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Is CGC out of interest for most comic book stores?
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134 posts in this topic

other reasons:

- cgc cases are fragile and break / crack easily. Headache

- cgc books are larger / heavier and take more room. Space is money in retail.

- cgc books generally have to sell for more than a raw equivalent to regain the grading costs. Most comic buyers dont understand and many comic stores dont want to have to explain it.

 

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Head up to Big B Comics in Barrie...  Marc typically has a mound of slabbed GA/SA/BA books.  I try to hit his shop either going up or coming back from (north of) north bay...  I've bought several books from him just through IG.  Somehow he's able to procure a steady stream of awesome books. 

Marc's personal IG (where the good stuff is listed)

https://www.instagram.com/slowdowntubby/

The store IG (moderns, toys etc)

https://www.instagram.com/bigbbarrie/

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31 minutes ago, comicquant said:

Head up to Big B Comics in Barrie...  Marc typically has a mound of slabbed GA/SA/BA books.  I try to hit his shop either going up or coming back from (north of) north bay...  I've bought several books from him just through IG.  Somehow he's able to procure a steady stream of awesome books. 

Marc's personal IG (where the good stuff is listed)

https://www.instagram.com/slowdowntubby/

The store IG (moderns, toys etc)

https://www.instagram.com/bigbbarrie/

That's a nice price on that NM 98 too!

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The retail comic model is built around (hopefully) consistency. 

They know if they order X worth of books they will sell for Y each month, and the difference covers their costs (rent, salaries, insurance)

The high end comic model has far more fluctuation. Look at JimJim. He runs a monthly book sale in the market. Some months he has more sales or sales of bigger $$ books, other months he has less. You cant run a shop with fixed costs, when your income from sales is so volatile. If you're sweating the end of the month and have your hopes tied to someone coming in and buying a big dollar slab, well that's a tough business. 

 

Also dealers dont like being beholden to someone elses grade. 

Also many dealers arent very good planners. And submitting slabs requires planning (budgetary since books that are off being graded cant be sold...)

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4 minutes ago, miraclemet said:

The retail comic model is built around (hopefully) consistency. 

They know if they order X worth of books they will sell for Y each month, and the difference covers their costs (rent, salaries, insurance)

The high end comic model has far more fluctuation. Look at JimJim. He runs a monthly book sale in the market. Some months he has more sales or sales of bigger $$ books, other months he has less. You cant run a shop with fixed costs, when your income from sales is so volatile. If you're sweating the end of the month and have your hopes tied to someone coming in and buying a big dollar slab, well that's a tough business. 

 

Also dealers dont like being beholden to someone elses grade. 

Also many dealers arent very good planners. And submitting slabs requires planning (budgetary since books that are off being graded cant be sold...)

That's why you can talk people selling graded copies on Ebay off their perch,where as raws are pretty firm prices.

Ive managed to get hundreds of dollars off of graded comics.but than again I have never really tried too with raws,albeit I spent $300.00 on a raw copy of edge of spiderverse, and $400 on a new mutants 98.

I think with raws it is a real gambling game if you are going to pay a price on a graded opinion

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A lot of these guys grade far more friendly than CGC with their own product (unless they’re buying) and they don’t like an impartial third party telling them their MINT ASM 300 is a 6.0.

 

They'll go ahead and ask all time census high CGC prices for their self graded raw comics though 

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2 minutes ago, dupont2005 said:

A lot of these guys grade far more friendly than CGC with their own product (unless they’re buying) and they don’t like an impartial third party telling them their MINT ASM 300 is a 6.0.

 

They'll go ahead and ask all time census high CGC prices for their self graded raw comics though 

This is my experience at least recently with shops.  They want slabbed prices for raw books, which is insane.  But they will get it if the person wants the book bad enough or doesn't do their homework before buying.

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Just now, Crops068 said:

This is my experience at least recently with shops.  They want slabbed prices for raw books, which is insane.  But they will get it if the person wants the book bad enough or doesn't do their homework before buying.

They’re waiting for a sucker. Someone buying a gift for their comic collecting kid, parent, or significant other. Someone who might not know how to use the internet at all

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5 hours ago, Phicks said:

Most comic shop owners I have spoken to seem to have a distain for CGC, based on examples they have seen where they totally disagreed with the grading.  Some shop owners pride themselves on being strict or tough graders, when the goal  should actually be consistency from every grader.

Also, while grading silver age books from 50 years ago that are worth over $100 each makes sense, some comic shop owners (and others) really question why people are getting last month's issue of Batman graded and slabbed.  "Oooww, it's a slabbed 9.6 from 2019....yeah, we have 4 more just like it in the back issue bin for $5 each."

 

Not sure I understand this since I would question who taught that particular store owner how to grade.  

That is a question I'm surprised more buyers don't ask their sellers since there has never been a formal grading college to graduate from.

Learning from a grading book that contradicts itself keeps the "grading is subjective" comment alive and well.

No formal training and no 3rd party grading standards keeps most buyers guessing as to what the "third party grading company" will grade it.

 

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6 minutes ago, dupont2005 said:

They’re waiting for a sucker. Someone buying a gift for their comic collecting kid, parent, or significant other. Someone who might not know how to use the internet at all

Not sure how many of those "doesn't know how to use the internet customers" exist.

And do you really want to rip somebody off when you are a brick and motar?  

Clearly word of mouth means something or threads like these wouldn't start.  You think some of these businesses want the type of publicity they are getting in this thread?

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5 hours ago, 1Cool said:

I don't think the lcs in my area get a ton of high grade keys in stock so the odds of them sending books in to be graded are rare.  They also appear to not want to lock up that much capital for the time it takes to get books graded.  If they buy a book for $500 they are more then happy to get $800 in a few days then $1,100 for the graded book after a couple months.  I've got 5 nice stores with a half hour of my house and I can't think of a time any of them have had slabs up for sale.

If a dealer cannot tie up capital to get books graded then they are UNDER capitalized.  

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45 minutes ago, blazingbob said:

Not sure how many of those "doesn't know how to use the internet customers" exist.

And do you really want to rip somebody off when you are a brick and motar?  

Clearly word of mouth means something or threads like these wouldn't start.  You think some of these businesses want the type of publicity they are getting in this thread?

Chuck is famous for it, keeps multiple locations open, and gets praise pretty much anywhere but the CGC boards. Go on any other comic forum and ask where the best place to buy comics online is, at least 25% will respond Milehigh.

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I think comic shops that have a diamond accounts leave a lot of money on the table not dealing in grading books. Also, most shops I’ve seen in the Los Angeles area don’t usually have a big online presence. Not sure why. I do most of my sales online. For instance, I bought one copy of Batman Damned #1 from a local shop at cover price. I sent it to Ccc and it came back a 10.0. I sold it for $400 cash. I realize that a 10.0 is a rare occurrence but even so the shop had cases of that book. Even if only got 9.8’s you’d be making a bundle on them. I would be sending in select books or hot covers as soon as I could to Cgc and list them online. 

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1 hour ago, Karl Liebl said:

All I want to know is if my carpy CGC collection is worth more than 500 bucks in store credit yet.  I got offered 4 bucks for FF52, good deal?  Store credit only...

UNADJUSTEDNONRAW_thumb_95f.jpg.c89b9c48e25c87c02f1a632dce82d649.jpg

You know what the most annoying thing to

I realize your being sarcastic

But the guy at beguiled told me he wouldnt pay a premium for any of my 9.8s,he would pay raw prices,and he made it sound like he was doing me a service

He looked Spanish

I asked " espanyol?"

He said "ci"

I said "Adios,Muchaco!"

Okay that really didnt happen (the Spanish part)

Edited by Hollywood1892
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Other factors to consider are the store's customer base and how active they are at bigger comic shows. My old LCS back in VA/DC (Victory Comics) carried quite a few graded books. The decision to pick these up was probably based on their customer base, as well as trades/pick ups at comic shows.

If your customers aren't interested in graded books, there is no reason to grade or purchase them for resale. Also, if graded books hard to come by for the store, or if the time/cost to grade books is too much, then why waste the time and capital...

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