new grading guide dissapoints

[Darthdiesel]

Will a fine Gold book suddenly be worth 2 x guide because its CGC slabbed and then eveybody will start sending in all their mid grade Gold?

 

Maybe if all the Gold collectors rose from the grave to weigh in with their demand or if Social Security tripled their monthly checks to these Gold Age collectors...Gold book might be worth 2x guide...

 

As for Moderns anyone buying and selling 9.9 copies of books right of the newstand you may as well go on Home Shopping Channel and buy some of the ready made collectibles they sell.

 

I just might look into that. Thanks!

[Bugaboo-migration]

Thats the problem right there in one quote. The super high grade comics that are sitting in slabs now existed before CGC and were the same grade thay just had not been given the CGC stamp of approval which seems to have almost overnight changed the pricing of the comic market (at least currently) exponentially like a virus.

This is correct........but is that CGC's fault?........or the people buying and selling the books fault (ours along with all the other collectors and speculators out there)?

 

If you offered a service and charged $20 for it and saw that people were immediatly utilizing that service to reap huge profits......doesn't that make your service far more valuable than the prices you are charging for it?

 

And yes.....the CGC 9.4 book was still a 9.4 book before it got slabbed......but there appears to be quite a bit of value in the marketplace to know that the book has been checked for restoration and graded by someone who doesn't have a "vested" interest in the book. Let's say 2 identical and rare early silver age keys comes up on eBay at the exact same time and you need one for your collection(say 2 copies of FF#4 in nm grade). Problem is....one is listed as CGC graded 9.4 nm and the other one is listed as ungraded in NM condition. I have a feeling that quite a few people in here would bid more for the cgc graded copy. Why? Because the CGC grade has added value to it in the eyes of the people in the marketplace.

 

If I were a business and saw this happening with my service/product, I would charge more for the service on more expensive books as well. They are a business after all and business is about profit. When the market stops supporting the prices they charge......then perhaps their prices will go down.

 

Also.....perhaps when the graded high grade gold, silver and bronze books either escalate in price beyond most collectors (forcing them to bid on lower grade copies and increasing their value) or get sunk into permanent collections and dry up on the market place, then maybe the lower grade copies will start realizing higher prices. I'm just guessing now though and all this is just opinion on my part. That and a nickel will get you........well......nothing these days.

 

 

[FlComicFan]

Sure people that fall for it are at fault to some degree. But dont kid yourself CGC knew full well how this would play out . The slabbing service caused the same pricing scheme in sportcards. If the prices werent getting multiples of guide their grading service would garner enough business to stay open. By grading Modern tier at an even stricter standard they created scarcity of 9.9 even on books right off the newstand. Lets be honest if I dig out a case of a book from the last 20 years and open it and send in the books there should be plenty of 9.8 and 9.9 yet Modern collectors say its not so. I dont play with Moderns people who wish to send it $2 comics so they can make stupid money (see other thread regarding $5 comic selling for $500) that their call. If there are not then you are microanalysing books and if so then it would be only too easy to make errors. Was there anyone paying a few hundered bucks for a copy of Crisis just because it was mint before CGC? If I was to pay $500 for a $5 comic just because it grades a 9.9 than you bet every dollar you got in I would demand to see why its a 9.9 Show it to me show me why its worth $500 to some fools when I can probably buy several unopened cases of it for less and make some ex speculator happy to be rid of them.

 

The way it works now is they stamp a book with a label and the market accepts it and people act like money is just paper. 5 maybe 10 years from now maybe even sooner there will be a reckoning for this nonsense. Maybe it sounds stupid now but then again 10 years ago people were paying $100's of Dollars for Valiants because some price guide printed supposed #'s of how many were printed. Now where are they? Same game with sportcards I cant remember the amount of unproven players, brands, gimmicks they touted which most of over a few years ended up being wastepaper and a tax write off.

 

Still waiting to see CGC standards in print or examples on the web or an thought provoking reason why they cant be up.(the anyone could start a grading company is pure bull I can grade as strict as I want maybe my slabbing company will make it so damned difficult to get a 9.4 you will want to pay 50 times guide)