This is a PR opportunity. They can prove to the community that they are leaders, that they care, that they back up everything that they do 100%.

You don't become leaders, you don't become authorities, you don't instill confidence by stonewalling and sweeping issues like this under the carpet.

I personally think that the only place this information could be posted and remain before the public without being spun to death, is right here.

I think CGC kept too much of an eye on the short term effect, which they did minimize, and not enough thought to the long term ramifications. Now you have a registry that is littered with suspect books. Again, the majority of these books may be perfectly clean (of trimming at least), but the doubt will remain.

Say there are 400 to 500 books in the current registry that fall within the suspect time period. If CGC looks at 10 a day, you're done completely in two months, without putting a dent in your regular business. They owe that to the community at the very least.

We here plan on keeping an eye on every new book that surfaces on ALL the dealer and auction sites. The scary thing is, is that although the database we are working from is huge, it is far from complete.

I'd also like to see the CGC database search parameters restored so that the community can protect itself.

Brad, where does the complete list exists? I would be good to have it in hand to keep a watch.

Gemstone's SCOOP also needs to be involved in getting this information out to the public. Their site probably gets plenty of hits.

I agree whole heartedly with your sentiment — attentive consumers would love to have any and all information available prior to a purchase. Whether that purchase is intended for the supermarket or the collectables market, it makes absolutely no difference.

The more information available to the buyer (and seller for that matter) makes for a safer and more prosperous collectables industry.

BTW... Welcome aboard!

Greg, if you look through THIS thread....

9 Months of Ewert (Ejaenter) Data

which is a great read btw, you'll find a list of seven digit INVOICE numbers. This represents the first seven numbers of each certification number. The last three digits, from 001 up (usually to about 020, but as high as 032 in some cases) completes the cert # for each individual book in the submission/invoice group. This is the list that was originally compiled from an extended range of jaenter ebay auctions.

If you keep a copy of the invoice numbers handy, you can check any book under consideration by referring to the cert #. If the first seven digits on the book, match the first seven digits of any invoice number on the list, then it's time to take a closer look, as it was submitted by Ewert. Again, we make clear, Jason Ewert was never conclusively found to have done anything illegal or unethical. We do not know if he worked alone, worked with someone else, or was not involved in trimming books himself at all, and NOD take no position on that issue at all.

NOD has expanded a bit on that invoice list, with much more detail, but at this time we deem that it remain private until collectors speak with CGC and clarify CGC's current policy on checking these books. We will alert the public to the presence of books currently for sale in the marketplace or coming up for sale, by identifying them with scan and/or cert.#, but the presentation of that information is not meant to imply that the individual seller or dealer is "in" on anything. CGC chose to keep the buying public in the dark. It is up to them to rectify this situation as quickly as possible.

We've merely presented publicly available data. Now it is up to CGC's customers to take advantage of CGC's offer to check these books.

We remain indebted to the work that BronzeBruce originally did on this project. Without him, nothing could have been done.

Here is a book that is scheduled to go live on January 8th. Probably neither the collector selling it, nor the dealer realize it's a Ewert submission, thanks to CGC.

Amazing Spider-Man #47 CGC 9.6 White pages cert. # 0700042016 graded on 2/9/2005

If you check the list of invoices in the aforementioned thread, you'll find the number 0700042. This was the 16th book listed on the invoice belonging to that submission group.

Holy Moly!

Look at that top edge! God, I hope it's only the scan...

Buy the book and find out!

That book sold via Heritage on May 19, 2005, approximately three months after its CGC certification date of February 2, 2005.

Another book that was submitted along with the ASM#47 was a copy of Fear#20. Ewert sold that book on eBay April 24, 2005. Here's the info:

Sold 24-Apr-05 … auction #6526453556 … Fear … 20 … 9.6 … … … $151.71 … 0700042003

The collector who purchased the ASM originally probably never learned later on that there were any questions about the book. How could they unless they haunted the CGC Boards.

Not everyone lives on the CGC boards, and even if you did, the Ewert data and info is currently buried within thousands of threads.

And if you weren't a registered boardie, you now can't use the search engine to find it either.

And you can find that copy of Fear listed in a totally open, public CGC registry set. Anyone can see it listed. Again, the owner probably has no idea there are any questions about it.

Another book about to hit the open market:

Amazing Spider-Man #31 CGC 9.4 OW to W pages cert.# 0615305007 graded on 11/19/2004



Seller/Auction site may have no clue as to the books history. There may be nothing wrong at all with this book.

We agree with CGC that this book should undergo the free check offered for these books before it changes hands again.

Currently for sale on a well-known dealer's website:

Batman#237 CGC 9.4 OW pages cert.# 0098487008 graded on 10/18/2004
Price: $425

I kind of remember reading up on the Ewert scandal, but I don't remember reading about a link to CGC. And this is probably a touch silly, however, but I'll ask as it seems to beg the question: Is the crux of the conflict resulting from CGC's failure to detect a large amount restorative techniques from books submitted by Ewert? Is that's the case and they were labelled as universal, then I could definitely see where this is a problem.

Sorry, just looking to make sure I'm understanding everything in the conversation. Not necessarily a high grade collector, but I do like to keep up to date with what's going on out there in the collecting world

The controversy first surfaced when it was alleged that CGC had missed the trimming of several highgrade books. You can read about it here:

August 19, 2005, almost three and a half years ago:

http://boards.collectors-society.com/ub ... 32&fpart=1

Since there has been zero response from CGC, we continue with Fantastic Four #112 CGC 9.6 White pages. cert.#0098475013 Sold for a cool $1,950. A Ewert submission graded on April 7, 2005.

Didn't there used to be a link addressing CGC's offer to review suspect Ewert books, on the CGC boards? Am I missing it? Was it ever there?

It's buried somewhere on the CGC boards. They need to pin it at the top of Comics General and respond to the fact that right now, there are 350+ Ewert books in the CGC Registry.

Someone needs to let collectors know that their offer to check these books is still open.

Coming up for auction soon:

Amazing Spider-Man #33 CGC 9.6 OW to W pages cert.# 0615305009 Graded on November 19, 2004

That one looks familiar wasn't that debated once on the CGC forum?

Currently for sale for $1,250.00

Eight Page Giant #8 CGC 9.4 OW pages cert # 0098423005 Graded on September 22, 2004




CGC needs to clarify once again their position and their offer. Collectors and dealers are obviously transferring ownership of these books, most likely without any knowledge of what they have in hand. (Books that need to be checked)

Just a couple of the responses we've gotten from collectors who have received data on their collections:

• "Thanks ... I really appreciate it. I thought I had scoured my collection for book that went through Ewert's hands in the suspect time period. And it looks like I did for the most part. [This collector had one books that fell withing the suspect time period). I'll definitely send it in to get checked out."

• "Can I just say thanks a lot for all the work on the Ewert books? I knew I had a couple, and I also knew that I had to get around to doing something about them at some point. Your work has helped identify a few more 'potential problem' books but has also given me the impetus to get things sorted."

• "This is so ridiculous. CGC should be maintaining this information...and providing it to us."

Congratulations Brad! You have done an awesome job!

Thanks Aaron. It's the quality of the environment and the folks here that allow serious research and discussion to take first position.

Someone on the CGC boards asked if these suspect books will now be considered the Ewert Pedigree. The interesting thing is that as I poured through the data, and interesting phenomena showed up: pedigree books that had been removed from the census.

I created the following subset from the data:

http://macartistry.com/networkofdisclosure/pedzeros.htm

I have yet to find any of these issue titles and numbers with the specific pedigree designations listed in new slabs. For now they're gone. Disappeared.

One theory that I have is that these books were removed from the census in order to be resubmitted, quite possibly without retaining their pedigree label, in order to make it harder to track backwards on a resub. I've seen a case within the ewert data of a book coming back higher grade without it's pedigree label. Fortunately it was a Green River and I identified it in it's new incarnation.

Original:

http://www.macartistry.com/greenriverpe ... al7big.jpg

Ewert resub without pedigree:

http://www.macartistry.com/greenriverpe ... big9.6.jpg


But for pedigrees like the Curators or Western Penns, Northlands or Bowling Greens that do not have an identifying mark like a date stamp.... if those books came back without their pedigree notation, then they might be lost to pedigree collecting history forever.

Excellent post Brad and many thanks to all that put in the hard work! It'd be very nice to get all of these books out in the open and re-checked for trimming. However, I don't see many folks running to see if their books in the registry are Ewert books, though. If you said that a few of the top 12 have some books that could possibly be, or most likely are, Ewert books, then they'll be in no hurry to pull those books and lower their registry scores.

Andy

We'd like to notify as many of the holders of these books in the registry as possible, but only if a collector contacts us. We are not "outing" registry particpants. And we would not contact them through the registry system. If a collector wants to sit on them that's fine. We're trying very hard to balance the book owners' rights with the rights of any potential buyer of those books, andthe rights of dealers and auctioneers. If CGC announces that their offer to check books is still good, then they protect both the current holder of the book and the next purchaser. You know how frequently books move, despite what collectors claim about never letting them go.

If a collector sent a couple of suspect books at a time down to Sarasota for a check, they don't have to remove them from their registry sets unless they're actually found to be trimmed and CGC removes them from the census. Most likely the books will pass inspection, get a new certification number with the same grade and then the collector can just swap out the old cert. # which will now carry a .0 in the census anyway, and add the new cert. #. It's actually pretty simple.

I think if serious collectors can get past the whole abstract fantasy world of big numbers as opposed to real live books, the best alternative by far is to just have the check run and be done with it. CGC should also publish a database that shows any Ewert book that has been checked and cleared. As a collector for over 40 years, I want to know what I have in my collection. And the right thing to do is to make sure I'm not passing a possibly trimmed book (however small the chance) on to an unknowing buyer.

Brad - has Network Of Disclosure contacted CGC, linked them here, and asked for further information/cooperation?

Brad--time for you to develop the HEAD IN THE SAND award for those folks who do not want to know about their Ewert books.

At the NOD booth in NYC there should be a handout identifying the books...a freebie from the organization...couldn't hurt.

Here's a screenshot of the Ewert Recall posting as it appeared in the Comics General section of the CGC Forum in October of 2007.

As can be seen, the recall notice was posted as a locked "sticky" topic on January 31, 2006, and its author is Harshen Patel, Vice Presented of Operations.

Mr. Patel's recall message to the hobby follows the Comics General screenshot.