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LCS owner virulently hates CGC -- Is this common?
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Started by Carlucci54,

72 posts in this topic

RockMyAmadeus

RockMyAmadeus

Posted
Posted

Local comic shops hate CGC...as has already been said...because it forced them to up their game. The bad old days were very, very bad. Regardless of CGC's faults, the truth is, I can buy a CGC 8.5 copy of ASM #101 on eBay, and not receive a book that has been color touched, or trimmed, or is missing a page or three, or has a giant water stain on the back cover, or 30+ CB spine tics, or etc. Or I can buy a 9.8 New Mutants #98, and not have it be crunched on all four corners. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Competition makes everyone better.

Local comic shops hate the internet because it removed their middleman monopoly. The smart shops adapted and made it work for them. The others went out of business.

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kimik

kimik

Posted
Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, thunsicker said:

I assume many store owners disapprove of CGC for the simple fact that it makes internet sales possible, therefore cutting out the stores as middlemen.  

I have found that LCS owners and dealers that complain about CGC have one thing in common - they overgrade their back issues. CGC has forced them to make a choice - complain about certified grading to continue their practices, or adapt and grade more accurately. Most stores here in Edmonton have adapted, with a couple buying presses to press their own books for the bins as well as CGC submissions (including one of the two LCSs that have been around since the 1980s - the owner said he took a pressing course). 

WRT internet sales, most of the stores sell online through a website or eBay, as well as send better graded stuff to the auction houses. Multiple streams of income help make ends meet.

Edited by kimik
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zosocane

zosocane

Posted
Posted
4 minutes ago, kimik said:

I have found that LCS owners and dealers that complain about CGC have one thing in common - they overgrade their back issues.

This x1000.  And if it isn't overgrading, it's simply not knowing how to grade.

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FlyingDonut

FlyingDonut

Posted
Posted
24 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Local comic shops hate CGC...as has already been said...because it forced them to up their game. The bad old days were very, very bad. Regardless of CGC's faults, the truth is, I can buy a CGC 8.5 copy of ASM #101 on eBay, and not receive a book that has been color touched, or trimmed, or is missing a page or three, or has a giant water stain on the back cover, or 30+ CB spine tics, or etc. Or I can buy a 9.8 New Mutants #98, and not have it be crunched on all four corners. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Competition makes everyone better.

Local comic shops hate the internet because it removed their middleman monopoly. The smart shops adapted and made it work for them. The others went out of business.

and because it proved what actually was and was not hard to find.

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Hamlet

Hamlet

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, blazingbob said:

CGC is the same business model as grading coins and baseball cards.  Nothing new.

For the mentally challenged I will state that having a CGC graded book is like having a debit card.  It is already graded,  it can have a value that can be calculated since you've removed the grading debate and it essentially becomes a dollar/cents transaction.

Except that this isn’t really true.  Two books with the same CGC grade can vary fairly widely in market value.  

 

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dupont2005

dupont2005

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Posted

It’s super common. I’m sure most of it stems from their wall books being a 500% markup from eBay prices and their grading being a 500% markup from CGC standards. I’ve seen more and more shops selling slabs now, but of course far higher price tags than they should have

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sacentaur

sacentaur

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, kimik said:

I have found that LCS owners and dealers that complain about CGC have one thing in common - they overgrade their back issues.

And they don’t disclose restoration.

One of my LCS doesn’t use nor like CGC. Just recently I looked at three SA Marvels in their display case: a $1,000 book, a $400 book, and a $100 book. All three had obvious restoration (color touch), the most expensive book heavily CT’d along the length of the spine while the other two books had color-breaking stress tears at the staples that were CT’d.

This is a fundamental issue, one doesn’t have to be a grading expert to identify these flaws (especially if you’re a comic shop owner!).

 

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Bird

Bird

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Posted
29 minutes ago, sacentaur said:

And they don’t disclose restoration.

One of my LCS doesn’t use nor like CGC. Just recently I looked at three SA Marvels in their display case: a $1,000 book, a $400 book, and a $100 book. All three had obvious restoration (color touch), the most expensive book heavily CT’d along the length of the spine while the other two books had color-breaking stress tears at the staples that were CT’d.

This is a fundamental issue, one doesn’t have to be a grading expert to identify these flaws (especially if you’re a comic shop owner!).

 

I have a dealer I go to who was stuck on grading two Avengers 1 and an Avengers 4. I put them up here on PGM thread and people commented on one Av1 that is was scraped to remove CT. Signs of CT were noticeable inside the front cover...it was obvious once they mentioned it and I couldn't believe I didn;t piece that puzzle together myself. A few months pass and I ask about buying one of the Avengers 1s. They tell me they recently sold the one with the damaged spine (the scraped one). I reminded them that it was 99.9% likely that was an amateur removed CT; the owner and manager looked at each other and then gave high 5s that they sold it. I shook my head and moved on.

Another LCS owner, that I really respect, sell some nice books and gets a lot of collections in. I asked baout CT on a few GA books and he said he didn't believe they had any. Prices were close to gpa despite being raw books and I told him I would buy them and submit them to cgc but if they came back CT I would expect a refund of some sort. He told me books are sold as is. I will mention I bought a Speed Comics from him for quite a bit and when I got it home found it was missing pages...he refunded me a good chuck of change and I was happy.

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shadroch

shadroch

Posted
Posted
39 minutes ago, sacentaur said:

And they don’t disclose restoration.

One of my LCS doesn’t use nor like CGC. Just recently I looked at three SA Marvels in their display case: a $1,000 book, a $400 book, and a $100 book. All three had obvious restoration (color touch), the most expensive book heavily CT’d along the length of the spine while the other two books had color-breaking stress tears at the staples that were CT’d.

This is a fundamental issue, one doesn’t have to be a grading expert to identify these flaws (especially if you’re a comic shop owner!).

 

Why patronize a shop that is so shady?

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Buzzetta

Buzzetta

Posted
Posted (edited)
5 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Local comic shops hate CGC...as has already been said...because it forced them to up their game. The bad old days were very, very bad. Regardless of CGC's faults, the truth is, I can buy a CGC 8.5 copy of ASM #101 on eBay, and not receive a book that has been color touched, or trimmed, or is missing a page or three, or has a giant water stain on the back cover, or 30+ CB spine tics, or etc. Or I can buy a 9.8 New Mutants #98, and not have it be crunched on all four corners. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Competition makes everyone better.

Local comic shops hate the internet because it removed their middleman monopoly. The smart shops adapted and made it work for them. The others went out of business.

Yup... Cannot agree more with this... 

Now, like I said, when I am looking for books at a show or online, I look at Storms, Reece and a few others... I've said that before.  But I will NEVER sell to them.  I am not in need of immediate cash so why would I ever take a deep discount in selling my books to a dealer.  As Storms said, "I hate auction houses.  They take collections that used to go to dealers."  Yup.  I see a lot of this in NY.   Now the downfall of this is that the price for books quickly increases since dealers that want to see have to buy books at prices that are no longer at the discount that they used to.  They may sit on them longer and set aggressive prices that the market will then reflect.... rinse and repeat until the bubble bursts. 

However, for the past twenty years I have always done better by selling something off myself rather than selling it at a deep discount and definitely not in 'trade'. 

As far as what @FlyingDonut said, that is also very true.  I remember when people started using the internet to trade and eBay was just gaining momentum in the late 90's.  It was then that you really could see what was rare and what was not.   There are still things that are not 'rare' but live off the legacy of being 'rare' due to the mentality in the 80's.  There are Star Wars figures that instantly come to mind.  It was always said that the POTF figures were 'rare' and hard to find.  There is not a single Star Wars figure that I cannot go on eBay right now and find outside of that which were not released like a rocket firing Boba Fett (which I can still find reproductions) or an Ewoks figure that was released in only a couple of nations. 

and so on... 

Edited by Buzzetta
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Hollywood1892

Hollywood1892

Posted
Posted
18 hours ago, Carlucci54 said:

I went into a local comic book store I had never visited before (two others are closer), mostly just to see what it was like.  I got to talking with the owner, and we got onto the topic of selling.  I told him I was back to collecting after a break since the mid-'80s.  I brought up the changes since then, such as the internet and eBay, but also third party grading and pressing (if there was cleaning and pressing around in the mid-'70s to mid-'80s, I wasn't aware of it).

I happened to mention my first pressing and grading/slabbing experience, and one book in particular that I thought was probably around VF/NM, and after I had it pressed and graded, it came back from CGC graded 9.8.

That set him off, and he immediately became angry.  "That's why I hate CGC!!" he said, not quite yelling.  I asked him why, and he said you shouldn't be able to press a book into a 9.8.  I then asked him what he meant by that, but he was already ranting about how he was not going to get in a discussion about CGC and he repeated his "You shouldn't be able to press a book into a 9.8!"  Next he went on about people he knew who got their comics slabbed, didn't like the grade, cracked and resubmitted and got a different grade.  Finally he told me again that he wasn't going to discuss it because he just hates CGC -- although by this time it was clear he didn't hate CGC versus other grading services, CGC was just standing in for all grading and slabbing.

I didn't say anything at all after that, and left soon afterward, but I realized his rant had actually made me uncomfortable.

Is this attitude common among LCS owners, or is this guy just special?

I live in Toronto and outside of Paradise comics,the other stores are really against grading.

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Krismusic

Krismusic

Posted
Posted
15 hours ago, Hollywood1892 said:

I live in Toronto and outside of Paradise comics,the other stores are really against grading.

the few shops I visited in the GTA don't seem to have a problem with CGC I guess to them a profit is a profit also one does the CGC SS submissions and stuff. So (shrug)

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Bookery

Bookery

Posted
Posted

Shop dealers got no reason

Shop dealers got no reason

Shop dealers go no reason

To be

 

They got greedy hands

Greedy eyes

They quote Overstreet

and they tell their lies

They pay real low

and they charge real high

And when you enter their shops

they give you the eye

 

Well we don't want no shop dealers

Don't want no shop dealers

Don't want no shop dealers

'Round here

 

When the newsstands gave out

They kept the comics biz alive

And they pull your weekly files

Til' you decide to take a dive

But it don't matter not a tick

'Cause they cannot grade a lick

 

Shop dealers got nobody

Shop dealers got nobody

Shop dealers got nobody

loves them

 

They are two-legged rats

They crawl real low

Their as bad as bad can get

'til they set up at a show

Cause the shows are all pure glory

Or on eBay (the same story)

But in shops they hate the slabbin'

'Bout the internet their crabbin'

Oh, their grubby litte stores

and their drekkish little stock

For they never sweep the floors

And their customers they mock

 

They're gonna get you every time

Well, I don't want no shop dealers

Don't want no shop dealers

Don't want no shop dealers

'Round here

 

 

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bc

bc

Posted
Posted
21 minutes ago, Bookery said:

Shop dealers got no reason

Shop dealers got no reason

Shop dealers go no reason

To be

 

They got greedy hands

Greedy eyes

They quote Overstreet

and they tell their lies

They pay real low

and they charge real high

And when you enter their shops

they give you the eye

 

Well we don't want no shop dealers

Don't want no shop dealers

Don't want no shop dealers

'Round here

 

When the newsstands gave out

They kept the comics biz alive

And they pull your weekly files

Til' you decide to take a dive

But it don't matter not a tick

'Cause they cannot grade a lick

 

Shop dealers got nobody

Shop dealers got nobody

Shop dealers got nobody

loves them

 

They are two-legged rats

They crawl real low

Their as bad as bad can get

'til they set up at a show

Cause the shows are all pure glory

Or on eBay (the same story)

But in shops they hate the slabbin'

'Bout the internet their crabbin'

Oh, their grubby litte stores

and their drekkish little stock

For they never sweep the floors

And their customers they mock

 

They're gonna get you every time

Well, I don't want no shop dealers

Don't want no shop dealers

Don't want no shop dealers

'Round here

 

 

That's pretty good (thumbsu

Slow day at the shop?

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blazingbob

blazingbob

Posted
Posted
43 minutes ago, Bookery said:

Shop dealers got no reason

Shop dealers got no reason

Shop dealers go no reason

To be

 

They got greedy hands

Greedy eyes

They quote Overstreet

and they tell their lies

They pay real low

and they charge real high

And when you enter their shops

they give you the eye

 

Well we don't want no shop dealers

Don't want no shop dealers

Don't want no shop dealers

'Round here

 

When the newsstands gave out

They kept the comics biz alive

And they pull your weekly files

Til' you decide to take a dive

But it don't matter not a tick

'Cause they cannot grade a lick

 

Shop dealers got nobody

Shop dealers got nobody

Shop dealers got nobody

loves them

 

They are two-legged rats

They crawl real low

Their as bad as bad can get

'til they set up at a show

Cause the shows are all pure glory

Or on eBay (the same story)

But in shops they hate the slabbin'

'Bout the internet their crabbin'

Oh, their grubby litte stores

and their drekkish little stock

For they never sweep the floors

And their customers they mock

 

They're gonna get you every time

Well, I don't want no shop dealers

Don't want no shop dealers

Don't want no shop dealers

'Round here

 

 

Tim McGraw is a comic dealer?

 

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