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CGC and CCS Timeframes
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51 posts in this topic

Hi All,

I'm newer to submitting to CGC.  Back in April I submitted a comic book for pressing and a grade.  I'm wondering if the timeframe for CCS is separate from the time frame for CGC encapsulation (CCS' timeframe is much more extensive than CGCs so it would make sense to me that the CCS time frame was combined with CGC.  A couple weeks after submission, it was marked as "Received"  as of 5/11/19 and its stayed that status ever since.  I believe that it doesn't change or get updated while CCS has it, but based on the time frame for CCS when I submitted it, they should have pressed it by now.  I'm wondering if CGC ever forgets to upload the status and it could be further along in the process than the designation indicates.  I did choose economy, so am on the slow track but even still the timeframes just don't seem to add up.  Greatly appreciate any insight!

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Different time frames entirely

I’d consider calling/emailing customer at the company you are paying to perform services for you for an update.  Certainly human errors can get made along the way, especially administrative ones.

good luck

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1 hour ago, Matt Ramsey said:

Hi All,

I'm newer to submitting to CGC.  Back in April I submitted a comic book for pressing and a grade.  I'm wondering if the timeframe for CCS is separate from the time frame for CGC encapsulation (CCS' timeframe is much more extensive than CGCs so it would make sense to me that the CCS time frame was combined with CGC.  A couple weeks after submission, it was marked as "Received"  as of 5/11/19 and its stayed that status ever since.  I believe that it doesn't change or get updated while CCS has it, but based on the time frame for CCS when I submitted it, they should have pressed it by now.  I'm wondering if CGC ever forgets to upload the status and it could be further along in the process than the designation indicates.  I did choose economy, so am on the slow track but even still the timeframes just don't seem to add up.  Greatly appreciate any insight!

The last I knew, CCS had at least a 4 month backlog of submissions. Since convention season is the absolute busiest time of the year, that number has likely been adversely impacted. And once your book has been pressed, that doesn't necessarily mean it gets moved to the head of the line at CGC---it means it gets put in the safe until the graders can get to it. It also makes a difference what tier it is; economy is typically the slowest tier, since the books submitted through that tier aren't high value books and the priority to get them out the door isn't as important as with other tiers. I do know that CGC has been assigning more graders for vintage material, which should help them get caught up, but Revat is right---if you really want to find out where your book is in the process, give CGC a call. :foryou: 

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1 hour ago, Matt Ramsey said:

Greatly appreciate you!!! Thanks for educating me 😁👍

I'm always happy to help. 

Another tidbit of information: Invoices that only have one or two books in them often get put together in the same box, even though the dates they're received may not be exactly the same. This sometimes leads to an invoice not being graded when it should have been...:whistle: 

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The Dominos pizza app can tell me when the guy making my pizza put the cheese on, put it in the oven, scratched his butt, blew a fart. Yet somehow these grading and pressing companies can't seem to figure out how to let the customers know where their books are in the queue beyond a general statement indicating how many weeks behind they are on everyone’s books. 

Edited by agamoto
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56 minutes ago, agamoto said:

The Dominos pizza app can tell me when the guy making my pizza put the cheese on, put it in the oven, scratched his , blew a fart. Yet somehow these grading and pressing companies cant seem to figure out how to let the customers know where their books are in the queue beyond a general statement indicating how many weeks behind they are on everyone’s books. 

I think making a pizza in 20 mins or less is a different thing than grading comics. :foryou:

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3 hours ago, Krishosein said:

I think making a pizza in 20 mins or less is a different thing than grading comics. :foryou:

My point is that if they can track every damn step of a pizza to your door, they can track a bar-coded comic book through a pressing/certification process. 

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A submitter doesn't really need to know which pile of comics theirs is sitting in stored in the waiting vault after they've been received, or for that matter the pre-grading vault once they've been scheduled for grading.  Chilling a little is best when it comes to CGC.

As for the Dominos analogy, if pizza orders were on a 3-6 month backlog that fluctuates over time, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be able to give you pinpoint information on the delivery date either.

Edited by namisgr
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16 hours ago, agamoto said:

My point is that if they can track every damn step of a pizza to your door, they can track a bar-coded comic book through a pressing/certification process. 

not sure how a barcode helps with tracking... what about silver age books or golden age books? This would also require more time from the graders or encapsulation people to stop after every book to scan or press a button that this book on x invoice is moving to the next step; this would cause a longer back log I rather them focus on their task at hand so the TAT can get back on track.. 

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On 8/27/2019 at 12:06 PM, agamoto said:

The Dominos pizza app can tell me when the guy making my pizza put the cheese on, put it in the oven, scratched his butt, blew a fart. Yet somehow these grading and pressing companies can't seem to figure out how to let the customers know where their books are in the queue beyond a general statement indicating how many weeks behind they are on everyone’s books. 

Not sure if it's fair to compare Domino's and it's capabilities with CGC. Domino's is the world's 2nd largest pizza chain, with revenues of close to $2.5 billion, and the 'delivery' portion is actually a core competency for them. CGC is much smaller in comparison, and their core competency is focused on the grading aspect. I'm sure they could do much better tracking, but then the grading aspect would cost us all a lot more.

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I'm not talking about how long each step might take, obviously that will vary from book to book. 

I'm talking about keeping clients informed as to where their books are in the queue/process and giving them some clue as to how long they can expect to wait based on how quickly the queue is moving through each stage. Is the book received, is it in the vault? what grading stage is it at? How many books are in front of it? is it being checked for resto, is it being cleaned, is it in the press, is it cooling off, is it in shipping/transit, is it being encapsulated... All stages that could be easily tracked and reported on, if they had the will to do so.  

They are already scanning books as it is at each step. Once the initial barcode is placed, which they already do when they receive the book, no additional time should be required to scan them during each stage. It's a matter of running them under a stationary scanner beam, like a grocery checkout.

 

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7 minutes ago, agamoto said:

I'm not talking about how long each step might take, obviously that will vary from book to book. 

I'm talking about keeping clients informed as to where their books are in the queue/process and giving them some clue as to how long they can expect to wait based on how quickly the queue is moving through each stage.

Pretty sure that's what turnaround times are for.

When someone submits on the regular or fast tracks, they typically don't need to know any more beyond the publicized TATs for their submission tiers.

Most of my books were submitted in the days before completed grading was made available online, and one had to wait until their registered mail package arrived to find out their grades.

Edited by namisgr
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17 minutes ago, agamoto said:

I'm not talking about how long each step might take, obviously that will vary from book to book. 

I'm talking about keeping clients informed as to where their books are in the queue/process and giving them some clue as to how long they can expect to wait based on how quickly the queue is moving through each stage. Is the book received, is it in the vault? what grading stage is it at? How many books are in front of it? is it being checked for resto, is it being cleaned, is it in the press, is it cooling off, is it in shipping/transit, is it being encapsulated... All stages that could be easily tracked and reported on, if they had the will to do so.  

They are already scanning books as it is at each step. Once the initial barcode is placed, which they already do when they receive the book, no additional time should be required to scan them during each stage. It's a matter of running them under a stationary scanner beam, like a grocery checkout.

 

I believe a big factor to all this is the grading tier you used. Your submission cue may get bumped back if others submit large quantities into higher cues. 

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Just now, namisgr said:

Pretty sure that's what turnaround times are for.

I think it's too general. Sometimes books take less time, some take more. I want to know where my books are in the queue at each stage. If you buy and sell a lot of books, knowing where your books are in the process helps you strategize. I might be giving these grading companies more credit than they deserve, but from a business analytics standpoint, what I'm talking about would be essential to them in order to fine tune things and I assume they're already doing what I'm talking about internally. It's not much of a leap to open some of that info up and let book owners know about the what and where and why with regard to their books.

It would also open up a potential avenue for revenue for them and possible free up a LOT of time on their end. Imagine being able to see a book's progress step-by-step, seeing it pass through restoration check, or see the notes that are taken down as it's passed between graders before getting its final grade. I would pay a grading company a modest fee to allow me to immediately halt processing of a book if, for example, the restoration checker finds some color touch I didn't' realize was there, or if the initial grader indicates there's an issue with the book that will either cause it to be a qualified book, or will drastically reduce it's expected grade. Yes, I do realize they provide this as a screening service, but that involves a minimum quantity of book submissions and you're paying upfront for that.  

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Yet somehow the business has survived and thrived into its twentieth year without those bells and whistles.

For a submitter these days with the very long turnaround times for all but the most expensive tiers, patience is a virue.  :wink:

goldenscan.jpg

 

Edited by namisgr
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3 minutes ago, Bomber-Bob said:

I believe a big factor to all this is the grading tier you used. Your submission cue may get bumped back if others submit large quantities into higher cues. 

Understood... Wouldn't you want to be able to know that though, and perhaps even act on that?

Imagine this use case:

You've got 10 books being processed. 1 of them is a key issue you want to get graded and slabbed ASAP because it's super hot on eBay, but it's volatile... An ASM 212 for instance would be a good example. That book had a crazy run up and then fell off a cliff soon as it was known that the movie enemy wasn't hydro man. If you didn't get that book back in time, you lost out on the opportunity to make some extra bucks, or you might have even lost quite a bit. 

The system reports that you're 500th in line for initial grading, with an expected time frame before the grader sees your book based on the current average time its taking to get to initial grading. The system informs you that a new order has pushed your books back in the queue to 1000th in line and you'll be waiting an extra week now. Would you pay something extra, even an entire tier upgrade and split-out shipping cost to ensure your book remains in its queue spot so you can get it when you expect it? 

I sure as heck would. The system I'm suggesting would allow for something like that. 

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3 minutes ago, agamoto said:

 

19 minutes ago, namisgr said:

Pretty sure that's what turnaround times are for.

I think it's too general. Sometimes books take less time, some take more. I want to know where my books are in the queue at each stage. If you buy and sell a lot of books, knowing where your books are in the process helps you strategize. I might be giving these grading companies more credit than they deserve, but from a business analytics standpoint, what I'm talking about would be essential to them in order to fine tune things and I assume they're already doing what I'm talking about internally. It's not much of a leap to open some of that info up and let book owners know about the what and where and why with regard to their books.

It would also open up a potential avenue for revenue for them and possible free up a LOT of time on their end. Imagine being able to see a book's progress step-by-step, seeing it pass through restoration check, or see the notes that are taken down as it's passed between graders before getting its final grade. I would pay a grading company a modest fee to allow me to immediately halt processing of a book if, for example, the restoration checker finds some color touch I didn't' realize was there, or if the initial grader indicates there's an issue with the book that will either cause it to be a qualified book, or will drastically reduce it's expected grade. Yes, I do realize they provide this as a screening service, but that involves a minimum quantity of book submissions and you're paying upfront for that.  

Imagine how many more phone calls/complaints they would get about why a book or books has stalled in any given part of the process.  Imagine how much time and money it would take to implement these procedures when they literally have a monopoly.  Imagine how many more complaints they'd get if you saw the notes in real time. 

I'm not saying the idea has no merits, but you have to consider all the sides and motivations.  If you were starting a rival company from scratch, I'd probably try to implement what you said.  But to tinker so heavily with a successful existing company...its tough.  With that being said, it may not be obvious, but there have been improvements to the turnaround progress report/timing process.  I wouldn't be surprised if dates/times/steps progress was eventually trackable in 'more' real-time online or on an app at some point.  But there's a million more things to think about than just 'can we do it right now'. 

Like when apple keeps adding battery life to their iphones.  I'm sure they could make it last twice as long, but they have to think about what other battery improvements could be made for the next model, and can they test the newer batteries in time, what are they made of, can they lock down the pricing for the materials/labor of the newer battery, can they build upon that tech to improve it in the future, etc.  Will the price of building that battery increase or decrease signficiantly in the future, etc.  Size considerations.  Everything.

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8 minutes ago, namisgr said:

Yet somehow the business has survived and thrived into its twentieth year without those bells and whistles.

Hey, I get it. Why spend anything on new whiz-bang features when everyone just accepts what they're getting now?

This is exactly the sort of executive thinking that puts companies out of business. 

You can rest assured that if they don't do it, a challenger will emerge that will, and they will lose market share.

The circle of business life!

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25 minutes ago, agamoto said:

Hey, I get it. Why spend anything on new whiz-bang features when everyone just accepts what they're getting now?

This is exactly the sort of executive thinking that puts companies out of business. 

You can rest assured that if they don't do it, a challenger will emerge that will, and they will lose market share.

The circle of business life!

I think its more of "Why advance too quickly when there's a lot to lose but no competition, and your company's worth is based on integrity and quality?"  They improve and progress, albeit slowly. 

 

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