CBCS CAME BACK A WHOLE GRADE LOWER 2 2

[William-James88]

48 minutes ago, Randall Ries said:

Besutiful book but I would not send this to CGC.

[Randall Ries]

13 minutes ago, William-James88 said:

Besutiful book but I would not send this to CGC.

Thank you. No, I will not. I have another like this as well. Dude was selling three of them. They really are nice. I just don't want them getting thumped on. I'd be into it if I could be there but otherwise no.

[Randall Ries]

16 minutes ago, Ready Fire Aim said:

Are you going request a lower grade Blue label?

I'm not sure what you mean. Because of the signature?

[William-James88]

4 hours ago, TC33 said:

That makes no sense.  Very early original CGC labels were universally known to have some of the tightest grades out there

Baloney. Case in point this lovely 9.4 (I hope you dont mind, @Xenosmilus)

Also, we don't know how many old slab are still out there and from what I gathered, the allure of purchasing an old slab has nothing to do with looser standards. Intstead, it s entirely based on the assumption that pressing was less popular at the time and thus you could get a grade bump after a press.

 

 

[Randall Ries]

Just now, Ready Fire Aim said:

Yeah that book can get a Green or a lower grade Blue.

Oh yes I see.

Well, as it sits right now, it is somewhere between a 9.4 maybe a 9.6. I am confident that's Wrightson's signature as many of the other books have the same placement and it's Wrightson's signature. I think we all know that without being threatened by CGC that well, maybe it ISN'T. So, I wouldn't want to have it graded at an 8.0 or 8.5 or worse a 7.5 green label because of the sig. The two books I bought are pretty nice. Glossy and bright. Still have that centerfold "puff" at the spine. I have them in toploaders right now.

[Xenosmilus]

10 minutes ago, William-James88 said:

Baloney. Case in point this lovely 9.4 (I hope you dont mind, @Xenosmilus)

Also, we don't know how many old slab are still out there and from what I gathered, the allure of purchasing an old slab has nothing to do with looser standards. Intstead, it s entirely based on the assumption that pressing was less popular at the time and thus you could get a grade bump after a press.

 

 

@TC33 I’ll sell you my Defenders #1 at cost! 

[Randall Ries]

6 minutes ago, Ready Fire Aim said:

Ah sounds like you have that fake OCD that so many around here have 

Oh terribly. I had to fight myself to not purchase all three. The one I didn't get was around a 9.6-9.8. They were well cared for. And it's my favorite issue of the 1st series, too. OCD is valuable to a degree. Prevents me from compromising the grade by having them professionally graded. I would go with CBCS if I did. They have a verified signature classification I think CGC could adopt. Everyone knows that's Bernies sig.

[Randall Ries]

Just now, Ready Fire Aim said:

That's not how it works with a signature. You would not get a 7.5 green for just the sig (unless the book is a 7.5 anyway).

Ok. I didn't know that. I figured w/o witnessing it would be considered a defect. I would want a blue label. I am very happy with the two #7's as they are. I don't need a third party's confirmation. Another Swamp collector could buy them as is and be satisfied with the condition and sig as well. Plus the backstory is neat. Not signed at a con just signed as a favor to a contractor doing work for the artists and writers.

[William-James88]

1 minute ago, Randall Ries said:

Ok. I didn't know that. I figured w/o witnessing it would be considered a defect. I would want a blue label. I am very happy with the two #7's as they are. I don't need a third party's confirmation. Another Swamp collector could buy them as is and be satisfied with the condition and sig as well. Plus the backstory is neat. Not signed at a con just signed as a favor to a contractor doing work for the artists and writers.

Green label means the defect is ignored. So you get the grade you'd get if you didn't count that someone wrote across the cover. So your book would get a 9.4 Green or something like that. But as you suggested, it's better placed in a nice mylar.

[Randall Ries]

Here is a #6 from the same collection. Not quite as nice as the 7's but still eye catching and glossy. Black covers are a PITA.

 

[Randall Ries]

1 minute ago, Ready Fire Aim said:

Yeah that's his sig. I have about 50 books signed by him and they look like that.

Pretty hard to fake. He had a couple different styles of signing. Most go all the way across the cover. I hadn't seen this particular Wrightson sig placed like that. It's what attracted me to the books in the first place. Very tasteful and almost artistic.

[Randall Ries]

1 minute ago, Ready Fire Aim said:

I hope not. It's too shady and would reflect poorly on the regular SS.

Really? I think it's neat. Verified vs witnessed. Sure, we take our chances with verified but I mostly collect Neal Adams and Wrightson sigs and they are fairly easily recognized. I wonder if CBCS uses an expert or they just figure close enough? I bought two PGX graded "Frankenstein Alive Alive" books signed by Niles and Wrightson. They both scored 10 as a grade. There isn't a flaw on either book. Like right from the printing press into the holder. I compared them to other sigs found elsewhere and they are a match. I had no idea what Niles' sig looked like but other witnessed ones are spot on matches.

[Randall Ries]

11 minutes ago, Ready Fire Aim said:

Well, "you" could've discussed it with him. He would sign small if you wanted.

I'm sure. I have seen other small sigs. There are a couple on Comiclink, I believe. But they are personalized and a whole different sig style and he signed as "BERNI" Wrightson. For some reason, I like those sigs less when he was spelling his name that way. I just dug the sig size and placement on these books for some reason. I have a 9.2 CGC ST #1 signed that has his signature half sprawled across the book. Looks like his pen was getting dry so it doesn't show up too much. Every time I walk past that book, it still startles me.

Edited September 8, 2020 by Randall Ries

[TC33]

1 hour ago, kimik said:

Not quite. Some very early original CGC labels were tight. Others were not. After the complaints started pouring in from dealers, and collectors who felt they were hosed by the dealers after sending books to CGC and getting lower grades, CGC loosened things up. Then after it was too loose, they tightened up again. Every couple of years the pendulum swings the other way. That is why you buy the book and not the label.

For a very  short while PGX books were tighter than CGC and you could make good $$$ buying PGX books for a discount, straight resub them, and get a 0.5 - 2.0 grade bump without pressing or cleaning.

CBCS started out looser than CGC and it has hurt them, and I have not seen a change in their grading over time. The last HG CBCS book I bought was a 9.6 GL 87 (picked up last summer), but it looked worse than my CGC 9.4 so I sold it. I was hoping to change it to a CGC 9.6 label, but once I got it in hand it had not chance at that (small faint crease top right corner that did not break color since it is white). Maybe Beckett taking over will tighten their grading up.

I know things seem to swing a bit here and there, maybe that is to be expected with a ton of different graders grading books and many of them churning in and out due to the stressful job every couple years?  However, if you take a poll, the vast majority of board members will agree with me that the hard to read old school CGC label with the tiny lettering (as always with some exceptions) were some of tightest graded books out there.  Case in point, how many old labels can you find on ebay or any other auction sites???  Almost none, most were cracked open since they were great candidates to get higher grades on.  Nuff said.  

On CBCS, I have also seen a fair amount of books that looked better than CGC books of the same grade, so you can't generalize, there are going to be swings of nicer or worse looking books in both directions depending on the book and the grader that worked on that day.  Who thinks this Suicide Squad #1 is anywhere near deserving a CGC 9.2??  For that matter, have you ever seen a 2.5 missing a chunk this big with that big of a spine split getting more than a 1.0, maybe 1.5 on a super generous day???  That's why no matter which company grades it, you should never pay based on the label grade if it looks far worse than the subjective grading, pay what the book looks like it deserves (I know we have all hear that one before!). 

[Randall Dowling]

5 hours ago, TC33 said:

That makes no sense.  Very early original CGC labels were universally known to have some of the tightest grades out there, so by your logic CBCS should have the tightest grades in the industry?  Case in point, so few old label CGC's exist now as most have been cracked open and resubmitted for higher grades.   

 

1 hour ago, William-James88 said:

Baloney. Case in point this lovely 9.4 (I hope you dont mind, @Xenosmilus)

Also, we don't know how many old slab are still out there and from what I gathered, the allure of purchasing an old slab has nothing to do with looser standards. Intstead, it s entirely based on the assumption that pressing was less popular at the time and thus you could get a grade bump after a press.

Respectfully, @William-James88, TC33 is correct.  You're pointing out an exception and calling it the rule.  There's a reason that Defenders 1 is still in the old label case after all these years.  Because anyone that looks at it with any experience knows that a 9.4 is the highest grade that book will get (pressing or no).  By far, old labels have been cracked out because they were more tightly graded.  Some also believed that pressing was less prevalent when the original label was used as opposed to current labels- a highly dubious belief (until the last few years when pressing exploded and every Joe Nobody decided they would start ironing comics).  

Many have refuted this (including CGC employees who worked there in the beginning).  But still the myth persists so, yes, some still believe that an original label = unpressed.  Having cracked out dozens of those from many different dealers, my experience is that pressing was already rampant in the early days of CGC.  As further evidence of this, there have been threads arguing over pressing since nearly the inception of this forum.  In other words, gaming the system has been a part of the model since the beginning.  

Simply put, CPR represents a very nice ongoing source of revenue for CGC (and anyone pressing books).  Even after the 7th or 8th time the book has been through the ringer.  Always has, always will.

Are there still original labels out there that are strictly graded and will probably get a grade boost on a straight resubmission?  Sure.  They're in people's collections.  But very few sellers will leave those dollars on the table so the likelihood of finding one in the marketplace is pretty low.  Instead, you'll find a bunch of books similar to that Defenders 1 (which I like, by the way).  

[William-James88]

5 hours ago, Randall Dowling said:

 

Respectfully, @William-James88, TC33 is correct.  You're pointing out an exception and calling it the rule.  

Thanks for your reply. Just one thing I want to clarify, I never meant to call anything a rule. My example was to show that there was no rule and that we shouldn't talk in over generalizations. I remain skeptical in claiming any rule here.

[William-James88]

On 9/8/2020 at 6:31 PM, TC33 said:

For that matter, have you ever seen a 2.5 missing a chunk this big with that big of a spine split getting more than a 1.0, maybe 1.5 on a super generous day??? 

 

I own a 3.0 with a chunk just slightly smaller than that missing, so this doesn't seem so far off.

[TC33]

10 minutes ago, William-James88 said:

I own a 3.0 with a chunk just slightly smaller than that missing, so this doesn't seem so far off.

On 9/8/2020 at 3:36 PM, Xenosmilus said:

 

It is a bit smaller, but the point is most books with a huge spine split and chunk missing gets 1.0 or perhaps 1.5, I should know because I just sent a golden age batman in with a chunk almost this exact same size missing and otherwise just as nice or probably nicer and it only got 1.0!   I just wish they would be consistent, missing large chunks out like that should not ever be getting a 2.0 or higher in my opinion and from how I see them grade so many other books for me and others.  

[William-James88]

1 hour ago, TC33 said:

It is a bit smaller, but the point is most books with a huge spine split and chunk missing gets 1.0 or perhaps 1.5, I should know because I just sent a golden age batman in with a chunk almost this exact same size missing and otherwise just as nice or probably nicer and it only got 1.0!   I just wish they would be consistent, missing large chunks out like that should not ever be getting a 2.0 or higher in my opinion and from how I see them grade so many other books for me and others.  

Speaking of grades looking off, what do you think of this gorgeous 3.0?

 

[J-KComics]

On 9/11/2020 at 6:05 PM, William-James88 said:

Speaking of grades looking off, what do you think of this gorgeous 3.0?

 

I am not an expert.. but that is not a 3.0  don't ever regrade that