My first submission!

[DiceX]

My very first CGC submission is packed up and ready to ship in the morning.

7 moderns. This is kind of a test to see how close my grades are to CGC's.

 

When I get it back, my guesses are...

9.8+ (W) - ASM 189

9.6+ (W) - ASM 188 (9.8 if it wasn't for a small bindery tear)

9.6 (W) - ASM 194

9.4 (OW/W) - ASM 194

9.4+ (W) - ASM 300

9.4 (OW/W) - Ghost Rider 81 (wouldn't supprise me if it went 9.2)

9.6 (Extremely White) - Solar 3 (thought I'd toss a Valiant in for kicks)

 

I may be in for a shock when I get back a bunch of 8.0 to 9.0 slabs.

If so, I may take up collecting pet rocks.

How about you other members...How did YOUR first submission compare to what you thought it would?

 

And while you're at it, please give me some lucky mojo!

 

Oh, and when can I expect to get them back? (20 business days?)

[thecomicsheet]

My very first CGC submission is packed up and ready to ship in the morning.

7 moderns. This is kind of a test to see how close my grades are to CGC's.

 

When I get it back, my guesses are...

9.8+ (W) - ASM 189

9.6+ (W) - ASM 188 (9.8 if it wasn't for a small bindery tear)

9.6 (W) - ASM 194

9.4 (OW/W) - ASM 194

9.4+ (W) - ASM 300

9.4 (OW/W) - Ghost Rider 81 (wouldn't supprise me if it went 9.2)

9.6 (Extremely White) - Solar 3 (thought I'd toss a Valiant in for kicks)

 

I may be in for a shock when I get back a bunch of 8.0 to 9.0 slabs.

If so, I may take up collecting pet rocks.

How about you other members...How did YOUR first submission compare to what you thought it would?

 

And while you're at it, please give me some lucky mojo!

 

Oh, and when can I expect to get them back? (20 business days?)

 

Good luck on your submission.

 

My first submission was a fairly small one. I was testing the waters like your are. It didn't go too bad, I got back back about what I expected with only one or two bad surprises. That got my hopes up and got me sucked in. My second submission was a disaster. Everything was WAY below what I think they should have been . Cost me a lot of money . Third one was so-so, a bit disappointing. After that I've alternated between mildly disappointing shipments to [@!?].

So, best of luck to you.

[clarkkentdds]

I haven't been submitting books lately because CGC seems unusually eratic...When I first started sending in books, CGC was consistent...But recently, it's been a toss up...Some real surprises in the last submission.

[wasonff]

With my first few submissions I only had one or two bad surprises. But I had a couple of pleasant surprises as well so it evened out I'm actually just preparing a larger batch of moderns to submit (the first few were pre-75 books) and have decided to go the pre-grade route. That way I'll avoid any nasty surprises that I hadn't seen on grading the books myself. I think it's a good way to go - set a minimum grade you're willing to accept and you don't end up paying a lot for your grading mistakes (actually you do but far less for the rejected ones - 3$ I believe)

[murph0]

They have been more erratic than normal recently. I wonder if they hired more grader's or are getting overwhelmed with submissions?

 

Brian

[HeroDreamer]

I wasn't really into grading then but heard about them and wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I sent in ASM 300, ASM 145, Ultimate Spidey 1 Red and McFarlanes Silver 1. All I really looked for was spine stress and edge wear before sending them because I didn't really know what else mattered. This was about a year and a half ago.

 

ASM 300 came back 9.6

ASM 145 came back 9.2 I sent this cuz it was my oldest, nice "modern" spidey

Spiderman 1 was a 9.6 I sent that cuz it looked pretty perfect to me

USM 1 Red was a 9.4 That one I just sold right away because I didn't understand why it wasn't higher.

 

I've definitely learned a bit about grading since then. Become more subjective and less "wishful". I think for the most part now I can get pretty close to a comics actual grade. We'll see...I'm going to send out my 2nd batch now which is actually just going to be 3 books which I have graded as follows

 

ASM 71 8.5

ASM 74 9.0

ASM 129 7.5-8.0

 

I'll probably understand grading even better by the time I get them back and will be kicking myself for sending them.

[highlite23]

They have been more erratic than normal recently. I wonder if they hired more grader's or are getting overwhelmed with submissions?

 

Brian

 

Brian, I think you hit the nail on the head. As more and more "Collectors/Investors", and let's face it, "speculators" try and turn a buck or recoop some of their investment, I have to guess that the grades are gonna be all over the place.

 

And as was suggested, they may be putting more men on the job, so it may continue to be eratic for some time.

 

I'm still fighting with myself about sending that first submission for these very reasons.

[Dave_Hennen]

Can someone expand on this pre-grading option. I wasn't aware of such a thing, is it only available on certain types of books. So far I've only sent in a couple of batches of modern books and don't recall seeing anything like pre-grading offered or explained

 

thanks

dave h

[wasonff]

Can someone expand on this pre-grading option. I wasn't aware of such a thing, is it only available on certain types of books. So far I've only sent in a couple of batches of modern books and don't recall seeing anything like pre-grading offered or explained

 

thanks

dave h

 

Although I'm no expert on this....I know there are several other board members here that use the pre-grading service quite extensively. I believe Darth is one of them. When filling out the CGC submission form, you can select a pre-grading option. You specify a certain grade that you will accept as a minimum and they have a pregrader look over each book and if it makes your minimum, it gets put in the appropriate tier and gets graded. If it doesn't they send them back to you, charging you far less than if you had it graded normally (I think the fee is $3 for moderns, $5 (?) for economy). But there is a catch - there is a minumum number of comics that must be sent in - 100 for moderns and 50 for pre-1975 books. So usually you mostly see dealers submitting large batches of books and not the average collector.

 

I've been lucky in that I've been able to get some of my comics sent in for pre-grading by adding my batch in with a submission of a local dealer who's sending some in - very cool on his part.

 

I'm sure others here on the board could give you their experiences with pre-grading but personally I think it's great

[thecomicsheet]

Can someone expand on this pre-grading option. I wasn't aware of such a thing, is it only available on certain types of books. So far I've only sent in a couple of batches of modern books and don't recall seeing anything like pre-grading offered or explained

 

thanks

dave h

 

Pre-screening is the only way to go - especially on moderns. CGC will work with you on this and they have been very helpful to me on the phone.

 

On modern's they want you to have at least 100 books in the shipment. They do charge $3 for each 'reject'. You specify the minimum grade you will accept.

 

They do not guarantee that you will receive the minimum grade by the way. They just give the book a quick look over to weed out obvious lower grades. As a practical matter you will receive at least the minimum grade on almost all of the books that pass the pre-screen. I think in my last batch of 100 I just had a couple that passed pre-screen but didn't meet the grade.

 

If you ask them nice, they will also let you break the batch up into say 50 9.4's and 50 9.6's. Just give them a call. They're nice people to work with.

 

CGC will accept submission paperwork other than their paper ones or the the computer printouts that Heritage and the like produce. I put together an Excel spreadsheet that I use for submissions. It is modeled very closely to their paper form. It is a lot easier than trying to hand fill in the paper sheets. If you want the 20 percent discount, you might go ahead and fill in the online forms at Heritage or some of the other dealers that offer the discount (there are others - I think Metropolis?). If the generated forms don't have a place to put pre-screen, just hand write it clearly on the printed form.

 

[Dave_Hennen]

Thanks for the info, I learned something new

 

dave h

[500Club]

My very first CGC submission is packed up and ready to ship in the morning.

7 moderns. This is kind of a test to see how close my grades are to CGC's.

 

When I get it back, my guesses are...

9.8+ (W) - ASM 189

9.6+ (W) - ASM 188 (9.8 if it wasn't for a small bindery tear)

9.6 (W) - ASM 194

9.4 (OW/W) - ASM 194

9.4+ (W) - ASM 300

9.4 (OW/W) - Ghost Rider 81 (wouldn't supprise me if it went 9.2)

9.6 (Extremely White) - Solar 3 (thought I'd toss a Valiant in for kicks)

 

I may be in for a shock when I get back a bunch of 8.0 to 9.0 slabs.

If so, I may take up collecting pet rocks.

How about you other members...How did YOUR first submission compare to what you thought it would?

 

And while you're at it, please give me some lucky mojo!

 

Oh, and when can I expect to get them back? (20 business days?)

 

I got grades near what I'd expected on my first submission. Prior to doing that, though, I'd bought reference grades to evaluate the general look and defects permitted in each grade from 9.0 up.

[DiceX]

Thanks for all the replys so far.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

 

That ASM 189 I sent in should grade at least 9.8.

It is a perfect book.

I'm really hoping for a 9.9 on that one.

That's probably way too much to ask for. But I can dream, right?

 

The 188 is as nice as the 189 except for a miniscule bindery tear on the bottom left corner.

188 has a beautiful cover in high grade. I guess it's a 9.6 with the corner flaw.

 

Just curious, what is the oldest 10.0 ASM?

How about a 9.9?

I would imagine it's older than 189.

[DiceX]

One other thing I'd like to know.

Is there any way I can get the grade info on my books before they are shipped back?

 

I'm gona go nuts before I get the books back, I know it.

[chrisco37]

Yeah, you can call them in a few weeks and see what the grades are. Use your order # as a reference when calling them.

 

Good luck on your submissions. But, like others said, don't get your hopes too high (ie. thinking and easy 9.8 on the Spidey book), especially if you've never submitted to them before. The more you submit, the better you'll get at gauging their grading.

 

Chris