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

[Heronext]

On 1/5/2024 at 2:48 PM, wiparker824 said:

If you are the seller you can see the id’s who you sold to, even if they’re old they are in an email that gets sent to you unless you delete your email. If you aren’t the seller eBay anonymizes and hides everything now. 

Does anyone remember if the buy-side account for eBay transactions was visible to all users (even those not involved in the transaction) back in 2016, and is that information searchable with services like Worthpoint and Terapeak?

@comicwiz

[THE_BEYONDER]

On 1/5/2024 at 3:30 PM, shadroch said:

It's unverified and gossip. When the people doing the investigations are confident, I'm sure this will be one of the places the perps are exposed. 

Perps?

[comicwiz]

On 1/5/2024 at 3:23 PM, LordRahl said:

I thought the CRP part of my post was relatively self-evident but I'll spell it out. IH 181, there are 19 on the list out of 350. That's 5.4% of the list. For those of you that believe this numbers in the thousands of fraudulent books... let's say what...5K? If the percentage holds, that would be 270 IH 181's that would be fraudulent. If there are 270 Qualified IH 181's out there sitting in Blue slabs, and this book is frequently CPR'd, you don't think someone would have stumbled on one of them by now when they cracked it and sent it in? That goes for every book on the list that isn't a 9.8, so far more than 270 total books. 

As for batches, yeah I think ASM 300's and 194's, he is sending in batched. There are simply too many for this to be a 1 at a time kind of thing. For the books that don't have that many examples, could very well be 1 at a time. 

That is an interesting perspective, but CPR had zero to do with this persons alleged actions. 

What this person or multiple people allegedly exploited was subverting a process where the interior inspection of a book notorious for cut out MVS awarded them the opportunity to buy a qualified example at a fraction of what the universal counterpart sold for once the swap was finalized.

They chose that scheme because of the amount of inventory that exists of qualified Hulk 181's. In some instances, they didn't even try to align the grades between green and blue.

They did it with Hulk 181's, and MJ inserts because they figured out a way to subvert a process that ordinarily would never allow a book in an incomplete state to achieve a universal designation, or as high a grade as attained. 

I not only read what you said, and am trying to understand your point, but know that I also weighed my options very carefully against this opportunistic methodology with the discoveries I made, and I can see books in the waiting on the dataset that would have been the next candidate to pass through in the same emboldened manner had it not been for the discoveries. I'm sure many here, myself included, are in complete disbelief, given the ultra-conservative criteria CGC uses to assign not only grades, but it's universal designation.

This has nothing to do with CPR. The amount of money made taking a qualified example and turning it universal was a path that might have included restored, if not for the notorious issue for missing MVS, and the staggering inventory of qualifieds.

Cut out MVS, not CPR, is the reason for the jump in the dataset for Hulk 181's. And if not for the discoveries made, it would have continued, and broadened to other big hitters that follow that above stated formula.

Edited January 5 by comicwiz

[360flip]

One more submission breakdown.

Grade Date
10/20/2023
flagged by CGC, all custom labels likely swapped to lower grade book after 10/20/2023
4343218    001    Amazing Spider-Man #238
4343218    002    Amazing Spider-Man #238
4343218    003    Amazing Spider-Man #300
4343218    004    Amazing Spider-Man #300

The 5th book of that submission is
4343218    005    FF #4 7.5 grade

Thought he was planning to swap a lower grade version of FF#4 into the 4343218    005 slab but looks like it sold on ebay in Nov

https://www.ebay.com/itm/285549202720

 

[LordRahl]

On 1/5/2024 at 12:35 PM, comicwiz said:

That is an interesting perspective, but CPR had zero to do with this persons alleged actions. 

What this person or multiple people allegedly exploited was subverting a process where the interior inspection of a book notorious for cut out MVS awarded them the opportunity to buy a qualified example at a fraction of what the universal counterpart sold for once the swap was finalized.

They chose that scheme because of the amount of inventory that exists of qualified Hulk 181's. In some instances, they didn't even try to align the grades between green and blue.

The did it with this book, and MJ inserts because they figured out a way to subvert a process that ordinarily would never allow a book to achieve a universal designation, or as high a grade as attained. 

I not only read what you said, and am trying to understand your point, but know that I also weighed my options very carefully against this opportunistic methodology with the discoveries I made, and I can see books in the waiting on the dataset that would have been the next candidate to pass through in the same embolded manner. I'm sure many here, myself include, are in complete disbelief, given the ultra-conservative criteria CGC uses to assign not only grades, but it's universal designation.

This has nothing to do with CPR. The amount of money made taking a qualified example and turning it universal was a path that might have included restored, if not for the notorious issue for missing MVS. 

Cut out MVS, not CPR, is the reason for the jump in the dataset for Hulk 181's. And if not for the discoveries made, it would have continued, and broadened to other big hitters that follow that above formula.

I still don't think you get my point. My point is, in plain English... the more fraudulent books that are out there, the higher the chances of getting caught. If there were thousands of them out in the market, they would have been caught before now. The CPR part of my post is just justification for why people would crack a book, because cracking it would be necessary to figure out it's a fraudulent book. CPR has nothing to do with this guy's scam. But it does have something to do with catching said scam. I really don't think I can make it any clearer than that. 

[comicwiz]

On 1/5/2024 at 3:31 PM, Heronext said:

Does anyone remember if the buy-side account for eBay transactions was visible to all users (even those not involved in the transaction) back in 2016, and is that information searchable with services like Worthpoint and Terapeak?

@comicwiz

Negative. That feature went away a long time before 2016. The anonymized bidder feature happened so long ago, I'm sure it was before 2010, and possibly as early as 2006, because there was a pretty major scandal that rocked the hobby that year, and we weren't able to do some things because of this restriction existing on eBay.

If you have a cert tied to a seller, it opens up a lot more possibilities. 

[LordRahl]

On 1/5/2024 at 12:35 PM, THE_BEYONDER said:

Perps?

He isn't going to say anything of any actual worth. "Pssst... I know something and it's HUGE" but never actually divulges what that something is so as to not be taken to task for it when it's proven incorrect.

[comicwiz]

On 1/5/2024 at 3:35 PM, comicwiz said:

If there are 270 Qualified IH 181's out there sitting in Blue slabs, and this book is frequently CPR'd, you don't think someone would have stumbled on one of them by now when they cracked it and sent it in? That goes for every book on the list that isn't a 9.8, so far more than 270 total books. 

On this point, I did want to mention something. I feel like about 8 months ago, someone posted in one of the FB groups that he was going to resubmit a Hulk 181 and was informed it had a MVS cut out. It was in a universal blue that he had bought when he explained this happening. I recall people trying to discredit the person, not believing what he was saying. I vageuly recall someone remarking it reminded them of the 1st Print TMNT YouTuber that claimed his was swapped for a 3rd print.

Certainly a perspective worth reminding people on in terms of believability factor of something like that.

That is until the incontrovertible evidence is found.

 

Edited January 5 by comicwiz

[LordRahl]

On 1/5/2024 at 12:54 PM, comicwiz said:

On this point, I did want to mention something. I feel like about 8 months ago, someone posted in one of the FB groups that he was going to resubmit a Hulk 181 and was informed it had a MVS cut out. It was in a universal blue that he had bought when he explained this happening. I recall people trying to discredit the person, not believing what he was saying. I vageuly recall someone remarking it reminded them of the 1st Print TMNT YouTuber that claimed his was swapped for a 3rd print.

Certainly a perspective worth reminding people on in terms of believability factor of something like that.

That is until the incontrovertible evidence is found.

 

This probably did happen. There are 19 of them out there. Now imagine if you are correct and the numbers are 20x, 30x or whatever factor you want to use, greater. This would be happening a lot more. Sure, one instance (even 2 or 3 instances) may just not be believed by the general public but if it happened 20 times? My point is that it WOULD have happened 20 times or more if this is as big as some of the posts here are suggesting. 

This is how a lot of criminals get busted. They get greedy and stop flying under the radar. If he was doing this with a few ASM 300's and New Mutants 98's in 9.8 here and there, never would have been busted. No one is cracking 9.8's for a higher grade and there are so many high grade copies of those books, that no one is paying that close of attention to any particular one of them. 

[BigLeagueCHEW]

On 1/5/2024 at 12:14 PM, 360flip said:

Digging more into the CGC list where there are multiple books in a given submission

Grade Date 07/19/2023
flagged by CGC
4286977    001 custom label
4286977    002 custom label
4286977    004 custom label

not flagged by CGC
4286977    003 normal blue label
4286977    005 normal blue label hulk 181 grade 8.5
4286977    006 normal green label hulk 181 grade 8.5

Guessing the flagged books (1, 2, and 4 of the submission) were sent back after 07/19/2023 for the custom label with lower grade books swapped into slab.

3, 5, and 6 of the submission appear to be raw book submissions

Editing... the next step I suppose is for him to swap the green 181 into the 4286977    005 slab and submit for custom label.

 

This sheds light on the 3 swapped, 3 for grading theory. Which in turn he/she was double profiting. 

[wiparker824]

On 1/5/2024 at 1:42 PM, comicwiz said:

Negative. That feature went away a long time before 2016. The anonymized bidder feature happened so long ago, I'm sure it was before 2010, and possibly as early as 2006, because there was a pretty major scandal that rocked the hobby that year, and we weren't able to do some things because of this restriction existing on eBay.

If you have a cert tied to a seller, it opens up a lot more possibilities. 

Sounds about right. I seemed to have 2008-2009 in my head for when eBay rolled it out and recall people losing their minds that it would lead to endless anonymous shill bidding. 

[MAR1979]

On 1/5/2024 at 4:11 PM, wiparker824 said:

Sounds about right. I seemed to have 2008-2009 in my head for when eBay rolled it out and recall people losing their minds that it would lead to endless anonymous shill bidding. 

It did.... Which was part of their intention. Officially their policy is against shills, however that is merely a redirect.  Shill-ing is known large revenue generator and they both make it as easy as possible to do and look the other way.

Edited January 5 by MAR1979

[MasterChief]

On 1/4/2024 at 12:13 PM, Silver Surfer said:

What ever happened with that, I’m guessing an out of court settlement and no omission of any guilt?

Dunno. But I’d like to add an additional detail to my previous post.

Ewert was not the first person banned by CGC. He was the second.

The first person banned from submitting to CGC was done so because they were “caught switching labels on slabbed comic books.”

[sledgehammer]

On 1/5/2024 at 2:43 PM, LordRahl said:

On 1/5/2024 at 2:35 PM, THE_BEYONDER said:

Perps?

He isn't going to say anything of any actual worth. "Pssst... I know something and it's HUGE" but never actually divulges what that something is so as to not be taken to task for it when it's proven incorrect.

Pssst... I know something and it's HUGE.

[pdags]

On 1/5/2024 at 3:23 PM, LordRahl said:

If there are 270 Qualified IH 181's out there sitting in Blue slabs, and this book is frequently CPR'd, you don't think someone would have stumbled on one of them by now when they cracked it and sent it in?

I'm not saying there are thousands of books out there... but you do understand the scammer doesn't need a qualified book to do this.  Qualified books probably gave him the best profit, but weren't required.  Briva3 could've easily swapped a 6.5 blue into a 7.0 blue.  Someone cracking that for CPR may not notice that.

[Dr. Balls]

Forest Hills, NY - Peter Parker's home town? I'm sure someone had to have pointed that out by now and I've missed it.

[Nick Furious]

On 1/5/2024 at 2:23 PM, LordRahl said:

If there are 270 Qualified IH 181's out there sitting in Blue slabs, and this book is frequently CPR'd, you don't think someone would have stumbled on one of them by now when they cracked it and sent it in?

I don't believe there are a bunch of fraudulent books out there that were just switched by the perp and didn't go through CGC reholdering, I haven't seen any evidence of that and I think it's just a guess.  However, I don't think that this is a situation where a lack of evidence equals evidence to the contrary.  If the CPR were done through CGC, the owner of the blue label with missing MVS probably would have been quietly compensated.  If it were done outside of CGC, they would have been told to pound sand and there would be no proof of their claim other than the word of them and the presser. 

[sledgehammer]

On 1/5/2024 at 5:17 PM, Nick Furious said:

I don't believe there are a bunch of fraudulent books out there that were just switched by the perp and didn't go through CGC reholdering, I haven't seen any evidence of that and I think it's just a guess.  However, I don't think that this is a situation where a lack of evidence equals evidence to the contrary.  

Honestly, CGC might like you to believe that, but unless they are able to absolutely know that one of their holders were resealed, there is absolutely no limit to what scamboy has set himself up to be able to do.

 

[namisgr]

Richard Koos/Danny Dupcak.... wasn't he from around Forest Hills?  

[Dr. Balls]

On 12/25/2023 at 9:42 PM, sledgehammer said:

there can be criminal penalties for doxxing someone online.

Going back a few pages: since the Ebay seller is in the business of selling comic books: I say, good sir - I'd love to have the contact information for this established businessman so that I may procure some of these pop culture items I've been hearing so much about in the newspaper lately. I'd subscribe to the notion that others might be interested in contacting him as well!

Doxxing circumvented.