Anyone remember “Bahgdad Bob” ? 
These seem like completely different situations. One involves re-holdering, the other outright stealing.
I guess I’ll go to the CGc boards to know more, but the latter seems like a lot easier and sloppier…down right stupid to think they would not get caught…and all for a measly $25k or so.
I want to see “The Swapper” arrested…
Still pretty bad…yet another CGC integrity issue.
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If u listen to the Nelson response to the reholder issue or about any corrective action about their faulty case process. Are you surprise they would value moral integrity when hiring an employee. For crying out loud, I got 4/10 book damaged via reholder this last year… I got a 50 dollar credit out of it.
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i know he meant no CGC employee involved with reholder scam… but good chance he knew legal was going after employees for this scam.
Not a good look for any news regarding employees and scams
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Time to start cleaning house in Florida.
Ship those in charge out to the Gulf of Mexico on a one way trip to nowhere.
A Mountain Gorilla could run that organization better than it is. And a Mountain Gorilla doesn’t lie; so it’s getting better already
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The grading companies should be just like Willy Wonka’s darn factory…nobody goes in…nobody ever goes out----just shipments of books.
I’ve never understood (and CGC is far worse) the hype/associations/media stuff with not only comic creators but big comic sellers. It’s such a conflict of interest.
Oh…we have this massive new pedigree type find of rare comic books and we have CGC here appraising and assisting with the grading process/selections/process of submitting, etc.
Even the whole signature signing events at their facilities…no way… that shouldn’t be taking place in my opinion.
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Well, the founders of CGC sold out to the highest bidder and this is the end result.
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as they say “there is fuc-kary afoot.”
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Yes it is. Very much so. The whole slab industry has built itself on a stack of cards (CGC just has a higher stack/farther to fall). These issues coming out of CGC can all be tied back to lack of controls…mostly because they know they have such a stronghold on the market/industry they are immune, but also exacerbated by being acquired by a larger organization and rapid expansion in recent years.
Basically, if their customers or competition isn’t strong enough or willing to push them to be better, they won’t get better. Why get better if the money rolls in anyway?
Smart/sustainable companies invest time and money being in looking for problems and getting out ahead of them…not reacting to them.
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CGC will overhaul their security systems and procedures and then make announcement saying as much. None of this will have much of an impact on their future. Collectors and sellers have way too much invested to let CGC die. I’d like to see CBCS use this unique opportunity to be innovative and bring something new to the game to attract more customers. The Beckett manga slabs/labels look awesome and that’s something to build on.
The ideal result (in my personal opinion) is not CGC slabs losing value but CBCS slab values catching up and becoming even with CGC. If CBCS becomes real competition everyone wins in the collecting/selling market.
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This. The slab cases themselves are nice, and I guess we know they’re more secure now as well. Their history of ugly labels has hurt them (I personally think the new ones are still ugly), but otherwise it’s never made sense to me that CGC carried a premium.
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I’ve seen more people comment on how much they like them! Many also say it’s because they look more like the CGC labels…which puts the grade out there in front of your face…”Look here!! Don’t look down!!! It’s the number that matters, not the actual book!!!”
CBCs tried so hard for many years to not draw attention away from the book with the label…once Borrock was gone, somebody “business smart” realized their customers are actually pretty stupid “so let’s do what CGC does and make it more about the assigned grade! That’s what matters most to our audience!”
I will say it’s annoying at big cons when you’re fighting through a crowd several people deep to try to see what wall books a vendor has…and can’t see from a distance the number on the label to understand whether it’s worth your time waiting in line to ask about it or see it, or move on.
Otherwise that’s the only reason having a white box around a solid thick number is a good thing.
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I like the new labels. But they should go further and add something new that CGC hasn’t thought of or brought to market yet. There’s this newer card grading company called TAG grading. They grade on the 10 point scale normally but for higher tiers they analyze more closely and grade on both the 10 point and 1000 point scales. So a card could be a 9.8 and have a tag score of 9879, and its then shown on their census compared to all other tag scores. Don’t know if that could work for CBCS w comics, but that to me is fun, innovative and cool. From what I’ve seen on a CBCS interview recently, they’re letting the opportunity pass.
Thought you guys might enjoy this video if you have time to watch. Ignore the title as they talk very little about the actual CGC lawsuit. The Comic Doctor (he’s a presser) and Manu (9.9 Newstand) talk at length about the grading industry and there were lots of good information and discussion between the two. Good for those who have time to listen, work from home, long commute or working out at the gym.
Some Cliffs notes:
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Apparently some of the grading companies also own the auction houses (Heritage). This is news to me and I don’t know why it was but it kind of blew me away. Talk about conflict of interest Batman.
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For those that were compensated by CGC (either from the re-holder scandal or other instances where CGC was at fault ie, they lost your books etc), you have to sign an NDA before you get compensated. They then went on to talk about some of those compensations from what people told them
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Talked about if CBCS could ever take advantage of this silver platter that’s been handed to them and what they need to do. The Comic Doctor talks about how it hasn’t really affected his business all that much as his clients still wants to send their books to CGC.
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When Westcoast and 9.9 Newstand interviewed Matt Nelson (video posted above), CGC wanted to edit their video and basically have full control on how they wanted it presented. Dave and Manu did not agree to it.
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Manu also talked about there’s lots of shenanigans going on that they are monitoring right now but they don’t have enough evidence to substantiate yet before coming out publicly like they did with the whole re-holder scandal.
Lots of good discussion in the video, worth a listen if you want to learn more about the going ons in the grading hobby.
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The bring up the thing about a strong third party heading company moving in. I think that’s what we need. Or cbcs to firmly step up.
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Can someone give insight on why this isn’t a criminal case?
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I have wondered that myself
In the interview with Matt Nelson, Matt went out of his way to praise BlackRock (who owns CGC and a large amount of the world’s wealth). It was odd.