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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

Buzzetta

Buzzetta

Posted
Posted
On 12/27/2023 at 10:41 AM, Steven Valdez said:

He literally shows us how to do it on his video (linked further up the page).

What I am saying is that what he is showing you is not new.  People have been doing that for years to get into sonically welded and glued action figures.  

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Paul III

Paul III

Posted
Posted
On 12/26/2023 at 2:27 PM, DWL said:

CGC customer service?

Yes, CGC Customer Service. I didn’t feel the need to include who sent it, I was just happy that they responded and acknowledged our concerns. I’m sure I am not the only person who has had a response, I have not been a member long, little over a year and about 25 submissions, but all my interactions have been positive to date. Never been a forum guy, first time caller long time listener, but with 24 years experience on eBay and more years than I would like to say collecting LOTS of things, I thought I would chime in.

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Dr. Balls

Dr. Balls

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Posted
On 12/27/2023 at 8:44 AM, THE_BEYONDER said:

How many more pages will this thread be before we get an official response from CGC?

My guess is that they thought it was just the typical grumblings of Boardies with some Youtuber conspiracy video at the beginning of all this. Now, it's blown up into quite a large issue that actually threatens their brand. The downside for them is that all the PR people and Execs are out for vacation this week lol, so this topic will have a whole 'nuther week to fester and turn into a full-blown catastrophe by the time they sit down and see what's been happening.

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MAR1979

MAR1979

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 12/27/2023 at 10:39 AM, BrashL said:

The irony here is if CGC would have just come out and said “We know who’s doing this, we’ll release all the certs and regrade for free” or something this probably goes away and they get credit for great customer service. Now the whole value of the service is in serious doubt. 

Yep that's called "getting ahead of a problem". Their inaction fueled by stinginess was and continues to not be smart. Before this is said and done the CGC name could be tainted beyond repair. Thus impeding the latter part of Blackstone's Pump and Dump. Certain Execs right now who have outside offers on the table are probably making phone calls in prep for a hasty skedaddle.

Edited by MAR1979
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darkstar

darkstar

Posted
Posted
On 12/27/2023 at 2:15 AM, agamoto said:

Just so you know some facts to consider, Yorick, he bought the book a 9.4 off ebay on April 2, 2023. He had that book delivered to him, then repacked and sent with his 4 other books in the same submission on the desk of a grader, not just received by CGC mind you, but at a grader's desk, 7 business days later on April 12th, 2023.

Like the subject of the thread says... Fishy. 

 

The 9.4 wasn't swapped with the 9.8 and graded on 4/12. The time window doesn't fit. The swap occurred sometime after that and before the two sales in August. 

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Stefan_W

Stefan_W

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Posted

Videos showing how to get into cases undetected are a double edged sword. On one hand they help people to understand what happened, which is great. But on the other hand they can also serve as instructional videos for how to carry out scams. The people currently do it already know about all of this, but it could give others ideas which can potentially widen the issue in ways none of us want. 

So I have mixed feelings about whether videos like that are a community service. 

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mephistopheles

mephistopheles

Posted
Posted
On 12/27/2023 at 11:41 AM, Steven Valdez said:

Dr Rick is a chemist, as I understand it.

Yeah exactly. Not saying it's impossible for your average scammer to figure out and acquire but applying Occam's Razor, I think it's more likely that CGC isn't examining reholders properly. That's how a 9.2 Mark Jewellers got reholdered into a 9.8.

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Cat

Cat

Posted
Posted
On 12/28/2023 at 1:43 AM, Buzzetta said:

What I am saying is that what he is showing you is not new.  People have been doing that for years to get into sonically welded and glued action figures.  

Decades, even. It's absolutely an old technique in action figure circles. Good call, Buzz. 

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MatterEaterLad

MatterEaterLad

Posted
Posted
On 12/27/2023 at 8:04 AM, comicwiz said:

This is a repost of a Green/Qualified 7.0 becoming a Blue/Universal 7.5

4115260001 - Incredible Hulk 181 Qualified 7.0 (Incomplete) (GD: 08/24/2022)

4115260001-Green70.thumb.png.19ebaf790271a8838e0ce00b60241cb5.png

4115170002 - Incredible Hulk 181 Universal 7.5 (GD: 08/24/2022)

4115170002-Blue75.png.6899e0232eecf9b51f49262c9717e946.png

So...were these two books originally subbed on the same day? Then swapped and sent in for reholdering?

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Dr. Balls

Dr. Balls

Posted
Posted
On 12/27/2023 at 8:48 AM, Stefan_W said:

Videos showing how to get into cases undetected are a double edged sword. On one hand they help people to understand what happened, which is great. But on the other hand they can also serve as instructional videos for how to carry out scams. The people currently do it already know about all of this, but it could give others ideas which can potentially widen the issue in ways none of us want. 

So I have mixed feelings about whether videos like that are a community service. 

I think the videos are an excellent way to de-mystify the whole package and expose flaws in their systems. CGC should have taken better steps in researching how their slabs would be tampered with. I'm all for these videos that show us how stuff works and how other people might exploit them. It makes us better educated in the product. CGC - with some marketing savvy - could learn from this (which they did with their grading book, which I felt was an excellent sellable addition to their product enhancement line)

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sd2416

sd2416

Posted
Posted
On 12/27/2023 at 9:38 AM, Buzzetta said:

 

This is speculation as I have never tried it. 

I have kind of held that suspicion for awhile, actually a couple of years before this took place due to how certain GI Joe figures are taken apart.  With some GI Joe and Star Wars figures both modern and vintage they are held together in such a way that the only way to take them apart and reassemble them was through heat.  Customizers have been known to loosen the plastics through the old "boil and pop" method.   I was looking at this customization page once when I got a comic order and realized that you could probably figure out a way to boil and pop the posts without damaging the CGC shell. 

You figure to boil and pop the posts is the equivalent to popping out the limbs on a figure.  Then you slowly and carefully separate the torso (the welded part of the figure) with an exacto.  This would be the equivalent to the body of the slab.  Some pop easily and some do not.    I would imagine that if you have any skill in that area that a slab would be easier than a smaller action figure.  The smaller the item the more difficult it might be to separate.  So if an action figure can be customized I do not see why those guys would not be able to dismantle a CGC shell in a manner that it can easily be put back together again. 

@comicwiz - You would know far more than I do when it comes to this.

Zartan, Zandar, Zaranna.  The color change figures you have to boil and pop to change the o ring. 

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pdags

pdags

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 12/27/2023 at 10:48 AM, Stefan_W said:

So I have mixed feelings about whether videos like that are a community service. 

I understand, but at this point it needed to be done.  CGC had several days to address this and did nothing.  The CEO should be fired.  If I had been running CGC *everyone* would've been working on Christmas Eve and Christmas to get this address.

To be fair it's not like anything special was revealed other than how easy it is to separate the slabs.   Applying heat and forcing separation would've been the first thing I would've tried to separate a slab.  Xylene type solvent would've been the third or fourth thing I would've tried to glue the slabs back together.

 

 

Edited by pdags
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