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

[jeffreyk]

On 12/22/2023 at 5:23 PM, VintageComics said:

The old wells were sealed on 4 sides. 2 vertical seals all the way from top to bottom, and two horizontal seals above and below the book.

The vertical sealings (along the longest part of the inner well) went all the way from the top to the bottom of the inner holder, and that seal was used to also partially seal the label to the inner wells.

The idea being, if you removed the label, a little paper was torn off by the seal showing it was tampered with. 

The problem was that it wasn't always effective and so part of the problem they tried to address with the Gen 3 design, was to eliminate label tampering as well as book tampering. 

Gotcha...thank you!

[paqart]

On 12/22/2023 at 4:03 PM, brute_nm said:

As we approach 75 pages, I'm worried that the details of the seller and the scam will get lost in all the side conversations and bickering.  Here's my attempt at summarizing what we know right now.

I know this is a rapidly-evolving situation, and stuff will likely change in coming days/weeks, but hopefully this helps distill the thread down to a digestible level.

Here's another stumper: If we are agreed that cert #'s  and  are the same comic (IH 181), then the lower graded comic with missing value stamp was graded after the other one.

Grade dates: 

 6/2/2023 (grade 9.0, Universal)

 7/25/2023 (grade 8.5, Universal)

Based on this, CGC corrected the bad grade (9.0) with a qualified grade (8.5) but gave it a new number at the same time. 

[ADAMANTIUM]

On 12/22/2023 at 4:07 PM, VintageComics said:

Sorry, yes. I was in Seattle July 2016. Just typing too fast. 

Weird that the software wouldn't allow me to edit this post for a while. I kept getting a notification saying it was too old to edit?

When it happens just refresh or give it a minute then refresh. It happens to me too and with my typos myself, it can be a bit of a bummer 😂

[VintageComics]

On 12/22/2023 at 10:16 AM, MyNameIsLegion said:

On 12/21/2023 at 12:18 PM, VintageComics said:

I can see AI being used to prevent, or at least catch or highlight fraud in the future. 

I can't see it EVER replacing graders. There's too much involved with grading a 3 dimensional object like a book with many pages for just a program to do on it's own. 

oh?

https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/21/style/raphael-madonna-della-rosa-ai-scli-intl-scn/index.html

yeah, while CGC is busy ignoring this thread, someone is thinking about how they can grade more,faster using AI. MCS will probably get their first because they are innovation minded but the first grading company to figure this out will disrupt the market in a way that poses the single biggest threat to CGC's dominance, much more than this little embarrassing thread. It's not a question of IF AI will will do grading of collectibles, but when. 3D objects objects are not an issue. That's been fairly routine for a decade. The last guy at CGC that might still have a job in 10 years, ironically enough as it pertains to this thread, is the mook reholdering books.

I don't think you understand what goes into grading a comic book.

Identifying 2 dimensional details like art shapes and brush strokes from the article you linked is one thing.  

Assessing a 3 dimensional object is something entirely different. 

How do you get AI to examine 30 or 60 pages?

How do you get AI to FEEL the pages? Smell the pages?

Assess how the entire book FEELS?

These are all factors in grading a book. It's NOT just a matter of counting spine ticks. 

You'd need to get things like radiology, weigh scales and all sorts of other things in the process. 

Now you need to make it cost effective and efficient because you can't spend 5 mins on a book. 

There's just too much, multi-dimensional, human involvement in grading a book from what I can envision. 

Edited December 22, 2023 by VintageComics

[Kevin76]

Id imagine you could just crack out the outer case, pull out the label and switch it out, then send it back for a reholder, the way to stop this is for the person doing the reholder is to open the inner well and double check for coupons/inserts. This seems like whoever did the reholder, took a shortcut and it came back to bite'em. I'd imagine new procedures will be implemented for reholdering now.   

[boreds]

Has anyone found out his identity yet? I'm shocked none of his buyers haven't made his name known. One of them must be paying attention to what's happening.

 

The unfortunate thing is since there was no word from CGC today, it's doubtful there will be any news next week over the holidays. Then we're already into New Year's. Will this story still have the same traction come January 1st? Maybe that's what CGC is waiting for... for this situation to lose all momentum.

[JC25427N]

On 12/22/2023 at 5:25 PM, Prince Namor said:

Can you imagine? A 100% fair, near perfect, CONSISTENT, and FAST program to do grading?

That would be great, but I don't think we'll get there even with an AI model, at least not at first. A lot of people think of AI as a soulless and emotionless arbiter that only concerns itself with facts and logic, but that's only true to a certain extent. AI models can still have biases and inaccuracies depending on how they were trained, for all we know once we start rolling out machine learning models for grading people will say its biased towards yellow covers and gives them higher grades because most of the high grade books it was trained on were yellow so it sees yellow as a sign of high grade, or that it's inaccurate at grading Golden Age books because it wasn't trained on enough of them. And that's not even with going into the possibility of someone finding potential exploit in the models (imagine the exact model gets leaked by an "inside man") and people find out how to get restoration past it, how to hide certain defects from it, etc.

Most of these issues could be resolved by using an AI model alongside a human grader, and most of them would probably get resolved as the model matures, but I don't think we're close to a 100% fair, near perfect, consistent, and fast program, I don't think anyones even really working on a first iteration of such a model (You would have to collect a large enough dataset first to even attempt it, and according to some other people's opinions the current capability of hi-res scans wouldn't be sufficient)

Edited December 22, 2023 by JC25427N

[MAR1979]

On 12/22/2023 at 5:42 PM, boreds said:

The unfortunate thing is since there was no word from CGC today, it's doubtful there will be any news next week over the holidays. Then we're already into New Year's. Will this story still have the same traction come January 1st? Maybe that's what CGC is waiting for... for this situation to lose all momentum.

 As I predicted no response today.  CGC will do what you and I mentioned, simply let it fizzle out and it will! CGC will not change or do anything that will cost them a single dollar. Whereas if they say something/anything they might have to...

On 12/22/2023 at 9:38 AM, MAR1979 said:

Fish in Barrel Predictions:

1) ZERO Response From CGC today - Hey @VintageComics the Parent Company does not care about optics and certainly not about supplying a response before this or any holiday weekend.
2) ZERO Response From CGC EVER regarding this situation - letting it all fizzle out organically represents a tried and true playbook.
3) CGC will do nothing and change nothing with their slabs unless they find a way to increase the Newton Ring occurrences.
4) CGC Apologists will down play everything
5) Peeps will continue to submit comics to CGC unabated
6) Many more will be swindled by this Comic Seller/Dealer who knows how simple it is to exploit CGC process!
7) Other Comic Sellers/Dealers will attempt (and most will succeed) to duplicate the scam - they are Comic Dealers after all!

The only item on above list CGC is concerned with in any manner whatsoever is #5

Unlikely Prediction:

eBay if they see sales trend down in the Graded Comics category as they did with Trading Cards will institute a protection program for slabbed books over a certain dollar amount.

- Who will verify them ? As they already slipped through CGC, it can and will occur again.

- Unlike trading cards in theory they need to be cracked out and verified for completeness. Which is what CGC was paid to do in the first place and often fails at.

 

If I'm wrong my bold-ed predictions then great, however pretty low odds of that....

 

@VintageComics -  I'm correct on Prediction #1.  

Edited December 22, 2023 by MAR1979

[paqart]

Ignore my previous post. Of course the higher grade slab comes first, it has to. Then, it's comic is removed and replaced by another comic that may have been graded later. The reholder retains original grade date, though it is made much later.

[BrashL]

On 12/22/2023 at 4:39 PM, VintageComics said:

I don't think you understand what goes into grading a comic book.

Identifying 2 dimensional details like art shapes and brush strokes from the article you linked is one thing.  

Assessing a 3 dimensional object is something entirely different. 

How do you get AI to examine 30 or 60 pages?

How do you get AI to FEEL the pages? Smell the pages?

Assess how the entire book FEELS?

These are all factors in grading a book. It's NOT just a matter of counting spine ticks. 

You'd need to get things like radiology, weigh scales and all sorts of other things in the process. 

Now you need to make it cost effective and efficient because you can't spend 5 mins on a book. 

There's just too much, multi-dimensional, human involvement in grading a book from what I can envision. 

And what about this thread makes you think the humans at CGC are doing any of that either? 😂

[VintageComics]

On 12/22/2023 at 5:45 PM, MAR1979 said:

@VintageComics - I'm correct on Prediction #1.  

Why do you keep tagging me?

I'm as surprised as you are that nobody has addressed this. Not much anyone can do. 

[Prince Namor]

On 12/23/2023 at 5:39 AM, VintageComics said:

How do you get AI to examine 30 or 60 pages?

How do you get CGC to do it???

[MAR1979]

On 12/22/2023 at 5:46 PM, VintageComics said:

Why do you keep tagging me?

I'm as surprised as you are that nobody has addressed this. Not much anyone can do. 

I'm the exact opposite of surprised. 

[grendel013]

On 12/22/2023 at 1:22 PM, skybolt said:

You mean like send a couple of CGC slabs to a factory in China to see if they can replicate it in bulk?

Or maybe a box or two fell off the delivery truck on the way to CGC.

[Comics]

Does anyone know of an eBay account "corner142" ? My limited - but i feel pretty solid - research says they might be connected, perhaps an old account of Comic Selects. Quite likely in fact. Here is a screenshot of their watermark and a couple books sold in 2020. I think a board member "NewWorldOrder" said in 2018 they had therm on their block list. From looked at their auctiuons from a few years ago, if they are the same person as Comic Selects, it seems they had not yet figured out the MJ bait and switch by 2020...

[Happy Noodle Boy]

On 12/22/2023 at 12:49 PM, JC25427N said:

The fact that people are still saying this is baffling to me. You can read a comic in a thousand ways and still have a copy of it in a slab

It's stupid to believe everyone who likes slabs doesn't read comics

Exactly.

[Comics]

On 12/22/2023 at 2:51 PM, Comics said:

Does anyone know of an eBay account "corner142" ? My limited - but i feel pretty solid - research says they might be connected, perhaps an old account of Comic Selects. Quite likely in fact. Here is a screenshot of their watermark and a couple books sold in 2020. I think a board member "NewWorldOrder" said in 2018 they had therm on their block list. From looked at their auctiuons from a few years ago, if they are the same person as Comic Selects, it seems they had not yet figured out the MJ bait and switch by 2020...

The Seige variant was sold in 2020 with the following description - which is EXTREMELY CLOSE to Comic Selects description - right down to odd capitalization: 

"Up for a NO RESERVE auction is a CGC 9.8 Graded copy of One of the hottest Modern books around. You are bidding on a Rare and Beautiful Copy, an ICONIC and absolutely stunning Must have Copy. This book has been increasing in value steadily and is without question a perfect addition for a Siege, Deadpool, modern Age or Marvel collector. Key book in the Marvel Universe!! 

A must have for any Comic Book Collector and a rare opportunity to own a Modern Super Key issue, these are Highly sought after and have some of the most beautiful artwork.  Books like this one only go up in Value over time.  The Siege Arc & Deadpool Franchise are both must have titles and are well known for the amazing artwork.

This book is one of the most beautiful and important Modern age Keys, its rarity and amazing cover by J Scott also makes it highly desirable and rare in high grade. Take a close look, Zoom in and decide for yourself. 

It is nearly impossible to find Raw Copies of these that are worth grading.  The $$$ and Hard work has already been done for you. Furthermore, CGC has assigned perfect page quality. 

All Serious bids will be considered.   If you Have any Questions Please Email me…."

[pdags]

Sorry if this was already posted, but could someone review this book for possible tampering:

https://www.cgccomics.com/certlookup/1295091001/

https://comics.ha.com/itm/bronze-age-1970-1979-/superhero/the-incredible-hulk-181-marvel-1974-cgc-vf-85-off-white-to-white-pages/a/121753-15392.s

https://mavin.io/item/Incredible-Hulk-%23-181-cgc-8.5-Stan-Lee%2C1-st-Wolverine-Movie-coming-180-x%3Dmen?itemId=255118082750&q=X-men %23181

Same registry number, but IMHO the book sold on HA matches the grader's notes and is not the same book in the second link.  The back of the books are completely different; see staining on top of the second book.

 

Edited December 22, 2023 by pdags

[Comics]

On 12/22/2023 at 2:56 PM, Comics said:

The Seige variant was sold in 2020 with the following description - which is EXTREMELY CLOSE to Comic Selects description - right down to odd capitalization: 

"Up for a NO RESERVE auction is a CGC 9.8 Graded copy of One of the hottest Modern books around. You are bidding on a Rare and Beautiful Copy, an ICONIC and absolutely stunning Must have Copy. This book has been increasing in value steadily and is without question a perfect addition for a Siege, Deadpool, modern Age or Marvel collector. Key book in the Marvel Universe!! 

A must have for any Comic Book Collector and a rare opportunity to own a Modern Super Key issue, these are Highly sought after and have some of the most beautiful artwork.  Books like this one only go up in Value over time.  The Siege Arc & Deadpool Franchise are both must have titles and are well known for the amazing artwork.

This book is one of the most beautiful and important Modern age Keys, its rarity and amazing cover by J Scott also makes it highly desirable and rare in high grade. Take a close look, Zoom in and decide for yourself. 

It is nearly impossible to find Raw Copies of these that are worth grading.  The $$$ and Hard work has already been done for you. Furthermore, CGC has assigned perfect page quality. 

All Serious bids will be considered.   If you Have any Questions Please Email me…."

@VintageComics

@comicwiz

@sledgehammer

[brute_nm]

On 12/22/2023 at 3:56 PM, Comics said:

The $$$ and Hard work has already been done for you.

And there's your proof

Good find, @Comics, I'll add that username to my summary on p. 72

Edited December 23, 2023 by brute_nm