CGC vs CBCS 1 1

[Darkowl]

On 8/27/2019 at 10:12 AM, valiantman said:

I don't agree with @Darkowl that the books are "worthless", but my view is that signed books represent:

1) An experience by the person/collector who goes to the convention.

2) A physical souvenir of getting that opportunity to meet a famous artist or writer.

3) Absolute certainty that the signature witnessed is legitimate.

4) A book signed by someone.

When these types of books are sold to the next person, the only thing that transfers is 4) A book signed by someone.  1), 2), and 3) aren't transferred.

Nothing will ever beat the "sentimental value" associated with being the person who gets to claim 1), 2), 3), and 4).

CGC simply provides a way for the next person to get 3) and 4), rather than just 4).

All very true! For me personally, however I would never purchase an unwitnessed signed comic for any significant amount of money. That's what i meant by "worthless". 

[porcupine48]

[Xenosmilus]

2 minutes ago, porcupine48 said:

What's the first appearance of K.A.M. ad in comics? Who ever figures this out gets a . And Go.....

[Xenosmilus]

Wow I didn't even know K.A.M. had a comic.  Is the villain diabetes .

[porcupine48]

A rare angry KAM unhappy of being booted from Marvel to Archie

[The Lions Den]

On 7/28/2018 at 2:32 AM, RockMyAmadeus said:

CBCS is not a legitimate comic book grading company, and unless Beckett takes some serious steps, starting with a complete overhaul of whomever thinks they're in charge, they never will be.

Which is a shame, because the industry desperately needs legitimate competition, and CBCS was in a perfect position to be that competition, but their serious missteps (the fiasco of the "self-witnessed" yellow label program, their "this case can be opened without anyone being able to tell" scandal, their "top pressers" spinning key books like Avengers #4 on table tops, their lack of basic programs like a registry and a census, etc.) and their petty, petulant, and hostile attitude towards criticism, with their willingness to openly lie about people to justify silencing said criticism, all just demonstrates that they weren't any better than CGC, and, in fact, far worse.

For competition to succeed, they can't merely be equal...they must be, in all ways, superior. That was never true of CBCS, though they had an industry of hopes and good will sent their way to encourage them otherwise.

It didn't work.

Well said, as usual.   

And from the books I've seen, their grading isn't as tight or accurate either. I recently cracked out a book that was graded a 9.4, and it had a 2" corner crease on the back cover. Sorry boys, that's not going to work for me...  

[The Lions Den]

On 7/28/2018 at 4:16 AM, RockMyAmadeus said:

You can easily tell the attitudes of the people in charge by the way the people who interact directly with the customers behave. They are a direct reflection of those people in charge. 

This, 100%. And it's not confined to just comics, either. 

[Xenosmilus]

I have sent a total 8 CBCS 9.8's to CGC for cross over grading. 6 of the 8 submitted came back 9.8's. The other 2 were 9.6. Based on those numbers if I'm in a bind, I would still buy a CBCS and get it cross over graded understanding the risk.

[The Lions Den]

On 8/11/2018 at 4:28 AM, herc2000 said:

I like Steve, CBCS, but I sent a query to them four days ago and still no response. I then kept thinking, I'm sure I tried to get this resolved before (been a lot going on), so checked over my sent emails and realized I had sent the same enquiry July last year which I never got a reply to either, so as mentioned here, the customer service is very bad :-(

I think we could actually use the term "non-existent"...

[The Lions Den]

On 8/11/2018 at 3:08 PM, Bomber-Bob said:

Though I am not familiar with what you you are referring to, it is obvious that someone has some serious dislike for the company. You can just feel it oozing from the screen. I don't like threads like this where a 1st time poster comes on with a beef.  In the interest of fair play, I hope this thread dies quickly. Someone post some porn and get this thing locked up !  

Hi Bob!  

Personally, I don't have anything against Steve or any of the other folks at CBCS. I do feel their company vision is pretty murky, and I really don't like not getting what I paid for. And it's pretty obvious to me they have some problems that likely do start at the top and trickle their way down to the rest of the organization. For their sake, I really hope they get their poop in a group. As it stands right now, I have serious doubts about that...

 

[William-James88]

On 4/19/2019 at 7:18 AM, namisgr said:

If people really believe CBCS slabbed comics fetch less in the marketplace than their CGC counterparts, why aren't more of you snapping up all the CBCS slabs that are for sale?  It would be an easy process to have them cross-graded and then sold for a tidy profit.

It's because in the end, people just like writing on forums and arguing and don't really believe it. I haven't noticed CBCS fetching for less on the market, to my great chagrin. Quite the opposite, it seems buyers are as confident with them and you can still get incredible results like this 
https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/adventure/frankenstein-comics-2-prize-1946-cbcs-vg-fn-50-cream-to-off-white-pages/a/7211-95144.s?ic2=mybidspage-lotlinks-12202013&tab=MyBids-101116

 

[PunisherPunisherPunisher]

Reminds me of Coke and Pepsi, CGC is way out in front but needs to raise the bar from time to time so they are only 2 years in front of the competition 

[theCapraAegagrus]

16 hours ago, William-James88 said:

It's because in the end, people just like writing on forums and arguing and don't really believe it. I haven't noticed CBCS fetching for less on the market, to my great chagrin. Quite the opposite, it seems buyers are as confident with them and you can still get incredible results like this 
https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/adventure/frankenstein-comics-2-prize-1946-cbcs-vg-fn-50-cream-to-off-white-pages/a/7211-95144.s?ic2=mybidspage-lotlinks-12202013&tab=MyBids-101116

Yeah... No.

TOS39 and Iron Man #1 in CGC are 33% more expensive than in CBCS. As are all "keys".

Any Modern that I've ever wanted is always cheaper in a CBCS case.

It's not a matter of "belief".

[William-James88]

2 hours ago, theCapraAegagrus said:

Yeah... No.

TOS39 and Iron Man #1 in CGC are 33% more expensive than in CBCS. As are all "keys".

Any Modern that I've ever wanted is always cheaper in a CBCS case.

It's not a matter of "belief".

Thanks. I was looking more at golden age books, which is more my bag (I was never able to get into moderns from a collectible sense). And yeah I checked for some silver age keys to see for myself and CBCS is indeed cheaper, but not by as much as 33% for the examples I searched. Like the Amazing Fantasy 15s I compared (sold same year) had less of a 10% difference in price sold. CGC was consistently higher though.

The idea is that since it is presumed that CBCS grades higher, then you spend less thinking it might not be the right grade right? 

[theCapraAegagrus]

2 minutes ago, William-James88 said:

Thanks. I was looking more at golden age books, which is more my bag (I was never able to get into moderns from a collectible sense). And yeah I checked for some silver age keys to see for myself and CBCS is indeed cheaper, but not by as much as 33% for the examples I searched. Like the Amazing Fantasy 15s I compared (sold same year) had less of a 10% difference in price sold. CGC was consistently higher though.

The idea is that since it is presumed that CBCS grades higher, then you spend less thinking it might not be the right grade right? 

I wouldn't say that by default CBCS always grades higher. They're CGC's only legitimate competitor. They do a good job at what they're paid to do. They have a lot of shortcomings, though.

CGC has the advantage of Census and Registry - as well as long-standing reputation. Brand recognition.

CBCS has the advantage of not having a Newton Ring problem.

CBCS falls very short of customer service satisfaction (from my observations). The upside is that they know they have problems and are claiming, at least, that they're being worked on (in focus).

Where CGC, in my mind, is the golden ticket; They don't "verify" signatures. They only authenticate via chain of custody.

Factor in all of these things and you get the answer to the equation. It's not just grade of opinion, but overall brand quality.

[William-James88]

1 hour ago, theCapraAegagrus said:

I wouldn't say that by default CBCS always grades higher. They're CGC's only legitimate competitor. They do a good job at what they're paid to do. They have a lot of shortcomings, though.

CGC has the advantage of Census and Registry - as well as long-standing reputation. Brand recognition.

CBCS has the advantage of not having a Newton Ring problem.

CBCS falls very short of customer service satisfaction (from my observations). The upside is that they know they have problems and are claiming, at least, that they're being worked on (in focus).

Where CGC, in my mind, is the golden ticket; They don't "verify" signatures. They only authenticate via chain of custody.

Factor in all of these things and you get the answer to the equation. It's not just grade of opinion, but overall brand quality.

Thanks for the response man, it's all very much appreciated.

Another thing I didn't find fun with CGC was that the tiers could not be combined in an order (at least, the last time I did it). Which ups the cost of shipping back, especially for people outside the US like me. And it would be extra tricky when a tier only applied up until a certain amount of value and yet the value of the book was dependent on the grade. So I would have multiple books from the same era (for instance, low grade copies of the 5th, 6th and 7th issue of Fantastic 4) but because 1 was key, it was valued more and thus I would have to set up a different order for it than the others. There are several cases where I didn't need the faster tier but because the book was valued as over 1000, I had no option but to take it. I have not looked into how CBCS does that so it might be the same but if they allow different grading tiers in the same order form then that could be another advantage. 

Also, verifying signatures can be real handy for Stan Lee signatures that were free/unwitnessed (I have some).

Edited January 7, 2020 by William-James88

[theCapraAegagrus]

8 minutes ago, William-James88 said:

Thanks for the response man, it's all very much appreciated.

Another thing I didn't find fun with CGC was that the tiers could not be combined in an order (at least, the last time I did it). Which ups the cost of shipping back, especially for people outside the US like me. And it would be extra tricky when a tier only applied up until a certain amount of value and yet the value of the book was dependent on the grade. So I would have multiple books from the same era (for instance, low grade copies of the 5th, 6th and 7th issue of Fantastic 4) but because 1 was key, it was valued more and thus I would have to set up a different order for it than the others. There are several cases where I didn't need the faster tier but because the book was valued as over 1000, I had not option but to take it. I have not looked into how CBCS does that so it might be the same but if they allow different grading tiers in the same order form then that could be another advantage. And the fact that they just have a set price for books pre 1975 and after 1975 makes things a bit easier, at least for me.

Also, verifying signatures can be real handy for Stan Lee signatures that were free/unwitnessed (I have some).

CBCS does have options to send a single invoice, however, it's pricey. It might be the same cost/book when factoring in multiple shipments (CGC) vs up-charge (CBCS).

Until CBCS actually fixes their customer service, I don't suggest anyone submits thru them. CGC, IMO, does a tremendous job of 'making things right'. A ton of people have problems even getting a response from Voldemort. Many times in my life I have been a repeat customer based on customer service. Bad service will always remove you from my consideration. It makes all of the difference to me.

I don't find any value in "verified" signatures. I simply can't trust them. I'd rather buy a raw book that a signature appears authentic on, than a graded book with someone else's opinion on the signature. That's just a personal preference, though.

[William-James88]

1 minute ago, theCapraAegagrus said:

CBCS does have options to send a single invoice, however, it's pricey. It might be the same cost/book when factoring in multiple shipments (CGC) vs up-charge (CBCS).

Until CBCS actually fixes their customer service, I don't suggest anyone submits thru them. CGC, IMO, does a tremendous job of 'making things right'. A ton of people have problems even getting a response from Voldemort. Many times in my life I have been a repeat customer based on customer service. Bad service will always remove you from my consideration. It makes all of the difference to me.

I don't find any value in "verified" signatures. I simply can't trust them. I'd rather buy a raw book that a signature appears authentic on, than a graded book with someone else's opinion on the signature. That's just a personal preference, though.

Thats a very good point.

[RockMyAmadeus]

1 hour ago, theCapraAegagrus said:

I don't find any value in "verified" signatures. I simply can't trust them. I'd rather buy a raw book that a signature appears authentic on, than a graded book with someone else's opinion on the signature. That's just a personal preference, though.

And, as I noted before, there's quasi-fraud going on in their "witnessed signature" program, via Tim Bildhauser offering to "yellow label" books that had been signed years ago, and that had passed through multiple unknown hands.

[Gaard]

8 hours ago, theCapraAegagrus said:

CBCS falls very short of customer service satisfaction (from my observations). The upside is that they know they have problems and are claiming, at least, that they're being worked on (in focus).

I think that the fact that they've been working on this problem for far too long (IMO) negates any upside. Kateeja (CGC), however, is super. Handled my issue today in less than an hour.

Agree with everything else you said.