Is anyone else getting books back with warped inner wells? 25 25

[DanJD]

The width of the different ages might come into play. Assuming the outer slabs are all the same size, it appears the inner well is smaller compared to a silver age book. If you look the inner well extends to the outside of the label on the silver age vs a modern submission is not as wide.  Maybe different suppliers or same supplier but different product widths impacting the outcome.

[ADAMANTIUM]

On 9/5/2024 at 1:18 PM, DanJD said:

The width of the different ages might come into play. Assuming the outer slabs are all the same size, it appears the inner well is smaller compared to a silver age book. If you look the inner well extends to the outside of the label on the silver age vs a modern submission is not as wide.  Maybe different suppliers or same supplier but different product widths impacting the outcome.

So is it also or no longer the thickness and stock of the papers as mentioned, it could possibly be all of the above. 

Amazes me what all goes through with it per book, per age, per anything just like with grader terms, that I wouldn't blame someone for not straightway learning it perfectly. That it is t in defense or to say it is tolerable, save to say, this too Lord willing will pass.

Expect another YouTube vid?

[LordRahl]

On 9/5/2024 at 11:21 AM, ADAMANTIUM said:

So is it also or no longer the thickness and stock of the papers as mentioned, it could possibly be all of the above. 

Amazes me what all goes through with it per book, per age, per anything just like with grader terms, that I wouldn't blame someone for not straightway learning it perfectly. That it is t in defense or to say it is tolerable, save to say, this too Lord willing will pass.

Expect another YouTube vid?

The thickness and stock of the paper isn't causing the well to bend. It would have an impact on the severity of the damage being done by the bent well but the bent well has nothing to do with the paper inside it. 

[ADAMANTIUM]

On 9/5/2024 at 1:25 PM, LordRahl said:

The thickness and stock of the paper isn't causing the well to bend. It would have an impact on the severity of the damage being done by the bent well but the bent well has nothing to do with the paper inside it. 

indeed. it can withstand the bend, or not bend as much due to it.

Edited September 5 by ADAMANTIUM

[DanJD]

The silver age I posted was from before 2024.  Does anyone have a silver age book slabbed recently to see if they are still using a wider inner well that extends to the end of the label this year?  
 

Edit…Maybe disregard.  I checked other silver age books on EBay across different years and the width of the inner well seems to vary.  The width of the book may come into play, but not sure the width of the inner well does.

Edited September 5 by DanJD

[greggy]

I decided to just open the other box.

Most of the books are Marvel and DCs from 80-82

All the ones with wedges were on the spine side.

I saw ones with no wedges perfectly straight and no issues and others with wedges that show a slight curve.

It's hard to judge if some of the minor spine issues relates to the current issues or just issues they allowed, as I see some small creases but I believe they just allowed it in the 9.8 whether you agree or not but it was in the white part of the spine.

I did not see any with any of the obvious damage like seen in this thread but I can't confirm and deny if any of the spine issues seen on some of my 9.8s were there already.  If you've graded enough books, you'll see some gifts here and there.

In conclusion, it's definitely better than my first box that I got back last week. 

xoxo

greggy

[Stefan_W]

On 9/5/2024 at 1:50 PM, MadGenius said:

It's been assumed that this issue is only affecting Modern (1975-present) books, but are we certain of that? If we are, then why is it only affecting that segment of books? There's not much difference in structure between a 1974 comic and a 1976 comic for example. It could be argued that ultra-moderns are printed on better quality paper than the newsprint used back in the day, so theoretically shouldn't more modern books be sturdier and thus more resistant to bending than older books?

If only modern tier books are being affected, then we can rule out many outside factors such as environment and materials. The answer can almost only be human error if, in fact, the warped inner well is only showing up on modern tier books. 

I am pretty sure we cannot make the assumption I bolded. The width of moderns is different from SA or GA, so there were be different stocks of plastic at the right sizing used for the well. If they are different sizes there may be other differences as well, such as thickness, quality of the plastic, or even the supplier. There also may be a different impact of the heating process upon the different sizes of plastic, and also different rates of cooling. There are all sorts of factors at play which is why it has been so hard to pinpoint the problem. As @Skytripa pointed out earlier it could be a mix of factors, which makes it almost impossible to completely figure out from the outside. 

[greggy]

I did notice that an order with most Marvel Hanna Barbara books from 77-78 were completed and shipped today and it doesn't appear to have any wedges on any of them so I'll report on them when I get them.

It may be due to the paper quality at the time so let's wait to see how that one turns out.

I have another one coming tomorrow so I'll report on it when it comes in.

xoxo

greggy

[KingOfRulers]

This is still my favorite homemade warped inner well:

[Stefan_W]

FedEx just dropped off my books. Still bent but ones with shim have less space so maybe a smaller bend. 

Most, but not all, have the shim.

I still see ticks to a degree that it removed my pressing work. So books I cleaned up to get to 9.8 look like weak 9.8s at best. 

Books that were completely clean going in seem to have the most positive impact and do not show any stress along the spine. Based on what I am seeing, this is the biggest positive. 

 

Edited September 5 by Stefan_W

[VintageComics]

On 9/5/2024 at 2:18 PM, DanJD said:

The width of the different ages might come into play. Assuming the outer slabs are all the same size, it appears the inner well is smaller compared to a silver age book. If you look the inner well extends to the outside of the label on the silver age vs a modern submission is not as wide.  Maybe different suppliers or same supplier but different product widths impacting the outcome.

The widths are a non factor IMO. CGC uses 25 or 30 different inner well sizes to accomodate all of the different sizes of comic books, but I think it's safe to assume that they're all manufactured to similar specifications as far as strength / material etc.

The real difference is in paper quality, and what I mean is the paper the manufacturers or publishers use printing the comics. 

Most people call comics "newsprint" but the reality is that paper quality varies greatly and changes every few years. 

Up until the early 1970's (from about 1966 to 1972ish, or sometime in 1973) cover stock paper used by the big 2 (DC and Marvel) was actually quite sturdy. You can feel the difference. Charlton's cover stock was crazy thick and high quality. 

Spend some time feeling your different comics across the 60s and 70s and you'll notice it. 

By 1973/74, Marvel at least, had gone to a noticeably thinner cover stock. I can't remember right now when / if that changed for DC.

So Bronze books (Moderns, 1975 and later as designated by CGC) seem to use thinner cover stock than early 70's books. 

This may or may not be a factor but it's worth noting. 

Also, I'm not sure of how CGC is set up internally, but you may well have different teams working on vintage books (pre 1975) and modern books (post 1975). Are they the same encapsulation teams? I have no idea. 

There are a lot of possible factors to consider and this entire thread hasn't even considered them all yet, partly because there are a lot of factors that the general public isn't aware of. 

Even after all this though, I still personally think it's just human error, and a drop in QC during the busy season at this point. 

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

On 9/5/2024 at 3:06 PM, Stefan_W said:

FedEx just dropped off my books. Still bent but ones with shim have less space so maybe a smaller bend. 

Most, but not all, have the shim.

I still see ticks to a degree that it removed my pressing work. So books I cleaned up to get to 9.8 look like weak 9.8s at best. 

Books that were completely clean going in seem to have the most positive impact and do not show any stress along the spine. Based on what I am seeing, this is the biggest positive. 

 

I cannot get my books back from CGC, and I’m afraid to go scorched earth for fear of getting the worst of the warped wells

[electricprune]

On 9/5/2024 at 5:49 PM, GreatCaesarsGhost said:

I cannot get my books back from CGC, and I’m afraid to go scorched earth for fear of getting the worst of the warped wells

Do you mean that you sent in some slabs with warped inner wells and they won’t send them back?

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

On 9/5/2024 at 5:00 PM, electricprune said:

Do you mean that you sent in some slabs with warped inner wells and they won’t send them back?

no.  I sent in some raw books in June to be graded and slabbed.  I've gotten a few back, but am still waiting on the majority of my books.  I don't know what the hold up is.  The help desk gives me no information other than they didn't lose them.  This thread offers me an explanation for their tardiness that I am unable to get from the help desk.  So what I am saying is I don't want to pound the table too hard making demands, because I'm afraid I'll all of a sudden get a box of books with warped wells.

Edited September 5 by GreatCaesarsGhost

[electricprune]

On 9/5/2024 at 6:12 PM, GreatCaesarsGhost said:

So what I am saying is I don't want to pound the table too hard making demands, because I'm afraid I'll all of a sudden get a box of books with warped wells.

I hate to say it, but I don’t blame you. 😟

[lollyclown]

It's really disappointing that we have to sit here and try and do detective work to see if they have created some kind of fix, a temporary fix, or if they even care at all. This is been ongoing for a long time and this is one of the larger non-pinned posts these boards have. Months upon months to acknowledge this in some way.

Instead of waiting in anticipation and excitement about our books showing up, we are anxious and nervous and even worse looking at them as being evidence or test subjects to see if they've done anything. 

I personally think they just don't care. I'm biased after my incredibly terrible experience with a lead supervisor and an actual senior director who completely blew me off, gave me contradicting information and then ultimately just stop talking to me. 

I had a book go missing and someone on these boards actually found that they had found it and fixed it by looking it up under the old cert number on the registry and seeing the updated image. When I saw the image in the post, before reading it, my knee-jerk reaction was somebody showing off their own signed copy of the same book. 

After being in direct communication with a senior director they couldn't even be bothered to shoot me an email saying that it was going to be on its way to me in a few days. I emailed them back and asked them why they didn't let me know and I thought it was kind of stunning that my information came from somebody here on these boards being more helpful than a department director. That's just wrong on every single level.

This is not how you run a business. I unfortunately think the biggest factor in this is they don't care because they know (think) people will keep using their service. But they need to start realizing that there are competitors coming up and the information about this particular problem is spreading farther and wider every day and will not go away.

A con artist scam and a defamation lawsuit are one thing. The con affected a very small, almost microscopic cross-section of cgc customers. They made a big public announcement about it. It's an eye-catching thing to read about and get mad about and dissect publicly. Same with lawsuits. Same with the ridiculous 50-year-old 9.9. or the employee theft. At the end of the day this didn't really affect many people at all so keeping a sustained level of everything from outrage to disappointment just doesn't happen and didn't their bottom line.

But this current problem isn't going to go away on social media. It's all over YouTube, Facebook private groups, Reddit of course. Because it is affecting thousands of people potentially, it has the "I might be next" feeling to it, because they actually might be.

People who had books that were signed in the last year, like me that now have spine ticks on them, had plans to send them into other signings to add more signatures to it. Now they won't be doing that because the book is going to get a lower grade because of cgc screwing it up. Which is a real bummer when all you're missing is one artist or a writer signature to have a complete set on your book. The idea of throwing another hundred or $150 at a signature series and getting back a lower grade for something that's not your fault? Screw that.

I personally unchecked everything that's been slabbed in the last year off my eBay watch list. I know I'm not the only one doing that.

This kind of screw up is how class action lawsuits get started and won. Not to mention it's easier to win a lawsuit right after a business is already lost a major one. Lawyers love blood in the water.

On a personal level, this really bugs me. About 12 years ago I had to sell off my entire collection to finance a move and it was at the beginning of this year that I began getting back into collecting things physically and instead of buying monthly issues I was focusing on keys. I'd been mapping out what I was going to be sending in and when and I was really excited about it. I had never submitted anything, I'd only owned a few slabs prior to this. So even though I've been collecting to some degree for 44 years, the realm of slabbed and graded books was a new aspect for me and I was really looking forward to it.

I still am, just not with them. But it's not the same. I was looking forward to having that big wall of cgc slabs and the visual aspect and sort of pride you got from having a nice book. 

Anyway, I have put far too much energy into writing this and all the other posts I have on here and this company doesn't deserve another bit of it.

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

On 9/5/2024 at 6:46 PM, lollyclown said:

Anyway, I have put far too much energy into writing this and all the other posts I have on here and this company doesn't deserve another bit of it.

Wait.

I haven’t read this whole thread, but . . .

has CGC made no official acknowledgment of the warped well problem?

[MAY1979]

^ GreatCaesarsGhost, GreatCaesarsGhost I do suggest you get a bit caught up on the thread and you will understand the reason for all the ire.. The Short answer is NO, we have been told "the bending is normal".  

Which is tantamount to CGC:

1) Telling us its normal for them to damage your books
2) Only the number of the label is important the actual condition of the book is not relevant.  Which BTW is what made PGX irrelevant.
3) Pre 1975/Vintage subs appear not to suffer the bends thus rendering the "bending is normal" statement to be a logical falsehood.
4) While some of its been debunked a bit; Major 1975-Current submitters (think more than 1000 comics per month) of Modern Books appears to be affected to lesser degree than everyone else.
5) It's Newport Beach California here we come for a growing number of folks.

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

On 9/5/2024 at 7:09 PM, MAY1979 said:

3) Pre 1975/Vintage subs appear not to suffer the bends thus rendering the "bending is normal" statement to be a logical falsehood.

That explains why I’ve gotten my GA back, but not my moderns. 

CGC may not be changing their public position, but the fact they don’t just slab my moderns means, to me at least, that they are acknowledging the problem (at least internally). Otherwise, they’d go ahead and encapsulate my books just to shut me up

Edited September 6 by GreatCaesarsGhost

[MAY1979]

On 9/5/2024 at 8:22 PM, GreatCaesarsGhost said:

That explains why I’ve gotten my GA back, but not my moderns. 

CGC may not be changing their public position, but the fact they don’t just slab my moderns means, to me at least, that they are acknowledging the problem (at least internally). Otherwise, they’d go ahead and encapsulate my books just to shut me up

My books took 8 week to get back from re-holdering and they were in worse condition than when i have sent them back. 50% had color breaking ticks and the bend remained.

If my 9.8's were cracked out and re-submitted they would be 9.4's at best. I'm not alone it that as it seems to be the norm. Simply read the last 20-25 pages of this thread and you can confirm the last sentence.

Reading into wait times is purely optimism.

Edited September 6 by MAY1979