ExNihilo

Oh man, I was just thinking this past weekend "when is the next Berkeley show?" Can't believe I missed it.

Pretty considerable dip in just 2 years.

They already have combination labels. Yellow/Green. Yellow/Purple. Just make Yellow/<insert new color> here labels for witnessed and verified books. I hate that the other guys do one label for both witnessed and verified with tiny print indicating which it is. If I'm looking at a book on a wall, my eyes aren't good enough to see the price, you think I can see the label? So much easier to discern colors.

Seconding this. My main gripe with "the guys across the street" is that they caved to customers and made everything yellow label. Granted, it's noted as "Verified", but at quick glance it's all the same. There was a time where they used Red labels for such verified sigs. So why the change? Because they knew their customers were jaded and only cared about labels of a certain color. People don't like green labels, just as they didn't like red. They wanted yellow. Make Verified sigs orange or something. (I'd say red, but we can't have any confusion with the OG red label CGC Universal books). Why is this such a big deal? Because someone documented sending in fake signatures to "the guys across the street" to see what would happen and their books came back "verified" yellow. Such failures cast doubt on the entire thing and so there needs to be a clear distinction between witnessed sigs and verified sigs beyond some fine print that is impossible to see unless you have the book in hand. @CGC Comics @CGC Mike

I'm curious what benefit there is to falsifying his bankruptcy claim as it's rather evident that Hero possessed more than $2k in collectible books at the time of filing (we know he had that one AF15 for over a decade). It's probably also safe to assume he had more than $0 in personal collectibles, especially since he is currently claiming to be selling "personal" possessions on eBay. (Emphasis on "personal" since we know some of these are actually customer books). Further, are there any consequences to falsifying bankruptcy filings?

The thing is, it couldn't be Mike because all this thread did was further galvanize the community against Mike/HR. It's wild to me that amongst the HR scandal, we've got some further muddying of the waters by someone posting with multiple accounts for whatever purposes.

Progress pics? You mean it's not standard practice to go radio silent for 14 years? I dunno man, sounds too good to be true. /s

You're taking this a lot better than I would be.

The solution seems rather simple: all employees are strip searched before and after entering the designated grading/holdering room.

Speaks to management to not consider these things and build safeguards against it. An inside job is exactly the type of thing that, in my opinion, could destroy the SS brand. I worry that all someone would have to do is become a witness and, find a forger, and then begin submitting forged signatures as authentic and submit to CGC. If that ever happens, you can say good bye to the goodwill of yellow labels over those of CGC's competitors.

I dunno, but I get to create the next one.

I have a Chrissie Zullo sketch on a book that is otherwise a 9.8. She didn't protect the back when doing the work so the back has smudges from her art desk. As a result, the book came back a 9.0. I admit, the sketch is what's important, but the OCD in me is hurt by the 9.0 grade none-the-less. At some point, I might have a sketch on the back just to get a grade bump, but I agree, it's kinda ridiculous that they're find with someone's scribbles on the front, but crush a books grade when ink from the sketch/manufacturing process are found on the back.

Yeah, I was confused by this bit as well. Why does CGC have a person specifically for handling eBay packages?

"an issue"? Like singular? Have you not been paying attention the last few years? The way the thread below has blown up in the last few years was enough to put into question CGC's quality. Then there was acetategate and the complete fumbling of how that was handled. And of course the most recent one being the issue with the slabs. I'm sure I'm missing some in between, but the last 3 years has been disastrous as far as degrading trust in the product/brand. This current incident isn't anything new, it's just the latest in a string of issues.