There’s too much money at stake with grading when it comes to books like this. It also makes me wonder/ worry about shenanigans between CGC and big dollar customers. Just a bump from 9.6 to 9.8 can put a lot of money in someone’s pocket, and everyone involved knows it.
I'm the one that made that post on the forum. The book belongs to a friend of a friend sort of thing.....I definitely don't have the time to randomly search CGC #'s. lol But that is nuts. I wonder if they really knew about it before the post (as they say they did).
Thanks for continuing to cover these noteworthy CGC quality control issues. Ive been hoping for an update on the video you made about the person who received multiple 9.9s in a single submission. I'd still like to know what was going on there.
Love it! Thanks for posting Ryan. CGC deserves to be ripped for so many reasons. Their QC department must be run by a dedicated team of house cats, or maybe just a box of frogs.
At my local supermarket - rib roasts (which can cost $150) have a big sticker stating that the item requires a manager to approve the transaction when you go to buy it, and they won't go through the self-checkout scanners. Duh... right? That's for $150. #1 - When the submitter sent their chunk of books they must have declared their value to be in the $30K to $50K range, so, how is it possible that CGC, which has been in this business for 20+ years, can lack basic internal controls when dealing with multiple copies of books of this value? #2 - Is CGC not delivering the service they say they are, when they say that every book gets looked by 3 people (do they even still say this?). If so, HOW, during the final inspection was this not caught? I mean... since they don't have people actually grading comics, and what they have are people staring at books, and counting up nits and tics and looking the total up on a chart that translates to a grade, so if there's one thing they should be able to do, it would be to see tics! So how, once the comic was slabbed, didn't the supposed "final" quality assurance person, who had the 9.8 in their hands, not look at the book and see the tics? I think much of what they say they're doing when they handle, count tics and slab books isn't really happening. There's no other explanation. #3 -They're screwing up books like this. What does that say about the $200 books they grade? THIS is why customers are shocked when they get a 9.6 back that they know should be an 9.0 (but they rejoice about it) and why they're so upset when they get a 8.5 back when they know it should be at least 9.6. My takeaway is that CGC "grades" are not reliable, nor consistent. Now, WHY people put faith in CGC grades and WHY are some people are willing to pay many times more for a 9.6 than a 9.0 - when everyone knows this... well, THAT is something I will never understand. LOL
I just picture the CGC employees being like the doctor's assistant from Idiocracy going "this one goes in your mouth, this one goes in your ear and this one goes in your butt"... then fumbling all the probes and then going "oh wait, no, THIS one goes in your mouth, THIS one goes in your ear and THIS one goes in your butt".
When will comic collectors learn to stop sending their books to CGC? How many more mistakes, mislabeling incidents, scams, and scandals will it take before they realize CGC is NOT reliable? By the way, I appreciate you making this video - it’s the first time I’ve heard about this issue, and I don’t consider it piling on.
From my last CGC submission a few months ago, i had two slabs come back that had each other's labels. Surreal. Yes, CGC said they would fix it at no cost. But there is literally no quality control at CGC. They have newbies that are slapping labels on without any serious regard for accuracy. These were not high value books. (Each was a ~ $500 or so book.) But I shudder to think how this has happened to others, on bigger books.
In the same rant you mentioned that at auction a 9.8 would probably sell for 150k then talk about someone buying the 9.2 mislabeled at auction cracking amd resubmiting and getting a 400k book back. Some wild swings in you reasoning on this one for a quality control issue.
One sold fixed price for $360k earlier this year. But I think at auction it would get about $150k. I think the person that paid $360 massively overpaid. Pretty straight forward 🤷♂️. But we won’t know until another hits the auction block.
Part time 1099 task rabbits are senior graders now making 10 bucks and hr with no benefits so hedge fund can squeeze as much profit as possible when they sell the company
This error is so massive and there are so many CGC problems that maybe we are just too taxed by it all to also continue to think about the other problems, like the grading of the "real" 9.8 (the front bottom edgewear, the damage on the right top-middle). That wasn't the focus of your video, so no reason for you to dwell on it here, of course. But it made we think. While reasonable minds can disagree on things like grading (submit that book 100 times, and it comes back a 9.8, what,
Give it a couple of years when AI is perfected, then CGC/CBCS/etc... will no longer have human graders and standards would be set digitally... It makes sense and cost effective so it wont shock me once ALL these companies do it. And it would be anything collectable that requires grading... The fact they digitize photos now of books on their site for reference may be convenient for the customer, but it forms a database for what the criteria of grading should be... Let the debate begin!!!
CGC grades hundreds of books a day, so there will be mistakes made. The people who work at CGC, including the graders, are not perfect. You should always buy the book, not necessarily the grade. However, I can see how this swap is horrendous. This an error that should never happen. Let’s hope that CGC takes the necessary steps to make sure nothing egregious like this happens again.
For such a rare-in-grade book worth $300k, you would think there would be extra scrutiny: more graders' eyes, additional layer of QC, something. When you're working retail, the cashier can give small refunds themselves. But if a cashier tries to execute like $10,000 refund, they're gonna need the manager, maybe the store owner, maybe even regional manager approval.
So if you were the submitter and already sold the 9.2 would you be able to sue CGC for the current market value of a 9.8 at 360k or whatever they declared the value to be on the submission form 🤔
I think it's a bad move for CGC to lay off so many, with PSA starting up. With all the layoffs, will people stop sending books to CGC and just wait for PSA?
So since this is yootoob then no one ultimately will care, since this platform is mainly for shills, and shills have 99% C GC grades, so they will never talk down CG C on you/shilltube... CG C can really do no wrong, too big to fail...
And it should be. They had one job to do and failed miserably. I cannot for the life of me figure out why people use any of the grading services. Anyone that has collected for any length of time should be able to grade a book. For the price of getting one book slabbed you can buy the CGC grading guide, or countless other grading guides. If you are a new collector most any comic shop should be able to pretty accurately grade your book. With all of the shenanigans that go on at CGC I think they should be indicted under the RICO statutes. Sounds harsh, but they need to be held to a high standard with the money they are taking in. So many people that submit a relatively small number of books can't seem to get a 9.8 no matter how nice the book is. Then you see books like the ones in this video, none of which deserve a 9.8. This is exactly why I only collect raw books.
There’s too much money at stake with grading when it comes to books like this. It also makes me wonder/ worry about shenanigans between CGC and big dollar customers. Just a bump from 9.6 to 9.8 can put a lot of money in someone’s pocket, and everyone involved knows it.
I'm the one that made that post on the forum. The book belongs to a friend of a friend sort of thing.....I definitely don't have the time to randomly search CGC #'s. lol
But that is nuts. I wonder if they really knew about it before the post (as they say they did).
Why wouldn’t they? If you have multiples of that book, one being a 9.8, error or not, you’ll know lol…
“I already sold the 9.8, but you can take back the 9.2 and change it to a 9.8. Thanks!”
Oooo
Thanks for continuing to cover these noteworthy CGC quality control issues. Ive been hoping for an update on the video you made about the person who received multiple 9.9s in a single submission. I'd still like to know what was going on there.
Love it! Thanks for posting Ryan. CGC deserves to be ripped for so many reasons. Their QC department must be run by a dedicated team of house cats, or maybe just a box of frogs.
And of course they locked the thread so it can fall off the face of the earth.
At my local supermarket - rib roasts (which can cost $150) have a big sticker stating that the item requires a manager to approve the transaction when you go to buy it, and they won't go through the self-checkout scanners. Duh... right? That's for $150. #1 - When the submitter sent their chunk of books they must have declared their value to be in the $30K to $50K range, so, how is it possible that CGC, which has been in this business for 20+ years, can lack basic internal controls when dealing with multiple copies of books of this value? #2 - Is CGC not delivering the service they say they are, when they say that every book gets looked by 3 people (do they even still say this?). If so, HOW, during the final inspection was this not caught? I mean... since they don't have people actually grading comics, and what they have are people staring at books, and counting up nits and tics and looking the total up on a chart that translates to a grade, so if there's one thing they should be able to do, it would be to see tics! So how, once the comic was slabbed, didn't the supposed "final" quality assurance person, who had the 9.8 in their hands, not look at the book and see the tics? I think much of what they say they're doing when they handle, count tics and slab books isn't really happening. There's no other explanation. #3 -They're screwing up books like this. What does that say about the $200 books they grade? THIS is why customers are shocked when they get a 9.6 back that they know should be an 9.0 (but they rejoice about it) and why they're so upset when they get a 8.5 back when they know it should be at least 9.6. My takeaway is that CGC "grades" are not reliable, nor consistent. Now, WHY people put faith in CGC grades and WHY are some people are willing to pay many times more for a 9.6 than a 9.0 - when everyone knows this... well, THAT is something I will never understand. LOL
QA fail. Absolutely unacceptable. CGC should be firing someone for this one including whatever head grader looked at this and let it out the door.....
Unreal. Great find by the community.
I saw that 9.8 book listed for sale on a Facebook group. I think they wanted about 200,000. I’ll see if I can find the link.
I just picture the CGC employees being like the doctor's assistant from Idiocracy going "this one goes in your mouth, this one goes in your ear and this one goes in your butt"... then fumbling all the probes and then going "oh wait, no, THIS one goes in your mouth, THIS one goes in your ear and THIS one goes in your butt".
When will comic collectors learn to stop sending their books to CGC? How many more mistakes, mislabeling incidents, scams, and scandals will it take before they realize CGC is NOT reliable? By the way, I appreciate you making this video - it’s the first time I’ve heard about this issue, and I don’t consider it piling on.
That’s even a very generous 9.2. Looking through the submission it looks like all the books were graded generously.
The thread is no longer accessible on the forum... looks like they tried to sweep this one under the rug
Wow I just tried to catch up on the bent inner well thread... looks like they deleted it also
From my last CGC submission a few months ago, i had two slabs come back that had each other's labels. Surreal. Yes, CGC said they would fix it at no cost. But there is literally no quality control at CGC. They have newbies that are slapping labels on without any serious regard for accuracy. These were not high value books. (Each was a ~ $500 or so book.) But I shudder to think how this has happened to others, on bigger books.
Shame on CGC. Once again. Shame.
Whoa. I think I saw all those slabs for sale online last week. Will let the seller know.
In the same rant you mentioned that at auction a 9.8 would probably sell for 150k then talk about someone buying the 9.2 mislabeled at auction cracking amd resubmiting and getting a 400k book back. Some wild swings in you reasoning on this one for a quality control issue.
One sold fixed price for $360k earlier this year. But I think at auction it would get about $150k. I think the person that paid $360 massively overpaid. Pretty straight forward 🤷♂️.
But we won’t know until another hits the auction block.
Part time 1099 task rabbits are senior graders now making 10 bucks and hr with no benefits so hedge fund can squeeze as much profit as possible when they sell the company
If they submitted multiples of that book, one being a 9.8, they know what they got. And they won’t sell.
Glad I deal in rare Golden Age. Lot harder to pull these shenanigans.
This error is so massive and there are so many CGC problems that maybe we are just too taxed by it all to also continue to think about the other problems, like the grading of the "real" 9.8 (the front bottom edgewear, the damage on the right top-middle). That wasn't the focus of your video, so no reason for you to dwell on it here, of course. But it made we think. While reasonable minds can disagree on things like grading (submit that book 100 times, and it comes back a 9.8, what,
CGC needs to fix the turn around times
Give it a couple of years when AI is perfected, then CGC/CBCS/etc... will no longer have human graders and standards would be set digitally... It makes sense and cost effective so it wont shock me once ALL these companies do it. And it would be anything collectable that requires grading... The fact they digitize photos now of books on their site for reference may be convenient for the customer, but it forms a database for what the criteria of grading should be... Let the debate begin!!!
Trust no one. Very disappointing. Thank you for your content.
LOL - I was JUST discussing this with someone...
I’d resubmit that perfect 9.2 SO FAST
CGC grades hundreds of books a day, so there will be mistakes made. The people who work at CGC, including the graders, are not perfect. You should always buy the book, not necessarily the grade. However, I can see how this swap is horrendous. This an error that should never happen. Let’s hope that CGC takes the necessary steps to make sure nothing egregious like this happens again.
For such a rare-in-grade book worth $300k, you would think there would be extra scrutiny: more graders' eyes, additional layer of QC, something.
When you're working retail, the cashier can give small refunds themselves. But if a cashier tries to execute like $10,000 refund, they're gonna need the manager, maybe the store owner, maybe even regional manager approval.
That requires paying ppl living wages , that's less money for hedge fund vultures
So if you were the submitter and already sold the 9.2 would you be able to sue CGC for the current market value of a 9.8 at 360k or whatever they declared the value to be on the submission form 🤔
I think it's a bad move for CGC to lay off so many, with PSA starting up. With all the layoffs, will people stop sending books to CGC and just wait for PSA?
"CGC take errors...". The irony.
This is why I don’t buy slabs.
So since this is yootoob then no one ultimately will care, since this platform is mainly for shills, and shills have 99% C GC grades, so they will never talk down CG C on you/shilltube... CG C can really do no wrong, too big to fail...
Except for grades above 7.0, Marvel Spotlight #5 is a garbage book INMO. Ghost Rider is just a “B” list character at best.
😂
this seems like a CGC hate video.
🤷♂️
And it should be. They had one job to do and failed miserably. I cannot for the life of me figure out why people use any of the grading services. Anyone that has collected for any length of time should be able to grade a book. For the price of getting one book slabbed you can buy the CGC grading guide, or countless other grading guides. If you are a new collector most any comic shop should be able to pretty accurately grade your book. With all of the shenanigans that go on at CGC I think they should be indicted under the RICO statutes. Sounds harsh, but they need to be held to a high standard with the money they are taking in. So many people that submit a relatively small number of books can't seem to get a 9.8 no matter how nice the book is. Then you see books like the ones in this video, none of which deserve a 9.8. This is exactly why I only collect raw books.
I stick with RAW COMICS PERIOD 😊