Outbreak of Shaken Comic Syndrome 3 3

[JL Peralta]

I just returned a 9.8 ASM 25 Remastered I received because straight out the shipping box, both staples were shifted. Then I checked the one I already owned that looked just fine when I put it in a storage box with my other books. Yep, top staple shifted - not bottom. For both books, I could tap them back in place. I have an inquiry out to CGC customer service, but I also have an ASM 25 submitted to grading. I am hoping if this is a case issue, my new book is slabbed correctly. ASM 25s aren't the most expensive books I own, but they aren't cheap and they don't show up too often for purchase, so getting a resolution that involves not owning these books at all -- well, would suck.

[newshane]

I've noticed that the CGC isn't as careful as they used to be when it comes to packing. 

Notice how they no longer sandwich the slabs between cardboard? Notice the new bubble-wrap? 

Wonder if that could be part of the issue? 

 

[Tec-Tac-Toe]

51 minutes ago, newshane said:

I've noticed that the CGC isn't as careful as they used to be when it comes to packing. 

Notice how they no longer sandwich the slabs between cardboard? Notice the new bubble-wrap? 

Wonder if that could be part of the issue? 

 

If not, those changes are, clearly, still not for the best.

[spidermanbeyond]

Sorry about the books.  Your ASM 25 is thick and heavy.  The weight of the book during shifting has cause staple tears.  THE DAMAGE IS IRREVERSIBLE even though you might be able to tap it back in place because the staple tear has already occurred.

[Mystafo]

Crikey!  These pics HURT, man...ugh so sorry ya'll are going through this.

[spidermanbeyond]

You get whatever you listed as the insurance value which is Max $200 for modern book.

[JL Peralta]

1 hour ago, newshane said:

I've noticed that the CGC isn't as careful as they used to be when it comes to packing. 

Notice how they no longer sandwich the slabs between cardboard? Notice the new bubble-wrap? 

Wonder if that could be part of the issue? 

 

I recently received three slabs from cgc, I had "reholdered", rubber banded together with just a bit of bubble wrap not secured to the books at all. I was surprised, given that I sent the books in for reholder (on my dime) because they had cracked in shipment from ebay...go figure. With 175+ books currently submitted for grading, I am a bit nervous and holding off submitting anything else.

[JL Peralta]

35 minutes ago, spidermanbeyond said:

Sorry about the books.  Your ASM 25 is thick and heavy.  The weight of the book during shifting has cause staple tears.  THE DAMAGE IS IRREVERSIBLE even though you might be able to tap it back in place because the staple tear has already occurred.

You would think that ASM 25 is not the first thick/heavy book that has been slabbed, I know I have plenty of them. I fully believe the issue is caused by the way the chosen holder secures the book. I don't know what the solution would be, I also know that CGC must have some R&D going on, since they keep changing the holders. I guess we shouldn't collect, grade or slab thick books because they will be damaged in handling.

[newshane]

6 hours ago, JP Austin said:

I recently received three slabs from cgc, I had "reholdered", rubber banded together with just a bit of bubble wrap not secured to the books at all. 

Same. 

It's a shame given the prices charged for shipping and handling. 

Edited February 8, 2019 by newshane

[Tec-Tac-Toe]

10 hours ago, newshane said:

Same. 

It's a shame given the prices charged for shipping and handling. 

The last shipment that I received, 35 comic books, was in October 2018, and, although, no comic books were damaged, as you folks have commented, the packaging left a lot to be desired. My next submission, delayed since October due to work, will, hopefully, be sent in March 2019 and will consist of 35 to 50 comic books. I hope that when CGC ships them to me they have reverted back to the larger shipping boxes and substantially more secured packaging as i would not like, for the first time, to perhaps have to contact them concerning damaged items.

[Black_Adam]

17 hours ago, JP Austin said:

I recently received three slabs from cgc, I had "reholdered", rubber banded together with just a bit of bubble wrap not secured to the books at all. I was surprised, given that I sent the books in for reholder (on my dime) because they had cracked in shipment from ebay...go figure. With 175+ books currently submitted for grading, I am a bit nervous and holding off submitting anything else.

All of my experiences with SCS in regards to CGC shipments have involved smaller groups of books (six or less) and, I believe, have been directly related to the poor packaging practices in their shipping department. Larger shipments (say 12 slabs or more) are placed upright in a carton with 1" thick cardboard buffers on all six sides and bubble wrap wedged into any remaining gap to prevent movement during transit. Smaller shipments are packed as previously described - with no protection in place to prevent excessive movement during transit, almost always a cause of SCS. My only guess is that whoever approved this shipping method at CGC mistakenly believes the cases alone will prevent the comics from any damage during shipment?

Which is a shame, because in my experience most smaller shipments involve higher value books while bulk shipments have almost always been graded at the lowest tier.

 

[comicwiz]

On 1/10/2019 at 7:48 PM, Bomber-Bob said:

Here's my take on maybe why this is happening more of late. The design of the original new slab used tremendous pressure to hold the book in place. There was no inner well for the book to move around in with the thought that would solve some SCS problems. It turned out the longer term effect of this pressure caused the 'creep engine' effect with the comics sustaining damage. So, CGC brings back the inner well in the new slab design. This worked BUT, we now had the Newton Ring effect from the inner well pressing against slab. Never bothered me but most balked at this effect. So now, it appears, they have fixed the Newton Ring problem by having the inner well more loose in the slab. Now, the inner well is swimming and SCS is back.   

They haven't fixed anything. It's a smoke screen. Back in October of last year, when I shared the FB post about the person with the badly damaged SS ASM 122, that person was given every excuse in the book for what happened to his book, but none of them was that comic wreckers "new and improved" slab design caused it and that it should have been recalled.

I was taken to task by a sycophant in one of the FB groups who assured me that the issue with the floating sheets was corrected, and that now CGC had come up with an recessed inner well to offset the issue with comics moving around. This was another example

CGC is just going to keep saying there is nothing to see here. The blame game will continue to land on bad packaging, mishandling during shipping, "bad pressing" (which to me is an utterly ridiculous excuse), deflect, deflect, deflect, but it will never be comic wreckers fault.

Their website uses words like "state-of-the art" and that their tamper-evident holder "provides superior protection and stability for long-term preservation" but all I'm seeing is destruction.

[newshane]

1 hour ago, Tec-Tac-Toe said:

"....although no comic books were damaged, as you folks have commented, the packaging left a lot to be desired."

Yep. I've been lucky.

[LordRahl]

55 minutes ago, comicwiz said:

They haven't fixed anything. It's a smoke screen. Back in October of last year, when I shared the FB post about the person with the badly damaged SS ASM 122, that person was given every excuse in the book for what happened to his book, but none of them was that comic wreckers "new and improved" slab design caused it and that it should have been recalled.

I was taken to task by a sycophant in one of the FB groups who assured me that the issue with the floating sheets was corrected, and that now CGC had come up with an recessed inner well to offset the issue with comics moving around. This was another example

CGC is just going to keep saying there is nothing to see here. The blame game will continue to land on bad packaging, mishandling during shipping, "bad pressing" (which to me is an utterly ridiculous excuse), deflect, deflect, deflect, but it will never be comic wreckers fault.

Their website uses words like "state-of-the art" and that their tamper-evident holder "provides superior protection and stability for long-term preservation" but all I'm seeing is destruction.

Really? Is that ALL you're seeing? Nice to see a reasoned, well thought out, non-agenda promoting post from you. At least CGC will compensate submitters for damaged books unlike the shmucks across the street you love so much, who damage books in house and go on to slab them anyway with the damage and then do nothing when called out that they damaged books.

[comicwiz]

17 minutes ago, LordRahl said:

Really? Is that ALL you're seeing? Nice to see a reasoned, well thought out, non-agenda promoting post from you. At least CGC will compensate submitters for damaged books unlike the shmucks across the street you love so much, who damage books in house and go on to slab them anyway with the damage and then do nothing when called out that they damaged books.

This is taken from their website:

This has been brought up on social media in the past (I've provided at least two examples), and it's downplayed, mocked or turned into a divisive debate. It doesn't have to be any of these things, but it is necessary to bring attention the problem, particularly given the length of time this has been going on. I didn't start a thread describing this as an outbreak, the OP did. But it is worth noting that based on the amount of complaints I've seen with this issue, I would have expected a company touting itself as a leader in grading, and who use these words on their website, would be backing-up these statements with a remedy by now.

Edited February 8, 2019 by comicwiz

[JollyComics]

I don't have a problem for ten years so far except typo errors.  Only one and once, I had a batch of 25 books (that was long before the new design of a reholder) and there were three cracked cases so they were replaced immediately. No issue with CGC. *Still knocking the wood*. I decided to not use the batch of 25 books that was my last time. From now on, I have kept shipping 10 books or less and also gave up on UPS five years ago because of two packages were severely damaged but all books survived the ordeal included IH 181 (ironically, I currently work for UPS for 11 years and have seen worse).  FedEx never have a problem for me and sometimes I use USPS for the registered mails only (high values of the books).

Hmm, how did you guys fare with the batch of 25 books and other batch of 10 books or less since the new reholders?

[JL Peralta]

20 hours ago, JollyComics said:

I don't have a problem for ten years so far except typo errors.  Only one and once, I had a batch of 25 books (that was long before the new design of a reholder) and there were three cracked cases so they were replaced immediately. No issue with CGC. *Still knocking the wood*. I decided to not use the batch of 25 books that was my last time. From now on, I have kept shipping 10 books or less and also gave up on UPS five years ago because of two packages were severely damaged but all books survived the ordeal included IH 181 (ironically, I currently work for UPS for 11 years and have seen worse).  FedEx never have a problem for me and sometimes I use USPS for the registered mails only (high values of the books).

Hmm, how did you guys fare with the batch of 25 books and other batch of 10 books or less since the new reholders?

Well, I have had poor experience with 2 out of 3 ASM #25 Remastered books encapsulated by CGC. Now, I just received a brand new copy (9.8) because I can't stay away from them. This book has been encapsulated in the double wide holder and the inner well is tightly fitted to the comic book. This is the same style of holder (whether new or not, I don't know) that is used on the ASM #800's of which I have over a dozen in different variants and duplicates. I theorize that this new ASM #25 will never ever see a issue with SCS -- because its encapsulated in a properly designed holder for a thick modern book. My hope is that 1) CGC will come back to me on a resolution for my already shifted and damaged book, and that the copy I have in progress will be slabbed correctly.

Moving forward, I am scrutinizing all of my books for issues with how they are slabbed, and in fact, I've already started to and will continue to reslab all of my books in older holders. It's cheap enough, and it gives me piece of mind for my enormous investment in comic books.

[Gaard]

On 2/8/2019 at 2:57 PM, JollyComics said:

I don't have a problem for ten years so far except typo errors.  Only one and once, I had a batch of 25 books (that was long before the new design of a reholder) and there were three cracked cases so they were replaced immediately. No issue with CGC. *Still knocking the wood*. I decided to not use the batch of 25 books that was my last time. From now on, I have kept shipping 10 books or less and also gave up on UPS five years ago because of two packages were severely damaged but all books survived the ordeal included IH 181 (ironically, I currently work for UPS for 11 years and have seen worse).  FedEx never have a problem for me and sometimes I use USPS for the registered mails only (high values of the books).

Hmm, how did you guys fare with the batch of 25 books and other batch of 10 books or less since the new reholders?

I won't mention the fact that you had CGC ship an IH 181 back to you.

I was just wondering if, as an 11 year UPS employee, you had any advice for us.

 

BTW - I've never had any issues with either UPS or FedEx. The USPS however....

[JollyComics]

6 hours ago, Gaard said:

I was just wondering if, as an 11 year UPS employee, you had any advice for us.

Make sure your package is a bombproof.  Some lame employees load 70 lb or more packages toppling the stack of packages. Few boxes were crushed badly.  Inside the trailer is about 12 to 13 feet high. Think about how much weight when it gets stacked up to the ceiling.

Too many Amazon boxes are crushed and opened. Those Amazon employees CAN'T pack them at all. It goes same thing with Sam's Club, Target and Wal Mart.  About 80% of them were once-taped over the closed flaps - one tape isn't holding well. Well, it is better to tape two or three time then cross over the flaps with tape twice. Do the same thing the bottom of the box. Yes do little excessive with tapes to protect your investment.

Speaking of two to three day ground service, it is better to ship on Tuesday and Wednesday in afternoon so it will go overnight to next day. The highest volume is on Mondays and Tuesdays so you have to avoid shipping on Thursdays and Fridays so all packages will go through weekends that will be carried into Mondays and Tuesdays. You don't want further damages on your books during the highest volume.

I have seen many items were scattered all over places inside the trailers, hubs and belt conveyors. One most memorable story about the comic artist's nightmare/ordeal: https://www.comicsbeat.com/denys-cowan-art-that-ups-lost-may-be-at-large/

Eventually the missing artworks were found and returned to the artist but they were badly damaged so I am sure the artist had learned his lesson and would pack them properly. The 53 foot long trailer can contain up to 2,500 boxes in varied size and weights. While I work on my shift, there are 110 trailers per day at my hub before two more shifts.

Pack and secure well.  UPS will cover the shipping cost ONLY.  It doesn't matter to UPS if you pay the insurance.

Edited February 10, 2019 by JollyComics

[Gaard]

Thank you