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

[WernerVonDoom]

On 2/9/2024 at 6:26 PM, comicguy123 said:

Looks like the Fantastic Four book cgc7.5 was on ebay sold  on Feb 6,2020. Has that book you see there, in the holder. Same book.

I bought it in July 2020 locally. If I had to guess, someone bought the impacted book on eBay then it changed hands once or twice because they were worried about price drop (covid).

[justafan]

Huff...pufff...I...huff...puff...made it....huff...puff...through all 404 pages and boy are my eyes tired.

A few things. 

1. Most of this thread is unnecessary commentary and semantic arguments which im now obliged to contribute.

2. @comicwiz rocks!

3. This scam was inevitable when cgc switched to the 3rd Gen holders. I remember the first time I cracked out a cpr candidate in these 3rd gen slabs and was surprised when I noticed that the inner well that contained the comic was not attached to the label. Forget about any crazy expensive tampering countermeasures.  The biggest, cheapest deterrent cgc could do is sealing the the label inside the the same inner well that the comic is in similar to the 2nd generation slabs except this time make sure more than just a corner of the label is welded in place.

4. Someone joked about it earlier but I do believe there is likely more than 1 scammer who is now pissed that this reholder loophole has been closed. Cgc may want to do a full review of all reholders over the last 6 years. Or perhaps they'd rather not.

5. If you dig deep enough you may find a number of 2nd Gen blue, green and purple slabbed books sent in for regrading/reholder to be converted to 3rd Gen slabs just for the purpose of getting the book separated from its label in the 3rd Gen inner well style. I started noticing this when doing cert lookups on comics in 3rd Gen slabs that have really old grade dates. Doesn't mean they're all swaps as some collectors just preferred the newer slab.

6. It is possible the scammer started off working with someone on the inside or merely had inside info that reholders were never scrutinized due to the priority of graders time on TATs leaving low skilled employees to handle reholders.

This became evident to me when I sent a ME book in due to missing PQ on the label. The book was sent back with the same label still missing the PQ despite me writing clearly on the order form in 3 places that the book needed to be regraded for page quality designation.

7. This wasn't isolated to just reholders. Comic swaps and sales bypassing cgc has likely been occuring and will continue to occur with 3rd Gen slabs.  I believe this due to a personal experience.

Ironically, the scammer may have  repurchased one of his early resubs or that of another scammer. 2 years ago I bought an ASM 238 Newsstand 9.8 w in a 3rd Gen slab from a comiclink auction that looked perfect. But when it arrived the bottom right corner post was separated cleanly but there was some cloudiness to the bottom right slab edge. To my dismay, when I tested the corner. I was able to pry the bottom right side of the slab open enough for the inner well to slide out completely. The book itself looked perfect except for a light pressable bend near the top front cover staple. I rechecked the comiclink listing photos and saw the same cloudiness in the photos. I think I reached out to comiclink about it but I was so disgusted by it that I just put it aside figuring I'd need to get it regraded and hope that it was a true 9.8. I forgot about it after buying a replacement in what I now hope is a legit 9.8 canadian newsstand copy with a perfect wrap. Later that year I cracked out the older newsstand copy from the damaged slab, confirmed that it contained the tattooz and submitted it along with a 9.6 direct edition asm 238 copy for a press and grade to sell. To my amazement both came back as cgc 9.8 white copies. Satisfied but prefering my canadian newstand copy, I listed the regraded newstand copy for sale and eventually sold it to Ulysses Zanello last year who then cracked it out and did the reholder swap with a canadian price variant. If it was a previously swapped 9.6, it became a legit 9.8 after a press.

8. He probably started off doing comic swaps with cheaper books to test the reholder scam so there may be some inexpensive comics in the wrong holders. 

9. He chose commonly available in-demand books where the margin and availability between grades was significant to make a decent profit with each swap sale. He likely also benefitted from the fact that cgc didn't recognize newstands on the labels until recently so seeing a newstand copy in a holder with a label not designating it as such was normal.  GPA also wouldn't be able to have distinguished between newstand and direct edition copies until the last 2 years. Asm 300, 194, 238, and NM 98 fit that type. Had he stuck to common books instead of going for more rare MJ copies he probably would not have been caught but he got sloppy/greedy.

10. I suspect the civil suit may help cgc obtain full discovery from ebay and other 3rd parties to get the detailed records, receipts and evidence for swapped books. Not sure if this is why they are taking so long in providing compensation to those impacted and who've already provided receipts. A lawyer may be able to provide more insight.

11. I believe the last thing cgc wants is a class action suit against them by those impacted for their failure to catch this in their reholder process. I'd imagine a class action judgement/settlement may be way more costly than having their insurance pay out replacement value for all books affected.  It is probably in their best interest to quickly recover and satisfy as many buyers of impacted slabs as possible. I would also expect they would not mind even paying out the 2 defendents for all remaining impacted books so they can declare they've identified and recovered all books on their list restoring faith in all existing slabs.

12. I would imagine that all those impacted should probably sync up with other impacted buyers and consult a lawyer to see if following cgcs requirements are currently in their best interest given the lack of recourse once they hand in their books.

13. I haven't bought a cgc slabbed comic since this news broke in december. I've abstained from the past 2 comiclink, heritage, pedigree and comicconnect auctions avoiding purchases in excess $15k.  That's my lost contribution to the current market.

14. On the other hand, I've recently sold more cgc graded books in the last 3 weeks on ebay than I did in the last 8 months and all for well over gpa not including shipping. 4 were in 2nd Gen holders and 1 in a 3rd Gen holder 

15. Lastly, what will cgc do with all those confiscated books once their use as evidence is completed and all compensation is made? Will they be graded and handed over to their insurance company to be auctioned off/liquidated to offset payouts? Shouldn't they be given to an independent 3rd party grading company to conduct the regrades to prevent any conflicts of interest? Will cgc attempt to resell them, destroy them, or donate them?

Ok I'm done now. Been holding all that in for 404 pages.

 

 

[comicwiz]

Information wittheld.

Edited February 16 by comicwiz

[sledgehammer]

On 2/10/2024 at 1:42 AM, justafan said:

7. This wasn't isolated to just reholders. Comic swaps and sales bypassing cgc has likely been occuring and will continue to occur with 3rd Gen slabs.  I believe this due to a personal experience.

Ironically, the scammer may have  repurchased one of his early resubs or that of another scammer. 2 years ago I bought an ASM 238 Newsstand 9.8 w in a 3rd Gen slab from a comiclink auction that looked perfect. But when it arrived the bottom right corner post was separated cleanly but there was some cloudiness to the bottom right slab edge. To my dismay, when I tested the corner. I was able to pry the bottom right side of the slab open enough for the inner well to slide out completely. The book itself looked perfect except for a light pressable bend near the top front cover staple. I rechecked the comiclink listing photos and saw the same cloudiness in the photos. I think I reached out to comiclink about it but I was so disgusted by it that I just put it aside figuring I'd need to get it regraded and hope that it was a true 9.8. I forgot about it after buying a replacement in what I now hope is a legit 9.8 canadian newsstand copy with a perfect wrap. Later that year I cracked out the older newsstand copy from the damaged slab, confirmed that it contained the tattooz and submitted it along with a 9.6 direct edition asm 238 copy for a press and grade to sell. To my amazement both came back as cgc 9.8 white copies. Satisfied but prefering my canadian newstand copy, I listed the regraded newstand copy for sale and eventually sold it to Ulysses Zanello last year who then cracked it out and did the reholder swap with a canadian price variant. If it was a previously swapped 9.6, it became a legit 9.8 after a press.

So comiclink never responded to your concerns about the grade and the obvious way that the inner sleeve could have been slid out?

What was the selling format that you sold it to Zanello?

[awakeintheashes]

On 2/10/2024 at 2:42 AM, justafan said:

5. If you dig deep enough you may find a number of 2nd Gen blue, green and purple slabbed books sent in for regrading/reholder to be converted to 3rd Gen slabs just for the purpose of getting the book separated from its label in the 3rd Gen inner well style. I started noticing this when doing cert lookups on comics in 3rd Gen slabs that have really old grade dates. Doesn't mean they're all swaps as some collectors just preferred the newer slab.

This is a great point and makes a lot of sense. 

On 2/10/2024 at 2:42 AM, justafan said:

This became evident to me when I sent a ME book in due to missing PQ on the label. The book was sent back with the same label still missing the PQ despite me writing clearly on the order form in 3 places that the book needed to be regraded for page quality designation.

Same thing happened to me, except I sent the same book back to have the same problem fixed 3-4 times and it wasn’t fixed until the final time. All it took was adding the correct notation for the book. The variant and artist noted was incorrect, and like you I noted all over what change needed to be made.    

I have no idea how or why it took that many times to fix such a simple problem, but I am not surprised this extreme level of incompetence was exploited. 

[Number 6]

On 2/9/2024 at 11:42 PM, justafan said:

 

5. If you dig deep enough you may find a number of 2nd Gen blue, green and purple slabbed books sent in for regrading/reholder to be converted to 3rd Gen slabs just for the purpose of getting the book separated from its label in the 3rd Gen inner well style. I started noticing this when doing cert lookups on comics in 3rd Gen slabs that have really old grade dates. Doesn't mean they're all swaps as some collectors just preferred the newer slab.

I wouldn’t jump to the conclusion when you see a reholdered book on the look-up that it was done expressly for the purpose of getting an exploitable 3rd gen slab. 
 

I have a a couple of 2nd gen slabs where the inner well is starting to turn yellow. I also have one that has a lot of that white powdery-looking whatever it is streaks between the inner well and the case. I can see someone wanting to reholder 2nd gen slabs like that. 
 

Also, if a 2nd gen slab has been bought/sold a number of times over the years it’s spent a higher amount of time being handled by a shipping service and is more likely to have picked up some damage along the way and the new owner wants to get it in an undamaged slab. 
 

If everyone starts reflexively viewing reholdered slabs as automatically “tainted” it could certainly have a depressing effect on the market. 

[sledgehammer]

On 2/10/2024 at 7:39 AM, awakeintheashes said:

I have no idea how or why it took that many times to fix such a simple problem, but I am not surprised this extreme level of incompetence was exploited. 

Seeing evidence that CGC definitely intends for all of the inner sleeves to be opened on reholders (not just previous gen slabs), plus the evidence of them marketing their service as tamper PROOF, I have no belief left that they expect to be successful in these lawsuits.

I think it's all posturing.

[comicjel]

On 2/10/2024 at 2:42 AM, justafan said:

15. Lastly, what will cgc do with all those confiscated books once their use as evidence is completed and all compensation is made? Will they be graded and handed over to their insurance company to be auctioned off/liquidated to offset payouts? Shouldn't they be given to an independent 3rd party grading company to conduct the regrades to prevent any conflicts of interest? Will cgc attempt to resell them, destroy them, or donate them?

Maybe all will be given a new custom label??

CGC presents... The Reholder Scam Collection!

Edited February 10 by comicjel

[comeaux]

Looks like the 2 CGC employees who were scamming from “inside the house” were finally served the CGC complaint & TRO by handing the documents to Ayanna Terrazas. 
 

[Panda2]

On 2/9/2024 at 5:51 PM, comicwiz said:

FF 48 CGC 5.5 - UNLISTED  ⬇️

Reading about unlisted books from CGC's 350 impact list being treated "differently" is both perplexing and disappointing.

I thought it was time to share at least one I found, applying some details on the retrospective and current comparabiles analysis for books impacted by this "holder tampering." The purpose here is to use this unlisted book as an example of how one might arrive at a valuation suitable for redress and/or compensation.

While the serial number from the ComicVerify badge below is a sample, the data is live, and the screenshot takes you right to the sample appraisal and assessment, with notations, working links to diagrams, etc. Full disclosure, ComicVerify is an online appraisal service I began in March of 2022, along with an appraisal service called ToyVerify. It allowed me to streamline reports, and uses proprietary software I developed which helps accelerate the process of calculating comps for a desired valuation method, as well as offering real-time reporting, accessible in a digital format.

Certification: 0212408029 (NOT ON THE LIST)

Fantastic Four (1961) #48 CGC 5.5

Beginning first with the screenshot of the Cert for posterity:

 

Based on the assessment arrived at, replacement value would be the method of valuation best suited to handle the market fluctuations seen from the time the book was sold in Jan 2019, and the time which the current day, where consumers are being made aware of an alleged incident involving "holder tampering."

Click screenshot below to visit the online appraisal for further details

Additional notes for comparison, review, and posterity:

Sales history, this FF 48 appears 3 times for sale, the order that follows is from the first appearance of this cert to the last

1. 202507080375 | ebay | the.boss | 11/28/2018 | $1,100

Second appearance (This is when we notice a change of the book inside the holder, still keeping with the same certification number)

2. 283298999496 | ebay | briva3 | 12/18/2018 | $1,025

Third attempt is less than a month from the last time this appeared, same seller attemping to sell - as such, this sale is redacted as an outlier, despite it appearing as a valid recorded past sale comparable for FF 48 CGC 5.5.

3.  283323890210 sellerID: briva3 Cert: 0212408029 [1/8/2019] - $1,110

 

 

Yikes…how many more?!?

[uncannyjames]

coming soon? 🤣

[paqart]

On 2/10/2024 at 2:42 AM, justafan said:

11. I believe the last thing cgc wants is a class action suit against them by those impacted for their failure to catch this in their reholder process. I'd imagine a class action judgement/settlement may be way more costly than having their insurance pay out replacement value for all books affected.  It is probably in their best interest to quickly recover and satisfy as many buyers of impacted slabs as possible. I would also expect they would not mind even paying out the 2 defendents for all remaining impacted books so they can declare they've identified and recovered all books on their list restoring faith in all existing slabs.

12. I would imagine that all those impacted should probably sync up with other impacted buyers and consult a lawyer to see if following cgcs requirements are currently in their best interest given the lack of recourse once they hand in their books.

My guess is that CGC either contains this by identifying, finding, and buying every affected comic or they get a class action against them.

If I was in the shoes of any of the affected customers, I'd be happy to walk away if CGC's offered compensation was appropriate. Meaning, I don't feel like I've lost anything. That includes, btw, any value that comic might have accrued since the time of purchase, providing it was the right comic. It also includes whatever money I spent, regardless how much value the comic lost in the meantime. This is why I think the fairest thing they could do is literally replace the comic with another that is untainted with the same grade.

Anything less than this, and I'll be looking elsewhere for satisfaction. CGC's failure to follow their own rules may have impacted the value of all comics in their holders, as customers wonder if the contents match the label. For all we know, there is an IH 181 out there that is just a cover attached to a bronze age Archie. It may be unlikely, but it is a fair concern. Speaking for myself, I'm now wondering about my bronze Marvels, hoping they all have their Marvel Value Stamps. I assume they do, but I'm no longer as confident as I was.

[comicwiz]

On 2/10/2024 at 11:02 AM, Panda2 said:

Yikes…how many more?!?

I don't want to get too ahead of things here and risk the more essential aspects of this reveal being missed, but let's just say a few.

Apart from this being an excercise in revealing that unlisted books CAN also be tampered with, and swapped (as shown with this FF 48), and conversely merits victims being compensated in the same way as those on the 350 list, there are these very significant aspects which should not be overlooked.

Namely, that we have examples of swaps that deviate from the usual subset of suspect targeted books. It's not only 9.8's, it's not only ASM 300's, 238's, 194's, or Mj inserts. There's variability here in targeted books, and that means also lower grades, and other key books.

The other, and no less significant because of the order it's presented, is this "unlisted" example takes the timeline point a full year back to the previous known earliest example being Dec 2019.

With this "unlisted" FF48, we have a 5.5 that was acquired Nov 28, 2018, and 20 days later reappeared on Dec 18, 2018 as a swapped book with the same characteristic swap scenario, with the added upside of a lightning fast reholder and flip. 

This should at the very least give everyone pause, and for us to ask "why does the 350 list exclude these?" Perhaps even more importantly, we now see that this had been going on from at least between Dec 2018 - Dec 2023. 

5 years, 350 books. I'll leave you all to decide whether you still believe this list is "all-encompassing."

Edited February 10 by comicwiz

[paqart]

On 2/10/2024 at 11:40 AM, comicwiz said:

5 years, 350 books. I'll leave you all to decide whether you still believe this list is "all-encompassing."

I didn't believe that from the start. Any time you try to find every example of a criminal's efforts, you are likely to have incomplete knowledge. That allows some crimes to escape notice. If you find 350 examples, the scale of what you may have missed goes up considerably higher than what it would have been if you'd found only 10 or 20 as in the Terrazas case. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the true number of affected comics is closer to 2,000 than 350.

Also, think about the impact to criminal charges here. If this were to be prosecuted criminally, and it definitely could be, Zanello and Riva are in serious trouble even if the number of comics affected remains at 350. That's 350 separate counts of fraud. Depending on how the comics were grouped for processing and sale, it's probably not less than 150 separate mail fraud and wire fraud charges as well. The prosecutor could essentially go for life in prison for this on the basis of the number of counts, much like Bernie Madoff.

More realistically, they'd only charge a sub-group of these and sentence on that basis. Regardless, I doubt he'd be looking at less than 5 years in jail, but it could easily be 20.

Edited February 10 by paqart

[paqart]

Speaking of "number of charges" I wonder if a lawyer can answer this question:
Which would receive the heavier sentence:

1. A thief steals a single comic worth $1,000,000
2. A thief steals 20 comics worth $50,000 each, in 20 separate robberies.
   
   It seems to me that the second option would draw a much heavier penalty than the first, because each robbery carries its own set of risks to the victim, and that is more important than the values involved. Am I right?

[comicwiz]

On 2/10/2024 at 11:44 AM, paqart said:

2,000 than 350

This point raises something I feel is also critical to point out.

That 2000 flat count could very well represent what we see being mentioned in the filing, as the submissions from the CBS account.

If I had this data, the very first thing I would have done is make all the connective ties between the submissions and sales. I'm concerned they did not only NOT do this, but from the filing, they make some statements which lead me to believe there were gaps in their research on the accounts used by the alleged perp. This largely had to do with the shuttering activities of the alleged perps of this scandal that created difficulty in mining the data that could be used as evidence against them.

From the details of their lawsuit filing, and this unlisted example I shared, I believe the sales history exposes one of the gaps in their assessment of the scale of this holder tampering incident, both in terms of count and how far back in time, and perhaps also helps explain why the "impacted list" is deficient.

Edited February 16 by comicwiz

[justafan]

On 2/10/2024 at 8:25 AM, sledgehammer said:

So comiclink never responded to your concerns about the grade and the obvious way that the inner sleeve could have been slid out?

What was the selling format that you sold it to Zanello?

Something happened to my earlier reply so here's the condensed version. It was a while back but I think they did offer to have it sent in for a reholder but I'd gotten so busy with other personal things that were a higher priIority and was so dissappointed with it I just kind of ignored it. Looking back I should have addressed it with them but I don't hold anything against them. I'm sure they would have done the right thing.

We negotiated the sale on instagram.

[paqart]

On 2/10/2024 at 11:59 AM, comicwiz said:

This point raises something I feel is also critical to point out.

That 2000 flat count could very well represent what we see being mentioned in the filing, as the submissions from the CBS account.

If I had this data, the very first thing I would have done is make all the connective ties between the submissions and sales. I'm concerned they did not only NOT do this, but from the filing, they make some statements which lead me to believe there were gaps in their research on the accounts used by the alleged perp. This largely had to do with the shuttering activities of the alleged perps of this scandal that created difficulty in mining the data that could be used as evidence against them.

From the details of their lawsuit filing, and this unlisted example I shared, I believe the zaneglor sales history exposes one of the gaps in their assessment of the scale of this holder tampering incident, both in terms of count and how far back in time, and perhaps also helps explain why the "impacted list" is deficient.

Yes. And speaking of which, it makes sense to me that Zannello could have, or did, work with more than one LCS to submit. This operation of his was in some ways better than printing money, because they output was closer to genuine than a counterfeit hundred dollar bill. His resources would have been llimited only by the number of transactions he could process, meaning the vendors he could submit to. 
Once this operation starts, he's getting guaranteed profits every month, and it was happening for several years that we know about.

[justafan]

On 2/10/2024 at 8:39 AM, awakeintheashes said:

Same thing happened to me, except I sent the same book back to have the same problem fixed 3-4 times and it wasn’t fixed until the final time. All it took was adding the correct notation for the book. The variant and artist noted was incorrect, and like you I noted all over what change needed to be made.    

I have no idea how or why it took that many times to fix such a simple problem, but I am not surprised this extreme level of incompetence was exploited. 

I swear it feels like they just unpacked it, took a quick look over the case looking for damages but finding none they figured ot was a mistake and put it right back into the same shipping box and shipped it back ignoring the order form. 

My first attempt they let me ship it fedex overnight for free! They paid over $300 in shipping for both attempts. I can only imagine how much in shipping they covered for all 4 of your attempts! Bleeding money.

[MAR1979]

On 2/10/2024 at 11:24 AM, uncannyjames said:

coming soon? 🤣

Betsy, Brent, and Gary "Scissor Hands" Moser are salivating over the possibility.

Edited February 10 by MAR1979