mjoeyoung

Who's grading the graders?

The auction house for one. It has nice color for a 3.5, and if this had sold for a few thousand over GPA, it would make sense. Does it have nicer color that the last SIX 5.0s it sold for more than? Structurally, the lower half has lots of problems, nevermind the water stains at the top.

I was going to post this anomaly as well. Again, this looks like someone trying to prop up prices. Last three sales in grade were $12.5K, ~$16K and $15K. Last time it sold for this price was Sept 2022. A 5.0 sold for $22.5K THIS January. A 3.0 sold for $13K this January along with a 2.5 for only $10K. Why $24K? Why not $36K like in May of 2022? It would make as much sense.

Big hit on this pedigree book! Last sale was $11.1K in 2021. Highest graded 9.4 copy sold for $15.6K in Nov 2023. Black Cat Mystery #35 Mile High Pedigree (Harvey, 1952) CGC NM- 9.2

Not done yet! Only $5K !!! Ultimate Fallout Facsimile Edition 4 🕷️🏆 - CGC 10.0 Gem Mint White ❄️ Pages!

Psst Psst

I haven't had the time to watch the whole video yet? Did he say that this was only confined to reholders? Are they finding books that have not been reholdered that have subtle signs of tampering that previously fooled them? I agree that if they know a telltale sign, that needs to be released.

I just don't know how people could look at these types of sales and not even be a little suspicious. Even the ASM #1 9.8 curator book, which WAS a 9.6. How and why did this book get an upgrade? With a book this important shouldn't the community be informed if the book was pressed or cleaned in some way? Or if it was just reevaluated with new criteria? Instead, CGC scrubs all the old data as if it NEVER EXISTED as a 9.6. I don't believe there was a mention during the auction that it was previously graded lower. They only evidence we have is the previous sale on Heritage.

I think that is the idea. They don't mention the six sales following that that sold for much less than $7.5K. Somebody who only buys on Heritage and doesn't due any due diligence thinks that FMV for that book is $7.5K. 46, but I'm not really sure why that matters in this case. The question is why somebody decided to pay the MOST IN GPA HISTORY for this book now? This is a $1500 to $3000 dollar book. It has a recorded sale on the previous day for $3250. A Stan Lee / Chris Claremont signed 9.8 WP only went for $5K in 2021.

That X-Men #98 reminds me of this one: Aliens #1 (Dark Horse, 1988) CGC NM/MT 9.8 White pages.... that sold for $7500, and people attempting to legitimize it. Well here are the GPA sales from last year: They both look like an attempt at market manipulation. They think we are all suckers.

X-Men #98, 9.8 White Pages for $10,20. Why do I always get the feeling that that Heritage has to have the largest percentage of ill-informed comic buyers? If feels like every auction has some kind of just plain insane bidding. It wasn't that long ago that a 6.5 ASM #1 GRR sold for regular ASM #1 price, but It looks like somebody wised up because the sale doesn't appear in their history. People with more money than sense. $10,200 is a 16.5X premium over the last 9.6 sale of $616. It is also twice as much the previous high sale of $5K. In what world does this sale make sense? I would really appreciate it if these people would go back to buying NFTs.

Huh? Ultimate Fallout #4 Variant Edition (Marvel, 2011) CGC NM/MT 9.8 White pages.... Ultimate Fallout #4 Variant Edition - Signature Series: Clayton Crayon (Marvel, 2011) CGC NM/MT 9.8 White pages....

Albedo #2 (Thoughts and Images, 1984) CGC NM/MT 9.8 White pages.... Last sale for $19,800 on Jul 2020. Highest sale was a signed / remarked copy for $28,800 on Sep 2020. A 9.4 sold for $9K on Aug 2023. Just when you think some sanity is returning...

Does anybody know how the AS#1 went from a 9.6 to a 9.8? Unless I'm mistaken it is the same book as: The Amazing Spider-Man #1 Curator Pedigree (Marvel, 1963) CGC NM+ 9.6 White pages

This is the kind of data that makes me feel that values are bouncing around on a false bottom. Eventually something has to give. Either demand is going to pick up for some reason, or these sellers are going to be forced to reduce prices. I just don't see where the demand is going to come from to keep values at these levels. As far as the MCU, I think they undervalued the star power of Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans and Chadwick Boseman in their success. They really need to find some actors with their charisma for the main roles in Fantastic Four and X-Men. Or they need to throw some big bucks at them, and get RDJ and Evans to return.

Unfortunately this post has self-destructed.

But others have shown that the slabs are available for sale. If they are for sale, somebody is probably buying them.

THIS is the thing that upsets me the most. All of these restorations (pressing, bleaching, trimming, etc., etc., etc.) all to get a .2 or .4 grade bump may be irreparably damaging the long term stability of these books.

The first "suspect" 300 top left corner and your example. It could just be lighting or something, but it looks different, even though the books look similar.

To me, all four corners on your example look similar. On the other 300 the top corners look more opaque than the bottom ones. If all the corners are welded at the same time, is there a reason why the top corners would look different than the bottom ones? I don't know.

The bottom corners look "normal."

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #300 (Venom 1st full app) CGC 9.8 NM/MT White Pages 1988 Is there something going on with the top corners of the case of this book? They look "cloudy."

Is is possible that CGC doesn't have an example of a scam resealed book? I'm assuming that the old cases from the reholders are trashed. If there are no current scam books in the pipeline, would they even know how the books were tampered with? There is also the possibility that the books were placed into "black market" cases and sonically welded, attempting to duplicate the CGC process. How would you go about detecting that? The idea that someone posting a video showing how to open the cases is in any way "dangerous," is a "putting your head in the sand" kind of response. I think there will be justifiable doubt that CGC cases are "visibly" temper evident until we see evidence of these submitted cases. To me, finding out that it was an "inside man" or lax procedures involving poorly resealed cases would be a much better outcome than, "we don't know" or "the cases were virtually indistinguishable from our own."

I think the problem may be that both of the books involved in some of the swaps were high grade (9.4 swapped to 9.8). If there are no grader notes, how much time do you allot to discerning if the 9.8 is really a swapped 9.4? Haven't we all seen 9.8s that we consider over graded? How long before the individual doing the reholders gets reprimanded for spending too much time on each book, or sending too many books back for regrading? How long before customers get annoyed because they simply want a new label, but their 9.8s are coming back 9.6s?

Things were so twisted during covid that we are STILL unwinding back to reality. It makes sense that unscrupulous people with vested interest would use any means necessary in an attempt to keep values from falling until they can close their positions. Do we even know what reality is anymore? NFTs have been crushed. Video games have been getting massacred. I just don't know if comics have experienced enough of a correction yet. I still feel like I'm playing musical chairs.