The amount of grades that changed was crazy. Some of those jumps were troubling. I don't know how they can misgrade the book that bad. Makes me hesitant to send books in.
Seems more like a money maker for cgc just think if they under grade all books hoping they get resubmitted to get graded again how much money it makes the company
Not really. Grading ultimately is subjective, and it’s always the average of 3 graders per book. Due to that method, changes can occur consistently if you resubmit a book. This activity actually makes sense. And the 8.5 to 9.8 makes sense. Unfortunately it was likely mis graded the first time around. Just correctly graded this time.
@@Comicbookyoutubersrock you think cgc still actually has 3 graders grade every book? I highly doubt that. How could 3 graders give a book a 7.5 and then it gets graded a 9.4 or higher. I would bet my bottom dollar that most books are graded by one person. Especially moderns.
@@moodswing4460 Yeah I mean I just go by what they tell you the process is. Is it possible you’re right, yeah, but until there’s proof of it I have to assume it’s the average of 3 graders per book as they state is the process for every book. As far as the 7.5 to 9.4 situation, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, these are not machines. These are humans grading comics, and humans are inherently prone to make mistakes. So in that instance, if a book was just resubmitted, not pressed/cleaned or anything like that before being sent back in, than it’s extremely likely “they” as in 3 graders messed up the first time around. I mean we’re talking thousands of books daily. Even with a system where 3 people routinely check books out, assuming that’s the case, I highly doubt mistakes don’t happen.
It would be interesting to know what the totall value bump was , you spent "X" to submit the 100 books, that where valued at "Y" and after you got them back with the ups and downs the new total value of the 100 books is now "Z" .. so Z - X = your potential overall net profit from the exercise. This was a great entertaining piece of content , btw.. thanks!
It's like home plate umpires calling balls and strikes. Unless it's the same person grading everything there will always be inconsistencies. Even the same person can see things differently at different times. It's all a crapshoot.
This is why I rarely ever submit comics to CGC. I'd rather just buy graded books with the grade I want. I prefer the majority of my collection raw anyway.
@@ComicBookInvestmentswell I will send you a bunch of resubmits you can crack them, send them in, shoot the video and send them back to me? What do you say? 😂
Very interesting and expensive experiment. I recognized years ago that the slabbers are totally inconsistent. I first submitted books around 2003. Back then CGC had some credibility, was reasonably priced and typically got books back in six weeks. Then along came CBCS. Both graders quickly became equally erratic and terrible. I haven’t submitted any books to be plasticized in over 2 years. Instead, I have sold off many slabs and cracked open many in my pc. I’m much happier with raw books. I spent 25+ years owning comic shops and using Overstreet grading guidelines. Henceforth, that’s what I’m doing every time. To the devil with CGC, CBCS and PGX.
I really really enjoyed this video. Watching some of the grade drops makes me feel better about my purchasing lower 9 grades instead always shooting for the 9.8. Thanks for all your hard work editing and putting together this video. Well done! 😊
Shocking to see how grades vary for the same comic!! It all goes to show you the grading process is mostly subjective. I wouldn’t be surprised if the grader flips a coin to decide to go half point up or down. I feel CGC needs to eliminate so many grade points and just have only five different grading numbers. It’s way to chaotic in determining the grade of a comic. Very informative content Dave! 👏👏👏👍
I really enjoyed this video and found it fascinating… and troubling. The swings in grade are just crazy in some cases, particularly with no re-press in between. I appreciated that you did not re-press the books, for the sake of the experiment, but if it was me, I would feel like that was leaving money on the table. Also, it really bugs me tbh that you don’t send your old labels back in; if not with this submission then separately or with a future submission. I think everyone should do this, for the integrity of the census, but particularly with someone doing as much volume as you do, and with as big of a platform as you have.
Lmfao if CGC actually did what they purport to- grade accurately, then the grades would have all come back the same & the census data would be fine... but they don't. Cuz grading doesn't mean shit.
First, I do truly enjoy watching this video. My issue is that doing this does ultimately make the census completely unreliable on an EPIC level. When calculating the fair market value, many rely upon the census as part of the equation. Again, I appreciate and respect your experiment and the outcome, but I can’t help but wonder how the census is even remotely accurate or worthwhile anymore. Thoughts? I am kinda sad with the loss of this resource when assessing fair value… I really hope you don’t take this personal! I enjoy you and your channel tremendously! Sorry but thank you kindly for your awesome content!!! ❤
Man, this video is awesome. Yeah, making a seperate quick video to look at potential profit margin after resubmitting the 100 would be pretty cool. This was an excellent video.
Started watching your channel with interview with your dad and it got me thinking about my Dad and I and our live for comics. Ive never sent anything in, but this is both encouraging and discouraging at the same time. I guess only one person looks at it and can vary.
Great Video! So anyone who puts faith in the CGC grade should think about this... ANYTIME a highly experienced person (as you certainly are) gets a grade that's lower than they think it should be on a big book, they're going to crack it and resubmit... and they're more than likely to get the grade "corrected"... Right? Sounds reasonable... but here's the flip side... every time such a person gets a grade that is higher than it should be... They do a happy dance and they sell it based on the grade that's too high. So... what that means is that the grade that collectors see on a big book is either accurate, or a little high (because it was accurate or too high in the first place, or it's over-stated (in the case where they got lucky and didn't resubmit). So, as more and more people have big books cracked and re-graded that they think are under-graded, the AVERAGE CGC grade on big books are actually over-stated - they will tend to skew too high because of the ones that are over-graded are accepted as is. Simple math. Collectors should keep that in mind when buying a big book that they can't hold in their hands and be happy about themselves. And collectors who aren't experts shouldn't be buying big books based on the CGC grade without a consultant - because the grade (which creates the price) isn't necessarily accurate (it may be over-stated by a lot). You only submitted books that you thought were UNDER-graded. Right? Had you put aside every "gift grade" you got over the past 2 years, you'd probably have gotten 69 downgrades. CGC grades are not adequate indicators of value. But great video.
Amazes me that the time and cost of resubmission would make it (potentially) worth it (with a lot of them). Really interesting vid. Wonder if CGC will see this as a good or bad thing. Pretty consistent but those big swings in grade on a couple can't be good.
This enforces my belief every book exists in a range. Most went up a grade (4.5-5.0 or 7.5-8.0) and to me that also speaks to CGC consistency which is a good thing. The ones that came back same obviously are probably maxed out and he one that dropped a grade well you lucked out getting the higher or their range originally. The ones that bear investigation are the ones going from 7s to 9s with no work done. Or down the same way. That Xmen 266 needs some explaining. My guess is the Mario was graded by a rookie who didn’t know about the printing flaw that can exist on that book
All these were cherry picked as getting bad grades to begin with. So it was mostly just upside. The ones that got huge swings. Got really really bad grades to begin with then for way too good of grades after
@@ComicBookInvestments that makes sense that most would go up slightly or down or stay the same. It also makes sense that out of 100, bound to get 1-2 that were grossly undergraded or over graded as it is human error
I completely agree with your viewpoint and concur that CGC did pretty good existing in that range given that these books were specifically selected as likely under-graded candidates by a very experienced seller. Many sellers seem to like to always add the 'grading is subjective' line to their listings to cover their butts - and it is, but generally only to a point. A grade within 1 grade above it or below is 'subjective'. Calling stuff 'near mint' that is really in the 7-8 range, as many onile sellers do, is just trying to take advantage of people and the disadvantages of online dealing. The strangest one here appears to be the 9.8 Swamp Thing, apparently going from severely under-graded to marginally over-graded based on his expectations. To an 'expert' 9.6-9.8 should be fairly apparent. An expert should be able to tell if a book is in 'perfect' condition.
back in 1999 ebay was rampant with sneaky dealers and in 2001 cgc came out as a third party grading service to level the playing field for buyers and put sellers on notice that over grading was looked down upon. I would never have thought I would be watching a video on reslabbing comics so u can have a grade increase good video lol
Hi David love the video as always man.I really hope you reply to this.I am going to on Collectors Comics for the first time tonight.Does every seller on Collectors Comics ship Internationally. Maybe if I buy of any seller then Collectors Comics Ships on behalf of the seller.I really have been struggling now for 7 months now with those ridiculous Ebay restrictions to South Africa. Really appreciate the help David.
just curious, does this mess with the census numbers? For example on the fighting man comic you said theres only a few in that grade. is now there another? or do you let them know after that the origional cracked one got replaced?
@@ComicBookInvestments A pity you can't submit the labels (post grading I can see why you souldn't do it with the books for grading) to get the census down which would also help with your books worth in future?
This video makes me want to go thru my slabs again. There have been many comics I've submitted that I really thought were under graded. This vid makes me think I should give resubbing a try.
Great job in production presentation and must have taken a long time to put together. I enjoyed watching this despite the annoying background music so Thanks for going thru this experiment which we all think of doing at some point.
I definitely appreciate seeing the results from this and the afterwards data from it. I do larger submissions to cgc a few times a year and this is also something I've considered doing when I don't agree with the graders notes or grades assigned to books I've submitted.
Awesome video, very much enjoyed it. Dave I would love a video of you grading books before ypu send them. You are very good at rough grading, would love to see what you look for and how your process for grading the way you do. I shall call you Sensei Dave. Lol😅. Teach us hacks the way of the grading force
Amazing video and demonstrates the vagaries, but also, some of the consistency of the CGC grading system. Like you said, these were hand picked because you would grade them differently. Do you think the overall cost of resubmitting these hundred books was worth the gain, and occasional lost, in value? lol, I'm sure it was as there was $2300 value chage just in the Doom book. Nice work.
Fantastic video David! Informative and funny, your dialogue to future you was hilarious! Takeaways, it is important to know how how to grade to spot the times CGC makes a human error and then resubmit when we disagree with them. I am certain, many of your viewers who got slabs back where they disagreed with the grade will be going to look at them closely. Cheers!...:)
I always send the blue labels back in another shipment after my re-grades come back. Just in case there is a rule where they compare the two. Tin foil hat style.
This just shows that "professional" grading isn't so professional. Having graded comics for 30 years, I fully admit that grading is as much art as science. However, there is no excuse for jumps from 7.5 to 9.6, or a drop from a 9.6 to a 7.0. This means you can't count on that slabbed 9.8 you are paying for being any better than an 8.0. It could be anything and you are paying a huge premium! I stand my grading being within +/- one half-grade if I grade it once or 100 times. There shouldn't be any more variance than that with a "professional" grading company grading the same book.
This video shows just the opposite of your point. They did 100 books and were accurate in all but 97+% of them, that's pretty damn good. The x-men 266 was damaged which he let us know. And most people overgrade their books to make more money on their raw books, that's why CGC came out in the first place, to get away from sellers that aren't objectively grading. So grading is amazing. I would never buy a book that says it will be a 9.6 to 9.8. If so, they would just get it graded and make major profits. Think about it ..
@@wutango36o Did you even watch the same video? You are just making stuff up and pulling it out of thin air!!! He resubmitted 100 books and the grades changed on 78 of them!!! Only 22% remained the same grade!!! How do you get they were 97% accurate when 78% of the grades changed!!! And there is never an excuse for a book jumping up that much in grade (unless you have cleaned/pressed/etc). It could get damaged being unslabbed, and go down, but never an excuse for a 2-point jump on the same book! That was a defect in the service and there should be a refund of grading fees! Forking over 3X the price of a 9.6 for a 9.8, yeah, well it was an 8.0 on the last submission, so what are you really getting for 3X more money!!! Now admittedly, it isn't as bad as 78% inaccurate, because many of the books only changed by one sub-grade, again, a reasonable standard. But one you apply that standard 99.9% of the books should have came back graded within +/- one sub-grade. I think by my count, over 20% came back with a bigger swing than one sub-grade, which is bad performance from a "professional" grading service! Would you go to a grading service who's motto was "We accurately grade your comics 80% of the time!" The other scary part is he said he did hand pick these as books he thought the messed up on. I bet if he sent in 100 books that he thought they got right, just as many grades would change!
And I know dealers who will send in 50 copies of a book for 9.8 pre-screens and get back 20% in 9.8 slabs. Then they will submit the remaining 40 pre-screens a 2nd time, and get another 5 or 6 9.8's out of those rejected before. I don't think they submit for a third round at that point, because cost is lower than reward. But how did they miss those 5-6 9.8's on the first pre-screen?!
@@wutango36o You probably shouldn't be an an English message board if you can't read and comprehend English. Care to explain how they were 90-95% accurate when only 22% of the grades didn't change? That would be 22% accurate. Even if you use my expanded definition of accuracy +/- one sub-grade, over 20% of the books were still wrong by more than a sub-grade. That makes the accuracy less than 80%. You are trying real hard to look silly...
Thanks4 making this vid... it just shows the inaccuracies and inconsistent grading from a 3rd party company... from the grades u received, 2even u pointing out that the census is messed up from people CPR graded books... I'm not against slabbing books, by any means. Especially 4preservation purposes. But this vid is an eye opener 4sure. Thx David 👍
Dave. I’ve got about a dozen I need you to look at that I’d love to know if I should resubmit. You could have a business just doing that. 😂 Great video, keep up the good work.
Sometimes when you go to a restaurant your portion of fries are way bigger than usual and your burger tastes better, because someone decided to hook you up by putting on an extra patty, extra tomato and more pickles on it . But sometimes they burn the burger and forget your fries.
Love this idea for a post! I always wanted to send a group of 9.8 pre-screens that didn't make the cut the first time and see if some received 9.8 the second go around?
Great video!! I’m curious did cgc give you grader notes for the Xmen 266?!? Because 2.6 grade point difference is crazy!! Like a 9.6 and a 7.0 present totally different!
That Xmen 266 was painful! Does it look like it was damaged? On the whole though it shows how subjective and volitile grading can be, especially in those mid grades. Great video though, we need to see the dollars and cents breakdown though, that will tie this all together.
Yes, some shockers. Need to compare grader notes. Pleasantly surprised how the lower to mid grades come back within 0.5 or 1.0 of original, as that range seems much more subjective in nature.
*_This is what happens when a company pays people $15/hour._* *_This is disturbing to see. A great video, but it is disturbing that there were so many grade changes that spanned several grades bumps._* *_Going from a 3.0 to a 3.5 is not that "insane", but that one jump of 6 grades up and the other one down so much really makes me wonder._* *_What's missing here is the total value before and after. I can just look this all up, we all can, so why not just say what it is?_* *_I wonder how many more of the books would have gotten a grade bump if they were pressed and lightly cleaned(if needed). There was a 70% improvement in grades as is._*
It all depends on the mood of the grader. There is little that prevents resins from bouncing grades. If you have the time & money just keep subbing 9.6s.
It's great to see you got most of the bumps you wanted but the question I have is shouldn't you be sending the old blue labels back so that the census is correct?
Then why bother with sending any labels back? It’s still fuckin up the census. This is not personal, many others do it too. I’ve owned a small comic business since 2008 and have always referenced the census as a “tool” to show my customers…gonna bury that reference now as it’s clearly flawed and misleading.
This is impressive work. I have a copy of Uncle Scrooge #36 in a 9.6. Labeled OW Pages and slight staple rust but it wasn't graded since 2009. Thing is, I see absolutely nothing wrong with it. I see no defects to the cover as far as I can see. Really tempted to resubmit but nervous it might drop.
One thing that has changed from 2009, and this is documented, is that if your book is resubmitted, you'll likely at least get Off White-White Pages vs OW Pages. They've relaxed their page quality grading since then.
@@kevinrcolvin6301 I appreciate the reply. I noticed that about the page quality reading about re-submits on older graded books. Only thing that's bothering me is that staple. Its not bad but I could see a tiny bit of rust (25-30%) Its frustrating but I think I'm going to wait until I can give this book to CGC at a live event. No way am I cracking it on my own and worried about it getting damaged. Finding this issue is one thing, but in good condition is a real challenge.
Thanks for sharing all of the results. Crazy swings! So did you do anything to them after cracking out? Re-press? And did you send them in under the "resubmit" option? What is that option and would it have given any better results? Thanks!
Very interesting video. Most were in the margin of error you would expect in something as subjective as grading. However, the ones going from an 8.5 to a 9.8 or down by 4 grades are very troubling. I hope CGC sees this video and makes a concerted effort to address these inconsistencies. CGC's business model of grading comics lower than they should just to get people to resubmit them borders on criminal. This video perfectly illustrates that no one but CGC wins in this scenario. While you might get more when selling these comics when they received a grade bump, you never should have had to resubmit in the first case. So, you get to sell a book for what it should have been worth when you made the original submission--but, you are out the regrade fees while CGC gets twice the money for each of the books. Might be time for a class-action lawsuit against CGC.
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So Dave, you just cracked them out of their slabs and resubmitted without at least a C&P? Do you think it would have made a difference on the books that came back at the same grade before the resubmit? Do you send them in with the previous label or not? This was a fun video. Thanks for posting.
I think as someone who has hundreds of graded books, that feels very hopeful. I have a ton of 9.6s that i can't believe they were lower than that. However, why grade and pay the money if the variation is so ridiculous. Thousands are lost on this and it is not fair to the collector
Very informative video here. Any you say you did NOTHING but crack and resubmit? Can you do a video on how you crack books out of these new cases? I am tempted to do a few of these. I think the graders are hung over on some of the days they grade my books.
Overall the grades were consistent because grading is subjective. Great video possibly the best for ppl learning about why grading is not a perfect science.
Some of those grade jumps were absolutely ridiculous. My question is, did you do anything other than remove them from the containers? Were any of them pressed or cleaned?
A professional grading service shouldn’t have to depend on the mood of the grader. They just have zero standards or consistency, but at least they sure can charge a lot for amateur grading.
This is the same general concept that if you don’t like what “they” say, hang up and try again with a different person…retail games haven’t changed much.
