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

[comicwiz]

On 1/30/2024 at 8:17 AM, sledgehammer said:

All of this language sounds like legalese to me, mainly designed to make sure that scamboy no longer profits from anything.

There is a chance that he is still holding books that he submitted. Any of them that CGC identifies by cert # of his submissions ( and that number may be much higher than "the list" at this point already) will be permanently marked until they decide to clear them.

Receipts just document that he is not trying to clear them through intermediaries. Wouldn't you guess that he is not one of their favorite people right now?

I doubt very much that someone that wants their property back, that documents a sale, will get a beef about having it returned.

The one troubling aspect in this for me is that I don't believe CGC has really thought through all the possible risk scenarios posed by a "holder tampering" incident like the one which besets us. When Sansweets Star Wars collection was stolen, one of the people involved with selling the pieces (uknowingly) for the thief was caught in the crosshairs of one of the most well-publicized thefts. The way those pieces were seemingly "in the weeds" at that point was eventually left alone when Sansweet got his insurance payout. But, some of us watched select pieces quietly reappear through private sale by those who well knew they were holding pieces that were proceeds of a crime. Not to the mention that after the payout, the insurer owned them, but that didn't stop anyone from trying to dump them on to unsuspecting consumers. In the case of the ML broker with 18 year brokerage history, who embezzled more than $4.2 million from client accounts between 2007-2017, the FBI was going to collectors homes following the trail of Star Wars toys they had purchased from him going back to 2007, because these were toys acquired through the proceeds of a crime. Before the lid blew on this, I tracked several of those pieces changing hands, well before the broker was senetenced to 8 years in prison. The reason I mention these two seperate incidents is that the last thing CGC should be doing is asking for reciepts, or at least reword the way they are asking for the victims cooperation, seeming almost as though surrending property and evidence is contingent on them receiving compensation. Why? Because we shouldn't just be worried about the alleged seller dumping any remaining problem books - we should be equally concerned about the people holding any number of the "impacted books,"  who might be reading about the hassle people are getting, while trying to cooperate with this "investigation." And keeping that list at 350, when I know there are more, is one way the ripple effect of the scenarios I'm describing above increases. The more people feel like they are getting pushback, or are being hassled in a situation they never asked to be put in, the messier this will get. 

Edited January 31 by comicwiz

[sledgehammer]

On 1/30/2024 at 7:37 AM, comicwiz said:

The reason I mention these incidents is that the last thing CGC should be doing is asking for reciepts, because we shouldn't be just worried about the alleged seller dumping any remaining problem books, but the people holding any number of the "impacted books."

Thanks. Your knowledge on the subject better not be going to waste.

[topcat54]

On 1/29/2024 at 3:43 PM, sledgehammer said:

why do you think that it should be?

if you look at the 350 list there are 2 books 3786339002 and 3786339004 so the book in question should have been part of the same order? And then there's the grade date .

CGC Cert #

3786339003

Title

Amazing Spider-Man

Issue

300

Issue Date

5/88

Issue Year

1988

Publisher

Marvel Comics

Grade

9.8

Page Quality

WHITE

Grade Date

02/11/2021

Grade Category

Modern

Art Comments

David Michelinie story
Todd McFarlane cover & art

Key Comments

Origin & 1st full appearance of Venom
(Eddie Brock). Thing appearance.
Last black costume.

Grader Notes

very light spine stress lines to cover

Edited January 30 by topcat54

[comicjel]

On 1/30/2024 at 8:17 AM, comicwiz said:

Then try to work your way through this compendium of posts. It is important to visually go through the way each facet of the summary explains things, from the cert screenshot (some having been revised or removed since these were posted), changes in grade date, when the book first appeared for sale, and then later reappeared changed. These are different from the project green to blue, because these books appear to maintain the same certification with completely different books reappearing after passing through the alleged seller that is linked to this "holder tampering." This should give you some sense of what I mean by variability, and establish a baseline on what CGC has described as "holder tampering." Again, there are a lot of unanswered questions here, no one other than CGC should  be addressing these:

FF 48 CGC 9.0 - Certification: 1012329005

ASM 129 CGC 9.0 - Certification: 1028057001

Avengers 57 CGC 9.4 - Certification: 0966088004

ASM 252 CGC 9.8 - Certification: 1257876006

X-Men 266 CGC 9.8 - Certification: 2120143023

ASM 238 CGC 9.8 - Certification: 3805448018

ASM 238 CGC 9.8 - Certification: 4109535001

Noticing Changes to Grade Date:

Financial Toll & Analysis

Hulk 181 CGC 8.5 - Certification: 1295091001

Hulk 181 CGC 9.0 - Certification: 1055471002

Hulk 181 CGC 9.4 - Certification: 0052830003

Avengers 57 CGC SS 9.6 - Certification: 1478893002

Financial assessment of 17 of the 19 Hulk 181's on the (350) Impacted List

Hulk 181 CGC 9.2 - Certification: 0013796019

First, the effort you are putting towards this, and the efficiency (and consistency) of the archive you are creating is amazing!!!

Sorry to scroll in on one of the books, as I understand this post was intended as more of a global education of what is happening, but the Avengers 57 SS 9.6 intrigues me more than the others - I can not help but think that the SS books are involved in the scam somehow, but there is no obvious way that it seems they could be??

The Avengers 57 SS 9.6 seems like the same book through the various listing scans (there are too many exact characteristics for me to think that a different book has been swapped in), but there are changes happening to the book in it's inner well (and it is on the "list"), so it seems like it must have been reholdered... however it is the same book being reholdered, and is just acquiring minor new flaws along the way without getting any grade bump or label change - what is the benefit of this reholder?? - it just makes no sense to me??     

[comicjel]

On 1/30/2024 at 10:53 AM, topcat54 said:

if you look at the 350 list there are 2 books 3786339002 and 3786339004 so the book in question should have been part of the same order? And then there's the grade date .

CGC Cert #

3786339003

Title

Amazing Spider-Man

Issue

300

Issue Date

5/88

Issue Year

1988

Publisher

Marvel Comics

Grade

9.8

Page Quality

WHITE

Grade Date

02/11/2021

Grade Category

Modern

Art Comments

David Michelinie story
Todd McFarlane cover & art

Key Comments

Origin & 1st full appearance of Venom
(Eddie Brock). Thing appearance.
Last black costume.

Grader Notes

very light spine stress lines to cover

It was part of the same submission, it just was likely not reholdered.

The 350 list is likely only books that have been reholdered.

[awe4one]

On 1/30/2024 at 7:17 AM, comicwiz said:

Then try to work your way through this compendium of posts. It is important to visually go through the way each facet of the summary explains things, from the cert screenshot (some having been revised or removed since these were posted), changes in grade date, when the book first appeared for sale, and then later reappeared changed. These are different from the project green to blue, because these books appear to maintain the same certification with completely different books reappearing after passing through the alleged seller that is linked to this "holder tampering." This should give you some sense of what I mean by variability, and establish a baseline on what CGC has described as "holder tampering." Again, there are a lot of unanswered questions here, no one other than CGC should  be addressing these:

FF 48 CGC 9.0 - Certification: 1012329005

ASM 129 CGC 9.0 - Certification: 1028057001

Avengers 57 CGC 9.4 - Certification: 0966088004

ASM 252 CGC 9.8 - Certification: 1257876006

X-Men 266 CGC 9.8 - Certification: 2120143023

ASM 238 CGC 9.8 - Certification: 3805448018

ASM 238 CGC 9.8 - Certification: 4109535001

Noticing Changes to Grade Date:

Financial Toll & Analysis

Hulk 181 CGC 8.5 - Certification: 1295091001

Hulk 181 CGC 9.0 - Certification: 1055471002

Hulk 181 CGC 9.4 - Certification: 0052830003

Avengers 57 CGC SS 9.6 - Certification: 1478893002

Financial assessment of 17 of the 19 Hulk 181's on the (350) Impacted List

Hulk 181 CGC 9.2 - Certification: 0013796019

Comicwiz, this is yeoman work here. Very impressive research. If this is an inside job has anyone looked at comics being replaced upon their first submission? Again, I’ve pulled a fair amount of comics out of their slabs and there is no way I could reassemble them in their slab without anyone noticing. This is a bad look on CGC.

Jim

[comicwiz]

On 1/30/2024 at 11:27 AM, comicjel said:

First, the effort you are putting towards this, and the efficiency (and consistency) of the archive you are creating is amazing!!!

Sorry to scroll in on one of the books, as I understand this post was intended as more of a global education of what is happening, but the Avengers 57 SS 9.6 intrigues me more than the others - I can not help but think that the SS books are involved in the scam somehow, but there is no obvious way that it seems they could be??

The Avengers 57 SS 9.6 seems like the same book through the various listing scans (there are too many exact characteristics for me to think that a different book has been swapped in), but there are changes happening to the book in it's inner well (and it is on the "list"), so it seems like it must have been reholdered... however it is the same book being reholdered, and is just acquiring minor new flaws along the way without getting any grade bump or label change - what is the benefit of this reholder?? - it just makes no sense to me??     

I believe I have mentioned this somewhere, but it bears repeating now that you are asking. In this instance (and there are others), there are competing variables. One is that I am restricted to what exists in terms of sales history, and the photos available to me. There are about 25% of the "suspect" sales which I've identified where there is no record available on WP. Pics are everything in the way we can trace the kind of activity that has led us to understand what the "holder tampering" at least looks like thus far. Beyond the limitations of what is available in the way of data, there exist limitations on being able to take identification to the next level with what is available in the photos. These books (A57 SS being one of them) fall into that category. However, the methods used to determine tampering for everything else don't apply if it's what I think is going on. That's about all I can say at this time.

Edited January 30 by comicwiz

[sledgehammer]

On 1/30/2024 at 12:07 PM, awe4one said:

Comicwiz, this is yeoman work here. Very impressive research. If this is an inside job has anyone looked at comics being replaced upon their first submission? Again, I’ve pulled a fair amount of comics out of their slabs and there is no way I could reassemble them in their slab without anyone noticing. This is a bad look on CGC.

Jim

there has been an effort, not to name the store, because they're really is not at this point definitive evidence to link the eBay sellers that sold the books involved on eBay, and other selling venues, with that store. There is circumstantial evidence, that I would seriously consider betting my life that they are involved. 

The thing about this is that it completely appears within the realm of possibility, that there is a pressing service that could also be involved under the umbrella.

Although it is quite possible, that comicwiz is putting together a substantial body of evidence in other ways, it's completely possible that a portion of the business plan here, was pressing lower grade books, into higher grade books.

Personally, I would not be surprised to find out that the vast majority of amazing Spider-Man 300, 9.8 newstand copies, are the result of pressing work.

I can't recall seeing many in the earlier generation slabs.

Edited January 30 by sledgehammer

[comicjel]

On 1/30/2024 at 1:42 PM, comicwiz said:

I believe I have mentioned this somewhere, but it bears repeating now that you are asking. In this instance (and there are others), there are competing variables. One is that I am restricted to what exists in terms of sales history, and the photos available to me. There are about 25% of the "suspect" sales which I've identified where there is no record available on WP. Pics are everything in the way we can trace the kind of activity that has led us to understand the holder tampering thus far. Beyond the limitations of what is available in the way of data, there exist limitations on being able to take identification to the next level with what is available in the photos. These books (A57 SS being one of them) fall into that category. However, the methods used to determine tampering for everything else don't apply if it's what I think is going on. That's about all I can say at this time.

I hear you, and I respect the hell out of your approach!

Personally, I feel there is more to this scam than reholdering inferior books, but I have no "proof" of this.  I believe you feel this too.  I am a CPA, and when you apply statistical analysis to look for trends that you would expect to see, if this were just a reholdering scam, the trends do not fit.  I would expect to see the original submitted books that receive 9.8s to be almost perfect specimens (that does not appear to hold true for some reason).  I would expect to see original submitted books that receive 9.8s to be reholdered almost always, but again, I don't see this, many are just being sold (which "really" makes no sense for the reholder scam as we know it).  With the original submissions, I would expect to see all 9.8s (if being screened for 9.8) or many more 9.6s (if not being screened for 9.8), but again, this is not what seems to happen.  Lastly, I would not expect to see SS books involved at all.

So when I see all these anomalies to what would be expected, I can only conclude that there is much more to the scam than 350 reholdered books.

I am a huge CGC fan, my goal is not to bash them or embarass them.  I want them to close every scam loophole that exists and get this behind them!  I do not want them to have "reholder" blinders on, and possibly miss a bigger scam that is being committed, only to have the bigger scam be exposed later and cause much more damage to their reputation than if discovered now.

So my goal in identifying these anomalies is twofold... [1] To get others thinking about these anomalies to see if they discover things that can make the possible bigger scam come more into focus sooner, and [2] to get the attention of people that are reviewing this internally at CGC (those that have the access to much more information than us), and hopefully encourage them to pull on those threads and really get to the bottom of every aspect of the scam.        

[grendel013]

I know it's a stretch but is there any way to tell if any CGC staff have recently been "let go"? If there is an "inside man" I'm assuming it would NOT be a grader. Rather it would be someone with access to the labeling/encapsulation. We do have a list of the current grading team which is available online if we did want to start there. Meet the Graders | CGC (cgccomics.com)

Is anyone intimate enough with the staff to know if anyone is missing?

[brute_nm]

On 1/30/2024 at 5:47 AM, comicwiz said:

Start with going through the project green to blue books - this link compiles all of them with a visual matrix. No one here or on YouTube knows for certain how the swaps happened. I have an idea after going through several hundred books since Decemeber how it's being done. However, there is some variability between the way the swaps are made as well because each scheme exploits the holder and/or process differently. Following each linked example of green to blue, seeing the donor book become a blue, will give you a better sense of what I'm describing above. 

 

On 1/30/2024 at 6:17 AM, comicwiz said:

Then try to work your way through this compendium of posts. It is important to visually go through the way each facet of the summary explains things, from the cert screenshot (some having been revised or removed since these were posted), changes in grade date, when the book first appeared for sale, and then later reappeared changed. These are different from the project green to blue, because these books appear to maintain the same certification with completely different books reappearing after passing through the alleged seller that is linked to this "holder tampering." This should give you some sense of what I mean by variability, and establish a baseline on what CGC has described as "holder tampering." Again, there are a lot of unanswered questions here, no one other than CGC should  be addressing these:

FF 48 CGC 9.0 - Certification: 1012329005

ASM 129 CGC 9.0 - Certification: 1028057001

Avengers 57 CGC 9.4 - Certification: 0966088004

ASM 252 CGC 9.8 - Certification: 1257876006

X-Men 266 CGC 9.8 - Certification: 2120143023

ASM 238 CGC 9.8 - Certification: 3805448018

ASM 238 CGC 9.8 - Certification: 4109535001

Noticing Changes to Grade Date:

Financial Toll & Analysis

Hulk 181 CGC 8.5 - Certification: 1295091001

Hulk 181 CGC 9.0 - Certification: 1055471002

Hulk 181 CGC 9.4 - Certification: 0052830003

Avengers 57 CGC SS 9.6 - Certification: 1478893002

Financial assessment of 17 of the 19 Hulk 181's on the (350) Impacted List

Hulk 181 CGC 9.2 - Certification: 0013796019

Just added links to these incredible resources in the summary on p. 72.  Thanks for all you do, @comicwiz!!

[grendel013]

[lostboys]

[NEO Sports Cards]

Oh boy.

More nonsense 

 

 

[ramithard]

restraining order?.....copyright infringement?

[Heronext]

On 2/1/2024 at 9:58 AM, NEO Sports Cards said:

Oh boy.

More nonsense 

 

 

I can only find the doc behind a paywall.  If anyone has a public source please post it here - thanks

[EastEnd1]

From the postings, reads like this was another scam going on at the same time.  And this one WAS an inside job...

[Makes me wonder if the combination of the two scams, and who knows what else is out there, accounts for the recent price reductions.  Awfully coincidental. ]

[NEO Sports Cards]

On 2/1/2024 at 10:22 AM, EastEnd1 said:

From the postings, reads like this was another scam going on at the same time.  And this one WAS an inside job...

[Makes me wonder if the combination of the two scams, and who knows what else is out there, accounts for the recent price reductions.  Awfully coincidental. ]

Sounds like they found this one while looking into the other one. 

[EastEnd1]

On 2/1/2024 at 10:29 AM, NEO Sports Cards said:

Sounds like they found this one while looking into the other one. 

Not good at all. The slow bleed of continuing scandals can certainly kill the golden goose.  CGC needs to be very transparent with this stuff... they're in the business of trust, and silence isn't going to cut it.  It's always the cover-up that gets you in real trouble.  

[comicjel]

On 2/1/2024 at 9:58 AM, NEO Sports Cards said:

Oh boy.

More nonsense 

 

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/186248024781