skybolt

It would be really interesting to see when this guy started the whole re-holdering scam. I doubt this went back to 2011 or even 2016. Thus far the best evidence we've gotten was from 2022. My gut tells me it started back in 2021 when this guy started noticing how much money could be made between direct/newsstand copies, etc. I'm also confident that 9.9newsstand or other smart collectors would've caught onto something this egregious if it was going on for 10 years.

Both options are bad. One means that their entire product has been compromised, while the second one could lead to any book that was graded / reholdered by CGC to come into question since this guy was hired. What I mean is what if he got greedy and started telling friends and family to submit books and he'd fix things on his end. There's no telling what the extent was and how it could be tracked.

The seller is likely trying to play nice with eBay until the rest of his funds are released. Once that happens he'll change bank accounts and leave eBay. He will lose some frozen funds though.

I keep thinking about what 9.9newsstand said about the guy bragging that his CGC guy lets him know how many newsstand or Mark Jewelers (l can't remember) have been graded for certain issues. I wonder if this info is easy to access for all CGC employees (since the designations were put on the labels). Can they just type up Hulk 181 and all the submissions for this issue and notes pop up?

Great work! Thanks for posting all the pics and info. It appears to me that this guy was always shady, but not as sophisticated with his scams as he is today. He was more into shill bidding and things of that nature. For example, he would've definitely tried to exchange that PLOD with blue label if he could. When did he start selling the Hulk 181's? That would give us an idea when the major operation started.

I'm just worried about an AI scanning a dust particle that landed on the book and thinking it's a stain.

It's because of blind trust (again assuming it wasn't an inside job). The person reholdering the book probably thought A.) there's no way someone could open the case and tamper with the book. B.) the original grader (s) would've noticed the nudie pics when they first graded the book, and C.) It was likely someone dropping the ball and forgetting to put the Mark Jeweler designation on the label. I would understand all of the above if we were talking about $100 book. However, for something worth 5 figures, CGC policy has to be that if the Mark Jeweler designation was missed, then the inner well must be opened no matter what.

I'd rather have my 5-year old daughter handle my expensive books than a machine.

Obviously we're working with circumstantial evidence at this point, but if it does turn out the seller had help on the inside, it really simplifies a lot for him. That means he wasn't recreating slabs, he didn't have a Doctor Who level sonic screwdriver to open and weld slabs shut, he didn't need to know how to marry inserts or buy additional lower graded books to get the inserts needed to marry with the qualified books. All he needed to be was a regular Joe like us (buying and selling books), while someone else manipulated the grading info before slabbing. My gut tells me that all of the qualified Hulk #181's that were graded into a blue label still have missing stamps and pages on the inside.

It's interesting that the bad market forced this guy to get sloppy and start messing around with more rare Mark Jeweler books, which got him caught. When he was raking in big bucks selling newsstands for triple what they're selling for today, he was content with sticking with what works and is mostly undetected. On a side note, if CGC is forced to pay back customers for fraudulent books, would they pay the current FMV or what the buyer paid when the market was hot? I'm assuming the former.

Wow, that's some great detective work. I'm so confused as to how this would happen? Inside job?

At minimum, CGC should come out with a new policy/service where they would continue the re-holdering process for any books valued at $400 or less. Then a new service called re-exam/re-holder would come into play for books valued over $400. This new service would require CGC staff to remove the book from the inner well, exam it carefully vs. other scans on file and for married/missing pieces and regrade if necessary. The submitter would be responsible for the extra charge if this is not their submission that came back with a cracked case or missing designation (within a 2 week period).

You mean like send a couple of CGC slabs to a factory in China to see if they can replicate it in bulk?

That's a good list. With respect to No's 4 and 5, my gut tells me those numbers are a lot higher. For example, in addition to Ebay, this guy was also selling stuff on other forums. 99newsstand also mentioned that he's seen him at sales shows showcasing his stuff during the comic book boom. I imagine he was getting triple the price at that time. This guy probably also sold books to a lot of dealers without that info making it into Go Collect or GPA. I'm really scared that his submissions could be somewhere in the 5k to 10k range over the past 12 years, which will likely lead to your other point that multiple people are involved in the process.

I completely get that, and the last thing I want is for CGC to say something now and then backtrack when more info comes out. With that being said, even if the higher ups are on vacation, they could text an employee and ask them to post on this forum that CGC is getting to the bottom of this, but will need more time to gather all the facts.

It's not so much the employee is knowingly involved, but if he is going against CGC policy by allowing a Mark Jeweler designation to be added as part of the re-holdering process (because he trusts this guy), then he becomes complicit in this scam.

Thank you. My bad, I read it as 99newsstand was a known fraudster. Now I get it.

Please explain.

Thinking about all the logistics involved with this scam, I find it hard to believe that the seller is the only person involved in this scheme. Yes, this person is likely coordinating this stuff with CGC and selling the slabs, but I bet he has a couple of guys in the back room doing all the grunt work. There's no way this person could do all this at once without making mistakes earlier.

Sorry to keep harking on this. Going back to what 9.9newsstand mentioned a few days ago, the seller had previously told him that he had connections at CGC, and that he calls in favors from someone higher up. Again, I'm not saying this CGC employee was getting kick back or was in on the scam. However, having someone in that position does help this seller launder some books. For example, if A.) the higher up CGC employee has had a good relationship with this guy for many years (again, nothing nefarious), and B.) believes there's zero chance someone can open a CGC case without detection, they could've potentially believed this guy was on the up and up with his constant complaints. All he had to do was call the CGC employee and say your guys screwed up again with my submission and forgot to give me a Mark Jeweler or Newsstand designation. If the CGC employee trusted this guy and wanted to make sure they didn't lose a valuable customer, they would A.) likely not check if he was the original submitter of this book and B.) tell a much lower level employee to fix this situation promptly and add the designations via reholdering. This relationship would also come into play with previously green labeled books being sent into grading with a married insert. If an experienced CGC grader was able to detect it, especially on multiple books, the higher up employee would ease their minds and say don't worry about it. This guy is a long time submitter and sometimes he buys books missing pieces unknowingly. This preferential treatment would ultimately not raise suspicion company wide. If the seller got the blue label designation on these books, then he would sell them. If he got a green label, then he likely tried to grade the book again or just use it for switcheroo purposes.

Yup, that makes a lot of sense and would explain the same book being resubmitted 10 times.

You bring up a good point. So trying to unpack what you stated above, does this mean that this guy was actually able to open the whole case and then reweld it? What I mean is that like you said above, he buys 1 9.8 copy of let's say UXM #266 direct edition. He then buys 5 9.4 UXM 266 CGC newsstands. He would then take the whole book apart, insert the 9.4 inner well and replace the label. However, before he does any of this, he sends the same 9.8 direct edition to CGC 5 times (without the label included) to receive 5 separate 9.8 labels. Once these 5 labels and the 9.4 newsstands are inserted into the cracked open cases, he welds all 5 CGC cases. He then send all 5 at different times to CGC for reholdering to get the newsstand 9.8 designation. He then sends the 1 9.8 direct edition to CGC to be graded.

Listening to 9.9newsstand, he notes that as a Mark Jewelers collector it's extremely difficult to receive a 9.8 designation on those books from CGC (they are very difficult to find). The idea that this much power is given to an employee re-holdering a 5 figure book and not checking if the Mark Jeweler insert is detached, is really scary.

Yes. I believe Automatic Comics mentioned the same thing in his newer video. Honestly, I think a lot of this problem stems from CGC moving away from 3 people grading each book. If someone is inexperienced or having an off day, they could easily miss something like this. With that being said, I'm really hoping that at some point someone finds examples of this person not getting his way at CGC. Even Ewert was not batting 100% with his trimmed books when CGC graded them. Honestly, I don't know how this evidence can be found. I'm sure CGC has the records needed to show they caught some of his shenanigans along the way or refused to re-holder his Mark Jewelers because the standard practice was to regrade them. If this guy got his way every single time (I don't care how good he is), then something is definitely fishy.

The problem is that if the CGC employee is going against CGC policy to please this person, then they are complicit in this scam as well. What I mean is that if CGC policy is to regrade the book to verify the Mark Jeweler insert (even if they missed the designation the first time), then they can't give this guy a pass because they know him. This is how they got in trouble with Ewert. It's like me telling CGC that they should change the grade on my book to a 9.6 or 9.8 because the grader notes they provided make no sense. At minimum, CGC will say we'll regrade the book at our expense to verify. They will not say, "oh, you're right, the grader notes say there's a large fingerprint on the front cover, and because it isn't there, then you get the grade you want".