Is anyone else getting books back with warped inner wells? 23 23

[Stefan_W]

On 9/10/2024 at 1:23 PM, Stuk said:

Remember the awesome anticipation and rush of not knowing your CGC grades, getting that CGC box in the mail, and then unboxing them for the big reveal(s)? What a rush! Now . . .  it's more like dread anticipation. First, you'll see your grade and either be elated or disappointed or "whatever," and then immediately, the dread . . . as you inspect the spine side for stress and ticks and slowly turn the book on its side to see if it is bowed in the inner well. (Not to mention the added dread of going back and looking at all your earlier 43 and 44 books over the past two years. You already know the "grades"; but now you have to check the reality.) 

I have been hoping my orders take longer instead of shorter to give CGC more time to fix the issues. 

Currently on the last submissions in the hopper with one of them being modern. 

Edited September 10 by Stefan_W

[BlowUpTheMoon]

Just got back three books from 1973.  Two out of three had a curve to the books.  

Tried to take pictures but couldn't do them justice.  So, I put two piles of eight slabs down on the scanner and put the two affected slabs (spine down) in between the piles of eight slabs.  I used the two piles of eight slabs to keep the two affected slabs from moving while being scanned.

Both books start at the top (near the label) with the inner well against the front of the slabs, and the bottom of the book (inner well) against the back of the slab.

One of the two books exhibits two "crunches" which I could not adequately capture on camera. 

If that makes any sense. 

 

[BraveDave]

I was fortunate to not suffer any damages with my submission of vintage books. Fortunate or the issue was corrected for that category of books (pre-74). It leaves me without standing to complain too much at this time…

For those less fortunate, it seems like there are many of you (quite numerous). You also appear to suffer common issues / facts. I am sure there is a group of you suffering those common issues in a typical manner. There is also what appears to be a well-defined time frame where you have suffered these damages. It also seems individual attempts to remedy (or perhaps the burden of pursuing this further on your own) have failed.

If this is as widespread as it appears, I wonder what alternative might be out there to pursue this if CGC is not willing to be forthright themselves?

hmmmm, I wonder…

Hopefully CGC steps up before someone figures out an alternative…

 

[electricprune]

On 9/10/2024 at 5:59 PM, BlowUpTheMoon said:

Just got back three books from 1973.  Two out of three had a curve to the books.  

Tried to take pictures but couldn't do them justice.  So, I put two piles of eight slabs down on the scanner and put the two affected slabs (spine down) in between the piles of eight slabs.  I used the two piles of eight slabs to keep the two affected slabs from moving while being scanned.

Both books start at the top (near the label) with the inner well against the front of the slabs, and the bottom of the book (inner well) against the back of the slab.

One of the two books exhibits two "crunches" which I could not adequately capture on camera. 

If that makes any sense. 

 

Oh yeah, they got you. 😟 I am very slowly starting to see Vintage subs with the bends now.

Have you noticed any damage you don’t remember being there prior to slabbing?

[BlowUpTheMoon]

On 9/10/2024 at 8:09 PM, electricprune said:

Have you noticed any damage you don’t remember being there prior to slabbing?

Ugh.  I don't have a definitive answer for this question because I did not take scans prior to submitting books.  Also, this was probably my worst submission in the last 17 years.  Was I at fault?  I don't know.

Did I miss the chip out of the upper left corner of the back cover or did CGC cause it?  This was the one book out of the three without the warped inner well. 

Spoiler

Did I miss the popped staple or did CGC cause it?  This book was a misfire from the beginning. 

Spoiler

bend left top of back cover
crease right top of front cover breaks color
staple detached top of back cover

 

[electricprune]

On 9/10/2024 at 8:40 PM, BlowUpTheMoon said:

Ugh.  I don't have a definitive answer for this question because I did not take scans prior to submitting books.  Also, this was probably my worst submission in the last 17 years.  Was I at fault?  I don't know.

Did I miss the chip out of the upper left corner of the back cover or did CGC cause it?  This was the one book out of the three without the warped inner well. 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

Did I miss the popped staple or did CGC cause it?  This book was a misfire from the beginning. 

  Hide contents

bend left top of back cover
crease right top of front cover breaks color
staple detached top of back cover

 

Sorry to see it. The Weird War does look nice. 
 

What is that line of the top right of the front cover going down the right edge? Is that on the book?

[BlowUpTheMoon]

On 9/10/2024 at 8:48 PM, electricprune said:

What is that line of the top right of the front cover going down the right edge? Is that on the book?

I'm not sure what line you are referring to. 

[greggy]

On 9/10/2024 at 6:02 PM, BlowUpTheMoon said:

I'm not sure what line you are referring to. 

[BlowUpTheMoon]

On 9/10/2024 at 9:46 PM, greggy said:

Yeah, that book was a misfire.  You're very familiar with those. 

Edited September 11 by BlowUpTheMoon
greggy is a dork

[Barrakuda]

Maybe CGC is trying to target the college-age demographic now where grading on a curve is awesome...

[0r0d]

[Nazirite]

On 9/10/2024 at 1:23 PM, Stuk said:

Remember the awesome anticipation and rush of not knowing your CGC grades, getting that CGC box in the mail, and then unboxing them for the big reveal(s)?

You speak of the old ways, ancient one……

[lollyclown]

On 9/9/2024 at 7:38 PM, 0r0d said:

Here are the results of my conversation with CGC customer service:

I sent them photos of 3 damaged books (all 9.8 from prescreen, all went in with ZERO spine damage).  The worst one now has a color-break and bend that measures 1/4".  But, all came back bent and all had spine damage.

First response from CGC: The told me the following:

There you go, they dont claim to have even seen ANY impact to the condition of books.

According to CGC, the color-breaking tick that measures 1/4" is "acceptable" for a 9.8.

I'm sure if I crack it and send it back in, it will get a 9.8 again.  Right?  Right???

and

Or, more like "there is no guarantee that the grade will stay the same".

I offered them 2 options that would be acceptable to me.  1) Press and re-holder the books at their expense and guarantee that the grade will not change.  and 2) I send them the books and they refund me their replacement cost FMV (for 9.8s) in exchange.   I think both are reasonable.  For #1, the books have clearly had zero damage done to the slabs after they left their facility.  The only damage is inside the slabs.  So if they graded them a 9.8 they should still be a 9.8, especially after pressing.  Any damage that would make them not a 9.8 is entirely their fault.  And #2 is also reasonable since I'd just like the value of the comic they sent me and I'm sending back.

Their reply:

They asked for images of the books prior to being sent in.  I dont have such images.  Also...

So I can pay... again... to have them graded, and possibly damaged again.

and finally:

So I can resubmit for ME, even thought the spine damage will not qualify as ME and they have already said that a bent inner well is "normal" and "acceptable".  And of course once they reject the ME I will have to pay shipping both ways.  

There you go, customer service as its finest.  I can either suck it up and accept that I paid CGC to grade/slab my books and now they're damaged, or I can send them in to maybe get even more damaged and maybe, just maybe they can press them and keep the same grade... but I have to pay for it.

No offer to even refund the grading fees, or acknowledgement that there's any problem.  In fact, they claim that the books with ticks and bends (in one case 1/4" deep) are acceptable in a 9.8.  And, while I'm not an expert grader, I think that's just total B.S.  If I send that book in I'd expect maybe a 9.4 or 9.6 at highest.

And so now I really have nothing I can do except accept that I spent money and the result is some of my books are damaged, and I have to crack and press them myself to TRY to get them back into their original condition.  And then... I'm not sure what else.  Start using another grading service?  Why would I use CGC again when they wont even make up for their mistakes or even do the bare minimum of offering to refund the grading fees the few books they damaged? 

I just hope that this serves as a warning to others.  Submit books are your own risk.  If they come back damaged, you're on your own.

Attached photos of 1/4" spine tick/bend for reference.

I can guarantee you they're telling every single CSR to not say anything that remotely puts blame on cgc because once they do then they are screwed and going to be dealing with a giant mess. An interesting side result of this as I've ended up learning a lot about how class action lawsuits are formed and how they work. Completely unrelated to this topic of course. 

I just happened to see an ad for a lawyer popup while I was reading about stuff about the cgc. It's not at all a suggestion that it should happen or anything...

[HotKey]

On 9/10/2024 at 11:46 PM, lollyclown said:

I just happened to see an ad for a lawyer popup while I was reading about stuff about the cgc. It's not at all a suggestion that it should happen or anything...

On a completely unrelated note, situations where industry leaders run rampant and pretty much do whatever they want can be a big factor for the FTC stepping in to add some oversight to protect consumers. 

On a completely unrelated note, class action lawsuits are usually initiated by one or more parties acting as the class representatives, and then all the rest of the affected parties can be added in. Requirements can vary in some states, but 40 people is the generally acceptable number needed for a successful class action, while less than 20 can be viewed as an uphill fight.

On a completely unrelated note, the FTC website has a form for submitting complaints and one could in theory use those complaints to request oversight on any industry that shows a need for it.

🤷‍♂️

[Barrakuda]

I pulled and looked at a couple of my slabs that were encapsulated in the past couple years and found curvatures on 1 from May of 2022 and 1 from May of 2023.  These may be isolated incidents, but it is evident.  My 2023 slab is definitely much worse - a banana, and my 2022 has the top of the comic high, but the bottom is almost flat to the middle with just the smallest lift.

[Barrakuda]

I miss the days of Newton Rings.  Ugly as sin, but not damaging.

[SpineTic]

On 9/11/2024 at 11:45 AM, Barrakuda said:

I miss the days of Newton Rings.  Ugly as sin, but not damaging.

This is the result of the newton ring fiasco,  don't want inner well touching outer case. 

[PhantomEwan]

I reached out to customer service and got a cut and paste of what CGC Mike said.  But I noticed this at the bottom and wondered how long they have had this in their emails:

 

[LordRahl]

On 9/10/2024 at 2:59 PM, BlowUpTheMoon said:

Just got back three books from 1973.  Two out of three had a curve to the books.  

Tried to take pictures but couldn't do them justice.  So, I put two piles of eight slabs down on the scanner and put the two affected slabs (spine down) in between the piles of eight slabs.  I used the two piles of eight slabs to keep the two affected slabs from moving while being scanned.

Both books start at the top (near the label) with the inner well against the front of the slabs, and the bottom of the book (inner well) against the back of the slab.

One of the two books exhibits two "crunches" which I could not adequately capture on camera. 

If that makes any sense. 

 

If I'm seeing what I think I'm seeing, this isn't a concern. The well is flat, it's just at an angle. One side rests higher than the other within the hard shell. This won't cause any damage. I have tons of slabs like this going many years back. 

[VintageComics]

On 9/11/2024 at 11:45 AM, Barrakuda said:

I miss the days of Newton Rings.  Ugly as sin, but not damaging.

This is a great example of "be careful what you wish for".

People can be very short sighted and often not realize how good they have it until it's gone.