CGC seems to be having very serious issues...

[eschnit]

That's all. I didn't think CBCS could make any kind of serious run at them. They (CGC) actually seemed to self sabotage by trying to fix what wasn't broke. On top of everything else, check out their census update this week. I'll put it this way, 0 Divinity books of any kind were added, and 1, that's right 1 Harbinger book. I have books that were graded a few weeks ago with no grades made available yet, and I've read others mailed books a month ago without showing as received. What's going on?

[jeremycoe]

They might not be adding much to the census because they're trying to fix the problems they're having.

[eschnit]

I agree. Fix what wasn't broke meant replacing the old slabs and maybe even hiring more graders.

[greg]

"what wasn't broke" actually did break. That is, the company that made the inner holder (Barex) stopped doing so. The inner holder had to change. The new outer holder is clearer and has the top label inside the holder now. All those things were either required or very nice to have.

The problem is that the new inner holder is not applying consistent pressure across the book, so we are seeing a "wavy" result from the book in the holder. The newton rings are unfortunate, but they are an optical illusion, not an actual problem.

CGC needs to solve the "wavy"... but whether there is a quick fix will be a big factor. Regardless, they can't go back to the old inner holders. No more Barex.

[eschnit]

Ahh, that makes sense. Rely on Greg to know the story. I couldn't figure out for the life of me why a business would make a decision like they did with an impetus that didn't seem it was there, unless they were almost 100% sure it would be easily done and a big upgrade.

[greg]

Ahh, that makes sense. Rely on Greg to know the story. I couldn't figure out for the life of me why a business would make a decision like they did with an impetus that didn't seem it was there, unless they were almost 100% sure it would be easily done and a big upgrade.

I would guess that the testing phase was done carefully, so there might not have been any wavy problems during testing. However, the production phase is done much quicker, probably by different people than the testers, so there is a production problem where there might not have been any prior problems.

[jeremycoe]

Ahh, that makes sense. Rely on Greg to know the story. I couldn't figure out for the life of me why a business would make a decision like they did with an impetus that didn't seem it was there, unless they were almost 100% sure it would be easily done and a big upgrade.

Perhaps you've never heard of New Coke

[DirtbagSailor]

Of course, I've got a fairly significant VH1 book at CGC right now that should be graded this week. However, I'll be quite surprised if it happens on time.

Eternal Warrior #1 (Gold Flat) signed by Frank Miller last month. Looks like I'll be having CCS press the book now and CGC re-holder it once this all gets sorted out I suppose.

[eschnit]

Nice one, patience is a virtue I've never had in spades, lol.

[IMJ]

"what wasn't broke" actually did break. That is, the company that made the inner holder (Barex) stopped doing so. The inner holder had to change. The new outer holder is clearer and has the top label inside the holder now. All those things were either required or very nice to have.

The problem is that the new inner holder is not applying consistent pressure across the book, so we are seeing a "wavy" result from the book in the holder. The newton rings are unfortunate, but they are an optical illusion, not an actual problem.

CGC needs to solve the "wavy"... but whether there is a quick fix will be a big factor. Regardless, they can't go back to the old inner holders. No more Barex.

I'm wondering if their manufacturer could add a slight tint to the plastic to filter out a bit of light and eliminate the refraction causing the newton rings?

[Aram]

"what wasn't broke" actually did break. That is, the company that made the inner holder (Barex) stopped doing so. The inner holder had to change. The new outer holder is clearer and has the top label inside the holder now. All those things were either required or very nice to have.

The problem is that the new inner holder is not applying consistent pressure across the book, so we are seeing a "wavy" result from the book in the holder. The newton rings are unfortunate, but they are an optical illusion, not an actual problem.

CGC needs to solve the "wavy"... but whether there is a quick fix will be a big factor. Regardless, they can't go back to the old inner holders. No more Barex.

I'm wondering if their manufacturer could add a slight tint to the plastic to filter out a bit of light and eliminate the refraction causing the newton rings?

I doubt egerber would change their manufacturing process. Cgc is likely a drop in the bucket of their sales.

[DirtbagSailor]

Well, I just invested in a few additional plastic long boxes to house my more rare variants that I'm hoping to get slabbed once this is all figured out. Sucks because I like to minimize the amount of time and movement that a books goes through prior to slabbing.

[eschnit]

A lot of us are in the same boat. I wonder if the inner well thing took them by surprise. They really have to do three things exceptionally well and nothing else. Grade, encapsulate, and transport books well. Easier said than done, but the encapsulation process itself becoming an issue is almost baffling. For all of PGX's reputation, have they ever had an issue with encapsulating/the holder? Seems like since that's the business they're in (CGC), it's all they do, and they're the kings, they would be able to go with the flow, unless the ceasing of production caught them completely by surprise. If they had any advanced warning, it should have been priority A. It's like the Death Star vulnerability or the fortress in Lord of the Rings, wow I'm not a geek, but wow. LIke more than 99% of companies out there, trust is what their company is built on, if they lose trust, they're only not screwed if there's no alternative. In CGC's case, they're a little lucky, in that they've built up a great reputation, lots of goodwill, and they almost have a monopoly. Here's hoping it gets resolved in short order. If they can't do the three things they exist to do, they serve zero purpose. At least Chipotle can buy more chickens.

[nycjadie]

I have a hard time believing they didn't have options to replace the inner well with another material. Of all the archival materials available out there....

I think they were trying to cut costs. Period.

[greg]

I have a hard time believing they didn't have options to replace the inner well with another material. Of all the archival materials available out there....

I think they were trying to cut costs. Period.

Right... not just supply cost, but also time cost. They were definitely trying to cut encapsulation time. The inner well required careful heat-sealing with the old slabs. The new style does not require any sealing on the inner well, so it was definitely a time-saving move.

[eschnit]

I'm not privy to their metrics and margins, etc.. Perhaps in the long run it'll be a profitable, good move for them. Efficiencies could translate to a huge difference for them. If they make $5/slab x a million slabs, $5 million. $7 on 1.5 million = $10.5 million. They're playing with fire though. Greg, imagine if they slabbed your Rai 0 today, put a 10 on it, but it came back funky. That's not the best example, because you'd be excited they considered it a 10 at that point. What about a high grade Action Comics #1 or Bloodshot Platinum #0 where the case became an issue. CGC has absolutely nothing on CBCS except a built reputation and longer track record/ client base built over time. A slab is a commodity, where the differentiation is marginal. If their product becomes inferior, they'll be in serious jeopardy. I mean let's forget for a second the integrity of the slabs as a collector. After market, whoever needs scans of a slab? We know there's differences between a high end 9.8 and low end, but generally speaking a 9.8 is a 9.8. I mean jeez, eBay, when was the last time you looked at a posting of a slab, and the quality of the slab relative to the grade played a big part in your decision-making. Rarely. Perhaps if two super high end books, where one says off white pages and one white or one signature on a signature series book looks better than another. Now, are we going to have to worry about the quality of the slabbing?!

[greg]

I don't know if CGC has thought far enough ahead, but when they feel they have solved the problems, they need to make a visual change to the label.

Right now, we know that all new slabs have the page quality listed under the grade number on the left side of the slab. You can quickly see this in even small scans of books for sale.

If you want to only purchase old slabs, then just buy one without a page quality under the big number.

If CGC doesn't make some visual change once they get the problems fixed, it will be impossible for potential buyers to "see" that the slab is good again.

[eschnit]

I doubt they'll do that. If they do that, they'll be admitting they made a mistake. They'd be compelled at that point to reslab all books from the time period. If they weren't willing to, they'd get sued and lose.

[nonplayer]

I have a hard time believing they didn't have options to replace the inner well with another material. Of all the archival materials available out there....

I think they were trying to cut costs. Period.

Right... not just supply cost, but also time cost. They were definitely trying to cut encapsulation time. The inner well required careful heat-sealing with the old slabs. The new style does not require any sealing on the inner well, so it was definitely a time-saving move.

I agree that idea that the plastic factory closed cause this is BS. They wanted to make more money plane and simple.
Has any announcement been publicly published. They need to have a plan to pay for shipping of all damaged books and re encapsulation with non damaging cases. And if comics were damaged they need to pay for that too.

[nonplayer]

I don't know if CGC has thought far enough ahead, but when they feel they have solved the problems, they need to make a visual change to the label.

Right now, we know that all new slabs have the page quality listed under the grade number on the left side of the slab. You can quickly see this in even small scans of books for sale.

If you want to only purchase old slabs, then just buy one without a page quality under the big number.

If CGC doesn't make some visual change once they get the problems fixed, it will be impossible for potential buyers to "see" that the slab is good again.

I'd bet that's exactly what they will do why yell out their mistake to show there ever was an issue. They will deal with the complainers probably fix the case over time and not say a word so it doesn't affect their bottom line. They are a money grubbing company like all the rest and this has proven it to me. Any company with real care for customers and the care of comics would put a hold on operations fix the problem and fixed the damaged books at no cost and if books pulled out of damaging cases were not able to be graded the same in the new case because the first case waved them then cgc needs to buy out thoes customers and or get them another cgc'd comic graded the same at no cost. If they don't do this then they are scoundrel and don't deserve to look after my comics or get my money.

[Aram]

Well it's not just the already graded books they have to worry about. And I think that is why we have not seen anything publicly yet from them on this.

I spoke to them this morning though and got some information on my submission.

My books were actually encapsulated 5 days ago and are in quality control..

With an Estimated 2 weeks to go!

SO in other words.. It looks to me like they are clearly aware of the new issues and are taking it very slow and careful possibly making certain that issues that appear like waviness with the new slabs are corrected before they ship them back out.

I imagine things are quite chaotic there right now with everyone trying to figure out how to keep things running and find a way to satisfy customers.

I get the feeling they are spending extra time encapsulating and then waiting and going back and redoing a lot of slabs. That would probably lose them the least amount of money in the mean time while they figure out what went wrong and how to fix it.

[eschnit]

Would they tell you your grades? I've caught a couple of good reps there, but there was one who let me know my books were graded three weeks ago as of Friday, but they couldn't release the grades yet, and to follow up in about 3 weeks to see if they'd release the grades at that point, then laughed. They're not on the census. I've been in sales my whole adult life. It was top 5 worst interactions I've had with a service rep. Fortunately for them, the previous ones were very good and helpful, and they're the only game in town. In thinking of the dollars profit they likely make or don't make may be the better way to put it, I get why my expectations aren't met. They have to have miniscule profits. It's just a small company trying to make a buck.


...and I'll clarify, I've sent in 62 books recently, it's not that it doesn't cost us a penny to get it done, just the money they make after netting out can't be all that much.

[nycjadie]

Don't even get me started on their invoicing... I've been overcharged so many times and it takes weeks, and sometimes months to resolve. In one case, I was overcharged over $500 and it took me 2 1/2 months to resolve (if not longer, I can't recall).

[eschnit]

I also get the sense they may be over-grading right now to compensate. Not my books, I'm still waiting on most of them, and the small group I did get back already were pretty spot on from what I would've guessed. I'm talking about the ones I keep hearing about from people over the last week or so. 9.2s cracked, pressed, coming back 9.8s, many 9.9s. The nature of the collector is there are plenty of stats guys, so plenty of you get it.

If they start overgrading to compensate for bad products and service, it will be very obvious. Customers of a commodity supplier should have close to a zero tolerance policy for garbage service. I wish CBCS had just a little more market share right now, so they could eat their lunch. I suspect CGC will be perfectly fine after this sans any real competition. It's unfortunate. Only reason I won't go CBCS is I'm fully aware that the average priced in discount for a CBCS book relative to CGC is 10-25% plus the market is smaller. They basically have us held hostage.

[Aram]

I dont see any evidence of them overgrading, if anything the opposite.