QES - I dont get it ??????????????? 4 4

[lou_fine]

3 hours ago, mattn792 said:

For $5 I’ll put my patented GYM* sticker on your book.

*Gimme Yer Money

 

2 hours ago, comicquant said:

Its a joke. 

Well, it's definitely as much of a joke for some buyers apparently willing to pay multiples more for a CGC 9.8 graded copy of an otherwise common book as they would for CGC 9.6 graded copy if they can't tell the differences between the 2 books.  And it would be totally irrational for them to pay more for an inferior looking 9.8 graded copy that might have been graded during a so-called "loose" grading time period, as opposed to a superior looking 9.6 graded copy that might have been graded during a so-called "tight" grading time period.  

And yet they apparently do.  

[lou_fine]

Since we are talking about QES and CVA stickers, maybe we should look at an example of 2 equivalent graded copies of the same book:

Now, since they both have the exact same CGC 3.5 grade, I would have to assume that they should in theory be pretty much the same in terms of their structural quality.  As for their visual quality though, I would say that one of them is clearly superior to the other from a strict visual point of view and should be further up the ladder for qualifying for one of these sticker labels. 

I'll leave it up to your imagination as to guess which one it should be.      

BTW:  Can't for the life of me figure out how a book falls off the Restoration plate when it has pieces added and also a Married Cover, but that's a topic for another thread.    

[alexgross.com]

its just a blatant money grab, its burger king to cva's mcdonalds. metropolis/ comicconnect is just banking that their dumb labels make them even more $ than they already make. 

and i must say that comiclink is also doing their part. every time theres a nice white page high grade book listed as coming up for auction, theres a good chance that a week or two later it reappears with the cva label on it. like they bought a whole roll of labels. none of these auction sites seem satisfied with how much dough they're making. guess that's the american way. every quarter you gotta earn more or else.

[theCapraAegagrus]

Neither do we.

[mattn792]

4 hours ago, www.alexgross.com said:

its just a blatant money grab, its burger king to cva's mcdonalds. metropolis/ comicconnect is just banking that their dumb labels make them even more $ than they already make. 

and i must say that comiclink is also doing their part. every time theres a nice white page high grade book listed as coming up for auction, theres a good chance that a week or two later it reappears with the cva label on it. like they bought a whole roll of labels. none of these auction sites seem satisfied with how much dough they're making. guess that's the american way. every quarter you gotta earn more or else.

And as long as people fall for it, they'll keep stickering everything that they can.

[miraclemet]

The only way this "service" makes any sense is if they acted as a "pre-screener" or "pre-certifier" before a book went to CGC. 

If they offered to document all book defects (including restoration discovery) and had a repository of book data so you could keep data on your book conditions. 
This would allow book owners to have an "official" record of the books condition specifics that can follow the book after it's slabbed. 

The "grader notes" inconsistency/gap could be filled by some enterprising company, but instead we keep getting this post-slabbing assessment for "presenting condition" 

I certainly think having better/more definitive notes on book condition would help with future sales... 

[lizards2]

8 hours ago, lou_fine said:

Since we are talking about QES and CVA stickers, maybe we should look at an example of 2 equivalent graded copies of the same book:

Now, since they both have the exact same CGC 3.5 grade, I would have to assume that they should in theory be pretty much the same in terms of their structural quality.  As for their visual quality though, I would say that one of them is clearly superior to the other from a strict visual point of view and should be further up the ladder for qualifying for one of these sticker labels. 

I'll leave it up to your imagination as to guess which one it should be.      

BTW:  Can't for the life of me figure out how a book falls off the Restoration plate when it has pieces added and also a Married Cover, but that's a topic for another thread.    

One word:  Criminal.

[rjpb]

10 hours ago, aardvark88 said:

Both. e.g. If a slab is say CGC 5.0 with CVA Exceptional sticker (that costs about $35 depending on estimated market value of comic), consignor will get aggressive 5.5 level bids.

That doesn't really answer the question. A given book in any CGC grade will show a range of sales prices if more than one copy is sold in a short period of time. With or without a sticker verifying what is generally obvious, eye-appeal is a big factor in whether a book reaches the high or low end of that range, and such ranges always overlap with that of the grade increment just above or below (at least in the less than 9.4 grades).

One would have to compare the prices of books in a given grade with a CVA sticker against the prices for books with superior eye-appeal, but without a sticker, to determine if the CVA sticker itself adds any value. 

 

[adampasz]

1. It is somewhat pointless if they are only looking at the book through plastic.
2. It is mostly pointless if they don't publish guidelines/standards. Also would be helpful to know what percent of books are deemed worthy at a particular grade.
3. Seems like a conflict of interest, if they are also selling the comics, not just the service.
4. That said, it doesn't make much sense unless I am also consigning my book through them. i.e. Would I really want to risk sending my books out just for this?
5. Do they have any kind of track record? I purchased about a dozen raw comics from CC back around 2016-7, and was generally disappointed by their grading.

[D84]

9 hours ago, lou_fine said:

Since we are talking about QES and CVA stickers, maybe we should look at an example of 2 equivalent graded copies of the same book:

Now, since they both have the exact same CGC 3.5 grade, I would have to assume that they should in theory be pretty much the same in terms of their structural quality.  As for their visual quality though, I would say that one of them is clearly superior to the other from a strict visual point of view and should be further up the ladder for qualifying for one of these sticker labels. 

I'll leave it up to your imagination as to guess which one it should be.      

BTW:  Can't for the life of me figure out how a book falls off the Restoration plate when it has pieces added and also a Married Cover, but that's a topic for another thread.    

You don't need the sticker for those two as long as you have eyes.

[marvelmaniac]

14 hours ago, Gatsby77 said:

 I'm old enough to remember the first Overstreet's Grading Guide, where bindery defects / miscuts knocked a book down to VF.

And I am old enough to remember when nobody cared or even considered condition/grading a comic book. 

I wish people would stop being so obsessed with grade and remember why most started collecting in the first place. 

Comic books were and for me still are for reading and enjoyable entertainment to allow me to escape if only for a few moments, the harsh realities of the world we live in.

Bring back the days of going to the Used Magazine Dealer in the Local Farmers Market where Coverless/Remaindered Copies were 10 cents each, 3 for 25 cents or 15 for $1.00 and I would come home with a stack of Harvey/Archie/Marvel/DC and sit for hours just Reading and Relaxing.

[F For Fake]

7 minutes ago, marvelmaniac said:

And I am old enough to remember when nobody cared or even considered condition/grading a comic book. 

I wish people would stop being so obsessed with grade and remember why most started collecting in the first place. 

Comic books were and for me still are for reading and enjoyable entertainment to allow me to escape if only for a few moments, the harsh realities of the world we live in.

Bring back the days of going to the Used Magazine Dealer in the Local Farmers Market where Coverless/Remaindered Copies were 10 cents each, 3 for 25 cents or 15 for $1.00 and I would come home with a stack of Harvey/Archie/Marvel/DC and sit for hours just Reading and Relaxing.

I mean, yeah, I agree with your sentiment in general, but this is also a forum on a Comic Book Grading company's website, so it makes sense that the folks here...care about grading. Graded comics are a niche within a niche, but that particular niche, well, they like their grades!

[adampasz]

16 minutes ago, marvelmaniac said:

Comic books were and for me still are for reading and enjoyable entertainment to allow me to escape if only for a few moments, the harsh realities of the world we live in.

Grading comics allows me to escape if only for a few moments, the harsh realities of the world we live in.  Or at least is an excuse for me to stop staring at a computer screen.

[Transplant]

18 hours ago, slym2none said:

I swear, we are getting ever closer to having the slabs graded.

 



-slym

With their QA issues, CGC should really hope that doesn't happen.  What do you deduct for inner well scuffs or Newton rings?  

[adampasz]

1 minute ago, Transplant said:

With their QA issues, CGC should really hope that doesn't happen.  What do you deduct for inner well scuffs or Newton rings?  

Newton Ring > 1" diameter should not grade higher than 6.0.

[Dark Knight]

Well it seems to me that the QES/CVA stickers are here to stay for now.  Definitely a money grabber for the auction houses because there will always be a consignor out there paying for these extra services.  What's next HA will come up with their kind of sticker too? If there is a strong correlation with sales hitting record prices due to these stickers as opposed to books without them than I see why not.  And if I was a consignor and I see that it is beneficial to have these stickers on my books when it comes down to selling, than sure why not depending on cost of course.  The bidders/buyers are the ones setting these sale marks.  

Like what Miraclemet mentioned, it would be great to have the books properly and extensively outlining any defects inside the book before it gets encapsulated with a paper report of what was noted and what kind of restoration/conservation was done.  How large are the pieces added onto the book?  What kind of color touch was used and where was it applied?  These are some of the things not addressed when paying for the CGC grader's notes.  

Also, although the auction houses will probably not agree to this, but I think that the QES and CVA stickers should only be limited to books with the highest eye appeal and preservation such as ONLY books with white pages, perfect/straight registration, deep/newsstand color freshness, etc. (think about Mile High and Allentown'esq pedigreed books). 

Edited December 19, 2019 by Dark Knight

[mattn792]

42 minutes ago, Dark Knight said:

Well it seems to me that the QES/CVA stickers are here to stay for now.  Definitely a money grabber for the auction houses because there will always be a consignor out there paying for these extra services.  What's next HA will come up with their kind of sticker too? If there is a strong correlation with sales hitting record prices due to these stickers as opposed to books without them than I see why not.  And if I was a consignor and I see that it is beneficial to have these stickers on my books when it comes down to selling, than sure why not depending on cost of course.  The bidders/buyers are the ones setting these sale marks.  

Like what Miraclemet mentioned, it would be great to have the books properly and extensively outlining any defects inside the book before it gets encapsulated with a paper report of what was noted and what kind of restoration/conservation was done.  How large are the pieces added onto the book?  What kind of color touch was used and where was it applied?  These are some of the things not addressed when paying for the CGC grader's notes.  

Also, although the auction houses will probably not agree to this, but I think that the QES and CVA stickers should only be limited to books with the highest eye appeal and preservation such as ONLY books with white pages, perfect/straight registration, deep/newsstand color freshness, etc. (think about Mile High and Allentown'esq pedigreed books). 

If they did this, it wouldn't be a proper money grab.

[lou_fine]

25 minutes ago, mattn792 said:

1 hour ago, Dark Knight said:

Also, although the auction houses will probably not agree to this, but I think that the QES and CVA stickers should only be limited to books with the highest eye appeal and preservation such as ONLY books with white pages, perfect/straight registration, deep/newsstand color freshness, etc. (think about Mile High and Allentown'esq pedigreed books). 

If they did this, it wouldn't be a proper money grab.

Actually, in theory it would be as long as you can convince the consignors to keep on submitting the books for the QES/CVA check.  

Especially since the consignor would have to pay for the check whether they actually qualify for the sticker or not.  

In a way, is this not similar to pressing whereby many submitters are now getting their books pressed prior to grading, just on the off chance that it might help bump it up to the a high grade?  No doubt, in a lot of cases, if made absolitely no difference at all to the final grade and yet, they wasted extra money on this process.  With the current sentiment in the marketplace, this is a huge money maker for the pressing companies and a potential big loss for the submitters paying for a service with absolutely no subsequent benefits gained.  

Of course, since some submitters are smart enough to do the cheaper pre-screen for pressing service instead, I wonder if we are going to be seeing a pre-screen for these stickers services next.  Especially since that would actually make a lot more sense on the part of the consigners.    

Edited December 19, 2019 by lou_fine

[lou_fine]

1 hour ago, Dark Knight said:

Like what Miraclemet mentioned, it would be great to have the books properly and extensively outlining any defects inside the book before it gets encapsulated with a paper report of what was noted and what kind of restoration/conservation was done.  How large are the pieces added onto the book?  What kind of color touch was used and where was it applied?  These are some of the things not addressed when paying for the CGC grader's notes.  

Are you trying to tell me that 6 months or whatever it takes is already not long enough for you to get a book back from CGC?  

You now want to tie them down with much more tedious paperwork so that the turnaround times can increase to over a full year.  

In addition, just imagine the additional cost involved which no doubt will surely be passed down to all of their customers.  

[Dark Knight]

6 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

1 hour ago, Dark Knight said:

Like what Miraclemet mentioned, it would be great to have the books properly and extensively outlining any defects inside the book before it gets encapsulated with a paper report of what was noted and what kind of restoration/conservation was done.  How large are the pieces added onto the book?  What kind of color touch was used and where was it applied?  These are some of the things not addressed when paying for the CGC grader's notes.  

Are you trying to tell me that 6 months or whatever it takes is already not long enough for you to get a book back from CGC?  

You now want to tie them down with much more tedious paperwork so that the turnaround times can increase to over a full year.  

In addition, just imagine the additional cost involved which no doubt will surely be passed down to all of their customers.  

Very true, like it's slow enough already   OR maybe it is up to the owner of the book(s) whether to have this extra step documented when submitting as an option w/ additional fees. It will of course take much much longer for them to get their books back, but hey if it's going to be in your personal collection for years and years might be worth it to the collector.  And again, this would only apply to restored/conserved books so not every book will be documented this way.  Perhaps a separate department in CGC can solely do this extra step, which would not affect current ETA's.  Just throwing it out there, if it doesn't work out then fine.