How will you guys use the CGC invoice lookup?

[fantastic_four]

I've been sort of hoping to have the ability to look up info about a CGC-graded comic for quite a while, as many others have. Apparently the new page Architect created lets you look up all the info that's on the CGC label for any comic you know the invoice for, with one extra bit of info that I think will be useful--date of grading. Murph is right though, without the grader's comments, the feature seems a bit neutered.

 

Does anybody have any ideas how they'd use this feature? I'm not part of the Collector's Society and I don't have many books I'd like to submit right now, but if this thing is useful, I might try it out.

 

One thing I've thought of is that I'd like to look up page whiteness or grading comments for auctions where the scan included in the auction is too small to see that stuff. If I'm really interested in a book, I will often e-mail the seller. But if I'm busy that week or there are a lot of auctions going on, by the time the seller responds, I sometimes forget which book he's writing to tell me about. However, the problem is that if the scan is too small to see the label, then there's no way I'd be able to see the invoice number to have the web page do me any good. That could work if you could search by title/issue number in addition to invoice number.

[murph0]

On the 2 books I've been able to look up, page-whiteness is included. Other then confirming that the book indeed exists, the feature has no other redeeming qualities right now. Without including a way to "add the books" to a portfolio type feature...or better yet..key comments on the grade (you know like maybe 1 sentences highlighting a couple of the flaws on the book) this feature really doesn't serve much of a purpose. It is a nice step forward for sure, but without those two key elements it stops wwwwaaaaaaayyyy short of being a feature worth using.

 

Brian

[clobberintime]

Boy I am all tired out from flexing my brain with Dr. Kooky so came over here for a breather. On FF's advice i bought Frailty on dvd and have a good bottle of wine - eta about 9 pm. I know this isn't the right thread but Jamie brought it up before that he thought it it was good movie so we are going to check it out!

[comicinvestor-migration]

Nevermind, forget I said anything about Frailty, drink some wine and have a blast.

[ArAich]

 

Frailty is Bill paxton at his finest. I thought the movie was excellant, most of all because I had never heard of it and had no expectations going in. Let us know how you liked it.

[BronzeBruce13]

Hey Jamie...

 

I don't know if you saw my comments (reprinted below).

I did not initially see it, but I'm very pleased that the service reveals the date the book was graded which you, I and many others have wanted to be able to determine for quite some time. This will be usefull for those of us that have opinions concerning certain stretches of CGC's grading strictness.

 

As far as what I would use it for, beyond the "date graded feature"...

not much unlesss... CGC includes the "thumbnails" so we all could learn more about what the CGC graders key in on. The info is there, hopefully they can find a way to include it.

 

Also... I would LOVE to know what all the graders offered as a grade so you could determine if a particular book was on the "high" or "low" end of the assigned grade (Point 3 below). I believe you can obtain all this info if you call up, so hopefully CGC will expand the service to include all the info you can learn with a phone call.

 

BTW... joining for $99 is a no-brainer. Even if you have no use for the free sports card grading and coin grading coupons, the (3) express CGC submission coupons make it well worth it as they cost $75 ea. (less 20% via Heritage = $180) otherwise . Sounds like a great opportunity for you to send in those (3) HG DD 131's and cash in I received my (3) express submissions back in less than 2 weeks, start to finish... not bad, especially when you've grown accustomed to 4 months.

 

 

 

 

 

Hi Arch (CGC)

 

Certainly a good start... especially to confirm against possible fraud

 

However, I was hoping to see more information that I believe many would find useful...

 

1. The date the book was graded... and possibly by whom (although I realize that may be a privacy issue). Knowing when the book was graded could help many of us that do have opinions on the "strictness" of CGC's grading at certain time periods. Understand that although I'm not speaking for everyone by any means, the majority of serious CGC collectors I've dealt with have some opinions in this regard. My feeling is few really fault CGC for those perceptions (accurate or not) and expected a learning curve and/or minor adjustment/fine tuning to occur as the service progressed... so this is not a disguised complaint.

 

2. The graders "thumbnail" comments (as I believe they're referred to as?).

It would be nice to hear what specific defects the pre-grader and graders keyed in on as we may all become better CGC style graders by absorbing what stood out and was deemed a more significant defect, etc... I do understand the "thumbnails" are/were not intended to be a detailed analysis, but this info is available when you call in to learn more about a book and it couldn't hurt to include it in the new database?

 

3. I also wouldn't mind seeing the all graders grades (as again you can learn with a call).

 

Maybe I don't have a correct understanding of the system but consider this scenario... since the grading scale in high grade is by .2 increments (until you get to 9.9) it's obvious that you can have some "highs" and "lows" within the same grade since we are not working with .1 increments (which would be insane). Since there is arguably a little room for difference within the same grade... I'd like to know which way the opinion was leaning if possible...

 

For Example: If you have a choice between buying 2 CGC books of the same grade, determining the series of grades that led to the eventual CGC grade could reveal if it was a possible high or low grade in essence. If the pre-grader chose a 9.6 and the other (3?) graders went (9.4, 9.4, 9.6 ) and the CGC grade becomes a 9.4 that is usefull info when comparing it to a different CGC 9.4 that went... Pre-grader 9.2, Graders 9.2, 9.4 9.4. This probably would be a can of worms CGC would wish to avoid understandably, but if the info is available with a phone call, why not go all out, It may save some man-hours at CGC answering detailed questions.

 

Just my 2 cents

 

Bruce

[murph0]

I forgot about that date graded feature..although I don't think that the date grade is as huge a deal as many of the others do..it's still a nice feature. Anyways, I just wanted to comment that if CGC needs people to do data entering so that they can add grader's notes, comments, the 3 grades, etc..I would have some free time at night to type some of this stuff in..I assume you can ftp into the site or something of that nature??

 

Brian

[fantastic_four]

Yea, the date graded is enough to get me thinking about joining, but not enough to actually get me to join. If they expose the grader's comments or ESPECIALLY the 3 individual grades, I'd sign up in a heartbeat. I've got several 9.0s that look better than my 9.2s, and I'm eager to figure out more of what went into those grades.

 

I really don't need the submissions...I've decided I'm not selling anything for a while, even though right now is probably the absolute best time to sell Daredevils.

[BronzeBruce13]

Hey JR

 

...tell me about it.... learning what the 3 graders offered would be extremely useful as I mentioned to Arch early on... just to see if the book was leaning high or low. With the high grade .2 margin (until 9.9) we all can see the obvious room for variance within the same CGC grade... and the pickiest of us could use that info to make more intelligent choices when we can't see the book closely. I'm not sure CGC would want to provide that information within the service though as the perceptions of a CGC grade could then turn into a plus or minus situation < (9.6 -) or a (9.6+) > to educated or obsessed buyers... at least before they actually see the book and decide for themselves.

 

When you call CGC, they will tell you what the pregrader and graders offered and I thank them for that. I don't recall ever asking for each of the 3 graders individual offerings, but I believe it was offered once or twice.

 

I asked the Arch for some answers concerning some of these thoughts but he was not able to answer in detail at that moment. Maybe in the near future, SB will offer more detail as to what this service will eventually provide.

 

I'd love to see them break down the census by PQ as well since that data is beng recorded... that would be useful too.. Agree?

[murph0]

Page quality census would be easy..just put another column with the different page qualities and place how many there are in each category..you don't even have to assign the PQ to a specific book..people can look and see where their PQ stacks up against other books.

 

Brian

[tb]

Is there any way CGC could post a picture along with the invoice

lookup info?

 

If anyone is serious enough about cheating, they probably will be

able to do so some day (with or without Meth's help). If we had

a place where we could compare scans from eBay with a scan

of the submitted copy, it would be virtually impossible to cheat.

Even for NM books, there are virtually always small variations

so you can tell immediately whether two (even modest res)

scans really are of the same copy.

 

Just my - thanks for the service.

 

Btw., to answer FF's original question, I'm going to use the current

lookup service to determine whether a group of 3 NM books

from the same GA title that I bought independently were submitted

at the same time. I've suspected that they were from the same

collection but this will let me find out for sure.

 

[fantastic_four]

They don't keep scans, I asked them. They said they sometime keep scans on rare or expensive books, but they don't do it for every comic.