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

[VintageComics]

I started a new thread for the AI / grading discussion. 

You're welcome. 

[Mike's Rack]

On 12/22/2023 at 7:07 PM, DC# said:

At least for the green to blue swaps talked about here - if the new blue slabs were never opened again - then they are for all practical purposes the new blue label grade they show.  They are genuine even if being illegitimate at the same time.   Is a blood diamond a blood diamond if you don't know it's a blood diamond?   The buyers of these books may have already passed some of them along to other buyers and as long as people keep believing they are genuine then they are in effect genuine.   Sort of the insidious nature of this whole thing.     I am sure museums that have been defrauded with fake masterpieces have moments of wishing they never discovered that they were forgeries.      

Schrödinger’s MVS?

[JC25427N]

On 12/22/2023 at 9:31 PM, jcjames said:

AI is currently better, faster, more accurate at scanning medical imaging (which IMO is more complex than creases and spine tics) than any single human.

It didn't happen overnight, but it is possible. 

I think there's a slight confusion here

I think when you say scanning, you mean looking at an image and interpreting it, drawing conclusions from it, etc. Yeah I'm sure AI could do that for comic books if all preconditions are met for training such a model. 

When I say scanning, I mean taking a picture (taking a scan). So the concern raised by some CG expert earlier is that the picture taking technology in the current state is not sensitive enough for training a model to accurately grade. I don't believe it either personally (my main issue in that rant I went on was about data collection with the assumption all necessary machinery exists), but I was just repeating what someone else who claims to be a subject matter expert on CG (which I am not, so I kind of defer to them) said earlier .

Edited December 23, 2023 by JC25427N

[Steven Valdez]

Has Jerno uploaded his take on this yet?? That'll be the last word on the subject.

[William-James88]

On 12/22/2023 at 7:53 PM, VintageComics said:

What was the timeline on that?

I don't think this is Dylan, but that public discussion could have given people reading the threads ideas to exploit that avenue. 

The Dylan stuff happened before and this isn't him. I was just noticing that the scams we see tend to feature special labels. Like there's an exploit there. Might just be a coincidence though with the only exploit being that wanting a specialized label that didn't exist before is an easy excuse to try to get away with switching labels. Looks less fishy to CGC than just wanting a reslab.

This is a pretty good scam though. Buy a book, remove the certificate, stick it onto a lower grade book and ask for a reslab. And send the other book seperately another time raw. You get two high grade books in return. This whole Mark Jeweler thing takes me for a loop though. The initial slab was sold off, so how did that person know that it was mislabeled and should say it has an insert?

 

Shenanigans aside, this whole thing brings up a big fundamental issue I have with buying these kinds of slabs. You are buying a comic that is rare for having an insert and yet you can never truly validate for yourself if the insert is there. It's like Shrodinger's comic.

[Steven Valdez]

On 12/23/2023 at 5:34 AM, Iconic1s said:

If I were the 9.9newsstand guy that first blew the lid off of this I might be a little worried about potential legal action. Sure, I’m convinced they are different books, but we’re talking about a half a billion dollar company that just potentially lost ALL credibility because you have a good eye… if they can’t completely suppress this, they are not going down easy.  Imagine GM having a recall on every car they made in the last 20 years??

People have certainly gone missing for far lesser sums.... hey, I ain't sayin' nothin', don't get me wrong here.

[JC25427N]

On 12/22/2023 at 9:32 PM, Prince Namor said:

I guarantee you there are millions of scanned images out there from collectors who've been doing that for a long time. On top of that CGC already has a database of stored images. It wouldn't be as difficult as you think to put together. A fair amount of work, yes, but necessary to protect the integrity of the business.

Alright, I could believe that, but are all those scans of sufficient quality? You wouldn't really know until you train the model and look at the training results I suppose. One thing that could be a source of noise is if you have scans of differing quality in the dataset, that could introduce bias in the model. There's a whole lot of dimensionality to consider here, I'm just going off the cuff with what I would be thinking if I were asked to do this. It would take a lot of work, I'm not saying its impossible, but its not as easy as just saying "train the computer to do this"

 

edit: Sorry I just read all the posts in this thread asking to stop the AI talk, this thread moves at lightning pace forgive me I just saw it

Edited December 23, 2023 by JC25427N

[Timmay]

On 12/22/2023 at 8:06 PM, pdags said:

 

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.

definitely two different books

 

[William-James88]

On 12/22/2023 at 1:34 PM, Iconic1s said:

Sure, I’m convinced they are different books, but we’re talking about a half a billion dollar company that just potentially lost ALL credibility because you have a good eye… if they can’t completely suppress this, they are not going down easy. 

This is same old same old though and a statement similar to yours gets posted after similar issues like:

- When CGC gave blue labels to purple books through this custom label loophole

- When they ruined a Golden Age Cap book by detaching the cover while reslabbing it for a pedigree label and still have it a higher grade than originally slabbed

- When they missed a page and still gave the book a blue label 

 

- and for the myriad of times they lacked any common sense in grading (here's a fun one)

 

All these examples are signs that you never know if you can trust the slab you buy.. ever. CGC was not a credible company before, they aren't one today. They are simply the supposed "best game in town" by people investing in comics and until that changes, people still send a ton to them. So nothing will happen and the guys who pointed this out are in no lesser trouble than any of us for pointing out stuff like I just mentionned.

Edited December 23, 2023 by William-James88

[Prince Namor]

On 12/23/2023 at 9:45 AM, JC25427N said:

Alright, I could believe that, but are all those scans of sufficient quality? You wouldn't really know until you train the model and look at the training results I suppose. One thing that could be a source of noise is if you have scans of differing quality in the dataset, that could introduce bias in the model. There's a whole lot of dimensionality to consider here, I'm just going off the cuff with what I would be thinking if I were asked to do this. It would take a lot of work, I'm not saying its impossible, but its not as easy as just saying "train the computer to do this"

 

edit: Sorry I just read all the posts in this thread asking to stop the AI talk, this thread moves at lightning pace forgive me I just saw it

It'd be a matter of finding someone who meticulously used the best technology to record their collection. Luckily, this hobby attracts many of those types!

[Steven Valdez]

On 12/23/2023 at 5:59 AM, Sigur Ros said:

I predict...

CGC's eventual statement will be that there was an inside man. That way they can act as if the problem slabs are isolated and people think there aren't that many out there and it will blow over sooner.

I think they'll say that no matter what the reality is.

Also, it won't be there 1st or 2nd statement.  The usual revisions will occur first.

 

 

I can't envisage them admitting to it being an inside job, as that would make them look pathetically lax and incompetent.

More likely we'll get a generic, 'The problem has been dealt with and we are taking steps to ensure this will never happen again.'

Of course what they should do is a mass recall of every book they've ever graded for a re-grade and re-slab, covering all expenses to everyone and swiftly going bankrupt... oh, wait.

[Sigur Ros]

On 12/22/2023 at 9:42 PM, Steven Valdez said:

Has Jerno uploaded his take on this yet?? That'll be the last word on the subject.

His poor neighbors.

Loudest guy on YouTube 

[BCR]

The glaring thing to me, and correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it literal the policy of CGC that if we send in a book for re-hollering, that that book will be subjected to re-grading? 
 

Like, think about how preposterous it would be if you could send in ANY book that’s currently within a holder and you automatically receive the same grade. That’s not just non-sensical, it’s absurd, hence — to my understanding — there is a mandatory re-grading with every re-holder. 
 

On the particulars, this person might’ve done this with the same newly submitted book over and over and over and over again. On our end, we would only see the two books (the submission and the re-holder), but he then still has that original book. He then resubmits it and it all starts all over again. He could’ve done this 50 times with the same book. Always buying a cheap version (say, green label) version, and going through this process. This could be hundreds of thousands of dollars in fraud. 
 

Again, it’s imperative that we find out who has purchased these books so that they can file this fraud with the FBI. Each one of these cases are punishable by up to 20 years in prison. This person needs to be removed from civilized society. And CGC needs to help do it if they want any chance of coming back from this. 

[Sigur Ros]

On 12/22/2023 at 10:03 PM, Steven Valdez said:

I can't envisage them admitting to it being an inside job, as that would make them look pathetically lax and incompetent.

 

Understood.

But I just think the "Inside man" gives a defined time period.  A "limit" to the problem.  An "out".

Where as "we just keep screwing up, we've always been this way" would actually make them look more incompetent.

I dunno.

[William-James88]

On 12/22/2023 at 10:12 PM, Sigur Ros said:

Where as "we just keep screwing up, we've always been this way" would actually make them look more incompetent.

I dunno.

But they do just keep screwing up and have always been that way as I showed in my post. But it hasnt mattered so far. I don't see how this is what breaks the camel's back rather than is just being same old same old

 

[Steven Valdez]

On 12/23/2023 at 6:57 AM, Superman2006 said:

Yes, but at least it would add another level of security. Of course, no matter what CGC does scammers can try to find a way to get around it (I don't like to explain possible ways, lest the scammers get any ideas). If they put all that work into an honest days work, they'd still make money and not have to look over their shoulder for when it all falls apart : (

As I mentioned earlier, strongly adhesive hologram stickers on every edge of the case would mitigate opportunities for fraud.

[Comics]

On 12/22/2023 at 5:06 PM, pdags said:

 

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.

That's the same background as was in a bunch of the photos I found of Comic Selects previous sales... Also -  when you click on zaneglor it leads to ebay but no user. Usually when someone has stopped using an ebay account there will be a 'no longer registered' after the username. Did their previous seller name get taken off ebay? And if so - why did eBay let them back on???

[BCR]

I’m actually SHOCKED CBCS hasn’t come forward to tell us all why this could never have happened under their watch. 

Every single CGC that has ever been re-holdered is now potentially a counterfeit on some level. Lesser grade, a literal counterfeit…

We can never buy another CGC book as collectors if that book has been re-holdered. Especially if that book is in the thousands of dollars. 

[Mdesimone]

On 12/21/2023 at 10:45 PM, JC25427N said:

 

I thought the name sounded familiar, I think I won an auction from Zaneglor in 2020.  But I checked my ebay purchase history and saw the seller's name as aureliaag. I thought that sounded odd so I went to https://www.ebay.com/fdbk/feedback_profile/aureliaag and it has a little symbol next to their name that says the user ID has changed recently, so I tried putting zaneglor in that feedback profile URL and it leads to the same page with the same feedbacks https://www.ebay.com/fdbk/feedback_profile/zaneglor . I don't know why ebay doesn't just show you ID history anymore but this seems to be a hacky workaround if you know what you're searching for.

So zaneglor is currently aureliaag, but hasn't sold anything for a couple years it seems.

I won a book from aureliaag also back in 2019 and it did ship from Forrest hills queens

[jcjames]

On 12/22/2023 at 8:19 PM, Steven Valdez said:

As I mentioned earlier, strongly adhesive hologram stickers on every edge of the case would mitigate opportunities for fraud.

Yep. All four sides and any broken seal requires a full regrade. 

For years thin metallic or mylar tape has been used to identify tampered-with electronics or other warrantied products. 

There's certainly been good reason for CGC to have already moved into that type of integrity protection for many, many years now.