2024 Grading Contest Spring Edition Season 3 (#10) Round 4 11 11

[ADAMANTIUM]

I was at 9.6 with my gut, I'll stick with it on the heir to the Empire, Lord knows

[jcjames]

Silver Surfer #10  8.0  

X-Men #87  9.0  +3  

Jungle Action #21  9.0 +2 

Web of Spidey #51  7.0  +1  

Y: The Last Man #1  9.2  +1  

 

[AJD]

Hmm, not a great round with +7. I didn't think a crease that long belonged on a fine or better so gave the Web 5.5, and was way too harsh on the X-Men. Got the SS and nearly the others.

Edited May 5 by AJD

[grendelbo]

Heir to the Empire - 9.6

[jcjames]

Really like this contest - good variety of books beyond GA and grades were tough. 

Those who consistently score at the tops for these contests genuinely know what they're looking at with great experience and expertise. 

Hats off to the winners and thanks for yet another fun and frustrating contest!

Looking forward to the Summer Edition <thankyousirmayihaveanother> 

 

[WilliamLunt]

On 5/4/2024 at 7:12 PM, CGC Mike said:

I'm going to give this to you guys for fun.  You can post grades in the thread.  I'll post the actual grade tomorrow night.   No PM's LOL  May the force be with you.

9.4!

[Cman429]

Well I had 3 points through the first 4 books….then took a stupid 3 on the Y 😡 Of course they grade the book with the most minor ticky tack little flaws the strictest…

oh well, thanks for another contest Mike, 

[Kramerica]

So. This contest? Some tough books and a highly controversial one.

From what I understand the graders at CGC are the ones who choose which books are going to be in the contest. If this is true, then they chose the Marvel Super-Heroes Secrets Wars #8 for the latest contest. Maybe they were trying to be tough, sneaky even.

But if I chose this book, I'd be thinking it would generate a wide range of grade estimates and a HUGE discussion. Since the company stance on rusted staples is in direct opposition to the grade given, I'm honestly left thinking "What in the World were they thinking?!?"

Nowhere on the CGC label does it note the presence of HEAVILY rusted staples with migration. I would be very unhappy if I bought this 8.0, cracked it open and found this inside. There are already minor defects present - spine stress, soft corners, misc tiny stuff. I would think it's a very harshly graded book, more like a 9.0 than a 8.0. But after opening it I would think someone has made a BIG mistake. 

Also, if I DIDN'T crack the book and sold it on eBay I might find myself looking at a return and potential negative feedback. Nowhere does it mention heavily rusted staples with migration.

Sorry if this comes across harsh but this is a HUGE miss, a very bad look and a really questionable decision that the grading department chose this book to include in their official grading contest of all places. If this book was purchased on the secondary market and ended up in the wrong hangs it could be a very big storm of negative publicity.

Thoughts?

Edited May 5 by Kramerica

[JollyComics]

 

On 5/4/2024 at 9:09 PM, jcjames said:

Looking forward to the Summer Edition

Only 56 Days to Go!

Only 236 Days to X-Mas!

[WilliamLunt]

On 5/4/2024 at 10:44 PM, Kramerica said:

Thoughts?

I looked at the same entry in the grading bible as well

6.0 - 7.0 - heavy rust with significant paper migration

This was my starting point, it can be really hard with ambiguous terms like significant. Because the migration was confined to the interior of the book I didn't consider the migration 'significant' so I thought the grade floor for this book was going to be higher than a 7.0 (please don't come after me too hard, it's just my opinion)

I went down the thought process of, what is the grade without the staple rust. It looks to be in VF/NM territory and then I downgraded a full point down to 8.0. I considered that this book could of came back a 7.5 but thought the book had enough eye appeal for a higher grade.

That being said, would I be rather have another 8.0 vs this book if I had a choice? absolutely.
 

Edited May 5 by WilliamLunt

[TheGeneral]

Nice tricky round! I messed up on the Y: The Last Man. It's tough to see defects on a lot of these scans, especially the darker covers.

Luckily nailed the Spidey. When referencing the grading guide for these contests I feel like books with only one primary defect are generally not treated as harshly as the guide would indicate.

 

Edited May 5 by TheGeneral

[TheGeneral]

Thanks to @CGC Mike for another fun one!

[Kramerica]

On 5/4/2024 at 8:20 PM, WilliamLunt said:

I went down the thought process of, what is the grade without the staple rust. It looks to be in VF/NM territory.

And I agree. That is where I had it. But with both staples rusty and migrating I took off 3 grades.

On 5/4/2024 at 8:20 PM, WilliamLunt said:

I considered that this book could of came back a 7.5 but thought the book had enough eye appeal for a higher grade.

Would I be rather have another 8.0 vs this book if I had a choice? absolutely.

Both of these sentences are key, because they imply that the buyer/seller/new collector knows about the staples. Nowhere are they referenced. If you're holding this book in your hands you're thinking "nice copy, looks nicer than an 8.0." You could be at a store or convention with the book 6 inches from your face and you don't know about it. This is part of my argument: The book isn't close to an 8.0 grade and that's if you even knew about the staples. Although not part of our grading contest, the condition of the staples is a significant piece of information that is omitted from the CGC label.

I really think this is where the "Qualified" designation should be used. I'd argue that the the nature of this book is EXACTLY why the Q designation exists.

Edited May 5 by Kramerica

[Cerebus3000]

On 5/4/2024 at 10:20 PM, WilliamLunt said:

I looked at the same entry in the grading bible as well

6.0 - 7.0 - heavy rust with significant paper migration

This was my starting point, it can be really hard with ambiguous terms like significant. Because the migration was confined to the interior of the book I didn't consider the migration 'significant' so I thought the grade floor for this book was going to be higher than a 7.0 (please don't come after me too hard, it's just my opinion)

I went down the thought process of, what is the grade without the staple rust. It looks to be in VF/NM territory and then I downgraded a full point down to 8.0. I considered that this book could of came back a 7.5 but thought the book had enough eye appeal for a higher grade.

That being said, would I be rather have another 8.0 vs this book if I had a choice? absolutely.
 

That is pretty much exactly my thought process on SW 8, including considering a 7.5 and not wanting to own an 8.0 with that defect.

Of the top 20 contestants in the contest (as of round three) there were 7 bulls eyes, and 8 people within one grade. If the grade was actually 7.5 there would be 4 bulls eyes and 10 people off by one grade.  If the grade was 7.0 there would be 3 bulls eyes and 5 people off by one grade.  Perhaps guessing the grade on that one comic is why people are in the top twenty this round, but many of those people are consistently on the leader board. I think this shows that 8.0 was certainly a "predictable" grade per the published standards, given some tolerance for subjectivity. I really appreciated seeing that comic in this competition as a learning example, and learning is really why I am here.

@Superman2006 and/or @zzutak I would be interested in seeing some sort of comparison between the actual grades of this contest (each contest) with the average/mean/mode guessing of the cumulative top 10.  I suspect the people that have a proven history of "cracking the code" will be clustered more tightly around the CGC grades, and it might dispel some comments about CGC inconsistency.  Thanks for doing the reporting you already do, please feel free to ignore this suggestion.

Edited May 5 by Cerebus3000

[AJD]

On 5/5/2024 at 1:47 PM, TheGeneral said:

I feel like books with only one primary defect are generally not treated as harshly as they should be.

 

FTFY

[Superman2006]

On 5/4/2024 at 11:00 PM, Cerebus3000 said:

That is pretty much exactly my thought process on SW 8, including considering a 7.5 and not wanting to own an 8.0 with that defect.

Of the top 20 contestants in the contest (as of round three) there were 7 bulls eyes, and 8 people within one grade. If the grade was actually 7.5 there would be 4 bulls eyes and 10 people off by one grade.  If the grade was 7.0 there would be 3 bulls eyes and 5 people off by one grade.  Perhaps guessing the grade on that one comic is why people are in the top twenty this round, but many of those people are consistently on the leader board. I think this shows that 8.0 was certainly a "predictable" grade per the published standards, given some tolerance for subjectivity. I really appreciated seeing that comic in this competition as a learning example, and learning is really why I am here.

@Superman2006 and/or @zzutak I would be interested in seeing some sort of comparison between the actual grades of this contest (each contest) with the average/mean/mode guessing of the cumulative top 10.  I suspect the people that have a proven history of "cracking the code" will be clustered more tightly around the CGC grades, and it might dispel some comments about CGC inconsistency.  Thanks for doing the reporting you already do, please feel free to ignore this suggestion.

Hi @Cerebus3000

In terms of CGC consistency/inconsistency, I did some analysis a while back, through the 6th grading contest, in an attempt to follow Aristotle's "wisdom of the crowd" concept, whereby "large groups of people are collectively smarter than individual experts...".  As a result of that analysis, I found that the CGC grader(s) would have ranked 3rd overall if measured against the performance of the top 50 graders through the 6th grading contest (with an average score just 1.5 behind @jbpez and just 0.2 behind @TheGeneral through the first 6 contests). To me that is a very very impressive ranking, and within the margin of error of being the best grader out of all participants.

I could refresh that analysis through the first 10 contests if you'd like.  As part of that refreshed analysis, I could provide an alternative cumulative grading test top 50 for everyone else as well, as measured against the top 50 boardies average grade per book.

I could reduce the top 50 to say the top 25, or top 10 like you suggest.

I think that would provide you with some comfort about CGC grading consistency.  Individually and as a group we may occasionally disagree with the grade CGC has given a book(s) in this contest, but I for one am sure that I have "missed the mark" on some books a lot more than CGC has.

Let me know that would provide what you're looking for (if not, it's getting late and I have a headache, so that's my excuse  )

[Superman2006]

There were a couple of books this contest where I felt a bit disadvantaged by not having a copy of the CGC grading guide. I missed one of the two books by 1 point, but missed the other (SW #8) by 4 points!

[SpidersComics]

My son is rapt, we finished the comp with our best round!

a total 4 points!

Silver Surfer #10 8.0

X-Men #87 9.4 +1

Jungle Action #21 9.2 +1

Web of Spidey #51 7.0 due to massive fold +1

Y: The Last Man #1 8.5 +1

 

So some good consistency, it's been a great contest, my son is 12 and he's had a great time...reckon he finished in the top half too...now all I have to do is stop him grading every book he sees and actually read a few!

[zzutak]

On 5/4/2024 at 9:00 PM, Cerebus3000 said:

I would be interested in seeing some sort of comparison between the actual grades of this contest (each contest) with the average/mean/mode guessing of the cumulative top 10.  I suspect the people that have a proven history of "cracking the code" will be clustered more tightly around the CGC grades, and it might dispel some comments about CGC inconsistency.

My experience with CGC dates back to the early 2000s, when CGC had only a handful of graders, and three different staff members independently assigned a numerical grade to each book.  Any collector could easily learn what those three grades were with a simple (and very short) phone call to CGC.  I made several of those calls to assess whether a CGC certified/encapsulated book I was considering purchasing was, for example, "a weak 8.0" (7.5, 8.0, 8.0), "a solid 8.0" (8.0, 8.0, 8.0), or "a strong 8.0" (8.0, 8.0, 8.5).  My experience with CGC convinced me that CGC's "system" (the precision of its condition grading rubric, and the skill of the individuals who are tasked with properly interpreting and applying that rubric) is only reproducible to + or - one grade increment, at best.  Hence, any player with a total score of 20 or less in any single CGC Contest is almost certainly an outstanding grader -- as good as most of the individuals CGC currently has on staff.

My conclusion is supported 100% by the cumulative results of these quarterly CGC Grading Contests.  Just look at the "average scores" of the contestants that @Superman2006 has determined to be in the Top-10 thru Contest 9 (his MVP and Diamond Club rosters) -- all clustered around 20, which represents an average deviation from CGC's official assessment of exactly one grade increment:

CGC's proprietary grading rubric necessarily allows for judgment, and different graders may interpret/apply a given standard differently.  Blemishes/defects can be overlooked or discounted for any number of reasons.  The bottom line is that a given book may not always receive the same CGC grade if it's submitted several times (although the various grades assigned will almost certainly be within an increment or two of each other).  This fact (not opinion) will be obvious to anyone who's done an initial pre-screen and then had the rejected books accepted on a later, identical, pre-screen.  This is not meant to be a slam against CGC; I know of no collector who can/will assign the exact same grade to every one of his/her books every time he/she looks at 'em.

An average score over several contests of about 20 is the best we're going to see.    And yes, @TheGeneral is a beast. 

[musicmeta]

9.4