ArkhamComicsLasVegas really doesn't like graded comics... 2 2

[fullerjason]

17 hours ago, 1Cool said:

I find the older sellers or shop owners almost always hate CGC and don't want anything to do with it.  When asked they usually avoid the question all together and say they just do.  The few I've gotten any response from is they feel CGC has taken money out of their pocket since they use to be able to sell a raw NM copy for big bucks and now buyers expect books to be graded before paying top dollar.  The shop owners send in the book they thought was NM and it comes back a 8.0 or 8.5.  Huge chunk of money out of their pockets.  I think it all comes down to money in most cases.

 

11 hours ago, thehumantorch said:

They can no longer sell a raw NM copy for big bucks because it isn't a raw NM copy.   They can't grade and their NM copies are CGC 8.0 copies.  Shop owners who know what they're doing are picking out books worth sending to CGC and making more money.

I agree.

[fullerjason]

13 hours ago, ChiSoxFan said:

 

You can find people on YouTube espousing that the Earth is flat, so the ability of someone to make and post a video somewhere certainly does not equal credibility, lol.  

If he's aware of this thread, he certainly could post here his opinions and engage in a friendly discussion about the pros/cons of both CGC and slabbing in general, but I wouldn't hold my breath of that happening, though it probably would be ... entertaining ...  at least (and probably turn this into a Friday thread four days early  ).

Lol, true.

[joe_collector]

On 6/14/2017 at 2:38 PM, ChiSoxFan said:

Exactly.  In theory, the 3rd party grader has no self interest in how a book that passes before them grades out.   They're not looking at making substantially more money or less money depending on the grade

Huh? I always thought CGC charged more for higher-priced books?

Has that changed?

[Quicksilver Signs]

13 minutes ago, joe_collector said:

Huh? I always thought CGC charged more for higher-priced books?

Has that changed?

Technically they charge more when submitting a book, determining FMV before submitting to the proper tier. They don't charge more for a 9.8 compared to a 9.0 

[joe_collector]

33 minutes ago, Quicksilver Signs said:

Technically they charge more when submitting a book, determining FMV before submitting to the proper tier. They don't charge more for a 9.8 compared to a 9.0 

Actually, they still do on Walkthrough, where a lot of the most valuable books go, with a 3% knock off FMV from $150 Min to $5,000 Max. 

And I don't know if they do it anymore, but CGC used to "bump" books that pre-graded higher than the FMV of the class, up to a higher-priced level. I remember a thread about that, and people were pissed that it still took XX days to process, rather than the XX of the tier they actually paid for. So they effectively "charged more for a 9.8 compared to a 9.0".

[VintageComics]

1 minute ago, joe_collector said:

Actually, they still do on Walkthrough, where a lot of the most valuable books go, with a 3% knock off FMV from $150 Min to $5,000 Max. 

And I don't know if they do it anymore, but CGC used to "bump" books that pre-graded higher than the FMV of the class, up to a higher-priced level. I remember a thread about that, and people were pissed that it still took XX days to process, rather than the XX of the tier they actually paid for. So they effectively "charged more for a 9.8 compared to a 9.0".

While they technically charge more to grade more expensive books in my experience they aren't militant about catching people on those bumps.

Yes, they do bump your invoice cost if the book ends up being a big book but that just seems to me more when they catch it or if the price difference is huge compared to the tier you've initially chosen.

And there is a very good reason for it. Insurance, cost of experience and other costs are involved with handling more expensive books. They take a little longer to grade, they cost more to insure and store and they take a little extra care when handling them or documenting things about them.

We used to charge more in the shop for diagnostic work than we did for general service work. Why? Because diagnostic training and experience is more expensive than just regular service experience.

You generally get what you pay for in service and if you're paying more it's generally because you're getting more.

Is it expensive to pay to get a $50K book graded? Sire, but you're also receiving the benefit of being able to sell it for $50K rather than selling it for less if it's unccertified and people don't have the same confidence in the product.

That might go against old school dealers who used to appraise books for free but hey, things change.

 

[joe_collector]

1 minute ago, VintageComics said:

You generally get what you pay for in service and if you're paying more it's generally because you're getting more.

 

Actually, that was the main complaint because CGC stated "we treat every book the same", and 99% of the time you effectively pay for faster grading.

[VintageComics]

1 minute ago, joe_collector said:

Actually, that was the main complaint because CGC stated "we treat every book the same", and 99% of the time you effectively pay for faster grading.

Trying to pigeon hole them because of a phrase that could mean many things is just childish.

They do treat every book the same.

Just like the Post Office treats every package the same.

But you can also pay extra if you want faster shipping.

[ChiSoxFan]

On 6/14/2017 at 1:38 PM, ChiSoxFan said:

Exactly.  In theory, the 3rd party grader has no self interest in how a book that passes before them grades out.   They're not looking at making substantially more money or less money depending on the grade 

 

3 hours ago, joe_collector said:

Huh? I always thought CGC charged more for higher-priced books?

Has that changed?

It hasn't, but the bolded part of my statement, taken in hand with the sheer amount of volume CGC has in revenue on any given year vs. the loss of their credibility as a grading company (much as another grading company located out West long ago lost all credibility with their questionable practices) is what my focus was on.

If a book I send in comes back at a higher grade, it is possible that CGC might make more money by having graded it higher.  But how much money? Let's use the highest valued Marvel SA key, an AF #15 for example.  I send in a copy that people looking at the book before think "should" warrant it an 8.5 grade.  Conspiracy theorists think CGC might give it a higher grade to squeeze more money out of me, and that's why when I get it back and it's a 9.0 instead,. something must be fishy (even though that's a simply half grade jump).  

Looking at GPA, the last 8.5 sold in February for $155,350, while the last 9.0 sold in March for $395,000.  In the first case, CGC is pulling $4660 from me, if I'm to understand correctly, as a grading fee.  In the latter's case, the 3% of FMV (if we can agree on GPA being a fair enough barometer for FMV) would exceed the cap of $5000, which is what I'd pay.  Would there be any incentive for CGC to overgrade my book and put their reputation on the line to make an extra $340?  Common sense says "no".  Anything valued even higher (a 9.0 vs. a 9.4), they're getting that max cap (if that's an incorrect reading of their price tiers, please someone correct me).

How about on lesser valued books?  The price bump from Standard to Express on books is $35 -- again, couch money for a company that is doing millions in revenue a year.  Even books that are valued at, let's say $10,000 vs. $7,000 (if that were the price break with a difference up in grade), that would be 3% of $3,000 -- $90.  More couch money.  The only way such literally small amounts would add up to incentive to bump up grades would be if CGC would do it on every submission they got (and only when it either changed the grading tier of the submission, or was on a book that was over $3000, and I would believe that if that were the case, 1) you would see continuous examples on here of books getting that treatment, or 2) there wouldn't be, as Roy pointed out, periods where the grading does subtly shift from tighter to looser (which is easiest explained by understanding that, despite training and experience, not every grader there will always give the same book the same grade on a different day -- minor fluctuations easily explained by standard deviation).

Again, in theory, CGC could be making a lot more money if they were substantially overgrading a book to make more money for themselves (a 6.0 book ends up in a 9,4 holder, for example) -- but if that were the case, those examples would be brought to light quickly here, as anything resembling that jarring of an error has been in the past (and have usually been the result of a quality control error).  Again, though, if that was happening, it wouldn't be under the radar, it would be netting CGC negligible extra income in the light of their yearly revenue and putting their entire company's credibility at risk -- making it a highly unlikely scenario.  (Someone is bound to bring up the CPR practices of many current collectors, but that is a different discussion, and it's been talked to death in numerous other threads, so I'd rather not rehash it here).

So to sum up -- yes, they might make "more money" with a higher grade assigned to a book.  I'll stand by my statement that there's no self-interest to do so, though,  since the money difference is so little vs. the loss of reputation for the entire company (which would lead it to follow that West Coast company into oblivion), it would make no sense for them to do it.

As an aside, I work as a table games dealer in a casino.  Every now and then (like this past Friday night), I get someone who accuses either the casino itself of "cheating" or, laughably as happened this past weekend, of me cheating.  (I was dealing standard blackjack, and we use automatic shufflers, though not the continual shufflers).  As I explained to the lady, not only was it a ridiculous assertion (I pointed out that if my shuffle machine could determine a way to spit out cards to account for someone jumping in mid-shoe on an 8-deck table, or someone staying on hands that the "book" says you hit on, and vice-versa, then it was SkyNet level of technology -- and since I've seen the Terminator movies, I said I hoped she'd stocked up on the canned goods because that level of sentience from my shuffle machine meant we were all screwed  ), but it made no sense in the risk vs. reward sense.  As I told her, if we (the company or myself) were cheating her, that would mean the loss of a gaming license, the entire establishment would be shut down, and people would go to prison as well.  My comment was, to paraphrase Office Space, considering the sheer yearly revenue made, the $100 or so I was taking from her was definitely not worth it for me (or anyone else) to go to "Federal pound me in the ### prison" by cheating somehow.    What we're discussing here isn't quite the same thing, but you get the idea.  

 

[joe_collector]

2 hours ago, VintageComics said:

Trying to pigeon hole them because of a phrase that could mean many things is just childish.

They do treat every book the same.

Just like the Post Office treats every package the same.

But you can also pay extra if you want faster shipping.

That's exactly what I said - you pay extra for "faster grading" not "better grading".

[jcjames]

20 hours ago, ChiSoxFan said:

.

.

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The price bump from Standard to Express on books is $35 -- again, couch money for a company that is doing millions in revenue a year.  Even books that are valued at, let's say $10,000 vs. $7,000 (if that were the price break with a difference up in grade), that would be 3% of $3,000 -- $90.  More couch money.  

.

.

.

So to sum up -- yes, they might make "more money" with a higher grade assigned to a book.  I'll stand by my statement that there's no self-interest to do so, though,  since the money difference is so little vs. the loss of reputation for the entire company (which would lead it to follow that West Coast company into oblivion), it would make no sense for them to do it..

.

.

 

 

Using your example, what does that extra $90 go towards? Insurance for handling? What's the premium difference for insuring a $10K vs $7K book?

If the "couch money" is a paltry and infrequent amount, then why charge it anyway? Why not flat-fees all the way? Does it really take extra time to grade a $10K book vs a $7K book? Does an AF15 3.0 cost more to grade than a 2.0? Or is it a variation of the nickle-and-dime "invoice fee" tacked onto each submission which is also "couch money"?

A grading-fee system based on FMV of a book for which the grader has a hand in determining that FMV (by assigning the grade) and thereby has a financial interest (even if small) gives the APPEARANCE of conflict of interest, at least for high-value books.

In the end though, the reputation of the grading company is the real focus - and that comes from the consistency and market acceptability of the grades they assign, not the cost or fee-system they charge.

Hence, sloppy grading-reputation of some lesser grading companies generally override the flat-fee system they charge for those sloppy grades.

 

[Quicksilver Signs]

27 minutes ago, jcjames said:

Using your example, what does that extra $90 go towards? Insurance for handling? What's the premium difference for insuring a $10K vs $7K book?

If the "couch money" is a paltry and infrequent amount, then why charge it anyway? Why not flat-fees all the way? Does it really take extra time to grade a $10K book vs a $7K book? Does an AF15 3.0 cost more to grade than a 2.0? Or is it a variation of the nickle-and-dime "invoice fee" tacked onto each submission which is also "couch money"?

A grading-fee system based on FMV of a book for which the grader has a hand in determining that FMV (by assigning the grade) and thereby has a financial interest (even if small) gives the APPEARANCE of conflict of interest, at least for high-value books.

In the end though, the reputation of the grading company is the real focus - and that comes from the consistency and market acceptability of the grades they assign, not the cost or fee-system they charge.

Hence, sloppy grading-reputation of some lesser grading companies generally override the flat-fee system they charge for those sloppy grades.

 

It's not couch money when it's multiplied thousands of times. Banks make an insane amount of money on those little irritating bank fees. 

[jcjames]

^^^  Oh I agree, I was just using the term "couch money" that was used by ChiSoxFan.

 

[ChiSoxFan]

56 minutes ago, Quicksilver Signs said:

It's not couch money when it's multiplied thousands of times. Banks make an insane amount of money on those little irritating bank fees. 

 

35 minutes ago, jcjames said:

^^^  Oh I agree, I was just using the term "couch money" that was used by ChiSoxFan.

 

In fairness, I agree that small fees multiplied by thousands of time -- like the bank fee example -- do definitely add up.

FWIW, though -- how much of CGC's business is actually high-end books?  Isn't the majority of their business (50% and up) moderns now -- books that are valued under $200 and run pretty much the same, so far as fees collected?  I really have no idea -- I'm curious if anyone has a breakdown (or an educated guess at a breakdown) what the ratio is. 

Edited June 28, 2017 by ChiSoxFan
Morning typos!

[jcjames]

24 minutes ago, ChiSoxFan said:

 

In fairness, I agree that small fees multiplied by thousands of time -- like the bank fee example -- do definitely add up.

FWIW, though -- how much of CGC's business is actually high-end books?  Isn't the majority of their business (50% and up) moderns now -- books that are valued under $200 and run pretty much the same, so far as fees collected?  I really have no idea -- I'm curious if anyone has a breakdown (or an educated guess at a breakdown) what the ratio is. 

https://www.cgccomics.com/boards/topic/417709-the-future-of-grading-9193-etc/?do=findComment&comment=9822633

Depends on what defines "modern". For grading tiers, CGC considers 1975-present as "modern" but most folks don't consider a 40+ year old bronze-age book "modern". 

Average grade of 2,851,774 CGC Universal Graded books by decade:
2010s = 9.73 (400,601 books, 14.0% of all books)
2000s = 9.68 (374,700 books, 13.1% of all books)
1990s = 9.55 (307,188 books, 10.8% of all books)

1980s = 9.36 (476,701 books, 16.7% of all books)
1970s = 8.82 (557,082 books, 19.5% of all books)
1960s = 7.42 (512,662 books, 18.0% of all books)

1950s = 6.80 (108,148 books, 3.8% of all books)
1940s = 6.40 (109,074 books, 3.8% of all books)
1930s = 5.34 (5,618 books, 0.2% of all books)

This is for all books submitted, I can't find data on books submitted in the past five years - though I bet that skews even more heavily towards the moderns. But I don't know.

Clearly though, the majority of their business is HG (mostly modern) books - just over 50% of all Universal Graded books on the census are graded 9.6-9.8, and 84% of those 9.6/9.8 books are from 2000 to present:

Percent and Number of CGC Universal Graded books by grade:
10.0 = 0.1% (2,612 books)
9.9 = 0.4% (11,063 books)
9.8 = 34.3% (977,276 books, of which 58% of these are from 2000 to present)
9.6 = 16.5% (470,105 books, of which 26% of these are from 2000 to present)
9.4 = 11.1% (317,919 books)
9.2 = 6.6% (189,315 books)
9.0 = 5.5% (156,644 books)
8.5 = 4.7% (134,214 books)
8.0 = 3.7% (106,357 books)
7.5 =  3.0% (84,929 books)
7.0 = 2.7% (77,924 books)
6.5 = 2.1% (58,185 books)
6.0 = 1.8% (51,185 books)
and so on...

[ChiSoxFan]

6 minutes ago, jcjames said:

https://www.cgccomics.com/boards/topic/417709-the-future-of-grading-9193-etc/?do=findComment&comment=9822633

Depends on what defines "modern". For grading tiers, CGC considers 1975-present as "modern" but most folks don't consider a 40+ year old bronze-age book "modern". 

Average grade of 2,851,774 CGC Universal Graded books by decade:
2010s = 9.73 (400,601 books, 14.0% of all books)
2000s = 9.68 (374,700 books, 13.1% of all books)
1990s = 9.55 (307,188 books, 10.8% of all books)

1980s = 9.36 (476,701 books, 16.7% of all books)
1970s = 8.82 (557,082 books, 19.5% of all books)
1960s = 7.42 (512,662 books, 18.0% of all books)

1950s = 6.80 (108,148 books, 3.8% of all books)
1940s = 6.40 (109,074 books, 3.8% of all books)
1930s = 5.34 (5,618 books, 0.2% of all books)

This is for all books submitted, I can't find data on books submitted in the past five years - though I bet that skews even more heavily towards the moderns. But I don't know.

Clearly though, the majority of their business is HG (mostly modern) books - just over 50% of all Universal Graded books on the census are graded 9.6-9.8, and 84% of those 9.6/9.8 books are from 2000 to present:

Percent and Number of CGC Universal Graded books by grade:
10.0 = 0.1% (2,612 books)
9.9 = 0.4% (11,063 books)
9.8 = 34.3% (977,276 books, of which 58% of these are from 2000 to present)
9.6 = 16.5% (470,105 books, of which 26% of these are from 2000 to present)
9.4 = 11.1% (317,919 books)
9.2 = 6.6% (189,315 books)
9.0 = 5.5% (156,644 books)
8.5 = 4.7% (134,214 books)
8.0 = 3.7% (106,357 books)
7.5 =  3.0% (84,929 books)
7.0 = 2.7% (77,924 books)
6.5 = 2.1% (58,185 books)
6.0 = 1.8% (51,185 books)
and so on...

Thanks for the link and info.  

[SteppinRazor]

On 6/27/2017 at 10:16 AM, Quicksilver Signs said:

Technically they charge more when submitting a book, determining FMV before submitting to the proper tier. They don't charge more for a 9.8 compared to a 9.0 

They do if it crosses the value limit of a tier (eg a modern that is under $200 as a 9.0 but over $200 as a 9.8).

[Quicksilver Signs]

40 minutes ago, SteppinRazor said:

They do if it crosses the value limit of a tier (eg a modern that is under $200 as a 9.0 but over $200 as a 9.8).

Are they strict on this?

[SteppinRazor]

On 6/28/2017 at 10:03 PM, Quicksilver Signs said:

Are they strict on this?

I don't know.  I've only recently submitted something to them.

I seriously doubt it's a driver of grade level though, I was just pointing out it can actually happen.  Far more concerning to me, if I worried about the direction of it, is what I wrote on page one about the grading and pressing services dichotomy.

[VintageComics]

On 2017-06-28 at 11:03 PM, Quicksilver Signs said:

On 2017-06-28 at 10:24 PM, SteppinRazor said:

They do if it crosses the value limit of a tier (eg a modern that is under $200 as a 9.0 but over $200 as a 9.8).

Are they strict on this?

They're not militant about it.