CGC's idea of a 9.8??

[deathlok]

So you're saying that it's not true that (as reported elsewhere) the comics are blindly graded, with CGC graders not aware of who the submitter is?

That is true.

lard.

[greggy]

So you're saying that it's not true that (as reported elsewhere) the comics are blindly graded, with CGC graders not aware of who the submitter is?

That is true.

lard.

[joe_collector]

Where has this been uncovered at major grading companies? Seeing as there's only one grading company for comics...

 

Man, learn to read. "Major grading companies" does NOT include the word COMIC..

[joe_collector]

Nope. Forgive me if I assume you are about to spout some fantastic theory about CGC grading. One with no actual hard evidence to back it up.

 

It's really no secret that the basis of any pro grading company is to artificially limit the number of ultra high-grade copies (relative to the overall population) and therefore ensure speculative activities on these manufactured rarities. It's the old story about how no one wants a NM copy of X, but toss a CGC 9.8-9.9 copy and the suckers circle like wolves.

 

This is a very important part of the business, and I would say is probably the core component of long-term market success and consistent submissions.Toss out too many CGC 9.8 grades relative to the CGC 9.0-9.6 copies, and speculators will run away, but effectively limit the number and you have a feeding frenzy.

 

In some cases, (like GA and early-SA books) no funny business is required to achieve these targets, but on others of a more recent age, it would not look good for the Census to suddenly explode with CGC 9.8-10.0 grades, so in the coin and sportscard biz, it's often standard operating procedure for companies to limit the numbers relative to the overall submissions.

 

Toss in 100 vending case pristine cards, and get back a pretty consistent arrangement of 8.X, 9.X, and 10 graded cards each time, and upon crack-n-resubmit, the same basic grades ratios come back, but the cards receiving the 10's often change. Even resubmitting a pile of previously-10 graded cards will NOT get you back a 100% graded 10 result, or even close to it.

 

This is how the grading business has worked, and how it will continue to in the future, and believe me, I am not condemning CGC if they're doing it, as it makes perfect business sense. In fact, if they're not grading on the curve (at least at the ultra high-end) then they're stupid and being very short-sighted.