My CGC Experience - Education and Patience posted by Reinhardt_Collection

[CSJournals-migration]

I have been active with CGC submissions for a little over 2 years now.

 

As i have stated before I have collected for over 50 years now .. certainly not as sophisticated a collector as a lot of you , but someone who read and loved comics in the early 60's and kept going back to it after small lulls every few years. The forums and discussions here are great and have been educational for someone like me who before this age of automation looked forward to the yearly Overstreet update to try to learn more.

 

I appreciate the culture here of sharing ideas and people sharing their vast knowledge with those of us who are less savvy and i do get a kick out of the occasional sarcastic joking and find myself getting a good laugh at some thoughtful humor.

 

I've learned about restoration, found as I was submitting my raw books the last couple years that a few key books I purchased as non-restored had color touch or in one case had married pages.

 

I've recently started submitting a few of my moderns that I had purchased at my LCS in the 80's and early 90's - these ware books that were purchased, bagged and boarded immediately and stored. Out of the first 10-15 i had submitted I only received 1 9.8 (thankfully it was ASM 361) the rest were primarily 9.4 with a one 9.6 .

 

After much research and reading posts here I decided to try an experiment with pressing route so now I have 37 books in the process and this is where I am learning a little patience. I started submitting early April and my first 17 just hit the grading process. I am hopeful it goes well and hopefully patience will be rewarded with some great grades. I think in this age of instant gratification the process of learning patience may actually be a good thing for some of us.

 

Thanks again for reading and thanks to everyone here for your many contributions and sharing your knowledge with us

 

Joe

 

See more journals by Reinhardt_Collection

[X-ray Spexx]

Hey Joe,

 

Your post resonated with me as I found myself in the same situation when I started slabbing about 10 years ago. I submitted my favorite runs initially which included Frank Miller's run on DD and John Bryne's run on X-men which totaled about 250-300 books cause I submitted multiple copies ( 3-5 ) of each book to increase my chances of getting 9.8's. Of the 250-300 books I only got 1 9.8 of one random X-men book ( not a key in any sense of the word ). To be clear, the majority of the books came back 9.0-9.6 ( approx 75% ) and the rest were mainly 8.5's, nothing less than an 8.5 actually. I just couldn't believe that after reading and grading books on my own for so many years that I was no better than this.

 

I had read a little bit about pressing when I started to slab but thought it was a crock of . I took one look at the prices and the turnaround times and thought for sure it was a scam of some sort cause frankly I had no one to talk to who had actually done it. I spoke with one friend who's a flipper and he said pressing was the only way to go but even this I considered to be anecdotal evidence at best. Around this time I signed on to the chat boards and started getting a concensus that pressing was the only way to go. I remember looking at other peoples posts and seeing how most people had nothing but 9.8's, like they couldn't lose, every month they'd post how many 9.8's they'd received. I also looked up peoples competitive sets and saw how there were tons of people with sets identical to mine all 9.8, hell some people had 9.9 or 10's, or multi signed 9.8's The conclusion that I came to is that if its worth it enough for you to slab it you might as well press it unless your sure beyond the shadow of a doubt thats its gold (9.8). Since I started pressing I've had an unprecedented number of 9.8's. Roughly 25-30% of books i send off come back 9.8, the rest are usually 9.0-9.6's, rarely do I get an 8.5 or less ( most being qualified for restoration, etc or cut out coupons, etc ). Most of the stuff i send off is from the mid to late 70's through the early 90's but primarily the 70's - 80's. Ive noticed that the older the books I send the more likely I am to get 8.5's and vice versa. I've got to say, hands down, if your gonna slab you might was well press. Not only has it made me a better grader but I definitely feel like an expert at spotting books that are good pressing candidates.

 

Spexx

[BlowUpTheMoon]

Your post resonated with me as I found myself in the same situation when I started slabbing about 10 years ago. I submitted my favorite runs initially which included Frank Miller's run on DD and John Bryne's run on X-men which totaled about 250-300 books cause I submitted multiple copies ( 3-5 ) of each book to increase my chances of getting 9.8's. Of the 250-300 books I only got 1 9.8 of one random X-men book ( not a key in any sense of the word ). To be clear, the majority of the books came back 9.0-9.6 ( approx 75% ) and the rest were mainly 8.5's, nothing less than an 8.5 actually. I just couldn't believe that after reading and grading books on my own for so many years that I was no better than this.

 

You should look into CGC's Pre-Screen service.

[X-ray Spexx]

I think I'm pretty good actually. I feel like pre-screening is just a way to give CGC more money than I already do. I thirst for 9.8's like everyone else but I feel like the answer is to get comfortable with the idea that everything can't be a 9.8. I can reliably pick books that grade 9.0 or greater on the regular, which in reality I think is pretty darn good. To look at 30-40 year old wood pulp comic books and pick ones that are in as good quality as when they came off the newsstand I think is pretty darn remarkable for an amateur ( professional ) in the hobby. I pick 9.8's about 25-30% of the time which I think is pretty average. I feel that most people that claim they've got the eye, you really can't prove whether they do or don't cause they're pressing everything anyway. I've found that even the pro's ( comic book retailers, all the major ones ), can't reliably call 9.8's all the time which is why you see sites like Metropolis and High Grade selling 9.0's and 9.2's etc, that wasn't the plan, they'd rather be selling 9.8's but guess what, they missed the mark like we all do. So no pre screening for me, I'm good.

 

Like a dealer told me at a con. " We can all spot 9.8's, thats not the issue, its everythings else ".

 

Spexx

[comix4fun]

I think I'm pretty good actually. I feel like pre-screening is just a way to give CGC more money than I already do. I thirst for 9.8's like everyone else but I feel like the answer is to get comfortable with the idea that everything can't be a 9.8. I can reliably pick books that grade 9.0 or greater on the regular, which in reality I think is pretty darn good. To look at 30-40 year old wood pulp comic books and pick ones that are in as good quality as when they came off the newsstand I think is pretty darn remarkable for an amateur ( professional ) in the hobby. I pick 9.8's about 25-30% of the time which I think is pretty average. I feel that most people that claim they've got the eye, you really can't prove whether they do or don't cause they're pressing everything anyway. I've found that even the pro's ( comic book retailers, all the major ones ), can't reliably call 9.8's all the time which is why you see sites like Metropolis and High Grade selling 9.0's and 9.2's etc, that wasn't the plan, they'd rather be selling 9.8's but guess what, they missed the mark like we all do. So no pre screening for me, I'm good.

 

Like a dealer told me at a con. " We can all spot 9.8's, thats not the issue, its everythings else ".

 

Spexx

 

 

If you thought you'd have 25-30% 9.8s and got back 1 9.8 out of 300 books, prescreening could have saved you several thousand dollars in grading fees.

 

That's money that could have bought you a very nice key book.

[BlowUpTheMoon]

To be clear, the majority of the books came back 9.0-9.6 ( approx 75% ) and the rest were mainly 8.5's, nothing less than an 8.5 actually.

 

So, if 25% of the 300 books came back 8.5, what did you do with the 75 CGC 8.5 slabs you got back?

 

[X-ray Spexx]

Its not that they're worthless to me. I've still got my 8.5's. I thought I would sell off my 8.5's but have found that they're still dear to me even though they may not be the exact grade that I wanted. I've got a Hero for Hire #1 in 8.5, I thought it would grade higher but whatever, I paid like $40 for it raw before the whole marvel movie hype machine got going. I think of this when I look on eBay and see cats selling 8.5's for around $500 or when I see cats on eBay asking $150-200 for 3.5-5.5's or people putting whatever grade they can find to cash in on the hype. My 8.5's in the grand scheme of things are not all that bad. My 8.5's look about as good a lot of average copies of new books on the newsstand right now.

 

As for the whole prescreening thing. I did prescreen a lot of those books with a threshold of 8.5 but found that it didn't really provide me with much. I just unslabbed books sent back to me. Instead, I just started pressing pretty much everything, I even sent some of those prescreens that got rejected back and a lot of them came back in the 9.0-9.4 range. I think its easier to just press instead of prescreen. I get 8.5's rarely now as opposed to before.