CGC needs to modify its stance on Color Touch 5 5

[Badger]

On 5/2/2019 at 1:33 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

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

Of a graded poop I mean. 

It just occurred to me but wouldn't that be a fart?  

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

1 hour ago, LordRahl said:

What does running a profitable business have to do with restoring a book?

Based on your previous comments, the answer is rather obvious that upgrading a book helps a business be profitable.  If I misunderstood your sentiment, my apologies.  Yesterday you dismissed the views of a fellow boardie who objected to the actions of book mechanics as "extreme".  I don't agree that objecting to the actions of a book mechanic represents an "extreme" point of view.

Having spent $50k on a Clink auction book 6 months ago, only to find out in subsequent boardie discussions that it had been deconstructed by someone trying to upgrade it, you'll have to forgive me if i'm a bit touchy on the subject.

Let me be clear:  I have no patience for people who upgrade without disclosing it AT the time of sale.  Shipping it to auction is not disclosing at the time of sale.

Edited May 8, 2019 by GreatCaesarsGhost

[LordRahl]

31 minutes ago, GreatCaesarsGhost said:

Based on your previous comments, the answer is rather obvious that upgrading a book helps a business be profitable.  If I misunderstood your sentiment, my apologies.  Yesterday you dismissed the views of a fellow boardie who objected to the actions of book mechanics as "extreme".  I don't agree that objecting to the actions of a book mechanic represents an "extreme" point of view.

Having spent $50k on a Clink auction book 6 months ago, only to find out in subsequent boardie discussions that it had been deconstructed by someone trying to upgrade it, you'll have to forgive me if i'm a bit touchy on the subject.

Let me be clear:  I have no patience for people who upgrade without disclosing it AT the time of sale.  Shipping it to auction is not disclosing at the time of sale.

I did not dismiss his views. In fact I explicitly said there was a lot of truth to what he had to say. What I did tell him is that he comes off as "CGC = all bad" and that one sided of a view was something that people like me are likely to dismiss simply for its extremism or people will believe wholeheartedly and dismiss the positives that CGC and 3rd party grading has brought to the hobby. I also explicitly said that there are issues and room for improvement. So you took one sentence out of the whole thing and somehow missed the entire rest of the paragraph. To boil it down... CGC isn't either all bad or all good. I think the existence of CGC is good for the hobby but there are things that I would like to see change. To bring it back on topic... labeling books that have had restoration removed as "restored" is not one of the things I would like to see change nor is it blue labeling restored books. Others opinions on this obviously vary.

As to the profitability thing. I gave you an example of what I consider "pie in the sky expectations" people here have had of CGC. I was not talking about CGC and CCS coexisting under the same company. I actually initially had a problem with that concept as I thought it was a conflict of interest. It's not a deal breaker for me but if given a choice today and I was in charge, I would divest CCS. 

 

[lou_fine]

On 4/29/2019 at 12:59 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

On 4/29/2019 at 12:56 PM, Black_Adam said:

Restoration removal often involves cutting away the "restored" part of the comic, particularly with tear seals.

That was my point above.  Why is it that when I intentionally remove a piece of a comic, it's restoration and a 'negative' action, but when CGC does it that's a positive action that turns a PLOD to a Blue? 

Especially if it's positive to the point that it still manages to receive the same grade as it had when the tear seal was still there.  

Talked to somebody today who submits to CGC on a regular basis and he was happily surprised to see his former relatively HG Timely PLOD come back in a blue Universal slab in the exact same grade as before.  Especially since he had sent it back to CGC/CCS for restoration removal and the book now had a tiny piece missing as they had simply cut away the tear seal.  

Like Tim would say or words to this effect...............Man, I love this hobby.  

Edited May 9, 2019 by lou_fine

[Get Marwood & I]

6 hours ago, lou_fine said:

Especially if it's positive to the point that it still manages to receive the same grade as it had when the tear seal was still there.  

Talked to somebody today who submits to CGC on a regular basis and he was happily surprised to see his former relatively HG Timely PLOD come back in a blue Universal slab in the exact same grade as before.  Especially since he had sent it back to CGC/CCS for restoration removal and the book now had a tiny piece missing as they had simply cut away the tear seal.  

Like Tim would say or words to this effect...............Man, I love this hobby.  

Thanks Lou - there's a lot about CGC and the grading process that I like, but there are also some questionable practices I think. It's hard sometimes to get everything right, all the time, and it stands to reason that there will be grey areas where intelligent people will disagree. I think the best a company can aspire to is a set of practices that can be both justified and morally unambiguous. If there is a whiff of self interest, conflict of interest, or unfairness, then that will soon become apparent and may erode the brand over time. I can live with 9.6, 9.8, 9.9 etc having 9.3, 9.5, 9.7 added to them. But I think the whole E2E restoration process - and CGCs role in it - needs a rethink, as I think it has the aforementioned whiff about it and that it unfairly punishes collectors and their books under certain scenarios. For the process to maintain integrity, core principles must override the business need to make money. I'm not sure they always do in the restoration area (see also Newton Rings).

 

[lou_fine]

On 5/7/2019 at 9:45 PM, blazingbob said:

Having made the mistake of buying a Restored CBCS "blue" label (RESTORED is too small on the label) I'm sorry but I'm not a big fan of the one color.  When you train buyers with color coding it is very hard to un-learn something especially when you are tired.  I see blue,  I assume unrestored.  If I have to read the label on every book I'm looking at and I look at a lot of books I miss something.  And frankly that mistake cost me $500.  

Sorry to hear about the $500 loss on your mistake here.  

I would have to admit that the design for the label from the other company is absolutely horrid and bland as bland can be.  I think they really need to hire themselves a good graphic designer who can add a bit of punch to that label to make it look at least appealing so that potential buyers would not want that slab as part of their collection, regardless of the actual book insider the holder.  

On the topic of an uni-color label, it only makes sense if it comes along with a formal and easy to comprehend restoration rating system, similar to the 10-point grading system currently in place for the evaluating the condition of a book.  

[walclark]

I have certainly seen some color touch removals that have made me cringe (and I passed on bidding on the comics at auction).  It does appear that some of the color touch is not removed by gentle scrapping, but rather by sandpaper or a Dremel tool.

Here's a thought.  Perhaps as a service, CCS could provide a photoshopped mock up of what they feel will be needed to get the comic into a blue label.  That way the submitter could have an approximate idea of what the finished product will look like.  Obviously, CCS would have a disclaimer that the mock up may not accurately reflect the final result, but it does give the owner a rough idea of what will be done to the comic and how good or bad this may look.

Here's a quick example that I worked up.  This Airboy doesn't have any color touch, but for our purposes, let's suppose it did and it also had pieces added at a couple corners.

Before restoration removal                                                                                        Approximate appearance after restoration removal

[RockMyAmadeus]

29 minutes ago, walclark said:

CCS could provide a photoshopped mock up of what they feel will be needed to get the comic into a blue label. 

That is an absolutely fantastic idea. Absolutely fantastic.

Yes, for a fee (of course!), CCS should provide a mockup of what the book will look like after resto removal. Then people can make a decision about how ugly the book will look without having to actually make it be that ugly.

BRILLIANT idea, my good man. 

[Callaway29]

1 hour ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

That is an absolutely fantastic idea. Absolutely fantastic.

Yes, for a fee (of course!), CCS should provide a mockup of what the book will look like after resto removal. Then people can make a decision about how ugly the book will look without having to actually make it be that ugly.

BRILLIANT idea, my good man. 

This really would be a valuable service, and doable too. Probably not cheap though...but for the higher value books it would make sense...

[THE_BEYONDER]

So not only are we asking CGC to make a guestimate on grade, but to mock up what they think the resto removal will look like?

 

 

 

 

[TupennyConan]

Too late! Color touch has already modified its stance on CGC. 

[walclark]

17 hours ago, THE_BEYONDER said:

So not only are we asking CGC to make a guestimate on grade, but to mock up what they think the resto removal will look like?

 

 

 

 

Just a suggestion.

Plastic surgeons can use technology to allow people to see what they might look like after surgery.

Dentists can give patients a computer generated image of their projected results from cosmetic dentistry.

Forensic anthropologists can use a skull to generate a representation of what someone might have looked like based only on that.

After examining the comic through the slab and utilizing the graders notes, it would seem that CCS should have a reasonably good handle on what work will need to be done to garner a blue label.  Scan the comic.  Use a photoshop program to show where pieces will be removed, tear seals will be removed or released, and where color touch will scrapped off, etc. (all an approximation, of course) and it seems they could provide some guidance to allow a client to make an informed decision regarding the restoration removal.

Of course, it would be nice to have someone from CCS comment on the feasibility of this idea.

[LordRahl]

3 hours ago, walclark said:

Just a suggestion.

Plastic surgeons can use technology to allow people to see what they might look like after surgery.

Dentists can give patients a computer generated image of their projected results from cosmetic dentistry.

Forensic anthropologists can use a skull to generate a representation of what someone might have looked like based only on that.

After examining the comic through the slab and utilizing the graders notes, it would seem that CCS should have a reasonably good handle on what work will need to be done to garner a blue label.  Scan the comic.  Use a photoshop program to show where pieces will be removed, tear seals will be removed or released, and where color touch will scrapped off, etc. (all an approximation, of course) and it seems they could provide some guidance to allow a client to make an informed decision regarding the restoration removal.

Of course, it would be nice to have someone from CCS comment on the feasibility of this idea.

Why does everyone talk about it like CCS is the only entity that can remove restoration? ANYBODY can remove resto. You, me, any number of restoration people in the hobby, a blind monkey can probably do it for that matter. How do people know that the books that have had resto removed were all done by CCS? I'm sure some were but I'm equally sure that others weren't.

[Abibliophobia]

My first post (in a long while). I’ve been reading the boards for a while, but have demurred from posting as most people cover what I’m thinking, and I’d just rather avoid adding to the cacophony.

After reading this thread in its entirety, I’m actually surprised that nobody has brought up grader notes.

To me, when we boil down what CGC is (or should be) it’s a way to inform the consumer of the faults discovered and the degree of those faults.  The multiple dimensions of number, page color, label color are just more information. The grader notes in my mind should be mandatory for all books as they should expose why the book earned its grade.

One of the recent previous posters referenced digital imagery.  CGC could employ digital imagery as to why the grader chose to fault certain aspects of the book in the grader notes.  Circling the blunted corner on a blue, counting the spine ticks, showing exactly the restoration on a purple, etc.

Perhaps this would reveal their grading techniques and allow for abuse, but it would also allow the consumer to make a choice.  Some people (like me) are really bothered about color breaking spine ticks, but others might be more so with a blunted corner.

So often we hear, “That grade is too low.  You should resubmit,” or “Maybe the CGC grader had a bad day, etc.”  The digital imagery technology now exists to accurately grade color (could even be a percentage of “white” rather than the qualitative grading), and to digitally annotate the faults noted by the grader.  This should with high certainty allow the consumer to dispute the grade without having to gamble (and dare I say, reward CGC) with a resubmission.  Just have a separate grader or dispute panel review the image, and inform the owner that s/he is eligible for a new grade, or that their complaint has no merit (and show the evidence why).  Maybe there’s a fee for the enhanced notes, or for the dispute.  Maybe if you pay for the enhanced notes you get dispute resolution as part of the deal.

I’ll leave you with this anecdote...

I recently bought a purple label of X-Men 94 @ 9.2 with S-A. It cost me 50% of present fair market blue labeled values.  I’ve never purchased a purple before, but I went into the trade reasonably well informed. When I got the book, I looked it over and felt that I got the better part of the deal. It’s beautiful and I love it.  The market may punish purples and that’s just a market force due to the apparent risk, but it’s important to inform the consumer that something was added to the book. If they are ok with it (as I have been) and neither side felt cheated then what really is the problem?

Personally, I think that there’s a lot of untapped market potential in the purples due to the risk aversion, but it doesn’t mean one is allowed to avoid the disclosure.

For those that made it this far. Thank you for your time.

Edited June 21, 2019 by Abibliophobia
Actually was my 2nd post. :)

[Sal]

On 5/1/2019 at 9:52 PM, Rip said:

Avengers 4

CGC 9.8 $143,000

CGC 9.6 $23,500

Time to think about in-between grades

what's the over/under on the FMV for a 9.7, using these two values as a starting point? I would think the number would be closer to the 9.6 price, rather than right in the middle

[F For Fake]

6 hours ago, Abibliophobia said:

My first post (in a long while). I’ve been reading the boards for a while, but have demurred from posting as most people cover what I’m thinking, and I’d just rather avoid adding to the cacophony.

After reading this thread in its entirety, I’m actually surprised that nobody has brought up grader notes.

To me, when we boil down what CGC is (or should be) it’s a way to inform the consumer of the faults discovered and the degree of those faults.  The multiple dimensions of number, page color, label color are just more information. The grader notes in my mind should be mandatory for all books as they should expose why the book earned its grade.

One of the recent previous posters referenced digital imagery.  CGC could employ digital imagery as to why the grader chose to fault certain aspects of the book in the grader notes.  Circling the blunted corner on a blue, counting the spine ticks, showing exactly the restoration on a purple, etc.

Perhaps this would reveal their grading techniques and allow for abuse, but it would also allow the consumer to make a choice.  Some people (like me) are really bothered about color breaking spine ticks, but others might be more so with a blunted corner.

So often we hear, “That grade is too low.  You should resubmit,” or “Maybe the CGC grader had a bad day, etc.”  The digital imagery technology now exists to accurately grade color (could even be a percentage of “white” rather than the qualitative grading), and to digitally annotate the faults noted by the grader.  This should with high certainty allow the consumer to dispute the grade without having to gamble (and dare I say, reward CGC) with a resubmission.  Just have a separate grader or dispute panel review the image, and inform the owner that s/he is eligible for a new grade, or that their complaint has no merit (and show the evidence why).  Maybe there’s a fee for the enhanced notes, or for the dispute.  Maybe if you pay for the enhanced notes you get dispute resolution as part of the deal.

I’ll leave you with this anecdote...

I recently bought a purple label of X-Men 94 @ 9.2 with S-A. It cost me 50% of present fair market blue labeled values.  I’ve never purchased a purple before, but I went into the trade reasonably well informed. When I got the book, I looked it over and felt that I got the better part of the deal. It’s beautiful and I love it.  The market may punish purples and that’s just a market force due to the apparent risk, but it’s important to inform the consumer that something was added to the book. If they are ok with it (as I have been) and neither side felt cheated then what really is the problem?

Personally, I think that there’s a lot of untapped market potential in the purples due to the risk aversion, but it doesn’t mean one is allowed to avoid the disclosure.

For those that made it this far. Thank you for your time.

Welcome to the boards! You seem reasonable. That is not a quality that will serve you well here.

[theCapraAegagrus]

8 minutes ago, F For Fake said:

...You seem reasonable. That is not a quality that will serve you well here.

[LordRahl]

7 hours ago, Abibliophobia said:

My first post (in a long while). I’ve been reading the boards for a while, but have demurred from posting as most people cover what I’m thinking, and I’d just rather avoid adding to the cacophony.

After reading this thread in its entirety, I’m actually surprised that nobody has brought up grader notes.

To me, when we boil down what CGC is (or should be) it’s a way to inform the consumer of the faults discovered and the degree of those faults.  The multiple dimensions of number, page color, label color are just more information. The grader notes in my mind should be mandatory for all books as they should expose why the book earned its grade.

One of the recent previous posters referenced digital imagery.  CGC could employ digital imagery as to why the grader chose to fault certain aspects of the book in the grader notes.  Circling the blunted corner on a blue, counting the spine ticks, showing exactly the restoration on a purple, etc.

Perhaps this would reveal their grading techniques and allow for abuse, but it would also allow the consumer to make a choice.  Some people (like me) are really bothered about color breaking spine ticks, but others might be more so with a blunted corner.

So often we hear, “That grade is too low.  You should resubmit,” or “Maybe the CGC grader had a bad day, etc.”  The digital imagery technology now exists to accurately grade color (could even be a percentage of “white” rather than the qualitative grading), and to digitally annotate the faults noted by the grader.  This should with high certainty allow the consumer to dispute the grade without having to gamble (and dare I say, reward CGC) with a resubmission.  Just have a separate grader or dispute panel review the image, and inform the owner that s/he is eligible for a new grade, or that their complaint has no merit (and show the evidence why).  Maybe there’s a fee for the enhanced notes, or for the dispute.  Maybe if you pay for the enhanced notes you get dispute resolution as part of the deal.

I’ll leave you with this anecdote...

I recently bought a purple label of X-Men 94 @ 9.2 with S-A. It cost me 50% of present fair market blue labeled values.  I’ve never purchased a purple before, but I went into the trade reasonably well informed. When I got the book, I looked it over and felt that I got the better part of the deal. It’s beautiful and I love it.  The market may punish purples and that’s just a market force due to the apparent risk, but it’s important to inform the consumer that something was added to the book. If they are ok with it (as I have been) and neither side felt cheated then what really is the problem?

Personally, I think that there’s a lot of untapped market potential in the purples due to the risk aversion, but it doesn’t mean one is allowed to avoid the disclosure.

For those that made it this far. Thank you for your time.

While this may sound good in theory, it's completely impractical in real life. Besides the fact that it may reveal their grading standards, which I know they have been reticent to do, this would be a killer to TAT's and/or would necessitate a big jump in prices. Can you imagine having to digitally catalog every flaw on a book? This may sound easy for 9.4/9.6/9.8 books but what about every book between .5 and 9.0 they grade. The amount of flaws present on a VG would likely require 10+ minutes of just circling flaws on an image. It would be an immense jump in workload for their graders which would lead to much, much longer TAT's or them having to hire a LOT of new graders which would lead to MUCH higher prices. Not to mention that you would have to digitally image front and back covers of every book they grade (at a high enough resolution to allow what you are suggesting), which is just more time added on. I don't want to pay $100 per book to get my books graded, do you?

[VintageComics]

9 hours ago, Abibliophobia said:

After reading this thread in its entirety, I’m actually surprised that nobody has brought up grader notes.

Grader's notes are not meant to be exhaustive. They never were.

They were originally an internal communication between the graders so that they wouldn't miss something as the book passed from one grader to another.

As customers called in, graders would recall the notes to help better explain to customers why their books graded the way they did.

Eventually, grader's notes became a a public thing unexpectedly and eventually CGC decided to monetize them by making them available to the public if you purchased them

a) because they generate revenue

b) so that you didn't have to bother graders, who were on the phone constantly reading notes.

But the important thing to remember is that notes are not exhaustive and each time you submit the same book the notes will be different.

9 hours ago, Abibliophobia said:

So often we hear, “That grade is too low.  You should resubmit,” or “Maybe the CGC grader had a bad day, etc.”

Those are just empty internet comments from people who can only see a small picture on their phones. They have no way of knowing whether a book is graded properly or not without holding the book in their hands.

I shake my head at those comments because the post may only have a front scan showing but the back cover could be missing for all we know and yet people think it's absolutely undergraded and worth a resubmit.

9 hours ago, Abibliophobia said:

Personally, I think that there’s a lot of untapped market potential in the purples due to the risk aversion,

Absolutely. And that is why there is a market for color touch removal.

If there wasn't such a disparity in price, if people were more educated in spotting color touch then you wouldn't have the disparity and you wouldn't have a market for people removing CT off of books.

 

But I will say, I do love the way you typed out your post. Waaaaayyyy too classy for this place.

Edited June 21, 2019 by VintageComics

[dupont2005]

On 5/13/2019 at 7:24 AM, walclark said:

Just a suggestion.

Plastic surgeons can use technology to allow people to see what they might look like after surgery.

Dentists can give patients a computer generated image of their projected results from cosmetic dentistry.

Forensic anthropologists can use a skull to generate a representation of what someone might have looked like based only on that.

After examining the comic through the slab and utilizing the graders notes, it would seem that CCS should have a reasonably good handle on what work will need to be done to garner a blue label.  Scan the comic.  Use a photoshop program to show where pieces will be removed, tear seals will be removed or released, and where color touch will scrapped off, etc. (all an approximation, of course) and it seems they could provide some guidance to allow a client to make an informed decision regarding the restoration removal.

Of course, it would be nice to have someone from CCS comment on the feasibility of this idea.

By that logic, I’m sure pressing and cleaning can be detected and disclosed on the label