick Furious

Nick Furious

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On 12/20/2023 at 11:05 PM, paqart said:

I have to agree with this, for psychology reasons alone. If someone tells me I made a mistake, I tend to look it over very carefully to determine 1) is it true, 2) how did I make the mistake.

I don't know why we are getting hung up on whether or not CGC opened the inner well in the re-slabbing process.  I don't think anyone overtly claimed that they did not, and it's kind of immaterial to the overall issue.  

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