CGC Files Lawsuit Against Employees 30 30

[Gator Guru]

On 2/4/2024 at 8:17 PM, buttock said:

Collecting comics doesn't inherently involve CGC, although it's a big part of the modern way.  But a much greater problem is the impropriety that it invites by allowing them to work with a huge conflict of interest.  Once that door is cracked open, you're just asking for something like this to happen.  

I disagree in this case as someone was stealing and got caught. We dont know how well he did or didn’t grade but we may find out. The bottomline is we dont know enough about the cgc process but we do know a piece of chit stole customer’s books. Cgc has never outright stolen anything. Thats so incredibly wrong that I have a hard time understanding how someone could be that horrible of a person.

[HighGrade]

On 2/4/2024 at 10:41 PM, lou_fine said:

Please correct me if I am wrong here..............but I believe when CGC first started up in the beginning, it was 3 graders who had input into both the preliminary and final grades assigned to a book.  

With their current grading system, isn't it 2 or 3 graders involved in the preliminary grading process, but only the Head Grader gets to say what the final grade is, regardless of what the preliminary grades are?    

 

I believe if you were grading only 15 books a hour, you would find yourself turfed out onto the street and queuing up in the unemployment line, let alone grading only 15 books in a whole entire day.    

I hope it's 2 or 3, I knew it was more than one, and that might have kept the guy from grading his own books. It was said he wasn't happy with the grades on the stolen books so he obviously didn't get to grade the submission he put in another name, so that's not a loophole, So he had to find another way to scam.

Yeah I exaggerate a little, but I would be in the loony bin if I had to grade 30 books an hour!  It's no fun being OCD, but a least it gets done right and the way I want it. I've worked for some people by the job not the hour, they love the quality but I have been told a few times "it's fine just please finish it. Luckily I've been my own boss so I'm just hurting my own hourly wage.

[lou_fine]

On 2/4/2024 at 4:00 PM, Buzzetta said:

 I thought it was that they cannot universally distinguish whether or not a book was pressed or not

Ahhhhh, yes...............memories of days long gone by.  

If I remember correctly, I believe their spin at the time to dig themselves out of the hole which they had dug for themselves and fallen into went something like this..............since they would not be able to determine if a book had been pressed or not if it had been done properly, and as such, they did not want to guess if a book had been pressed or not. 

It was also stated that pressing had always been done on books long before CGC came into existence which was not a totally true statement since pressing back then in the days of the Wild Wild West was usually only done as a final step after other more invasive restoration work had been done on a book.  Stand alone pressing was usually not a cost effective process prior to CGC since the price differential for HG raw books was just not yet there at the time. 

In any case, these were the two main rationales used to justify placing books with this type of work done to them into unrestored Universal slabs and allowed them to simply spin it as nothing more than "maximization of potential".  

Interesting to note that the above statement would be equally just as accurate if you had replaced the word "pressed" with the word "micro-trimmed" and yet one was deemed to be maximization of potential while the other was deemed to be "destruction of a book".  

Edited February 5 by lou_fine

[lou_fine]

On 2/4/2024 at 4:02 PM, jimjum12 said:

Their policy is that pressing is not an issue.

From a strict technical POV, not a problem with this as a straight business policy which they would be more than entitled to make, but shouldn't they at least have been transparent and proactively upfront about it and had disclosed it to the collecting base when they first started up.  

Especially since they had made the claim that one of the original tenets for the creation of CGC was to protect the hobby and the collecting base from the scourge of restoration, only to find out retroactively after the fact, that they had changed or fine-tuned their definition of restoration to exclude certain types of what had then been considered to be restorative work at the time.  

More specifically, didn't it take something like close to 5 years before some board detectives here like @MasterChief, @Red Hook, and even Dupchak himself exposed these shenanigans on the boards here through the use of detailed before and after photos of graded books before CGC finally got around to acknowledging what their definition of restoration was comprised of.  Needless to say and without a doubt, in the interim, all of the "insider" friends/dealers and people in the know must have made a ton of money "laundering" what would then still have been considered to be restored books at the time into an unsuspecting marketplace via the use of CGC's unrestored Universal slabs.  

The issue that I have with all of these scandals which we've seen here and the common running theme is that we generally only seem to find out about them retroactively through the hard work of some board detectives here, as opposed to a proactive communications directly from CGC.  

Then again, kudos should also be given to CGC for allowing us to voice our thoughts and opinions on THEIR boards here, whether they be positive or negative when it comes to these controversial issues.  

Edited February 5 by lou_fine

[comicwiz]

On 2/4/2024 at 2:11 PM, shadroch said:

A problem with that is you are asking people to forgo a passion of theirs- collecting comics for a job.  Some sort of restrictions are needed, but a total ban isn't a good idea, imho.

The CGC Rule was born out of this alleged internal deception, it was never allowed from the very beginning (1999 CBC article). It's still mentioned in an article right on CGC's own website. My analsysis on all this. 

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

On 2/5/2024 at 1:16 AM, lou_fine said:

Especially since they had made the claim that one of the original tenets for the creation of CGC was to protect the hobby and the collecting base from the scourge of restoration, only to find out retroactively after the fact, that they had changed or fine-tuned their definition of restoration to exclude certain types of what had then been considered to be restorative work at the time.  

Unfortunately, it seems, this has become more and more of their modus operandi. 

On 2/5/2024 at 7:00 AM, comicwiz said:

was born out of this alleged internal deception

Invisible Comics = Pay for Grades.

Removed Label Notations = We asked several " upstanding members of the community "

Custom Labels = Exploit for Restored books to Blue Label (Possibly TWICE [Dylan, now this])

Newton Rings = Completely normal and acceptable to a degree as that is the materials vs our "superior optics" On the new cases. 

First in First out = well it depends on who your books were assigned to in que. 

I am sure there are more , but these just come to mind immediately as these have all been exposed on the boards and later revised by CGC.

A couple others that come to mind , but have yet to have evidence and be outed are 

The revision of the Signature Series  program , where they used to have some "Authorized Dealers " who were allowed to work on these books , but no longer allow that. (Sounds like it was compromised and when they found out they removed anyone "not in house" to better hide it) 

3 graders assess  each book and they come to a consensus to determine your final grade, but several times it has been said that is no longer the case . However none of us really know as these are internal processes and considering how some of the books (over and under graded look) this is clearly not the case anymore. Written off as "grading is subjective "

It seems as though it has just become a game of revision and CYA after the fact.

[DougC]

On 2/5/2024 at 8:41 AM, onlyweaknesskryptonite said:

List of bad stuff

Also currently happening as of November; a moderator regime change in the registry (and behind the scenes), CGC has completely changed the definition of what a variant and reprint are. When questioned they blamed past employee's and tried to gaslight that it has "always been like this" even when shown their own definitions on the website. In a couple months when they do the next registry push and people come back and see their books have been removed and are told to "lol, just create a custom set" it will and already is currently to late.

[Jimmy Linguini]

I kind of remember seeing one or two purple label books that said "pressed" on them from the old case. Can't find images. Was that just another fever dream?

[Yorick]

On 2/4/2024 at 4:14 PM, jimjum12 said:

You'll need to send that in for grading when CGC starts grading paperbacks!!

[Number 6]

On 2/5/2024 at 10:56 AM, Yorick said:

You'll need to send that in for grading when CGC starts grading paperbacks!!

Don't even joke about that.

[CitrusZ28]

On 2/2/2024 at 4:30 PM, HighGrade said:

That immediately reminded me of that scene in New Jack City, pictured with grading comics...🤣

That's what I was thinking.

[wombat]

On 2/5/2024 at 1:59 PM, Number 6 said:

On 2/5/2024 at 1:56 PM, Yorick said:

You'll need to send that in for grading when CGC starts grading paperbacks!!

Don't even joke about that.

Grading paperbacks makes way more sense to me than some of the other carp they grade. 

[JAM_NYC]

On 2/5/2024 at 2:50 PM, wombat said:

Grading paperbacks makes way more sense to me than some of the other carp they grade. 

My graded copy of Duck Hunt takes exception to this remark.

[Yodarulz90]

On 2/5/2024 at 2:50 PM, wombat said:

Grading paperbacks makes way more sense to me than some of the other carp they grade. 

 I was discussing the new pulp holders with Matt Nelson at NYCC, since they are thicker and have started grading some trades (JLA/Avengers 2022 George Perez), and when I asked him about grading other TPBs he mentioned it was possible

[RockMyAmadeus]

On 2/4/2024 at 7:41 PM, lou_fine said:

With their current grading system, isn't it 2 or 3 graders involved in the preliminary grading process, but only the Head Grader gets to say what the final grade is, regardless of what the preliminary grades are?    

https://www.cgccomics.com/grading/cgc-guarantee/

 

[Number 6]

On 2/5/2024 at 12:11 PM, Yodarulz90 said:

 I was discussing the new pulp holders with Matt Nelson at NYCC, since they are thicker and have started grading some trades (JLA/Avengers 2022 George Perez), and when I asked him about grading other TPBs he mentioned it was possible

If they start grading paperback prose novels I'll repeatedly submit pb copies of Atlas Shrugged, maybe doing page counts on those suckers will make them see the error of their ways.

[Red Hook]

On 2/5/2024 at 2:16 AM, lou_fine said:

From a strict technical POV, not a problem with this as a straight business policy which they would be more than entitled to make, but shouldn't they at least have been transparent and proactively upfront about it and had disclosed it to the collecting base when they first started up.  

Especially since they had made the claim that one of the original tenets for the creation of CGC was to protect the hobby and the collecting base from the scourge of restoration, only to find out retroactively after the fact, that they had changed or fine-tuned their definition of restoration to exclude certain types of what had then been considered to be restorative work at the time.  

More specifically, didn't it take something like close to 5 years before some board detectives here like @MasterChief, @Red Hook, and even Dupchak himself exposed these shenanigans on the boards here through the use of detailed before and after photos of graded books before CGC finally got around to acknowledging what their definition of restoration was comprised of.  Needless to say and without a doubt, in the interim, all of the "insider" friends/dealers and people in the know must have made a ton of money "laundering" what would then still have been considered to be restored books at the time into an unsuspecting marketplace via the use of CGC's unrestored Universal slabs.  

The issue that I have with all of these scandals which we've seen here and the common running theme is that we generally only seem to find out about them retroactively through the hard work of some board detectives here, as opposed to a proactive communications directly from CGC.  

Then again, kudos should also be given to CGC for allowing us to voice our thoughts and opinions on THEIR boards here, whether they be positive or negative when it comes to these controversial issues.  

My biggest concern back then, as it remains, is transparency. For the benefit of both the experienced and the new collector. I, along with others, made the case for upfront clarification from all parties involved, over and over, and in the end, with more knowledge than they began with, collectors generally decided to adopt a "don't ask, don't tell" attitude towards the shifting policy moves. Was the shift towards changing the definition of restoration over time part of some master plan on CGC's behalf from the beginning? I don't think it was. I spent way too much time in the debates and in the end (2008 - when I got tossed from the boards for various reasons) was very happy to not deal with it anymore.
I have purchased one slabbed book in the last nine years. I think the toothpaste has been long out of the tube. The hobby turned into a business, and I simply don't want to play the role of someone else's mark. I'm more interested in discussing the aesthetics of the art and writing at this point. I feel less interested in acting as some kind of consumer protection presence at this point. All the energy expended wasn't quite worth it in the end. :-) 

 

 

[O Doyle Rules]

On 2/3/2024 at 3:44 PM, Gaard said:

"CGC lost my books!" - a much too common phrase these days. Maybe, after the first time it happened, CGC should've tried it's hardest to prevent it from happening again. Perhaps this incident never would've happened?

CGC "lost" my books!   Sorry felt the need to get this right. Your quotation marks were placed incorrectly. 

Edited February 5 by O Doyle Rules

[I like pie]

On 2/5/2024 at 2:18 PM, Green Givey Goblin said:

You are correct, when CGC first started there were some Purple labels that said "cleaned and pressed". They quickly did away with that when they realized pressing could be another income stream.

And that it's mostly undetectable if done correctly.

Edited February 6 by I like pie

[valiantman]

On 2/5/2024 at 5:46 PM, I like pie said:

On 2/5/2024 at 2:18 PM, Green Givey Goblin said:

You are correct, when CGC first started there were some Purple labels that said "cleaned and pressed". They quickly did away with that when they realized pressing could be another income stream.

And that it mostly undetectable if done correctly.

Cleaned and pressed was something that could be detected when the wrong types of cleaner (liquid, chemicals) were used, or when the "eraser" was obvious. Pressing as flat as a pancake (unnatural result) would also be detected.  I would bet that both would still be considered restoration today, but submitters now know not to do those things.