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

[Tec-Tac-Toe]

On 1/10/2024 at 8:50 AM, shadroch said:

I tried to discover what happened to two Long Island coin dealers caught in similar schemes.  Harold Adamo was arrested for misrepresenting the value of the coins he sold, but I couldn't find the case. 

Tony Romano was a big-time coin dealer when he was arrested, but his case was complicated when he hired an undercover cop to kill the witnesses.

You have likely read the accounts linked below.

Adamo: https://nassauda.org/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=1198

Romano:https://www.cnbc.com/2014/02/27/how-joseph-romano-went-from-million-dollar-coin-fraudster-to-hiring-a-hit-man.html

[Nick Furious]

On 1/9/2024 at 9:51 PM, ADAMANTIUM said:

Tbh when I saw the post on Facebook and I posted here, and it shocked me that I had not seen a post from gpaanalysis, which may be preferred for some

 

On 1/9/2024 at 10:18 PM, gpanalysis said:

What were you looking for us to say? This is a slab tampering and slab processing issue.

I could be wrong, but I think his comment was more about who will choose to use their platform to get the word out and help with furthering the investigation to potentially uncover more fraud.  There's likely to be two camps in this issue, those who want everything exposed and brought to light, and those who want it contained as quickly and quietly as possible to avoid financial injury to CGC, collectors and the industry as a whole.  

[shadroch]

I didn't see those, but I've read many similar ones. Several of my friends fell victim to Adamo.  I actually blame them, to a degree.  It was greed.  He'd sell them something for $3,000 with the promise someone else wanted to buy it at $4,000.  Those buyers always fell through, but he'd have another " deal" lined up.

[comicwiz]

On 1/10/2024 at 8:50 AM, shadroch said:

I tried to discover what happened to two Long Island coin dealers caught in similar schemes.  Harold Adamo was arrested for misrepresenting the value of the coins he sold, but I couldn't find the case. 

Tony Romano was a big-time coin dealer when he was arrested, but his case was complicated when he hired an undercover cop to kill the witnesses.

If it's the case I'm thinking, different first name

Edited January 10 by comicwiz

[Motor City Rob]

On 1/10/2024 at 8:19 AM, wiparker824 said:

I don’t really expect to see any seismic shift in the market because of this. Not yet anyways based on what’s been made public. The thing I’ll be watching is do custom labels actually become less valuable. I can’t speak for everyone but if I was in the market for a 9.8 ASM 300 right now I’d prefer to buy one that has no custom label, preferably slabbed in the past year where images appear on CGC. And I’d be willing to pay quite a bit more for it than that same book with a low cert number and a custom label with no images on CGC. If I was buying a mid grade or low grade book I’d not care as much but those 9.8’s with custom labels are going to be very interesting to see how they do going forward.

Apologies if I missed some previous posts that explain this, but why do books with custom labels pose a higher risk?

[EastEnd1]

On 1/10/2024 at 7:56 AM, bc said:

A lot of talk about the FBI in this thread.

I'd be more worried about the IRS if the perp was making the money identified by @comicwiz (possibly 7 figures).

Maybe that's where the SS books come in - a way to offset/hide the profits using legitimate books. Almost like a money laundering/tax evasion operation.

-bc

I believe the IRS has nice rewards for tax whistle blowers. Just a thought for those who know who the scammer is.    

[Nick Furious]

On 1/10/2024 at 8:18 AM, Motor City Rob said:

Apologies if I missed some previous posts that explain this, but why do books with custom labels pose a higher risk?

Seems it was often part of the scammers M.O. to get custom labels when he would submit the fraud books for reholder.  Maybe as a way of throwing off suspicion?  

[Motor City Rob]

On 1/10/2024 at 9:23 AM, Nick Furious said:

Seems it was often part of the scammers M.O. to get custom labels when he would submit the fraud books for reholder.  Maybe as a way of throwing off suspicion?  

Makes sense. Thanks. 

[ADAMANTIUM]

On 1/10/2024 at 8:14 AM, Nick Furious said:

 

I could be wrong, but I think his comment was more about who will choose to use their platform to get the word out and help with furthering the investigation to potentially uncover more fraud.  There's likely to be two camps in this issue, those who want everything exposed and brought to light, and those who want it contained as quickly and quietly as possible to avoid financial injury to CGC, collectors and the industry as a whole.  

@gpanalysis a little more to this side in that you're right, no need to "toot your own horn", and not to cause friction, as gocollect will have to "add this service", while gpaanalysis already is in a position to help.

I think also while the site was mentioned early on, I got lost on other useful sites people were using, and was befuddled why it switched focus. Not trying to call you out.

More a question to the boards for my own curiosity than any slight towards you, which I even stated that "yours most would have preferred!"

Wasn't trying to stir nor accuse, just glad in a way that I brought it up, if any would now like to rejoin the conversation.

True enough everything is still somewhat speculation or in investigation. No harm no foul.

 

[brute_nm]

On 1/10/2024 at 7:23 AM, Motor City Rob said:

Makes sense. Thanks. 

That being said, he had hundreds of submissions without custom labels that are not on the Hot 350 list, which is why I'll ask again for CGC to release the criteria used to generate the list of 350 and/or release his entire submission history. Better to be safe and recheck everything this guy touched.

@CGC Mike

[sledgehammer]

On 1/9/2024 at 11:59 PM, Lightning55 said:

Call in the KGB. Solved immediately. 

Yes, the case would be a Brees for them.

[shadroch]

On 1/10/2024 at 7:16 AM, comicwiz said:

If it's the case I'm thinking, different first name

I think he might have used his middle name.  Joesph Romano, as is Tony, is a pretty common name on Long Island.  People of Italian descent are heavily represented in the area. His case didn't make headlines until the hitman part came out.     I might have him confused with another Fat Tony Romano.   Adamo was fairly well known, and his offerings were laughable, IMO.

There was a boiler room operation in Albertson NY that was one of the biggest frauds in the hobby and got into all sorts of trouble but I'm not finding it.  I worked there for about five minutes.  They'd advertised for mailing room help. A bunch of us were hired and were being given a tour.  We were shown the dipping vat in which all coins were dipped.  I asked if that wasn't bad for the coins, and five minutes later, I was told something in my background precluded them from offering me a job.  They ended up expanding and hiring a lot of people, but it shut down overnight, and the owners disappeared.   One of my friends worked there for about a year and took some of his pay in Washington Carver half dollars. He found out later that he'd overpaid by an incredible amount.

I found it.   First Coininvestors.  

Edited January 10 by shadroch

[drotto]

Sure let's finish making the scammer the Al Capone of comic fraud.  The IRS will take him down for tax evasion.  Honestly, that might be the easiest route.

[drotto]

On 1/10/2024 at 12:08 AM, BrashL said:

I don’t understand this line of thinking. If we know that we have hundreds of slabs from this one person alone that have been opened, and we have videos showing how easy it is to tamper with them, doesn’t Occam’s razor dictate that’s exactly the case?  If not what is your theory?

The key here is the tampering only has to look like damage and not intentional tampering. So CGC will just reholder it as a damaged slab, and not inspect it further. So the case manipulation does not need to be perfect. 

[Mdesimone]

Anyone send their books back and hear from cgc? Today they lined out my asm 129 off the list but They haven’t contacted me about it

[Dr. Balls]

Brooklyn dealer on the grassy knoll. Instagram seller with a black umbrella. Comic collector who defected to Russia and then back to the US again. The "magic slab" being submitted seven times. I - for one - would be happy to donate to Donald Sutherland's Cameo for him to narrate all the important points of this topic if someone wanted to make a YouTube video full of quick cuts of compromised comic books.

[CJ Design]

 

[MAR1979]

On 1/10/2024 at 8:19 AM, wiparker824 said:

I don’t really expect to see any seismic shift in the market because of this. Not yet anyways based on what’s been made public. The thing I’ll be watching is do custom labels actually become less valuable. I can’t speak for everyone but if I was in the market for a 9.8 ASM 300 right now I’d prefer to buy one that has no custom label, preferably slabbed in the past year where images appear on CGC. And I’d be willing to pay quite a bit more for it than that same book with a low cert number and a custom label with no images on CGC. If I was buying a mid grade or low grade book I’d not care as much but those 9.8’s with custom labels are going to be very interesting to see how they do going forward.

You comment is logical.

However Logic is not often employed in the modern world especially by the LIV's - which make up a high amount of Social Media followers (aka those influenced)

The following is plausible:

As word spreads and it will, those LIV's will interpret the situation wrong. Thus ALL Versions of ASM300, ASM194, Hulk 340, SW8 and others including possibly Hulk 181 will become varying degrees of toxic to them for an unknown amount of time.

Of course I may be wrong, as the numbers flow into GPA and GoCollect we shall see... who knows this may be good for other books that previously lacked attention like DC's We'll ok probably not DC's...

 

Edited January 10 by MAR1979

[wiparker824]

On 1/10/2024 at 9:55 AM, MAR1979 said:

You comment is logical.

However Logic is not often employed in the modern world especially by the LIV's - which make up a high amount of Social Media followers (aka those influenced)

The following is plausible:

As word spreads and it will, those LIV's will interpret the situation wrong. Thus ALL Versions of ASM300, ASM194, Hulk 340, SW8 and others including possibly Hulk 181 will become varying degrees of toxic to them for an unknown amount of time.

Of course I may be wrong, as the numbers flow into GPA and GoCollect we shall see... who knows this may be good for other books that previously lacked attention like DC's We'll ok probably not DC's...

 

True, I’ve seen a lot of debate even amongst the people on here as to what the extent of this was. But I do think there will be a lot of people afraid of a low cert number with a custom label for a 9.8 of certain books for a while. But then again it only takes 2 people bidding on an auction to not care or know about any of this to just run the price up to its normal FMV level lol. 

[Mephisto]

On 1/10/2024 at 9:16 AM, comicwiz said:

If it's the case I'm thinking, different first name

It was Ray Romano. It was a cop but not undercover. It was his own brother, Robert.