CGC 9.8s With Spine Stress?

[The Kaptain]

I just bought two books off of eBay graded 9.8 by CGC. When I got them, I was shocked to see multiple spine ticks / spine stress on both books! I have always assumed / expected 9.8s to have no spine stress, or maybe one non-color breaking spine tick.

 

One of the books has 4 spine ticks (2 are clearly visible and 2 can be seen at certain angles), the other book has three faint ticks, but they are clearly there. The second book also appears to have a staple that is in the early stages of rusting (I believe).

 

Has CGC's QC gotten so bad that they are giving books with more than one spine tick a 9.8? (Obviously they are). One was graded on 05/2013 and the other in 07/2013. Maybe they are cutting corners to reduce turnaround times?

 

I have 9.4s that look better than these two 9.8s.

 

I'm pretty bummed.

 

I'll get some picks up later.

[Speedy-D]

Shocked, shocked I tell you!!

[comix4fun]

With today's threads you have quite the beginnings of a nice bullet list of discussion items for CGC customer service.

 

I am pretty sure they are the only ones that can answer these questions, both stress and hair related.

[Logan510]

Buy the number, not the book.

[The Kaptain]

Buy the number, not the book.

 

I actually agree with the "buy the book, not the number" argument. However, you could not see these spine ticks in the photos posted on eBay. Also, there should be a certain degree of confidence when you buy a 9.8 that it will look almost perfect. I always thought that spine stress would automatically knock a book out of being a 9.8 candidate. Personally, I will never send a book to CGC if I see any spine stress as I assume it would get a 9.4 at most.

[The Kaptain]

Shocked, shocked I tell you!!

 

I should have said sickened rather than shocked. Sickened because I paid a 9.8 price for what should be a 9.2/9.4 book!

[jimbo_707]

I would not even expect a non-color-breaking spine tic on a 9.6. To me, the books you described sound more like 9.2's. If the CGC is giving books like that 9.8's consistently, they've really slipped since the early days.

 

Did you look to see when the books were slabbed? Most people say that the CGC was over-grading books badly throughout 2011. Maybe you got a couple of books from that era.

[mschmidt]

I would not even expect a non-color-breaking spine tic on a 9.6.

 

So you expect 9.6s to look like 9.9s?

[Ditch Fahrenheit]

With today's threads you have quite the beginnings of a nice bullet list of discussion items for CGC customer service.

 

I am pretty sure they are the only ones that can answer these questions, both stress and hair related.

 

 

[namisgr]

I would not even expect a non-color-breaking spine tic on a 9.6. To me, the books you described sound more like 9.2's. If the CGC is giving books like that 9.8's consistently, they've really slipped since the early days.

 

This makes no sense. For one thing, no scan or photograph of the comics have been posted, and so to draw conclusions about changing grading standards seems premature. For another, books with no visible flaws grade at least 9.9. It simply isn't the case that 9.6s especially and even 9.8s are completely free of non-color breaking ticks.

 

What matters with spine tics is whether they break color, whether they break paper, how many there are, and how big they are. One or two barely perceptible tics that don't break color or paper or extremely small corner fuzzing would not be out of the norm for a 9.8. It's not a 10 for a reason.

[Sqeggs]

I would not even expect a non-color-breaking spine tic on a 9.6. To me, the books you described sound more like 9.2's. If the CGC is giving books like that 9.8's consistently, they've really slipped since the early days.

 

Did you look to see when the books were slabbed? Most people say that the CGC was over-grading books badly throughout 2011. Maybe you got a couple of books from that era.

 

One was graded on 05/2013 and the other in 07/2013.

 

From the first post.

[Indrid_Cold]

I was tired of feeling burned when I'd buy raw books and feel like they had more damage than 9.4 should have, so I bought a few CGC 9.4s and 9.6s.

 

After studying those slabbed 9.4s and 9.6s under the light, I once again felt burned. How could 9.4s and 9.6s have this much spine stress? What?! A corner crease too?!?

 

So then I started buying 9.8s, surely.... SURELY now I'd no longer feel burned. Wrong again. 9.8s have spine stress. Sure its only a handful of 1/16"s and 1/8"s that dont USUALLY break color.... but if you are gonna nit pick, they are there.

 

So I had to come to one conclusion at that point. I had always expected too much. What I had always expected to be NM was more like NM/M (sometimes 9.8s dont even measure up to my old expectations either). And now, it does make sense that 9.8s have a little spine stress. After all, there is a reason they aren't 9.9s or 10s.....

[stroszek]

I was tired of feeling burned when I'd buy raw books and feel like they had more damage than 9.4 should have, so I bought a few CGC 9.4s and 9.6s.

 

After studying those slabbed 9.4s and 9.6s under the light, I once again felt burned. How could 9.4s and 9.6s have this much spine stress? What?! A corner crease too?!?

 

So then I started buying 9.8s, surely.... SURELY now I'd no longer feel burned. Wrong again. 9.8s have spine stress. Sure its only a handful of 1/16"s and 1/8"s that dont USUALLY break color.... but if you are gonna nit pick, they are there.

 

So I had to come to one conclusion at that point. I had always expected too much. What I had always expected to be NM was more like NM/M (sometimes 9.8s dont even measure up to my old expectations either). And now, it does make sense that 9.8s have a little spine stress. After all, there is a reason they aren't 9.9s or 10s.....

 

This has also been my experience with CGC's grading, and one of the main reasons I've mostly stopped collecting is that I'll just never agree with it. I think the many grades above NM are bogus. I think NM should be the second highest possible grade. A NM is, well, near mint. It is really, really close to flawless, but just not quite. There will be a few books you see in your lifetime that deserve to be called better than that, one that just shines compared to the rest, but you can go years without seeing one. But my idea of what is now called a 9.4 is CGC's 9.8. And what CGC calls NM is, for the most part, what I always thought was a VF/NM.

 

You either adapt to the new (not so new anymore, I guess) standard or opt out. I've mostly opted out. But I pick up a few low-end books here and there, and still enjoy looking at lots of the pretty books I'll never buy now.

[B-Smooth]

I would not even expect a non-color-breaking spine tic on a 9.6.

 

So you expect 9.6s to look like 9.9s?

Exactly. If you want perfect books, buy 9.9's or 10.0's.

[krighton]

I've had some with no spine stress or other perceivable faults get a 9.4....and had more than my share of incorrect labels....I think it's a massive shoot when you send comics to florida.

[newshane]

If I see any spine stress break color, no matter how small, I don't expect it to get a 9.8.

 

Maybe the CGC has been tough on my books, but I don't think I own a single 9.8 with a color-breaking flaw...and I own hundreds.

[Indrid_Cold]

My experience with 9.8s is that they do occassionally have spine stress lines that break color (but most dont). In fact, out of the last six CGC 9.8s that I have recieved , and bothered to really scrutinize, two of them had a stress line which broke color. One of them had a 1/16" spine stress line that broke color (and four other 1/16"s that didnt break color) and the other 9.8 had a 1/8" spine stress line that broke color (but the only other flaw that I could detect on the book was a single 1/16" stress line which didnt break color).

 

 

[Mark 1]

I would not even expect a non-color-breaking spine tic on a 9.6. To me, the books you described sound more like 9.2's. If the CGC is giving books like that 9.8's consistently, they've really slipped since the early days.

 

This makes no sense. For one thing, no scan or photograph of the comics have been posted, and so to draw conclusions about changing grading standards seems premature. For another, books with no visible flaws grade at least 9.9. It simply isn't the case that 9.6s especially and even 9.8s are completely free of non-color breaking ticks.

 

What matters with spine tics is whether they break color, whether they break paper, how many there are, and how big they are. One or two barely perceptible tics that don't break color or paper or extremely small corner fuzzing would not be out of the norm for a 9.8. It's not a 10 for a reason.

 

[B-Smooth]

If I see any spine stress break color, no matter how small, I don't expect it to get a 9.8.

 

Maybe the CGC has been tough on my books, but I don't think I own a single 9.8 with a color-breaking flaw...and I own hundreds.

I'll buy NM raw books from you any day.

[500Club]

If I see any spine stress break color, no matter how small, I don't expect it to get a 9.8.

 

Maybe the CGC has been tough on my books, but I don't think I own a single 9.8 with a color-breaking flaw...and I own hundreds.

+1

 

I expect, at most, a wee bit of corner fuzzing at the top and bottom of the spine.

 

I don't expect to see color breaking tics along the spine. In 9.6, perhaps 1-2 1/16 tics. Even 9.4s, I don't expect a spine marred by numerous stresses.

 

I don't even like the miswraps that seem to be acceptable on some 9.8s.