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

[DanJD]

On 7/29/2024 at 11:52 AM, DaveSFU said:

Well so far, despite CS telling me over and over that the Exceptions team would reach out to me once they looked at my books,  nobody did.  2 of my 4 ME submissions (24 books) went from "Scheduled For Grading" all the way through to "Shipped" in the span of about 2 hours this morning.   They all still have the same grades, which isnt possible given the damage some of them had and that CCS didnt have their hands on them.   So looks like im just getting back damaged and reholdered books with inaccurate grades?   And probably still in warped inner wells.  

FYI.  Same happened to me.  My book didn’t got to CCS but was still re-pressed. Sat with them for a week without even being logged in as a ME and then zipped through to shipped.  You can tell the book was flatter than the first time, but it still has a warped inner well and still wavy near the bend points.  Obviously the color breaks will not go away.  Grade came in the same as before.  Confirmed it was a re-pressed and re-holdered.  I had just one book submitted for the Wolverine signing event that was impacted, so I am very sorry about the many books you are having trouble with. 

Edited July 29 by DanJD

[DaveSFU]

On 7/29/2024 at 1:13 PM, MAR1979 said:

Not saying you will but many will simply sell off the affected books in thus situation. 

That means unless one can see a 2024 slabbed book in hand its not safe to purchase. IIRC one of the Charter messages of CGC was to prevent having to do that in the online era...

IMHO CGC is not being wise at this point in time in opening up a huge lane for PSA to convoy down

Alot of these were for my PC.   Some i was going to sell.   It was all stuff from the Claremont signing.    This definitely had me looking deeper into PSA today for sure

[DaveSFU]

Books just changed from SHIPPED back to GRADING/QUALITY CONTROL.  Thats a first

[MAY1979]

^ perhaps FEDEX now handles grading...

[wiparker824]

On 7/29/2024 at 10:13 AM, MAR1979 said:

Not saying you will but many will simply sell off the affected books in this situation. 

This is for sure happening. Much of it will be unknowingly too. A lot of people who submit tons of books to sell don’t have time to check every slab in a side profile to see if it’s curved (especially if they’re not aware of this problem and aren’t actively checking for it). Some of the time they aren’t even getting the slab back themselves before they sell it, if for example they sell thru an auction house that will submit books to CGC on their behalf and auction them when they are graded.

It’s one thing if we’re talking about a high grade AF 15 that will have a lot of eyeballs on it, but some random modern 9.8 that sells for a couple hundred online could change hands many times without anyone examining that closely. And to your point even if someone does notice, they will often sell it immediately rather than go thru what appears to be (from what people are reporting in this thread) a massive hassle of trying to send to CGC as ME.

[Yorick]

On 7/29/2024 at 6:59 AM, ADAMANTIUM said:

If it isn't the inner well heat from being sealed?

It would be hard to think the case being sealed and being further away then to heat up the inner well

The individual components of inner-well plastic are likely thermoformed.  Thermoforming/maufacturing of the inner well is also not likely to have occurred onsite at CGC (probably China).  When a thermoformed (and very thin) sheet of plastic is left in a hot space, the material retro-forms and begins to sag and return to it's original flat state.  I'd guess that there are boxes of inner wells that have been left in a hot space and are simply warped.

Only one of my submitted books was impacted (of thirteen total).  The CGC onsite team will seal the various plastic elements together for the "graded" comicbook.  If it was something occurring during the combining of elements (and this part is typically done via sonic weld, not heat), then we should be seeing in on every graded book released by CGC.

[MadGenius]

I wonder if the Giant Size X-Men 1 9.9 that sold a few weeks ago had a curved inner well. 

[MadGenius]

On 7/29/2024 at 5:04 PM, Yorick said:

The individual components of inner-well plastic are likely thermoformed.  Thermoforming/maufacturing of the inner well is also not likely to have occurred onsite at CGC (probably China).  When a thermoformed (and very thin) sheet of plastic is left in a hot space, the material retro-forms and begins to sag and return to it's original flat state.  I'd guess that there are boxes of inner wells that have been left in a hot space and are simply warped.

Only one of my submitted books was impacted (of thirteen total).  The CGC onsite team will seal the various plastic elements together for the "graded" comicbook.  If it was something occurring during the combining of elements (and this part is typically done via sonic weld, not heat), then we should be seeing in on every graded book released by CGC.

Assuming nothing changed in terms of the way the inner wells are stored, this doesn't explain why this is happening now after 20 years of slabbing. I'm still drawing a straight line between the revised encapsulation techniques after reholder-gate and the warped inner wells. If I'm wrong, then the "bad batch" of wells should have run their course by now. This has been going on for 9-10 months.

[Yorick]

On 7/29/2024 at 2:23 PM, MadGenius said:

Assuming nothing changed in terms of the way the inner wells are stored, this doesn't explain why this is happening now after 20 years of slabbing. I'm still drawing a straight line between the revised encapsulation techniques after reholder-gate and the warped inner wells. If I'm wrong, then the "bad batch" of wells should have run their course by now. This has been going on for 9-10 months.

They have to order in bulk? 

 

[DanJD]

On 7/29/2024 at 1:17 PM, DaveSFU said:

Books just changed from SHIPPED back to GRADING/QUALITY CONTROL.  Thats a first

Did the books ever ship or are they actually re-grading them?

Also, I searched CGC warped inner well and there appears to be a thread with a very similar issue back in early 2023…

[Tnexus]

Anyone know if a certain era of books is more affected than others?

[MadGenius]

On 7/30/2024 at 2:52 AM, Tnexus said:

Anyone know if a certain era of books is more affected than others?

I would say silver/bronze/copper are more vulnerable because of the newsprint paper used in those comics. Those older comics aren't as sturdy as a modern comics with thicker glossy paper stock.

[DaveSFU]

On 7/30/2024 at 9:21 AM, MadGenius said:

I would say silver/bronze/copper are more vulnerable because of the newsprint paper used in those comics. Those older comics aren't as sturdy as a modern comics with thicker glossy paper stock.

Accurate.  I had a wide sampling of books to check out and it was definitely the thinner/older books which were worse off.  

[LordRahl]

On 7/29/2024 at 2:04 PM, MadGenius said:

I wonder if the Giant Size X-Men 1 9.9 that sold a few weeks ago had a curved inner well. 

I had about a dozen squarebounds in the submission I had that I originally posted about. None of them were affected. Could be a coincidence but I don't really believe in coincidences like that. More likely, the squarebounds are too thick for the well to be able to bend them. 

[MAY1979]

On 7/30/2024 at 11:40 AM, LordRahl said:

I had about a dozen squarebounds in the submission I had that I originally posted about. None of them were affected. Could be a coincidence but I don't really believe in coincidences like that. More likely, the squarebounds are too thick for the well to be able to bend them. 

That is a most certainly plausible.

Or not same exact inner well as for standard thickness comics?

I'm sure other possible reasons exist...

Edited July 30 by MAR1979

[Ninja0215]

Then  side note: only send modern books to cgc. 👍

[MAY1979]

On 7/30/2024 at 4:05 PM, Ninja0215 said:

Then  side note: only send modern books to cgc.

If only it were that simple, I don't do Modern

For me this has quickly become a depressing paradigm changer.  Yet another thing in life to add to the "is no more" pile.

I hope that at some future juncture there will be a good slab/grade date for safe purchase. Right now my personal arbitrary cut-off is nothing slabbed after Dec 14 2023. I'm removed all pending bids and "watch's" I've had for recent slabs as well as put all my pending raw submission books back into the boxes from which they were pulled.  As I said this is depressing to me on multiple levels.

 

P.S. Any one know if Magazine sized slabs are affected?

Edited July 30 by MAR1979

[dbcn]

On 7/30/2024 at 4:05 PM, Ninja0215 said:

only send modern books to cgc.

I just sent 2 books back for MEs that were curved in the slab - both were modern 

[LordRahl]

On 7/30/2024 at 1:09 PM, MAR1979 said:

If only it were that simple.

For me this has quickly become a depressing paradigm changer.  Yet another thing in life to add to the "is no more" pile.

I hope that at some future juncture there will be a good slab/grade date for safe purchase. Right now my personal arbitrary cut-off is nothing slabbed after Dec 14 2023. I'm removed all pending bids and watch's I've had for recent slabs as well as put all my pending raw submission books back into the boxes from which they were pulled.  As I said this is depressing to me on multiple levels.

 

P.S. Any one know if Magazine sized slabs are affected?

I have Magazines in but they take forever so won't see them for a while. My guess is they won't be... too thick to bend. 

[Ninja0215]

Well there goes that.....guess I'm gonna hold off on submitting till this gets rectified.