szav

Years ago someone, I think maybe Cheetah?, posted a pretty extensive analysis of their experience submitting to CGC dozens of raws they'd purchased from ebay, CC, HA, and I think a dealer or two. IIRC HA actually came out the best, in terms of least overgraded, but they were still slightly overgraded on average (less than half a point iirc...but maybe someone will dig that up). I've only purchased on book raw from them, and it came out 0.5 higher when I had it slabbed (4.0cgc vs 3.5 as raw HA grade).

Junior and Senior to High School

Nice.... hope you don't plan to fix that if its yours.

I have mixed feelings here. I would normally pay more for, and be willing to wait longer for, a product that I know is actually tamper and counterfeit proof, and hasn't been adulterated by an inside job due to lack of internal security.. I do not have any inside knowledge of how their business model works and how profitable they are, but its always seemed to me like they must be wildly profitable...they have seemingly very low physical expenses, and by most accounts I've heard they don't pay well, and they don't seem to incur a lot of security related expenses....so, maybe I expect they should be willing to be a little less profitable for the sake of eating the cost of improvements they need to make in order to save their business. Again though, I have no inside knowledge, don't really know how expensive their operating costs are (happy to be educated here if anyone knows) and I know the increased costs from actions we'd like to see them take are likely to get passed along to the customers.

Losing track sorry...what was the goal of this tangent into the semantics of what qualifies as mass production? Does anyone disagree that CGCs rushed assembly line style high volume seemingly lower quality/security standards than is necessary manner of operations (whatever you want to classify it as) is largely what's to blame for the mounting scandals, loss of trust, and potential personal monetary loss to anyone who has bought into their products?

Ideally 3 x $10,000. I want a smidge of 'diversification' but not the hassle of having to store and unload 300 books if I needed to. If I have to pick among what you offered...1x $30,000, but it would probably need to be something with relatively good price stability. A mid to high grade (not highest graded) GA key or classic cover that has ~50-150 books in the census, and decent sales history on GPA.

Now now, they legitimately could not tell if it been run through a steam press by anyone they work with, or if it had been left at the bottom of a horizontal stack of comics for another 30 years since it was last graded.

Oh that is the bigger problem for sure and I have no bright ideas there. But step one is stop the bleeding Right now it looks like there’s a gaping wound and the patient is bleeding out on the floor while everyone worries about liability.

Step one- publicly announce that they will subject themselves to external independent audit of their quality processes, security vulnerabilities, etc by a reputable organization. Commit to making changes and further future such audits. Step Two - take much needed steps to vastly increase the difficulty of counterfeiting their product. Think the sorts of things you see on currency. Embedded into the plastic mold magnetic strips or colorful wispy threads, hard if not impossible to replicate, and easy to visually verify unique features on each individual slab.

Is that ok for the book? Are they now airtight around all edges without any room to breathe out? I thought one of the points of the slight openings was so the books could offgas. Not a paper expert though, maybe it doesn't matter.

There's something else in the picture where the right one is out of proportion with the left one.

Hadn't seen that one before, love it. Added to the want list, thank you.

Timely interruption of grinding up of a pair to Untimely interruption of couple about to grind

Jughead to Jarhead

Right and that's kind of my point. My employer is regularly inspected by more state, local, and private agencies than I have fingers. We submit to many voluntary inspections to gain certifications that increase trust in our brand. Does CGC? But I know we're talking comic books here, and I know there's not an Office of the Local Comic Book inspector that's going to drop in and see whats up at CGC... and I know there are any number of agencies they could be reported to by consumers. But I don't actually know what level of external oversight their quality practices have, and I suspect its basically zero except as relates to internal cost analysis (glad to be corrected if I'm wrong). And that's what kind of bothers me and what needs addressed. If they tick off of the wrong customer though, they might have some agencies taking a closer look at them. You'd think it would be in their interest at the very least at this point, if they have not already done so, to announce that they've hired some truly independent outside firm to audit them and their quality processes, and commit to themselves to future inspections and audits. Again if they have not already done so. This is the sort of action I'd like to see for them to regain my trust.

Apologies if this is buried in the first 8000 replies somewhere, but what sort of outside independent inspection of certification of CGCs quality control methods are there, if any? It seems sorely needed. Many big businesses are subject to all manner of scheduled and unannounced inspections from federal, state, and private entities. Are they subject to regulation or inspection of any government agencies? Are they accredited for any purposes by any private firms? I get that it's just comic books, and historically maybe no one has cared enough to ask the question, but with the mounting scandals and now numerous instances of direct serious financial injury to consumers, one wonders if they aren't inviting themselves to become subject to regulation of their practices. All they have to do is tick off the wrong well-connected person. As loathe as I am to suggest oversight or regulation, with the dollar amounts that are being dealt with and lost, maybe it's time. You'd think they'd be worried about that, you'd hope that they'd have enough incentive on their own to run a tighter ship, but as countless others have said, with an effectively monopoly they are not in any way under pressure to do so it seems. On the note, who if anyone has oversight of or regularly inspects or certifies the big auction houses? Or does nothing at all happen and no one even look their way unless they get sued. Wouldn't shock me to see it happen soon or to find out that it is happening.

Oh no please post what ever you enjoy. Keep in mind that if it wern’t for the beautiful art on many, no one would care about condition. Never feel bad about posting a lower grade cool book! Any copy at all gets you into the club. You just might not be allowed in the Sqeggs VIP lounge without a few highest graded copies…

Seems like you have a type.

Saw this on someone's comicartfans page a few years back and naturally dig it.

Is there a thread for this already? Saw some of these Archies randomly on Ebay and thought a few were pretty good. Not looking for GA era swipes, but the homages or recreations people did later on. I'm open to whatever people have here, covers they noticed, OA commission for recreations, etc.

It is, and it's interesting to think about how these grade distributions came about. Maybe there was a file copy find? doubtful or we'd see even more high grade copies I think, and the 9.4 is the Church copy. Perhaps some unsold stock that got set aside in pristine condition somewhere. It's listed as a Gerber 5, but then so is Crown 7 and everyone acts like that is super super rare. Only 12 slabbed copies of Crown #4 so far. Are there a lot more high grade raw copies out there and it just hasn't been valuable enough to slab them? That seems less likely as time goes on. There's fewer copies of crown #4 in 9.0+ than there are of Seven Seas #4 in 9.0+...but thats probably a value thing. There's even 3 copies of Pictorial Confessions #1 in 9.2 for some reason, so not all Baker romance is unseen in high grade. Anyway, a lot of the Baker non romance seem near impossible to find in high grade, but everything seems common relative to the rarity of most Baker romance in 5.0+.

Nice looking copy. Do you really think its that common? Maybe relative to St John romance, but I don't feel like you see this one up for sale that often. Underrated in my book still anyway as I think we may have come to a general agreement in casual discussion here that its Baker's first published cover. Also sorta cool that part of it was used for the cover of Art of Glamour.

Big Gun to Big Gun(s)

Doll to Dollman