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CGC Census - Toughest 9.8s for Copper Age

Started by valiantman,

87 posts in this topic

Topnotchman

Topnotchman

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People tend to overvalue there collections with the grades, they get brought down to earth when they first start submitting books to get graded. I've seen many books that would be 9.8 get knocked down because of a dust or sun shadow across the top edge. Its all the little things that just add up, other than a flat clean spine. You need more than just an unbroken spine to get 9.8's.

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cd4ever

cd4ever

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Fascinating analysis Valiantman. Well done.

 

And I do agree with JC.....Keys do skew the numbers a bit since they have a larger percentage of lower grades than non-keys.

 

The comparison of 9.4's to 9.8's is very telling.

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valiantman

valiantman

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The lone Fantastic Four #214 CGC 9.8 (Torch cover) was owned by the Beyonder and if I recall correctly but was damaged in the slabb during delivery a few years back so actually there are no CGC 9.8's for this issue.

 

I think he would have to send the label in to CGC in order to get the book removed from the census.

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valiantman

valiantman

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Fascinating analysis Valiantman. Well done.

 

And I do agree with JC.....Keys do skew the numbers a bit since they have a larger percentage of lower grades than non-keys.

 

The comparison of 9.4's to 9.8's is very telling.

 

Well, we're not really estimating the "toughness" for obtaining a 9.8 in the real world,

we're actually showing the "Percent of slabbed copies in 9.8", which is appropriate to have

many key books included because most key books have a very small "percent of slabbed copies in 9.8".

 

It's really the answer to the question...

"Suppose I see a slabbed copy of [whatever], what is the chance that it is a 9.8?"

...and...

"Which slabbed books have the lowest chance of being a 9.8 if chosen at random?"

 

If it were possible to get a valid cross-section of all books in all grades,

we wouldn't have to rely on the guesses derived from the census. :grin:

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supapimp

supapimp

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The lone Fantastic Four #214 CGC 9.8 (Torch cover) was owned by the Beyonder and if I recall correctly but was damaged in the slabb during delivery a few years back so actually there are no CGC 9.8's for this issue.

 

just press it back to a 9.8. :whistle:

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Topnotchman

Topnotchman

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The average grade for the books on the list is built mostly in two seperate ways. You have collectors who send in there key issues and favorite covers to get graded. Say they send in 20 different comics and all get graded, most come back in the 9.2-9.6 range with 5 copies as a 9.8. These comics traditional do not get put up for sale on Ebay as its a personal collection. On the other hand a dealer say finds 100 uncirculated copies of a desirable comic. He picks the best 10 copies and sends them in on a 9.8 pre screen and gets back 7 in 9.8 with zero grading lower. Actually it ends up being 7 copies out of 100 as the dealer knows which copies are worthy of getting slabbed. How this affects the census can vary from book to book.

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valiantman

valiantman

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i read alot that harbinger #1 is impossible, only 1 i think 9.8. what makes it so hard, what should i look for? a printing defect?

 

There are 17 copies of Harbinger #1 in 9.8... it used to be 11, but that $2,500 sale

had a few more find their way to CGC's slabbing facility. :grin:

 

Harbinger #1's main problem is that the paper used for the cover

is pretty brittle and it splits at the spine between or near the staples.

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valiantman

valiantman

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The average grade for the books on the list is built mostly in two seperate ways. You have collectors who send in there key issues and favorite covers to get graded. Say they send in 20 different comics and all get graded, most come back in the 9.2-9.6 range with 5 copies as a 9.8. These comics traditional do not get put up for sale on Ebay as its a personal collection. On the other hand a dealer say finds 100 uncirculated copies of a desirable comic. He picks the best 10 copies and sends them in on a 9.8 pre screen and gets back 7 in 9.8 with zero grading lower. Actually it ends up being 7 copies out of 100 as the dealer knows which copies are worthy of getting slabbed. How this affects the census can vary from book to book.

 

Right... in the case of pre-screens, the average unslabbed copy could be

MUCH lower than the census average because ONLY the books

that make the pre-screen are on the census.

 

As you mentioned, what looks like 7 out of 7 in CGC 9.8 on the census

could actually be 7 out of 100 compared to the books on hand.

What's more, now that the 7 books are in CGC 9.8 slabs,

the average grade of the other 93 unslabbed books is actually lower

than the average grade of the original 100 unslabbed books.

The "unslabbed world" is being cherry picked... quickly.

 

Unslabbed books are increasingly becoming a bigger gamble than before CGC existed.

After all, who is going to sell legitimately very high grade books without slabbing them first?

(Besides someone who doesn't know any better, of course... and it's unlikely that someone

who doesn't know any better is also someone who can keep their books in 9.8+ condition.) :grin:

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joe_collector

joe_collector

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Unslabbed books are increasingly becoming a bigger gamble than before CGC existed. After all, who is going to sell legitimately very high grade books without slabbing them first?

 

Definitely, and there are tons of "pre-screen rejects" being sold on EBay as NM, which is fine as long as the buyer doesn't try to submit it. :insane:

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valiantman

valiantman

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Unslabbed books are increasingly becoming a bigger gamble than before CGC existed. After all, who is going to sell legitimately very high grade books without slabbing them first?

 

Definitely, and there are tons of "pre-screen rejects" being sold on EBay as NM, which is fine as long as the buyer doesn't try to submit it. :insane:

 

I stopped assuming that EBay's version of "Near Mint" meant more than 9.0 a few years ago.

Of course, there are still legitimate unslabbed 9.8s bought and sold on EBay every day,

but there are also people winning the lottery every day...

that doesn't mean I need to risk my money on either "gamble".

 

:grin:

 

If I'm buying EBay "NM", I'm paying the 9.0 price... and no more. (thumbs u

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valiantman

valiantman

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are some of these non-keys issues maybe just rare because the book isn't too in demand to submitt at this point in time?

 

So they are out there just no real incentive to CGC them as of right now.

 

any thoughts.....

 

I think the question would be...

 

"Why are some books that have been submitted to CGC over 50 times not showing

up on the census as 9.8 very often? Who's submitting them in lower grades,

and is there a legitimate reason that 9.8 is not happening for people submitting?"

 

If the answer is that the books are actually hard to get in 9.8,

then I think that's what people want to know.

 

50+ submissions is a lot of money, time, and effort, to settle for 9.4 and 9.6 for non-keys.

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NewWorldOrder

NewWorldOrder

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are some of these non-keys issues maybe just rare because the book isn't too in demand to submitt at this point in time?

 

So they are out there just no real incentive to CGC them as of right now.

 

any thoughts.....

 

I think the question would be...

 

"Why are some books that have been submitted to CGC over 50 times not showing

up on the census as 9.8 very often? Who's submitting them in lower grades,

and is there a legitimate reason that 9.8 is not happening for people submitting?"

 

If the answer is that the books are actually hard to get in 9.8,

then I think that's what people want to know.

 

50+ submissions is a lot of money, time, and effort, to settle for 9.4 and 9.6 for non-keys.

 

Yea that make sense, I was seeing if any of those books were just not submitted enough, thats all.

 

thanks for info!

 

OT: I love pre-unity Valiants! :cloud9:

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Topnotchman

Topnotchman

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The missing part of the list you put together is the value they sell in each grade. As a dealer if it can sell for a profit in 9.4 or 9.6 than that becomes the new cutoff for prescreen. I would lower the standard with the prescreen. Otherwise you go back to just lousy printing, most of the run was never in 9.8 the day they came out. Which makes it multiply 20 years later with storage and gravity doing there damage to remaining copies.

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valiantman

valiantman

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The missing part of the list you put together is the value they sell in each grade. As a dealer if it can sell for a profit in 9.4 or 9.6 than that becomes the new cutoff for prescreen. I would lower the standard with the prescreen. Otherwise you go back to just lousy printing, most of the run was never in 9.8 the day they came out. Which makes it multiply 20 years later with storage and gravity doing there damage to remaining copies.

 

Got any recommendation for how to put the value they sell for in each grade into the census?

So far, all these lists are coming from the census data... and nothing else. :foryou:

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