ExNihilo

The only mystery boxes I would consider buying are artist exclusives from creator shops.  People buying that are generally more interested in the creator art and don't necessarily care which books they get.  Also, at least with those you're not getting ripped off because you can get signed books and ratio books (depending on how you value those).  Still, I've never bought any, but I've come close to pulling the trigger.

My favorite 1st appearance in my collection: Fantastic Four 48, Silver Surfer

My most recent 1st appearance: West Coast Avengers 7 (from the dollar bin), Jeff the Land Shark.

On 5/8/2024 at 11:29 AM, MachoGrande said:

I predict that the value differential between witnessed and authenticated signatures will eventually be negligible.

I will always pay more for witnessed vs authenticated.  There are bound to be forged books that sneak past the authenticators so those signatures will always come with a hint of doubt in my book.

On 5/8/2024 at 1:29 PM, MachoGrande said:

Yellow>Orange>Blue. 

Yellow/Blue > Orange/Green is how I see things shaking out.

On 5/7/2024 at 11:40 AM, DocGo said:

I like how my unwitnessed sigs will now look like Pedigrees

I'm glad the distinction between "witnessed" and "authenticated" is clear (as opposed to the guys across the street who use the same label, just have it in fine print.

What happens though if someone submits a pedigreed book for witnessed signature?  Do you get a gold label?  Yellow?  A sharper contrast between the two would probably be nice.  Or had they used a different color for authenticated, that would have been even better.  Perhaps red?

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.

On 3/21/2024 at 10:02 AM, Sigur Ros said:

That right there is why I think they will stick with yellow, and just have the simple, easy-to-read notes like the other guys.

And maybe the JSA logo printed on any label with verifieds.

 

Witnessed signatures: blah, blah, blah.

Verified signatures: blah, blah.

 

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.

On 3/20/2024 at 1:06 PM, The Man Without Beer said:

IMO, the difference should be clearly identified and not the same yellow label color as witnessed books. This would be fair to those who already own and will possess the premium process of witnessed signatures going forward.  A witnessed signature is 100% authentic & as mentioned previously, a verified signature is an opinion and not 100% proven. Also, as mentioned earlier, a verified signature should get a blue label with a notification that the signature has been verified. These can then be noted after sales in GPA like "newsstand editions" are now. These verified signatures should not affect the current signature series census in any way shape or form. As a collector of primarily yellow label CGC books, this topic has got my attention.  As a secondary point, if you want to continue to call yourself the gold standard company, please dont do what your competitors are already doing on this subject. Are you listening here @CGC Comics ??

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

On 3/8/2024 at 3:42 PM, Buzzetta said:

Post the video.  I will rip.

On 3/8/2024 at 9:18 AM, Qalyar said:

he claimed to own zero dollars in collectibles, and that his business, Hero Restorations, possessed only $2000 worth of collectible comics. No individual book owners are listed as creditors.

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?

On 3/7/2024 at 5:48 PM, KCOComics said:

You've done nothing but play games, dodge questions and act shady since day 1. 

You and your "business partner" joined on the same day. You had the same, strange, motivation to get people to video chat with you. 

You have disclosed nothing. No plan, no approach.  I don't trust anything you say.

We are dealing with a person in Mike who has proven he would go to great lengths, to lie, steal and cheat people....and now you have 2 IDs who are obviously the same person and he's pretending to have a business partner, who also gets books pressed by Hero and has a vested interest in getting people's personal information and to video chat.   

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.

On 2/13/2024 at 4:30 PM, brute_nm said:

This 1000x, @paulailp. If there's anyone who can salvage this mess, it's Kenny. Check out sanderson_studios on IG - he has great progress posts (pics and video clips) where you can see his amazing work.

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

On 2/12/2024 at 9:46 PM, paulailp said:

I originally sent it to him because it was graded as poor restoration, he guaranteed me that he could get it ti an 8 with professional restoration.  
 

now it looks like a pile of junk. I’m putting off going through it because I am so stressed and disappointed. 

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.  

On 2/2/2024 at 12:05 PM, shadroch said:

The security would be geared towards ensuring nothing leaves the secure facility, maybe not watching everything within the facility.  No one anticipated a thief would work on the inside.

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.

On 2/1/2024 at 10:02 PM, littledoom said:

How many threads are there on this topic?

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

On 1/31/2024 at 5:54 AM, DougC said:

Back when sketch covers were huge there was a push for CGC to just authenticate the art without a grade because of how graders would just hammer the books if the artist accidentally touched the back cover leaving a smudge. It would have cut out a lot of turn around time making things easier for everyone, but that is not how CGC operates.

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.

On 2/1/2024 at 1:52 PM, Heronext said:

Anyone have thoughts about how a CGC employee's duties could include receiving and verifying items from eBay?  Does CGC deal on (what in the financial world would be called) a proprietary account?

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

On 2/1/2024 at 1:22 PM, atomised said:

an issue that surfaces

"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.

Just for reference, from personal experience, any idea how many books roughly equal 1 lb (for shipping costs).

On 1/24/2024 at 11:35 AM, Galen130 said:

Still not submitting to CGC until they overhaul that entire chit-show.  They can.....

Honestly, this announcement is great since I still like to submit for the occasional signature/remark.  But by and large, fully agree in that I don't plan on submitting any blue label books until CGC has proven that they've made positive changes in their QC.

Here's my uneducated take on this.  I don't know how this electric cabinet works, but as soon as you said "electric", I had the following concern.

I have a wine fridge which serves to keep the wine climate controlled, both in terms of humidity and temperature.  The biggest concern is the potential for failure.  If something should happen and the fan or cooling stops working, the electric motor powering the device (which generates heat) might still be working.  And without any active cooling, it turns the wine fridge into a hot box, and the air heats up beyond that of the ambient room temperature.

Now, I realize a wine fridge and the electric cabinet are different.  But I mention it because if there is an element to the cabinet that generates heat, because it's a confined space, anything inside will be subjected to higher temperatures in the event something breaks.

On 1/23/2024 at 7:25 AM, awakeintheashes said:

Dooku killed her when she sacrificed herself to save Quinlan Vos, so before RotS. Unless this is a flashback, which I doubt, she will have had to been resurrected by some Nightsister magic.