Grading shenanigans at CGC? 9 9

[Tnexus]

On 10/20/2024 at 3:51 PM, lou_fine said:

That's the same thinking that I used to have and probably still do to a certain extent, but I have been told by many others that the graders do NOT know the specific tier that a book has been submitted in and hence in theory, simply grade the book that's in front of them irrespective of the tier that it was submitted in.    

If I submit an UV book that's a modern, I can also submit a silver age UV in that same submission. I'm 95% certain most graders do specific tiers, so there has to be specialized graders who can grade across the spectrum. Likely the senior graders. They're not going to give the new guys tier tier books.

[Domo Arigato]

On 10/20/2024 at 11:27 AM, Gaard said:

Two questions to ponder ...

1) If that 12/21 submission was submitted by one of us, would we have gotten as many (or any) 9.9s?

2) If any of those 9.9s were cracked out and resubmitted, would they come back as 9.9s?

Here's another question to ponder:

What are the chances that this "miracle 9.9 submission"........with nobody on the CGC grading and encapsulation line knowing who submitted them.......somehow........by pure chance, of course..........miraculously left their facilities with perfectly flat and straight inner wells inside their cases?

My guess is 100 percent.

 

[D84]

On 10/20/2024 at 11:20 AM, RockMyAmadeus said:

"Quality is our enemy."

[RockMyAmadeus]

On 10/20/2024 at 1:59 PM, wombat said:

Do some people actually believe CGC waken up one day and said "we need to correct our sins of the past and give books the grades they deserve". 

[RockMyAmadeus]

On 10/20/2024 at 4:00 PM, Tnexus said:

If I submit an UV book that's a modern, I can also submit a silver age UV in that same submission. I'm 95% certain most graders do specific tiers, so there has to be specialized graders who can grade across the spectrum. Likely the senior graders. They're not going to give the new guys tier tier books.

[skybolt]

On 10/20/2024 at 7:05 PM, RockMyAmadeus said:

I thought it was some sort of urinary (virus) infection. 

[Chip Cataldo]

On 10/20/2024 at 4:51 PM, Tnexus said:

I think you could influence a grade if you're submitting comics to a higher tier. If you're submitting a $100 comic in the $1000 tier, you could potentially bias the grader by making them think the comic is worth the higher tier's costs in the first place. paying a bunch of extra money to insure you get the grades you want.

 

[Tec-Tac-Toe]

[mikenyc]

The issue lies in the gatekeepers, not the end result. The self-proclaimed master graders on these boards, who can identify, what they believe are 9.9s or higher, don't work for CGC. They submit books into a completely subjective system and then are angry when they don't get the grades back they feel their submissions deserve. 

You're playing in a game where the rules are clearly and demonstrably subjective. How many books have been analyzed, down to a magnifying glass, that the community does not believe deserve the grade it received. Or, inversely, a book doesn't get the grade that they believe it deserves. This is not a controlled experiment, where the variables can be standardized, this is a human who is looking at book and assigning it a grade. 

In regards to the particular submission that caused this thread, what appears to be statistically significant is the percentage of the overall submission that received 9.9's. Unless they have the pre-screen  for 9.9's and there were hundreds, or thousands of candidates that bore the 12 or whatever 9.9's, it seems like this is such an outlier that it needs to be looked into.

I have the easy solution to all this drama. Imagine a world where grading is nothing but a figment in people's imaginations. You actually look at a book and decide, for yourself, if this is the best copy of the book for you. You're not swayed by a number on a label, but the actual copy you select is the one that you like most. I own a lot of graded books, but as a particular boardie explained to me when I joined in 2010, always and forever buy the book and not the grade.

[skybolt]

On 10/21/2024 at 9:48 AM, mikenyc said:

The issue lies in the gatekeepers, not the end result. The self-proclaimed master graders on these boards, who can identify, what they believe are 9.9s or higher, don't work for CGC. They submit books into a completely subjective system and then are angry when they don't get the grades back they feel their submissions deserve. 

You're playing in a game where the rules are clearly and demonstrably subjective. How many books have been analyzed, down to a magnifying glass, that the community does not believe deserve the grade it received. Or, inversely, a book doesn't get the grade that they believe it deserves. This is not a controlled experiment, where the variables can be standardized, this is a human who is looking at book and assigning it a grade. 

In regards to the particular submission that caused this thread, what appears to be statistically significant is the percentage of the overall submission that received 9.9's. Unless they have the pre-screen for 9.9's and there were hundreds, or thousands of candidates that bore the 12 or whatever 9.9's, it seems like this is such an outlier that it needs to be looked into.

I have the easy solution to all this drama. Imagine a world where grading is nothing but a figment in people's imaginations. You actually look at a book and decide, for yourself, if this is the best copy of the book for you. You're not swayed by a number on a label, but the actual copy you select is the one that you like most. I own a lot of graded books, but as a particular boardie explained to me when I joined in 2010, always and forever buy the book and not the grade.

To your point, if this person had received one or two 9.9 grades with this submission, I highly doubt anyone would bat an eye. However, when 11 out of 21 books come back as 9.9s without a prescreen for a 9.9, there will be some scrutiny. Also, having made between 150-200 submissions to CGC over the past 20 years, there hasn't been one instance where the label grade did not match the grade on CGC's verification page. I've had several variants miss-labeled, newsstand designations missing, etc., but the grade has always been consistent. Seeing 2 such instances in this submission was odd to me.

[uncannyjames]

I feel like that if an independent data analytics team got a hold of CGC's census data and was able to create a scatter plot of all submissions with at least 1 9.9 in the submission that we would find out that submissions with MULTIPLE 9.9s would definitely be outliers and also that those submissions would be linked to a small subset of accounts (if you know what I'm saying).

[Stefan_W]

On 10/21/2024 at 2:10 PM, uncannyjames said:

I feel like that if an independent data analytics team got a hold of CGC's census data and was able to create a scatter plot of all submissions with at least 1 9.9 in the submission that we would find out that submissions with MULTIPLE 9.9s would definitely be outliers and also that those submissions would be linked to a small subset of accounts (if you know what I'm saying).

It would be closely associated with comic stores who send in hundreds of square bound books that are brand new and have never been opened. 

[Stefan_W]

On 10/21/2024 at 11:32 AM, skybolt said:

To your point, if this person had received one or two 9.9 grades with this submission, I highly doubt anyone would bat an eye. 

I only found it because several of the 9.9s hit the current auction at the same time, and I noticed a few of them were from the same submission so I looked more closely. 

Any submission with a 9.9 or 10 could be open to scrutiny since it is so easy to check out the rest of the submission using the certification lookup tool. 

[GeeksAreMyPeeps]

On 10/19/2024 at 10:57 PM, COI said:

If it's a change in strategy, then it wasn't a mistake, and they're not correcting anything now. In every circumstance, some set of customers are getting screwed, and they're just resetting the table they're using to bend everyone over.

It is important to note that when CGC bends you over, they are not doing any damage.

[CGC Mike]

This invoice was graded and QC’d by our senior team of graders.  The 9.9’s are legit.  As shown in the images, these are exceptionally nice books. Regarding the two examples with different grades shown in the online images, the grades were reassessed by the senior grading team during the QC step, but the original images were not replaced. This has been rectified.

[Sigur Ros]

On 10/21/2024 at 5:38 PM, CGC Mike said:

This invoice was graded 

Was it a 9.9 too?

[mosconi]

On 10/21/2024 at 2:38 PM, CGC Mike said:

This invoice was graded and QC’d by our senior team of graders.  The 9.9’s are legit.  As shown in the images, these are exceptionally nice books. Regarding the two examples with different grades shown in the online images, the grades were reassessed by the senior grading team during the QC step, but the original images were not replaced. This has been rectified.

Hi Mike, so if I understand correctly, the two books with different grades were initially graded as 9.9's and then encapsulated in their holders/slabs and photographed.  But the senior graders had a second look and thoughts after the encapsulation process (during QC) and decided they would drop them up to 9.8's while assessing them in their then 9.9 slabs?  I guess I was not knowledgeable about the QC steps after grading and that it allowed for the senior graders to re-evaluate grades while the books were already in their fresh newly graded CGC slabs.  Thanks for the update.   

Edited Monday at 11:36 PM by mosconi

[skybolt]

On 10/21/2024 at 6:13 PM, mosconi said:

Hi Mike, so if I understand correctly, the two books with different grades were initially graded as 9.8's and then encapsulated in their holders/slabs and photographed.  But the senior graders had a second look and thoughts after the encapsulation process (during QC) and decided they would bump them up to 9.9's while assessing them in their 9.8 slabs?  I guess I was not knowledgeable about the QC steps after grading and that it allowed for senior graders to still change grades while the books were already in their fresh newly graded slabs.

I think he meant the opposite. The initial grader graded them as 9.9's and they were imaged that way. Once the senior graders QC'd them, they decided they were 9.8's. At least I think. The statement about the 9.9's being legit was in reference to the other 9 books.

Edited Monday at 11:16 PM by skybolt

[mosconi]

deleted

Edited Monday at 11:19 PM by mosconi

[mosconi]

On 10/21/2024 at 4:15 PM, skybolt said:

I think he meant the opposite. The initial grader graded them as 9.9's and they were imaged that way. Once the senior graders QC'd them, they decided they were 9.8's. At least I think. 

Thanks I just edited my post