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CGC needs to modify its stance on Color Touch
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350 posts in this topic

43 minutes ago, Bookery said:

Yet rare books have been sold for 500 years, and though there have been a variety of grading systems employed, I don't think any of them have exceeded 10 different grading points.  Movie posters, magazines, pulps... none even have the level of comic distinctions we have now. 

If those markets demanded it, they would exist.

Just before CGC, there were 8 comic book grading distinctions broadly accepted:

Poor

Fair

Good

Very Good

Fine

Very Fine

Near Mint

Mint

That's it. And when people used "F/VF" to distinguish between Fine and VF, there were people...then as now...who argued on the eBay comics board and elsewhere "what kind of grade is that? Either it's Fine or VF...it can't be both at the same time! You're just trying to fudge the grading!" 

And yet, today, we have 25 different distinctions:

.5 (Poor)

1.0 (Fair)

1.5 (Fair/Good)

1.8 (Good-)

2.0 (Good)

2.5 (Good+)

3.0 (Good/VG)

3.5 (VG-)

4.0 (VG)

4.5 (VG+)

5.0 (VG/Fine)

5.5 (Fine-)

6.0 (Fine)

6.5 (Fine+)

7.0 (F/VF)

7.5 (VF-)

8.0 (VF)

8.5 (VF+)

9.0 (VF/NM)

9.2 (NM-)

9.4 (NM)

9.6 (NM+)

9.8 (NM/MT)

9.9 (Mint)

10.0 ("Gem" Mint)

And no one even bats an eye at F/VF. A grade of 7.0 isn't questioned by anyone anymore.

I think one of the very worst decisions CGC EVER made was abandoning the nomenclature, because people were complaining that having a "minus grade", like "NM-" left a "negative impression" on people. I think that's utterly absurd, but whatever.

51 minutes ago, Bookery said:

Coins... a fixed metal object that wears in exact and predictable ways topped out at what is it... something like 65 grades? 

I don't know what you mean by "fixed" in that context, but I assume you mean "solid." And coins only have 29 different grade points.

The 100 point scale, introduced by Stephen Fishler (92% sure on that) was never something that was seriously used by anyone, despite Overstreet and others attempting to adopt the scale in the early to mid 90s.

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2 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

coins only have 29 different grade points.

Unless you want to start counting the various "plus" and "star" grades, which only apply to 45 through 68 for NGC. Those would...*technically*...qualify as grading distinctions.

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1 hour ago, Bookery said:

Why is it a logical progression?  In the relatively short history that comics have been traded as collectibles, they have rapidly escalated the number of grade distinctions.  Yet rare books have been sold for 500 years, and though there have been a variety of grading systems employed, I don't think any of them have exceeded 10 different grading points.  Movie posters, magazines, pulps... none even have the level of comic distinctions we have now.  Coins... a fixed metal object that wears in exact and predictable ways topped out at what is it... something like 65 grades?  Yet as has been pointed out, comics at various times have been graded on a 100-point scale!  When it comes to comic collectors... I don't think the word "logic" should be employed in the discussion.

Well, I'm also the 1st to say that the comic hobby is the least logical of the lot. Lots of emotions running higher in comics than other hobbies.

But it is logical in the same way that the clock becomes split into fractions of seconds in races and even rare books have more than the 3 grades that comics had.

Who is to say how much is enough? (shrug)

 

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57 minutes ago, Badger said:

Ok, Roy. I'm trying to wrap my head around this statement. Are you saying that grades are pointless relative to the value? Did you mean to say, "The value of the book should have no bearing on the grade."?  The former needs some 'splainin' while I agree with the latter. The former makes my 10 year collection of Wizard magazine worthless (regardless of grade).hm

Correct. And thank you for the correction. :foryou:

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47 minutes ago, D84 said:

Does anyone grade their poop? :devil:

If you've ever studied the colon, you do. :hi:

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Don't get me wrong, I think both ideas generated in this thread are good ideas.  100 point scale and restored comics with two grades on them (appears and original or something like that).  The first would make it easier to differentiate and would therefore settle pricing a bit, and the second would remove at least some of the stigma around purple labels and stop the need for restoration removal.  I just don't see either happening because it would make the CGC graders jobs even harder.  You think tat's are slow now, just wait until they have to spend the time to do a much more discriminating job grading.

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I'd hate to see what a "NG" would look like :eek:

Of a graded poop I mean. 

Edited by Get Marwood & I
Thunsicker broke the flow 😠
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25 minutes ago, thunsicker said:

I just don't see either happening because it would make the CGC graders jobs even harder.  You think tat's are slow now, just wait until they have to spend the time to do a much more discriminating job grading.

It would actually make it easier. They have more options to choose from, so it they can't decide if a book is a 9.4 or 9.6, they would have a 9.5 to assign. They don't sit there and say "gosh, I don't know if this should be a 9.4, 9.5, or 9.6...decisions, decisions..."

The presence of more options doesn't change the fundamental nature of the book in their hands.

It doesn't add any additional effort. Just like adding words to the lexicon makes expressing ideas easier, not harder, because of more precise meaning.

The Inuit have as many as 53 different words for "snow", and it doesn't make it harder for them to express what they mean. 

Edited by RockMyAmadeus
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That said, yes, adding two grades for restored books would make the job more time-consuming, but restored books only account for a tiny, tiny fraction of the books submitted to CGC. 

Of the 4,375,000 books on the census, only 55,000 of them are restored.

That's 1.3%. I don't think it would affect TATs all that much.

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On 4/29/2019 at 12:49 PM, cd4ever said:

I don't think you should just change the definition of words because it's more convenient to the collector. The definition of restoration on paper collectibles was established long before CGC existed.  

Yes, the long held standard definition of restoration was indeed already established and in place when CGC first opened its doors for business.  (thumbsu

Unfortunately for all of us, CGC surreptitiously decided to change the definition of restoration to suit the business agenda of their parent CCG and did not bothered to inform the collecting base or the marketplace of this significant change.  It was only years later due to the efforts of many board detectives here that we were able to finally get CGC to admit to these significant  changes in the restoration definition to the point whereby even "disassembly and reassembly of a comic book in and of itself does not constitute restoration".  :screwy:

To make matters doubly worse, it was then determined that certain "people in the know" were already well aware of these changes and had been nefariously "maximizing the potential" of their books.  Needless to say, they most likely made a small fortune by offloading them into an unsuspecting marketplace after laundering them through CGC to obtain their blue sealed stamp of approval.  (tsk) :mad:  :censored:

Edited by lou_fine
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20 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

Yes, the long held standard definition of restoration was indeed already established and in place when CGC first opened its doors for business.  (thumbsu

Unfortunately for all of us, CGC surreptitiously decided to change the definition of restoration to suit the business agenda of their parent CCG and did not bothered to inform the collecting base or the marketplace of this significant change.  It was only years later due to the efforts of many board detectives here that we were able to finally get CGC to admit to these significant  changes in the restoration definition to the point whereby even "disassembly and reassembly of a comic book in and of itself was not considered to be restoration".  :screwy:

To make matters doubly worse, it was then determined that certain "people in the know" were already well aware of these changes and had been nefariously "maximizing the potential" of their books.  Needless to say, they most likely made a small fortune by offloading them into an unsuspecting marketplace by laundering them through CGC to obtain their sealed stamp of approval.  (tsk) :mad:  :censored:

While there is some truth here (maybe even mostly truth), this is as one sided as a view can get. There is a lot of context that you are (probably purposefully) leaving out. It makes rational people that don't share your extreme view just dismiss it out of hand precisely because of its extremism. Even though like I said there is a lot of truth to it. Any noob that doesn't have all of the background, who is perhaps reading this thread after getting into comics in the last few years is either a) going to dismiss this as a CGC hater with an agenda (which based on your years of posts here is what I personally believe is the case but my opinion is irrelevant in the context of what I'm trying to tell you) or b) believe you completely and miss the bigger picture of the good that CGC has done for the hobby. Much like I tell my far left liberal and far right conservative friends... there is a happy middle.  

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49 minutes ago, LordRahl said:
1 hour ago, lou_fine said:

Yes, the long held standard definition of restoration was indeed already established and in place when CGC first opened its doors for business.  (thumbsu

Unfortunately for all of us, CGC surreptitiously decided to change the definition of restoration to suit the business agenda of their parent CCG and did not bothered to inform the collecting base or the marketplace of this significant change.  It was only years later due to the efforts of many board detectives here that we were able to finally get CGC to admit to these significant  changes in the restoration definition to the point whereby even "disassembly and reassembly of a comic book in and of itself was not considered to be restoration".  :screwy:

To make matters doubly worse, it was then determined that certain "people in the know" were already well aware of these changes and had been nefariously "maximizing the potential" of their books.  Needless to say, they most likely made a small fortune by offloading them into an unsuspecting marketplace by laundering them through CGC to obtain their sealed stamp of approval.  (tsk) :mad:  :censored:

While there is some truth here (maybe even mostly truth), this is as one sided as a view can get. There is a lot of context that you are (probably purposefully) leaving out. It makes rational people that don't share your extreme view just dismiss it out of hand precisely because of its extremism. Even though like I said there is a lot of truth to it. Any noob that doesn't have all of the background, who is perhaps reading this thread after getting into comics in the last few years is either a) going to dismiss this as a CGC hater with an agenda (which based on your years of posts here is what I personally believe is the case but my opinion is irrelevant in the context of what I'm trying to tell you) or b) believe you completely and miss the bigger picture of the good that CGC has done for the hobby. Much like I tell my far left liberal and far right conservative friends... there is a happy middle.  

Most definitely not a CGC hater as I believe this hobby of ours is certainly a lot better and far safer for the collecting base with CGC here, as compared to the what was taking place before 3rd party grading and restoration checking was in place.  :applause:

With all of the apparent CGC acolytes here seemingly always bestowing the virtues of the company (like you lol), it's also good to point out that this world of ours is not always perfect like the sweet and innocent days of wine and roses.  It just would have been so much better for CGC to have been proactive and upfront about the changes,instead of being reactive and having to explain the changes after the fact.  I actually felt sorry for Steve being caught in that particular situation at the time and finally disclosing the company line in order to explain how a book could go all the way from a CGC 4.0 grade up to a CGC 7.5 grade, before then going way up to a CGC 9.0 grade, all whilst residing in a CGC blue label holder.  O.o

It just would have been so much better if they had informed the collecting base about all of these significant changes before they even graded their first book and they could have been collecting all of these additional revenue streams right from the get go.  Of course, there would most likely have been such an uproar from the collectors at the time, that CGC might not have even gotten off the ground at the time.  So, with CCG being a business enterprise and with their prior experience in the other collecting fields, I do understand why they did it the way they did, but that certainly does not mean that I have to like how it all went down.  hm

Edited by lou_fine
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