ASM #252 CGC 9.8 Record Sale - something fishy going on? - Holder Tampering Incident confirmed by CGC 50 50

[MatterEaterLad]

The largest CGC group on FB, which has 37k members, has been deleting posts about this. 

[Steven Valdez]

On 12/23/2023 at 2:59 AM, MatterEaterLad said:

The largest CGC group on FB, which has 37k members, has been deleting posts about this. 

It seems people desperately don't want CGC to suck.

[comicwiz]

On 12/22/2023 at 10:59 AM, MatterEaterLad said:

The largest CGC group on FB, which has 37k members, has been deleting posts about this. 

Which one is that?

[DC#]

On 12/22/2023 at 7:32 AM, comicginger1789 said:

The AI thing would be a game changer. I think the hardest part is opening the book. In THEORY CGC does this (to count pages). Now I am sure some sort of weight thing could be developed where every comic is weighed to fractions of ounces to determine if a page or multiple (or even chunks or a stamp) are missing inside, then prompting a person to waste time opening the book. But there are other things like foxing, staining, writing that you need someone to see and assess and factor in (because again CGC humans do this allll the time without question).

A potentially easy first step would be an AI scrub of resubmissions.  scan resubs, scrub for images of that cert number on both internal and external platforms, and create a flag that simply says “this book needs to be inspected”     That would not be AI grading - just using AI to do what everyone here has been doing - just before the fact not after 

[JC25427N]

On 12/22/2023 at 10:59 AM, MyNameIsLegion said:

I was positing that a book previously graded would have enough identifying characteristics that if resubbed after pressing and cleaning it could essentially identify the book and infer the differences were the result of "improvements" not that it could detect pressing outright. (though I don't rule it out, if there were some other signature it could read, perhaps in the infrared spectrum) 

Yeah I edited my post (not quick enough though, this thread is zooming lol), I thought about it and figured you might have meant detect pressing for the same book given a previous scan of it and a current scan, that's 100% doable

[comicginger1789]

On 12/22/2023 at 10:43 AM, Happy Noodle Boy said:

I used to watch Automatic Comics and Swagglehaus, but I got tired of their flipper-focused content; they treat comics like stocks. The one comic-focused youtuber I follow is Jason Mink, whose channel is called Old Guys Who Like Old Comics. He's an old guy (well, in his fifties anyway, like myself) who likes old comics. That's it. He pulls out eclectic stacks of old comics from his collection and shows them off. And these aren't "keys" (I hate that word so much.) They're just comics. Archies, Marvels, DCs, First, Eclipse, Pacific, Atlas, whatever; they're just silver and bronze age books that he likes (with the occasional golden age book thrown in.) He does not care one whit about condition. He has plenty of coverless books. He doesn't care if a book is a reprint. He owns no slabs. He just likes reading comics. I'm constantly discovering cool old comics I've never heard of through his channel. He's into action figures (especially Mego) too, but the channel is primarily comics-focused. It's neat. 

I shall give him a look, as he sounds like what I would enjoy (despite not being old haha I identify with that level of collector much more than the current 20-35 year old age group of which I still am part of)

[MatterEaterLad]

On 12/22/2023 at 9:00 AM, comicwiz said:

Which one is that?

https://www.facebook.com/groups/cgccomicsfans

Maybe this Admin is a CGC employee?

[DC#]

Would be interesting to know what has been happening at PSA 

https://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/psa-grading-buys-genamint/

 

[comicginger1789]

On 12/22/2023 at 10:59 AM, Steven Valdez said:

I note with interest that whenever there's some major drama/scandal in the comics community, CGC is at the centre of it.

Honestly though, if a thing came out about PGX or CBCS where an employee who worked for them was ripping out a page in every book they graded, I don't think that would move the needle compared to this. When you are on top, the world watches and always waits to feast when you stumble. No one like a winner who wins and is good all the time, every time. We should but we don't..

[MyNameIsLegion]

On 12/22/2023 at 9:58 AM, VintageComics said:

While I agree that everyone needs a wakeup call once in a while that wasn't what I meant by wakeup call and I disagree that CGC isn't a safeguard. That's ridiculous talk. 

Safeguards remove MOST of the risk. They never remove ALL of the risk. Not even NASA can remove all the risk. 

Who here thinks that just because a street light turns green you still shouldn't look both ways before crossing the street?

People have become dumbed down and the idiocracy is real. People need to sharpen their pencils a little and think before they walk.

That street light changing removes 99% of the risk. It's on you to work with the remaining 1% risk. 

yeah, but after a book has been submitted and then resold- the next owner can't check the MVS, tattoos, page count, or any other hidden defect, now can they? Now we are losing degrees of  confidence that the grade is accurate with zero remedy to do any additional due diligence. But you might have paid an extra $500 to recoup the cost of the slab on a key. 

[Gonzimodo]

On 12/22/2023 at 10:47 AM, skybolt said:

You bring up a good point. So trying to unpack what you stated above, does this mean that this guy was actually able to open the whole case and then reweld it? What I mean is that like you said above, he buys 1 9.8 copy of let's say UXM #266 direct edition. He then buys 5 9.4 UXM 266 CGC newsstands. He would then take the whole book apart, insert the 9.4 inner well and replace the label. However, before he does any of this, he sends the same 9.8 direct edition to CGC 5 times (without the label included) to receive 5 separate 9.8 labels. Once these 5 labels and the 9.4 newsstands are inserted into the cracked open cases, he welds all 5 CGC cases. He then send all 5 at different times to CGC for reholdering to get the newsstand 9.8 designation. He then sends the 1 9.8 direct edition to CGC to be graded. 

Yeah, basically.  I don't know how he's opening and resealing cases or whatever, but he would need an individual 9.8 certification number and case for each of his little manufactured fakes.

Buy the 9.8.  Crack it open, add a lower-grade newsstand/MJ/CPV/whatever and send that comic in the 9.8 case back to CGC to correct their "error."

Resubmit (as a "raw") the original 9.8 book that he cracked out and receive a brand new certification number and case.

Crack it open, add a lower-grade newsstand/MJ/CPV/whatever and send that comic in the 9.8 case back to CGC to correct their "error."

Resubmit (as a "raw") the original 9.8 book that he cracked out and receive a brand new certification number and case.

Repeat as necessary.  The same, original 9.8 copy could generate as many 9.8 certification numbers and cases as he needs.

[Steven Valdez]

On 12/23/2023 at 3:05 AM, comicginger1789 said:

Honestly though, if a thing came out about PGX or CBCS where an employee who worked for them was ripping out a page in every book they graded, I don't think that would move the needle compared to this. When you are on top, the world watches and always waits to feast when you stumble. No one like a winner who wins and is good all the time, every time. We should but we don't..

Indeed. I'm not necessarily implying that CGC is at fault in all of these situations, just that they somehow always happen to be a party to them; whether knowingly or otherwise.

[Dr. Balls]

On 12/22/2023 at 8:25 AM, Steven Valdez said:

I'd be worried about those clawed robot arms tearing the heck out of my comics.

CLICK BEEP WHIRRRRR THIS. IS. A. BOOP 9.8. WHIRRRRR BEEP

[Steven Valdez]

On 12/23/2023 at 3:09 AM, Dr. Balls said:

CLICK BEEP WHIRRRRR THIS. IS. A. BOOP 9.8. WHIRRRRR BEEP

Yes, how apt!

[Dr. Balls]

On 12/22/2023 at 9:09 AM, Steven Valdez said:

Yes, how apt!

Judging from some of my recent grades, I'm thinking the human graders are spending the same amount of time looking at books.

[paqart]

On 12/22/2023 at 10:47 AM, THE_BEYONDER said:

Has this been shown to be true?

I'm not sure. I saw the video but thought there was a leap of faith in the middle of the argument. My impression is that it was possible but not certain.

[Steven Valdez]

On 12/23/2023 at 3:10 AM, Dr. Balls said:

Judging from some of my recent grades, I'm thinking the human graders are spending the same amount of time looking at books.

At first I chuckled, but on reflection it's really no laughing matter.

[jsilverjanet]

On 12/21/2023 at 5:59 PM, RonS2112 said:

If there's a takeaway to this whole mess, this is it.  We are reaching the tail end (I think) of an incredibly irresponsible and lazy time regarding how this hobby has been conducted by folks looking to make a quick, easy dollar.  And the safeguards -- in particular CGC -- have not been safeguards at all, as it turns out.

 

excellent post

[VintageComics]

On 12/22/2023 at 11:07 AM, Steven Valdez said:

Indeed. I'm not necessarily implying that CGC is at fault in all of these situations, just that they somehow always happen to be a party to them; whether knowingly or otherwise.

Some people are always sour about CGC and want them to fail.

You're on a CGC message board. Of course you're mostly going to hear about CGC problems.

The only time you're going to hear about non-CGC problems is if someone posts about them here, and since the raw side of the hobby is probably many times bigger than the certified side of the hobby, you're getting an unequal representation. 

People need to learn to scale their perspective to reality. 

[skybolt]

On 12/22/2023 at 10:07 AM, Gonzimodo said:

Yeah, basically.  I don't know how he's opening and resealing cases or whatever, but he would need an individual 9.8 certification number and case for each of his little manufactured fakes.

Buy the 9.8.  Crack it open, add a lower-grade newsstand/MJ/CPV/whatever and send that comic in the 9.8 case back to CGC to correct their "error."

Resubmit (as a "raw") the original 9.8 book that he cracked out and receive a brand new certification number and case.

Crack it open, add a lower-grade newsstand/MJ/CPV/whatever and send that comic in the 9.8 case back to CGC to correct their "error."

Resubmit (as a "raw") the original 9.8 book that he cracked out and receive a brand new certification number and case.

Repeat as necessary.  The same, original 9.8 copy could generate as many 9.8 certification numbers and cases as he needs.

Yup, that makes a lot of sense and would explain the same book being resubmitted 10 times.