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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,

8,989 posts in this topic

MatterEaterLad

MatterEaterLad

Posted
Posted (edited)

This is bad. 

I've been talking to a friend this morning who is an engineer and their machine shop has a sonic welder. He said they're not hard to use if you know what you're doing. 

Some possibilities:

1) Someone cracked the slab, switched books, and sent it in for reholdering and perhaps CGC's reholdering process is clumsier than we'd like to imagine. Some employee looks at the cracked slab and thinks, "Meh, the book is IN the slab, so that's good enough." Off to reholdering.

2) A nefarious seller is cracking slabs, switching books, then resealing the slabs and sending them in for reholdering.

3) A CGC employee is switching books. This seems the least likely possibility to me. Doesn't CGC have cameras everywhere? 

4) It's a glitch in the Matrix. 

Edited by MatterEaterLad
typo
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THE_BEYONDER

THE_BEYONDER

Posted
Posted
On 12/17/2023 at 10:59 AM, MatterEaterLad said:

perhaps CGC's reholdering process is clumsier than we'd like to imagine. Some employee looks at the cracked slab and thinks, "Meh, the book is IN the slab, so that's good enough." Off to reholdering.

This is the weak link I think the seller is taking advantage of

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THE_BEYONDER

THE_BEYONDER

Posted
Posted
On 12/17/2023 at 10:26 AM, THE_BEYONDER said:

If swapping books is the sellers MO, should there be a previous copy of this book with the same serial number?  
Is there a way to track sales by serial number?

 

@valiantman

IMG_9582.jpeg.69a9ec4ff067249f22269da7f643945f.jpeg

This book seems ok.  Was reholdered with a custom label, but the original had the MJ notation & it appears to be the same book.   No smoking gun here….

IMG_9584.jpeg.8e7753596e709eaefed5d4fea53b2623.jpeg

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jaybuck43

jaybuck43

Posted
Posted

Isn't the easier option that its a fake slab?  The only way to tell if the book is a mark jewler's is to open it. No way is CGC just believing some random phone caller saying "Hey I bought this book and it's supposed to be a mark jeweler.  I'm gonna send it for a reholder" and CGC go, o sorry about that.  1) Its not the same submitter so CGC wouldn't fix it for them. 2) CGC would have to crack the book entirely.  They claim to always regrade when the inner well is opened.  

For me, the smarter scam is for someone to go on CGC's census, find a cert number, and use it on a fake label.  So that when someone runs the cert it comes back as valid.

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Stefan_W

Stefan_W

Posted
Posted (edited)

No matter what changes are made to a process the scammers out there are always there trying to find a work-around to beat the system. That is just what dishonest people do. 

I have no idea what happened, but my best guess would be a scammer figured out a way to crack and re-seal the case in order to swap out books. The good news for honest buyers is there is already a saying in our community about buying the book in the holder and not the number at the top. If the grading seems to be too soft to be true it probably is. 

Edited by Stefan_W
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THE_BEYONDER

THE_BEYONDER

Posted
Posted
On 12/17/2023 at 12:02 PM, Gaard said:

Probably not something the public is capable of doing, but couldn't CGC look up the previous reholder submissions of a person to see if a similar copy of a questionable comic has been reholdered under this person's account?

Would be nice to know if that 252 was in fact a reholder

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sledgehammer

sledgehammer

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Posted
On 12/17/2023 at 2:05 AM, Cat said:

I originally thought that CGC must have accidentally swapped the books. Now, after seeing that supposed 9.8 NM 9.8 I'm leaning strongly towards the seller being dodgy. This is not good. 

He's also selling a Secret Wars 8 right now, along with the xmen book.

2 corners on the spine, are again weak looking

There are 3 old Marks Jewelers sales on GPA, 2- 9.4 and a 9.6 from 2019.

They will be able to check in to whether this seller has a habit of sending in "missed Mark jeweler" books.

Pretty easy to figure out, but a bad miss on QC.

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THE_BEYONDER

THE_BEYONDER

Posted
Posted
On 12/17/2023 at 12:17 PM, sledgehammer said:

He's also selling a Secret Wars 8 right now, along with the xmen book.

2 corners on the spine, are again weak looking

There are 3 old Marks Jewelers sales on GPA, 2- 9.4 and a 9.6 from 2019.

They will be able to check in to whether this seller has a habit of sending in "missed Mark jeweler" books.

Pretty easy to figure out, but a bad miss on QC.

I’m not seeing the Secret Wars 8

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Stefan_W

Stefan_W

Posted
Posted
On 12/17/2023 at 12:14 PM, Tnexus said:

Do MJ books have different staples? How easy would it be to just remove MJ inserts from other books and swap them in?

This comes up with books that have Tatooz. It seems like it would be easy but issues come up when the staples are not identical in width and if the placement of the staples is slightly different from book to book. Either of these things means you would essentially be punching in new holes. 

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