Ewert submitted/sold books still residing in CGC Registry:

http://www.macartistry.com/networkofdis ... /blues.htm

• This list is currently of 250 books falling within the narrow 12 month time period declared by CGC. In addition, there are a handful that were noted as restored. Those are included in this list. There are more to come.

• Some of these are being submitted to CGC for recheck.

• CGC has also asked to see at least one book submitted as early as July of 2004 so the time frame is uncertain and could expand.

• An interesting note:

Defenders #10 was returned trimmed. Since submission, it was removed from the census. Perhaps for another try at slipping it by CGC.
Cert. # 0098416017 graded on 10/12/04 TRIMMED Apparent CGC grade of .0 (meaning it has been removed from the census)

how can you tell if a comics been trimmed.. Just sick of people being frauded. Its very hard to tell sometimes..

Trimming is very hard to detect, especially if only the cover has been slightly trimmed. If the outside edge when the comic is closed is a lighter colour than the pages inside it is possible the page edges were trimmed exposing the original colour. Also, all the pages of a comic are the same size. When they are folded and placed one inside the other the middle pages should stick out more than the outside pages along the right edge (forming a V when looked at from the top or bottom). You can see this by taking a stack of papers and folding them in half. If the right edge pages and cover all line up perfectly it is possible the V was trimmed.

Mike

Just for the sake of argument. If enough of these are discovered, with the addition of more to come, as just crap inside a plastic shell, exposing CGC's most obvious short comings, what does this mean for the CGC market? Let's imagine that they change their direction and not focus on mass quantity crap slabbing and focus on detection first then slabbing last. In a weak and, I promise, a continuing soft economy till 2016, they would be stuck in the weird position of layoffs while trying to make money. Will this improve the industry? Or open the door to competition? What you imply, with wonderful contempt I also share, is that it is time for someone to step up and honestly compete against the CGC. But who

Most people will argue that despite CGC not being perfect, a slabbed book is better than an unslabbed one which could have any amount of undisclosed restoration.




I doubt they would do this. Right now they don't have any competition for their slabbing service. Offering a restoration detection service would put them in direct competion with Susan, Tracey and Matt who can also provide a resto check.




My understanding is that CGC doesn't actually make much money. You can be sure that if they did there would be other grading services already. There is also massive first mover advantage in this market. To pry business away from CGC you would have to find some big names in the business to work as graders, hope that the average guy actually knows who they are, pray that collectors will accept you over the established CGC, and undercut on pricing to entice people to move. There really isn't any reason other than cost of grading for a seller to use a firm other than CGC, which all the buyers already know, when trying to maximize their profit.

True, it would take guts to forge ahead for anyone that wants to compete against a CGC. There are plenty of large companies that offer complacency as customer service and quality. These Lehman Brothers and Woolworth’s are history as a result of their poor business plans or just plain stupidity. Do I believe CGC is the best? No, not by a long shot. And since when has a company been in business to not make money? You speak like their books are open to you. Prove they are not making money. I do not care if you are a small restaurant or a large multinational, you know your bottom line or die.
I love reading the comic books I own. I enjoy this hobby. I buy what I need and fill my collections holes with missing issues in any condition. If CGC has issues with its work then it is up to us and those who buy their service or finished product to demand improvement and accountability.

If they have a problem with their business model that is a problem they need to fix. If they go out of business then they affect the whole industry since there is no recourse for anyone who owns their finished product. Especially if doubt continues to exists about their work.

I can give you one reason why the owners of CGC would keep it in business even if it was losing money - they all own large, extremely expensive comic collections that have increased in value due to CGC by more than they have lost running the company. I don't know if this is true, but their are innumerable money-losing companies that stay in business because they are lost leaders to generate profits elsewhere. In my job I do lots of projects at a loss because there is the possibility of much more lucrative work after the project is finished.




Obviously their books aren't open to me, but there have been many threads on the CGC Boards discussing their profitability and the concensus is that they don't make a lot. If you grade 1,000,000 comics over 10 years at $30 each you are only making $3,000,000 per year. Out of that you have to pay for the slabs, sleaves, labels and slabbing. Then there are rent, salaries, benefits, maintaining a website & chat boards, setting up at conventions and the travel for employees to get there. I'm sure they have other expenses I haven't listed. One way or another, the profitability is simply not enough to attract other, serious competitors into the market.




No one is willing to kill the golden goose. Why would I complain about the problems with CGC if I can crack, press and resub over and over again for a profit. There is no incentive for big slabbers to complain and the regular collector doesn't submit enough for CGC to care what they think.




All you have to do is go on the CGC boards and read the daily complaints about CGC's service. People are complaining all the time right on CGC's website, but they simply don't care. $15 to check the graders' notes for a comic you paid to have slabbed????? This is a joke, but CGC doesn't care if clients are unhappy because there is no other grading alternative and collectors are compulsive enough that they will probably swallow their medicine and pay the $15 anyway.

I agree with everything Mike wrote except I am not so certain they are losing money.

They slab a lot of books that cost way more than $30 to slab. How much does it cost to slab all these mega high grade silver and golden age pedigrees we see surfacing seemingly constantly? What does it cost to slab a book with a FMV of $750 or more?

I used to think the economy bronze and moderns were their loss leaders, but since those prices got jacked up, I'm not so sure they are losing anything on them either.

I don't mean to suggest that they are losing money, just not raking it in and getting rich.

I have an uncle who complains all the time he's broke. Mean time I am sitting around helping him decide if the interior should be Antelope or Ostrich in the new Jet he's ordering! Better yet, I will remember that when racing around one of the local NASCAR tracks as they complain that they are broke while deciding if the Enzo Ferrari or the Austin Martin will be the fastest car on the track.
Maybe they should just buy the fix like Facebook buys improvements instead of writing code.