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How common is this in our hobby?
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67 posts in this topic

So I was perusing some recent comic convention wall pics early this week when I noticed a pretty tough book I have been mildly chasing. I zoomed in to the raw copy and said hey that looks familiar. I checked and there is no mistaking the markings. It was a CGC 1.0 that I had been outbid on less than a month ago but now it was cracked out. I checked the dealers site (i’m not naming who it is or what book because one this is not a witch-hunt and two I don’t want to show my cards of the book I am in the market for). Anyways the book is now raw and listed for darn near twice the price it sold for at auction. It is also listed as being G- with G/VG eye appeal so it got a nice little subjective grade bump as well. 

I have personally cracked out a few slabs to get to the treats on the insides over the years and if I ever sold them I would certainly list them as ex-cgc graded and include the label. Obviously there is CPR nowadays etc but the book appeared the exact same from the raw dealer scan and the auction cgc scan. I know grading is subjective and I don’t even consider myself to be an expert grader by a long stretch but isn’t that one of the reasons we have a 3rd party grader like CGC? What I don’t like is that now the seller can just say well look at GPA a 1.0 just sold for let’s say $900. This is closer to a 1.8 with 2.5-3.0 eye appeal (it doesn’t really but it’s listed that way) hence the $1600 sticker. 

Once its yours it’s yours to do whatever you like with I won’t ever argue that and I am all for making profit buying and selling if that is your thing but this seems slightly shady to me. If this was still in the CGC slab on the wall I would probably reach out and say hey I was an underbidder I can make it worth your while but now I just can’t. I am SURE this happens quite frequently especially with bronze to silver age keys but it’s just off putting to me for some reason. Can anyone tell me is this normal in their eyes or is it wrong and we just have to live with it as the comic market is booming and with big business comes shady practices to stay afloat?

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Thanks @jimbo_707 and @AJD  I appreciate the answers. 

Just so anyone reading this is aware again I wasn’t pointing at any specific dealer just to clarify as everyone seems to be a dealer nowadays anyways in some fashion or another just the practice of cracking and proclaiming a higher grade with a significant price hike and how it spanned across the GA comic community.  I’ve seen many folks do the CPR, remove resto etc but even then the person is taking a risk and spending money to change the grade, label color, or both. Again this specific scenario just seemed different to me and I was cautiously optomistic it wasn’t common but sounds like it is. 

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46 minutes ago, Artboy99 said:

I generally dislike the practice but for the sake of playing devil's advocate: 

I have cracked a book I know is higher grade, it gets resubmitted and does grade higher. A CGC 6.0 goes to a CGC 7.0 and I did nothing but resubmit.

That’s a good point Karl and that does bring in the subjectivity of it all. Even then though you were taking that risk that it might come back higher, lower, or the same. You didn’t just list it raw and completely neglect the original grade. And what does a guy like you even need to buy comics for anyways when you can draw better ones yourself 🤟😁

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I typically leave the label with the book if I deslab …. but there have been a few times over the years where I've disagreed enough to mention it or give it my own grade. Typically, they're pretty close.... and it is subjective. Did you feel the book was a strong 1.0, Gino ? GOD BLESS ….

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)(thumbsu

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3 hours ago, gino2paulus2 said:

That’s a good point Karl and that does bring in the subjectivity of it all. Even then though you were taking that risk that it might come back higher, lower, or the same. You didn’t just list it raw and completely neglect the original grade. And what does a guy like you even need to buy comics for anyways when you can draw better ones yourself 🤟😁

I still can easily see how a book cracked from a slab can in fact get a better grade and the crack-press-resub crowd all do this on an ongoing basis so in my opinion it is very common.

That said, if the individual that did buy the CGC 1.0 to crack and then represented the book as a higher grade: would they also do the same with a restored book and then represent the book as unrestored?

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@gino2paulus2

Let's take the inverse of this.  What if...The book was originally listed as raw G- with G/VG eye appeal.  And it sold for close to what CGC copy of that would have brought at that grade.

The new owner sends the book in for grading and it is now a CGC 1.0.  Should they disclose that they took a bath on the book and that it should be a G/VG? Well they probably will mention the G/VG eye appeal part.

The grades on books are always subjective; the eye appeal on books are always subjective and the prices asked and paid for books are always subjective.  We've done things to put frameworks and parameters in play (CGC [grading companies], GPA, etc.) to help normalize this chaos a bit but the fact of the matter is there is subjectiveness at all angles... 2c :blahblah:

The best we can all do is figure out what makes sense in our world; and stick by our guns.

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As to Gino's last question in his post, unfortunately shady business practices have been with us since the start, even when the financial advantage was relatively small. In some ways it's become a little harder to get away with, as buyers shy from paying full market rate for raw high grade books from sellers they haven't learned to trust, and the internet often leaves a digital trail for certain books. 

 

While grade pushing, even within the parameters of common acceptance, might be of some financial advantage, it is still a subjective opinion, and buyers are still free to make their own judgments. I would not put it at the level of undisclosed restoration or deliberate misrepresentation of value in terms of poor ethics. 

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I see this quite a bit in the sports cards world.  Some cards will simply sell more in raw form than slabbed, especially if the eye appeal is good enough to mask any physical grade it can get. 

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Personally I have no use for encaged books, as I buy them to be read.  That said, I have on occasion purchased slabs, which were immediately upon receipt cracked open.  What I do is accept CGC's value or whoever else has professionally graded it, and place the grading paper behind the backing board.

AFA the OP's point, I don't believe anyone is required to advertise what a professional grader has assigned, and can certainly place any valuation they want on it.  If it's over graded, he'll get it back.

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If a seller has CGC graded books listed on their website as well as cracked-out comics with the CGC label noted and included, I would assume any cracked out comics with the label not noted or included is because the seller is trying to hide this information from customers. I prefer dealers who are more honest and would rather buy from a seller who told me CGC had graded a comic as a 1.0, but they personally believed it to be under-graded and had priced it accordingly, than buy from a seller who tried to keep that info from me. 2c

 

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13 hours ago, AJD said:

It's not limited to big dealers. I've seen books purchased here on the boards come back on eBay a few days later with substantially increased grades and at twice the price.

If someone thinks the book was underrated here, what is the issue? Cracking it out of a slab is a little hinkier.

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10 hours ago, Black_Adam said:

If a seller has CGC graded books listed on their website as well as cracked-out comics with the CGC label noted and included, I would assume any cracked out comics with the label not noted or included is because the seller is trying to hide this information from customers. I prefer dealers who are more honest and would rather buy from a seller who told me CGC had graded a comic as a 1.0, but they personally believed it to be under-graded and had priced it accordingly, than buy from a seller who tried to keep that info from me. 2c

 

Now you have dealers who have figured out the idiosyncracies of different grading companies and who choose where to send books accordingly. If a dealer sends 90 percent of his books to CGC and 10 perecent somewhere else, I pretty much assume that the non-CGC books have stains

Edited by jimbo_7071
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20 hours ago, gino2paulus2 said:

What I don’t like is that now the seller can just say well look at GPA a 1.0 just sold for let’s say $900. This is closer to a 1.8 with 2.5-3.0 eye appeal (it doesn’t really but it’s listed that way) hence the $1600 sticker.

So let me get this right.

GPA reports that a 1.0 of this book sold in Feb for $1550.  Census says that book has a label note: "Cover detached. Tape on cover & interior cover."  So it would appear that's the book in question?  And it went up for sale a month or so ago and ending up dropping almost half in price?

So now apparently Ritter (if the book Black Adam posted is THE book) feels it deserves the original sale price, but would have a better chance to get it again if that pesky 1.0 but especially the Cover detached notation wasn't in your face?  IF that's the same book the thing that would have me more upset isn't the cracking, nor the grade inflation, nor the price bump - but ABSOLUTELY leaving off the description that the cover is detached.  That would be outrageous.  And stupid - like it's not something you could hide in the hand.  What would be the point?  And Stephen may be different things, but stupid isn't one I've heard him described as.

 

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37 minutes ago, Dr. Love said:

So let me get this right.

GPA reports that a 1.0 of this book sold in Feb for $1550.  Census says that book has a label note: "Cover detached. Tape on cover & interior cover."  So it would appear that's the book in question?  And it went up for sale a month or so ago and ending up dropping almost half in price?

So now apparently Ritter (if the book Black Adam posted is THE book) feels it deserves the original sale price, but would have a better chance to get it again if that pesky 1.0 but especially the Cover detached notation wasn't in your face?  IF that's the same book the thing that would have me more upset isn't the cracking, nor the grade inflation, nor the price bump - but ABSOLUTELY leaving off the description that the cover is detached.  That would be outrageous.  And stupid - like it's not something you could hide in the hand.  What would be the point?  And Stephen may be different things, but stupid isn't one I've heard him described as.

 

A GD- (1.8) grade allows for the cover to be detached, so one could argue it is graded accurately.

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1 hour ago, Black_Adam said:

A GD- (1.8) grade allows for the cover to be detached, so one could argue it is graded accurately.

Cover detached should always be disclosed, even on low grade books. I'm not particularly bothered by a detached cover but I know some buyers are, even on low grade books. The same with any tape, even if it is acceptable in the grade. 

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