PGM New Mutants 87 0

[poppy73]

The grade is in. My book got a 9.6. Was hoping for the elusive 9.8 but you can't win them all. 

[ADAMANTIUM]

1 hour ago, poppy73 said:

The grade is in. My book got a 9.6. Was hoping for the elusive 9.8 but you can't win them all. 

SAHWEET!!! CONGRATS

You sure showed me my lack of grading skills at the time, I guess I had just gotten my ASM 300 back and was upset  but I stand corrected on this one 

 so glad that you didn't listen to me, you must be rethinking that whole lot you had, with the 8.5 on ASM 300 and NM 87 

[poppy73]

On 8/3/2017 at 2:14 PM, ADAMANTIUM said:

SAHWEET!!! CONGRATS

You sure showed me my lack of grading skills at the time, I guess I had just gotten my ASM 300 back and was upset  but I stand corrected on this one 

 so glad that you didn't listen to me, you must be rethinking that whole lot you had, with the 8.5 on ASM 300 and NM 87 

I'm happy with the 9.6. I think I received a lot of lower guesses I feel because I wasn't showing the back of the book in the pictures and by the time I could have corrected that issue the book was already on it's way to CGC. Now I have to figure what I want to buy next. I have my sights on an X-Men 94 signed by Stan Lee and Chris Claremont. It's a 9.4 and I had the same book as a kid that I traded for my first electric guitar. I'm moving my daughter up to Florida State this month so the wife put the breaks on my comic budget this month but after this month I'm going into buying mode. My only question is whether I want to continue sending in books to be graded or buy books that are already graded. I think I'll do a bit of both.

[ADAMANTIUM]

18 minutes ago, poppy73 said:

I'm happy with the 9.6. I think I received a lot of lower guesses I feel because I wasn't showing the back of the book in the pictures and by the time I could have corrected that issue the book was already on it's way to CGC. Now I have to figure what I want to buy next. I have my sights on an X-Men 94 signed by Stan Lee and Chris Claremont. It's a 9.4 and I had the same book as a kid that I traded for my first electric guitar. I'm moving my daughter up to Florida State this month so the wife put the breaks on my comic budget this month but after this month I'm going into buying mode. My only question is whether I want to continue sending in books to be graded or buy books that are already graded. I think I'll do a bit of both.

Congrats  and glad you have prorities in order  I also play guitar  but mostly only know a lot of chords, started years ago, I can't walk it though AT ALL haha

[poppy73]

4 minutes ago, ADAMANTIUM said:

Congrats  and glad you have prorities in order  I also play guitar  but mostly only know a lot of chords, started years ago, I can't walk it though AT ALL haha

Every band needs a chord man or rhythm guitarist so down count yourself out. My 19 year old daughter can blow circles around me but I put a guitar in her hand when she was two. Now she rips.. I went 5 or 6 years without picking up a guitar. My daughter bought me one for Father's day this year so it's renewed my interest. The hardest part as a young person is realizing you'll most likely never be the best which if ok and is why it's best just to have fun with it.

[ADAMANTIUM]

I hear you! Yeah I play rhythm guitar at church... So it's been put to good use and is a blessing!

I know somebody who is willing to teach me the circle of fifths on the guitar which sounds interesting

13 minutes ago, poppy73 said:

Every band needs a chord man or rhythm guitarist so down count yourself out. My 19 year old daughter can blow circles around me but I put a guitar in her hand when she was two. Now she rips.. I went 5 or 6 years without picking up a guitar. My daughter bought me one for Father's day this year so it's renewed my interest. The hardest part as a young person is realizing you'll most likely never be the best which if ok and is why it's best just to have fun with it.

 

[MustEatBrains]

lol, I graded it.  Nice score!

Edited August 6, 2017 by MustEatBrains

[SteppinRazor]

On 8/3/2017 at 11:34 AM, poppy73 said:

The grade is in. My book got a 9.6. Was hoping for the elusive 9.8 but you can't win them all. 

Nice

Yeah, I prescreened at 9.6 for my first batch, got more back at that grade than I would've liked.  Kind of sucks too, because I sent a couple doubles where one came back a 9.8 and one came back a 9.6 and for the life of me I can't see any difference between one set.  And a few of my rejects look better than some of my 9.6s.  Go figure.

[poppy73]

12 hours ago, SteppinRazor said:

Nice

Yeah, I prescreened at 9.6 for my first batch, got more back at that grade than I would've liked.  Kind of sucks too, because I sent a couple doubles where one came back a 9.8 and one came back a 9.6 and for the life of me I can't see any difference between one set.  And a few of my rejects look better than some of my 9.6s.  Go figure.

I've run into the same problem. My wife purchased me a large magnifying lens with a light so that I can really inspect my coins and comics. I use gloves to handle my books, I glance over my copies prior to sending them and just as you said, two copies that appear to be the exact same condition receive 2 different grades. My theory is that we're being subliminally encouraged to utilize the different ccs services i.e. pressing or quick press in order to obtain the higher grades. My belief if that the chance of a book hitting 9.8 escalates quickly when using these services. I hope I am wrong but I've sent in books, some of which ahead of time I knew deserved lower grades and low grades were received, but then I've sent in most in what I felt was NM to Mint and 8 out of 10 times wound up disappointed with the grades. That's my 2 cents. 

[SteppinRazor]

1 hour ago, poppy73 said:

I've run into the same problem. My wife purchased me a large magnifying lens with a light so that I can really inspect my coins and comics. I use gloves to handle my books, I glance over my copies prior to sending them and just as you said, two copies that appear to be the exact same condition receive 2 different grades. My theory is that we're being subliminally encouraged to utilize the different ccs services i.e. pressing or quick press in order to obtain the higher grades. My belief if that the chance of a book hitting 9.8 escalates quickly when using these services. I hope I am wrong but I've sent in books, some of which ahead of time I knew deserved lower grades and low grades were received, but then I've sent in most in what I felt was NM to Mint and 8 out of 10 times wound up disappointed with the grades. That's my 2 cents. 

Possibly.  There is definitely incentive for that, but no way to know if they act on it.  Mine weren't worth enough to bother pressing.  I also sent some I figured were a bit too low grade for 9.6 just to help me get better at grading, but I also sent one book that I thought was a 10.  It was a chromium cover (almost cheating since they are so much tougher than paper), razor corners, perfect centering, etc..  Anyway, I thought putting some in I didn't think would make it, most that I thought would, and one that I thought was perfect might help me get more accurate.  Instead I'm worse off than before, with my rejects looking better than some of my slabs, and slabs with different grades looking identical.  And I am incapable of knowing what a 10 is.

[poppy73]

1 hour ago, SteppinRazor said:

Possibly.  There is definitely incentive for that, but no way to know if they act on it.  Mine weren't worth enough to bother pressing.  I also sent some I figured were a bit too low grade for 9.6 just to help me get better at grading, but I also sent one book that I thought was a 10.  It was a chromium cover (almost cheating since they are so much tougher than paper), razor corners, perfect centering, etc..  Anyway, I thought putting some in I didn't think would make it, most that I thought would, and one that I thought was perfect might help me get more accurate.  Instead I'm worse off than before, with my rejects looking better than some of my slabs, and slabs with different grades looking identical.  And I am incapable of knowing what a 10 is.

It would improve their average price per grade. I'll tell you I work in sales and we live and breathe by the average total ticket per customer and any add on's, additional services just pad that average ticket more and more making the company and the sales staff more money. The products and services offered by CGC & CCS really work wonders with the books they work on. Pressing can make a 4.5 look like a 7.0 and pre-screening is a great service if you've had it with getting back 9.6's and 9.4's. My concern is just that using these CCS services is becoming the new normal. I'll also mention I am not sending in silver age books here. I think the oldest book I have sent in was a copy of X-Men 142 but most of my books are copper and modern books. That's my area of focus with my collection and that may evolve over time but my point is that these books I am sending in for the most part are fairly recent books, unread, bagged and boarded. I handle them with gloves, I always use two boards instead of one to add extra rigidity while in the bag. Yet I am still averaging maybe 20% of my books coming back as 9.8's. As I have said often lately I may just go back to buying pre-graded 9.8's of the books I want rather than rolling the dice with CGC. It won't quite be like Christmas morning but at least I'll get what I ordered without worrying for weeks what the gods will bestow on my books. More than likely, because I still have several hundred modern books that are as of yet ungraded I'll still probably need to do a bit of both. Next go around I'll try my luck with some of the CCS services probably the Quickpress, and get back to you with a full report as to what percentage of my books received 9.8's.

[SteppinRazor]

31 minutes ago, poppy73 said:

It would improve their average price per grade. I'll tell you I work in sales and we live and breathe by the average total ticket per customer and any add on's, additional services just pad that average ticket more and more making the company and the sales staff more money. The products and services offered by CGC & CCS really work wonders with the books they work on. Pressing can make a 4.5 look like a 7.0 and pre-screening is a great service if you've had it with getting back 9.6's and 9.4's. My concern is just that using these CCS services is becoming the new normal. I'll also mention I am not sending in silver age books here. I think the oldest book I have sent in was a copy of X-Men 142 but most of my books are copper and modern books. That's my area of focus with my collection and that may evolve over time but my point is that these books I am sending in for the most part are fairly recent books, unread, bagged and boarded. I handle them with gloves, I always use two boards instead of one to add extra rigidity while in the bag. Yet I am still averaging maybe 20% of my books coming back as 9.8's. As I have said often lately I may just go back to buying pre-graded 9.8's of the books I want rather than rolling the dice with CGC. It won't quite be like Christmas morning but at least I'll get what I ordered without worrying for weeks what the gods will bestow on my books. More than likely, because I still have several hundred modern books that are as of yet ungraded I'll still probably need to do a bit of both. Next go around I'll try my luck with some of the CCS services probably the Quickpress, and get back to you with a full report as to what percentage of my books received 9.8's.

Cool.  I'll be interested in your results.

I'm debating whether to send more in for grading or not.  I have some more books that I wanted to get graded, but only a couple are worth it at less than 9.8, and if there's little consistency in grading, it means I probably should only send in those, nothing that's worth less than a few hundred graded is worth taking the risk.

[poppy73]

20 hours ago, SteppinRazor said:

Cool.  I'll be interested in your results.

I'm debating whether to send more in for grading or not.  I have some more books that I wanted to get graded, but only a couple are worth it at less than 9.8, and if there's little consistency in grading, it means I probably should only send in those, nothing that's worth less than a few hundred graded is worth taking the risk.

Very True. I did get the new Batman Lenticular issue 21 signed by the author Tom King at Megacon and graded by cgc and the two copies he signed and graded came back as 9.8 sig series. I paid less than $10 per copy plus grading and shipping. Now I see these books selling for close to $200 on eBay. That's about as low as I'd go. I did pick up several copies of Batman 24 where Batman proposes to catwoman. It's another I'll probably send in for grading due to it being a key issue. Otherwise I'm going to be looking for higher value books. 

[poppy73]

Grader notes for my New Mutants were "spine stress lines"