skypinkblu

Congrats to all the winners, thank you Mike and Marwood.

Now...can we go back to a few coverless books please?;)? These high grade thingys are hurting my eyes;)

I was not that far off on the Secret Wars because I GUESSED the CGC grade and bumped it up, the same way I was only off 1 on the Web of Spidey, I would have called that book a 5.0 with the crease. I originally used a 6.5 because of the grading guide, but bumped it up...pure, GUESS the cgc grade.

We keep going around with this guessing thing. When CGC started, there were some very strong graders in the groups of 3, the grades seemed to be a moving number, part of the "secret sauce" but it was understandable as the service was brand new and perhaps it was baked in that way, to allow them to make changes. 

I never heard of comic book grading until I found eBay....Pages? they needed to have a certain number of pages? who knew? I just read them and put them in piles to give to my friend's kids.

But with CGC, there was supposed to be a sense of security. The rust inside that SW really bothers me, almost as much as it bothered me to open a PGX book and find 1/2 a page was missing in a GA GL or the time I bought a Shield Wizard 1, that was CGC slabbed with "cream/OW pages" only to find that every wrap inside was split.

The video we saw last week, with the young woman talking about not having formal training was also concerning.  I'm sure most collectors didn't have "formal training" ...although I treasure the forum I attended in Chicago one year when Bedrock and Matt explained how to find restoration. However, maybe "professional"  graders, grading books potentially worth a year's salary SHOULD have formal training?

I don't consider myself an expert grader,  I am OK with low grade GA, because that's what I collected, but there are some fantastic graders of all kinds of books,here, in this contest. Their input is very valuable.

Maybe @CGC Mike could suggest some kind of focus group where collectors could suggest some additions to the grading guide (which is not terribly specific regarding the defects that are described) and CGC could actually agree to train their graders with at least some of the guidelines regarding hidden defects.

I used to go to focus groups for all kinds of stuff...that was in the days before zoom. It was an easy way of earning a few extra $$ and hearing about new products, or suggesting changes to old ones. Doing one now (with some kind of compensation to encourage the really good graders to join) might be fairly simple.

On 5/4/2024 at 9:06 PM, DC# said:

 I have an addiction

I save people seats at the local comics anonymous meetings. They are local to anyone, just close your eyes, pick a seat and listen with the rest of us;)

BTW, I'm not disparaging comic book dealers, most are long time members of the collecting community and an important part of the hobby. I'm talking about...the "oh look, there is a  shiny nickel, I can change that to a dime", people. Who then say..."whoops that dime is now worth 6 cents, look...I can collect fuzzidazzles instead and make 3 more cents!"...:See ya, this hobby is so over!"

On 5/4/2024 at 1:35 PM, The humble Watcher lurking said:

I am not struggling as I am exactly doing pretty well. Most of the mainstream investors moved on. They will continue to move on. It wasn`t about cutting corners. Most people rather spend/invest their money on other things now. The Marvel movie spell hype is over. Wait a year when prices will be even lower.  This is a great time to be a comic book collector, not a comic book investor. Let`s face most comic book investors have lost 50% or more these last few years. We are not talking 5 or 10 percent. The same thing happened with sports cards and other collectibles. People got smart as in they can make more money in the stock market or high-yield savings account. 

I'm sure there are many people who just got into books to invest. Sadly, some of them never even opened their books to read them.

It never made much sense to me, to invest in collectibles, especially paper ones ...at least gold has some other value...but many of us who started collecting before CGC, never really planned on having retirement money from our collections. 

I have friends who are VERY smart people, who  have never sold a book, probably won't ever sell one...and then there were people like me, who sold books on eBay to buy more books, because that was the only way I could afford more (at the time).  The fact that some of my books went up in price, was a great perk, because I could more easily help with things for my family and others that I probably could not have done before...but many of my books were not and are not for sale, they are my hobby.

I never spent money on comics that I could not afford to lose, after all they are paper, so stuff happens ...so up or down...not such a huge deal. Maybe I should have sold the rest of my Marvels during the pandemic, but I don't have all that many left anyway. I was never a Marvel Geek (not that anything is wrong with it;)

In the past 10 or 15 years, I have seen more and more people come here who are not like me  or my friends who read comics. They are not collectors who might sell some because they could use  the funds, but love the medium. To many of the new people every nickel they can grab is important. 

I've seen people come here to look at prices like it's a ticker tape. I've never expected most of those people to stick around after the chance to make a lot of money changed.

It's fine...some are nice people ...and some are like TV ad people hawking stuff. Some of the nice people will stick around and some of the "influencers"...maybe not...which is fine.

Yes I know it's guess the cgc grade.. i wasnt clear..I gave the Flash a 6.5 because of the piece out and I had raised that up ..I actually gave the Spidey a 7.5 because I was guessing cgc. My grade probably would have been 5 at best and that would have been painful...even with the black rust disclosed.

I find in these rounds I get worse and worse at guessing the grades. I probably might have been a little closer on the other 3 if I hadn't been channeling the last 9.6.

I am very much in awe of those who did very well.

On 4/30/2024 at 8:11 PM, grendelbo said:

3 bullseyes. Really missed the Flash. I had it as a 6.0.

5 points.

I had it at 6.5, wanted to make it a 6.0. I wanted to make the Secret Wars a really low number because not even "I" would buy a book with that kind of centerfold rust...then I lost a few more overgrading books after the last round where we had a 9.6 that I couldn't see as more than a 9.0.

8 points. I knew it was a disaster after I saw that video CGC put out last night...talking about grading a book by how it appears and not needing any training...unfortunately I saw that after I submitted my grades, lol. That video was scary.

On 4/27/2024 at 9:58 AM, zzutak said:

You mean this?  Yeah, that's a moisture stain if I've ever seen one. 

I saw two moisture stains on that book  . I undergraded the Spotlight by 3 points and , undergraded the Strange Tales by 2. Got  the other 3 right (which was a miracle;) .  I'm going back to my original  plan, hide my glasses and do not blow up the books;). I only need glasses for very fine print, so I guess wearing them is not helpful and I'm with @Get Marwood & I I still find the glare distracting.

Seriously...over the years I've been told that certain chief graders lowered grades for certain defects, Steve hated one thing and Mark another (don't remember which was which, but one was water damage and the other was stains)...I think we are in a "I just love all books equally phase;)"....maybe;)

On the other hand, I know Mike works very hard on these contests,  so I thank him...nothing is going to be perfect and there are some really good graders here, so I'm always hoping/happy to stay in the top 50%...if possible.

On 4/21/2024 at 8:57 AM, AJD said:

So where are all the mid to lower grade GA books? I could really use a few of those right about now...

I'm with you....but since I failed high grade, glossy modern grading 101 at least 2x, I spent a minimal amount of time stressing this time and just sent them in last night;) I figured it was hopeless anyway;)