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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

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On 12/28/2023 at 1:27 PM, jsilverjanet said:

isnt the reason people counterfeit $20 bills instead of $100 is because it's easier to get away with

$20 are still feasible and worth the time and effort.  $100 are usually under more scrutiny.  It is common to pass off a fake $20 by buying a bagel and then getting legitimate money in return.  It's really not about buying full value with the fake currency but getting back legitimate change. 

The counterfeiters are not manufacturing $1's and $5's. 

 

When it comes to Star Wars figures.  Remember the pics of the loose EV-9D9 you sent me?  Broken version of that figure are going for $200 now.  Non broken ones are reaching $400 in some markets.  Graded samples are north of there.  That is becoming a commonly counterfeited figure due to the price increase. 

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VintageComics

VintageComics

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On 12/28/2023 at 1:29 PM, wiparker824 said:

Exactly. The video shows the most important piece, the heat gun being used to seamlessly open one of the pins on the corners. Yes he messed up the other one, and may have been sloppy with the sealant putting it back. But the fact he could pop that corner pin seamlessly means someone who actually spent a lot of time perfecting this could get this down to a science. This is just a guy who was trying something in his garage for fun on a couple books. That alone is alarming. 

Not quite a 'guy trying something in his garage'. Apparently he's a chemist by trade? Most people don't even know what Xylene is, well they didn't until he posted that video publicly. 

I agree with the sentiment of most that CGC should be studying how to get around their win safeguards if they aren't already (and I'd be surprised if they weren't or hadn't done some R+D in this direction). 

I wonder if Blackstone looked into stuff like this before their purchase of the company?

Edited by VintageComics
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Buzzetta

Buzzetta

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Posted
On 12/28/2023 at 1:29 PM, jsilverjanet said:

maybe some of those with special access can PM directly and report back the rest of us

Wasn't there someone moderating this thread that might have that access ?

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fastballspecial

fastballspecial

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Here are again less then a year later with another issue. This problem is a perfect storm
for con artists. Large volume submissions and add in understand company and you get that. 
All the being said we get books that have been tampered with at shows and switched out
but its very rare. I suspect its going to get larger now. 

You can tell who is new to slabbing sometimes by their outrage on facebook. They have no
ideas about Percy and Jason Ewert from years ago. I am more forgiving of this one then the
UF4 fiasco last year. 

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agamoto

agamoto

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What are they going to do about the design flaw in their slabs that allowed this to occur in the first place?

When are they going to tell us how many books out there are part of the pool of potentially relabeled books? Every single one of them is a possible swap-out candidate.  

Not that it would have helped in this scenario, but if they plan to adopt new security methods, will the consumers who buy/sell/trade comics in their holders be educated on how to spot tampered cases? 

When are they going to explain how this particular submitter managed to get such great grading success with virtually all his submissions when many folks just as experienced with comics struggle to hit 9.8's?

When are they going to explain how this particular seller somehow managed to get his books turned around in new cases and sold on the same day they were graded or within days?

Are they going to include the original grade date AND the relabel date on the verification page?

How do they plan to ensure us with certainty only a single individual is involved? Could there not be dozens, maybe even hundreds of unscrupulous people who did the exact same thing with missing MVS books? Missing pin-ups? high grade qualifieds? People who weren't so greedy, who never sold on eBay, etc. 

I would love to believe it's one bad apple and this issue affects only a few hundred books, but that's tough to reconcile given human nature and the easy breezy way the CGC reholder/relabel process was breached.

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lostboys

lostboys

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On 12/28/2023 at 1:40 PM, wombat said:

I don't think that is what we were discussing. But sure. The only thing they are worried about is how to spend the least amount of money to make this go away. 

I simply dont think its possible for CGC to control fraud once theyve done their job to the best of their abilities.

If folks can buy CGC cases from China...what is CGC supposed to do?

 

 

What bothers me is I dont think, and I may be wrong, that CGC has been doing all they can to prevent this.

For reholders, custom labels and even MEs, they should be opening the inner wells and regrading, not just slipping the old sleeve into a new slab.

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wombat

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On 12/28/2023 at 1:48 PM, lostboys said:

I simply dont think its possible for CGC to control fraud once theyve done their job to the best of their abilities.

If folks can buy CGC cases from China...what is CGC supposed to do?

 

 

What bothers me is I dont think, and I may be wrong, that CGC has been doing all they can to prevent this.

For reholders, custom labels and even MEs, they should be opening the inner wells and regrading, not just slipping the old sleeve into a new slab.

So you think putting out a case that has been shown to be somewhat easy to crack open and put back together "done their job to the best of their abilities"?

We aren't talking about cases from China. We are talking about cases from CGC. 

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SpiderParker

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On 12/28/2023 at 1:41 PM, agamoto said:

What are they going to do about the design flaw in their slabs that allowed this to occur in the first place?

When are they going to tell us how many books out there are part of the pool of potentially relabeled books? Every single one of them is a possible swap-out candidate.  

Not that it would have helped in this scenario, but if they plan to adopt new security methods, will the consumers who buy/sell/trade comics in their holders be educated on how to spot tampered cases? 

When are they going to explain how this particular submitter managed to get such great grading success with virtually all his submissions when many folks just as experienced with comics struggle to hit 9.8's?

When are they going to explain how this particular seller somehow managed to get his books turned around in new cases and sold on the same day they were graded or within days?

Are they going to include the original grade date AND the relabel date on the verification page?

How do they plan to ensure us with certainty only a single individual is involved? Could there not be dozens, maybe even hundreds of unscrupulous people who did the exact same thing with missing MVS books? Missing pin-ups? high grade qualifieds? People who weren't so greedy, who never sold on eBay, etc. 

I would love to believe it's one bad apple and this issue affects only a few hundred books, but that's tough to reconcile given human nature and the easy breezy way the CGC reholder/relabel process was breached.

They literally have no way of knowing how many books were or are effected.  This is the ONE guy that got caught.  Ths will be an issue forever as there is no way for them to rectify the millions of slabbed books in existence unless they have a voluntary recall to regarded and slab books in said cases assuming they have a redesigned method and case.  

Plus if I have a Hulk 181 green label and swap it out with a blue label case and reseal it myself and sell it.  I send the blue back through as a raw book for grading.  There is literally no trace of any wrong doing here.  Nothing to trace or track.  

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lostboys

lostboys

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On 12/28/2023 at 1:49 PM, wombat said:

So you think putting out a case that has been shown to be somewhat easy to crack open and put back together "done their job to the best of their abilities"?

We aren't talking about cases from China. We are talking about cases from CGC. 

 

 

I like the idea of having the number on both the case and the inner well.

 

But I also think, over time, someone will figure out how to fake that as well.

 

What I fear is that the "graded" comic book community may not be able to survive many more scandals like the "graded" sports card community has.

 

We are much smaller and no one really cares about us but us.

 

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Mephisto

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On 12/28/2023 at 1:56 PM, lostboys said:

I also dont think CGC can completely seal the cases because if they are airtight, over time that would affect the comic...no?

 

 It's semi-permeable, it's not osmotic, what it does is it coats and seals the comic and prevents the milk from penetrating it.

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Buzzetta

Buzzetta

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On 12/28/2023 at 1:48 PM, lostboys said:

I simply dont think its possible for CGC to control fraud once theyve done their job to the best of their abilities.

If folks can buy CGC cases from China...what is CGC supposed to do?

 

 

What bothers me is I dont think, and I may be wrong, that CGC has been doing all they can to prevent this.

For reholders, custom labels and even MEs, they should be opening the inner wells and regrading, not just slipping the old sleeve into a new slab.

Lego barely had enough clout to go after a Chinese manufacturer that was stealing their intellectual design and duplicating the sets.  They introduced slightly different clasping methods in the brick molds but the instructions for the sets were literally the same.   It went on for awhile until China could no longer ignore Lego.   This was Lego.  Lego has a far greater market share than CGC. 

https://www.lego.com/en-us/aboutus/news/2020/january/lepin-case 

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Buzzetta

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On 12/28/2023 at 1:56 PM, THE_BEYONDER said:

Ah yes.   I remember that fiasco 

 

Thanks

Some refer to it as Acetategate

Others refer to it as "Keep Your Wife from Clayton Crain Gate"

Edited by Buzzetta
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