StarV100

Yes. Exactly the way I've described. I've been collecting for 60 years. Ran a comic shop in the 80's. You?

This is a job in 2 parts: cataloging and grading. Cataloging: Hire a young (teenage) comic enthusiast (so they know to be careful) to put it all into an Excel spreadsheet. Spend an hour with them to establish ground rules, handling standards and naming conventions. Lots of teenagers would JUMP at the chance to earn $20 an hour to mess around with a comic book collection. Once the spreadsheet is set up, they could easily do a couple of hundred an hour. So that's $1200. Grading: The owner wants some level of grading which is clearly going to be way below CGC standards. I would provide grade ranges, not exact grades for the money range we are discussing. Maybe 4 categories: 2.0 - 5.0; 5.0 to 7.0; 7.0 to 9.0 and above 9.0. Personally, I wouldn't want to set expectations with the client at any more exactitude than that. Based on a system like that, I would bet you could run through 1 or 2 books a minute, maybe more. Have the teenager as a grading partner to stage the books for you and enter your spoken range into the spreadsheet, and you might bump that rate to 3 a minute. High value books would be referred to higher levels of grading. If the grading job is valued at $50 / hr. that's $5,000 - $10,000 plus the higher grading referral cost. With the teenager, you might get it to around $4500. Remember, CGC would charge 6-figure money to grade this stuff. A lot of people here are balking at $1 - $2 per book. But that's a tiny fraction of CGC grading, for a corresponding fraction of the certainty of grade. But the owner can't expect grading for nothing. You have to price the job based on what your time is worth to you. But all in, I think you might get it done for $6,000 - $7,000.

I started collecting in the 60's (man). I had thought I was keeping everything in mint, but my preservation skills in those days weren't exactly archival. Anyway, I was the guy that was buying the stuff off my friends, giving them stupid profits, like 25 cents a book. I collected JIM starting in the 90's, ASM all the way, and lots of others. I still have a catalogue from the 60's advertising old comics. I bought ASM 2 to 5 and 11 to 14 for a total of $17. They've come in from CGC recently averaging 6.0 or so. ASM #1 was too expensive for me at $6. Never did get it. I also got Hulk #2. Similar story with #1 - couldn't afford it at around $4. At age 10, I joined the Merry Marvel Marching Society (anybody else?). I sent a news clipping to the Marvel Madison Avenue office and got a hand written note back from Stan Lee himself (signed: "from Stan and the gang"). I still have the note, along with the MMMS stationery, some stickers and a lapel pin. In the 70's, I came home from university one summer to find all my comics tied up in 6 bundles, ready for the trash. Got 'em back. One bundle was a run of Avengers from 20 to 65, Daredevil from 12 - 34. Oh yeah, Cap 100 - 103, Iron Man 1 - 5 (# 1 recently graded at 7.5). I owned a comic shop in the 80's. My supplier, a major comic store, gave me tips on what to buy in bulk. I had a relationship with a news stand supplier who let me go into his warehouse and pull as much of anything as I wanted. I got scores of ASM 252, Thor 337 and others in pristine mint, many of them Canadian Price Variants. Put them away for 40 years. I have a few dozen at CGC now (and they've been there since March). Others have been averaging 9.6 and 9.8.

My submission, received in March 2021, went dark because it's been in the system for more than 8 months. When I enter the order number, I get the message details will be available when the submission is at the "Scheduled for Grading" status. So I'm facing a black hole for months until they deem my books are ready for grading.

My Moderns have been "Received at CCS" since 03/15, coming on 7 months now. Is that surprising?

Modern - 14 books 3/15/21 - Received at CCS That's it. Sitting in Received for 6 months

Couple of months. Or days. Depends on who sees it, I think.

After my modern non-fast-track books have been sitting in "Received" since 03/17 (yep, 5 months), they are now in "Received at CCS". I don't see that status anywhere in the help. Since pressing (obviously) goes before grading, does it mean that my waiting period of >100 days for the actual pressing a) starts now; or b) is over and the pressing will begin shortly?

More like a drifting barge. Their business model is inexplicably flawed.

You suggest that submissions have not been impaired. I don't know where you get your data, but I do know several people, including myself, who have held back hundreds of books because the TAT isn't worth the wait.

That's true. We don't know how Blackstone will approach the management of this business. But we do know the current business model is creaking under its own weight.

You must be a politician. You describe all these bad ideas of your own invention, ascribe them to someone, then decry that someone for potentially implementing your bad ideas. It's crazy, circular logic.

Again, you are picking up on all the wrong things. CCG is a company founded by visionaries who transformed the industry but don't have a clue how to run a large operation. The business clearly got away on them. That's what I'm talking about. RARE is the visionary who can transform themselves into a successful operator of a complex business.

They act like it. And the business has all the earmarks of a vision that was executed, grew like hell, but outgrew its founders.

We all know that CCG operational management sucks. My modern grade with pressing will probably have a 10 month turnaround. That's really just unacceptable as a business model. So change has gotta be a good thing here, right? I am hoping Blackstone will bring in someone who can manage the business efficiently. It's pretty clear to me that the business got away from the current management team. This is VERY common in startups. The entrepreneur has the vision, starts the business, and the business grows like crazy because it was so transformative for the industry. But MOST entrepreneurs CANNOT run a big business. By nature they are not logistics professionals, or industrial engineers. They are visionaries. It makes sense to pass on the company to people who can run it like a business. Let's hope Blackstone has those people and that commitment.