If that quick little questionnaire Swagglehaus did, with a small population count is even remotely accurate, 30% never going back is not insignificant.
Maybe reality is 10%? 5% never going back. I don’t know.
But every piece of incompetence and frustration and anger that those jackasses in charge in Sarasota continue with I feel does take a few more percentage points away. And there’s been alot of that goin on, particularly since Covid and that big hiring.
Something to continue watching IMO.
I’m checking the cgc boards and I’m surprised this hasn’t even blown up even more. This makes Matt Nelson’s PR interview during the scandal an even bigger crock than it already was. Touting Cgc as the protector of the hobby runs really hollow.
A dangerous precedent has now been set. Cgc is now saying that a scammer can use CGC as a vehicle to defraud the community through cgc’s own negligence and quality control. And when they do get caught the scammers can use the illicit funds from their profits to reach a settlement with cgc. No criminal conviction and this all goes away. Wow.
Listening to 9.9 Newstands show, Dave and Manu mentioned there were dealers that they knew were affected by this scam in the 6 figure range. I 'm surprised people aren’t getting together to slap cgc with a lawsuit. Some people in the cgc forum is so disgusted with cgc that’s what they want to happen. Imagine that, customers in your own forum are hoping that you’re getting sued.
I have no doubt some people and businesses will stop submitting to CGC. I am skeptical it’s a significant number of users, though, and for how long. A sample size of Swagglehaus watchers is interesting, but is it a large enough sample size of a niche YouTube audience of a niche hobby? CGC can lose a few power users and still make up for it in volume.
All that said, I’m NOT rooting for CGC in this. All of their woes could have been prevented. They are lucky to have such a grip on their market and lucky that CBCS is seemingly too meek to aggressively pursue unhappy or indifferent CGC customers.
I remain in the boat of the heart desiring their demise; but also fearful of it due to the impact to my own personal profits of selling these rhinestones covered in snake oil.
I have alot of $$$$ tied up with them, and it’s a wonderful thing to wrap something up in a pile of sh&t (plastic) with a dopey number and sell it for exponential amounts. Feels kinda good in a weird way.
Their failure would mean my failure to make uber amounts of money, but my contempt for them for various reasons is overwhelming.
“rhinestones covered in snake oil” 
love it!
So over the summer I got a friend (who’s a card collector) into the comic hobby. I pointed him to CHU, KCC, and other resources that I think would help him in the hobby. He’s now gotten comics pressed and have gotten books back from CGC. He would occasionally send me pictures of comics he’s bought at shows and shops and would ask me about my opinion on what grade CGC would give it.
I would always respond to him that “you realize that the whole comic grading industry is a giant scam right?” CGC assigning a grade is the equivalent of minimum wage CGC employees throwing darts at a board or spinning a wheel to assign your grade. People then pay upwards of hundreds or even thousands of dollars for a comic that can be virtually indistinguishable from a 9.6 to a 9.8. It all depends on how the day is going for your grader Loose Larry or Harsh Harry.
I think a grading company like CGC is needed, we just need to clean house from top to bottom and replace it with people who actually gives a **** about the hobby and with good moral standard like Superman.
I personally believe, IF the following 4 thing can happen, we will have a company that I can call the “protector” of the industry.
Hiring Customer Service/ Employees who is actually knowledgeable and passionate about comic collecting. (Think about all the people you see in a comic store / convention that are knowledgeable about comic, what demographic and age group are them?)
Have the “right” people leading a company instead of “yes-ma’am” president reporting to their corporate overlords (commitment lacking, inadequate understanding nor passion about the industry).
Driven to improve one’s product and services because they CARE (How should I phrase this, Man of Fire commitment and passion)
Lack of transparency when things goes side way. (Think about when s*** goes sideway in your life, and someone you trust can’t be honest with you)
Although I believe the large majority would still be business as normal, we’re seeing some anecdotal evidence that CGC’s business isn’t as robust as before. I’ve been checking the turnaround times that people are reporting and the members on the cgc forum have said they have had their books graded and shipped within days of being received by cgc. Over at the CBCS forums members there are saying their turnaround times are now longer than usual. Again not evidence of anything but I’m seeing more and more youtube videos of people giving the new cbcs labels a try and really liking the results.
My gut feeling is that a lot of people have dropped out of cgc or are holding on to their books for their own reasons. There’s really no reason for CGC to introduce grading discounts and for non members to be able to finally submit books for grading after all this time. Reeks of desperation to me.
The guy from Comicbook Investment’s channel brought up a good point in that he says that the grading comic model is a failing business model. He points out that a lot of the really expensive golden age and silver age keys where CGC makes their money has mostly been graded. There’s only so many Action Comics #1, FF 1, AF 15’s, etc that are out in the wild to grade. Once that golden goose is depleted CGC has to find new ways to make revenue from modern books and that’s to introduce 9.9 prescreens and other snake oil, hairbrained ideas that they can think of.
My fear has and remains that before the “protectors” all go under, they’ll kill off the hobby first by simply running new people way from it. It’s getting to the point that you can’t find any copies of some keys that aren’t sealed in plastic boxes. What that does to readers like myself is to force me to have to buy the trade or omnibus since I’m not willing to pay jacked up prices for someone else’s opinion of what they think a book I only want to read is. If I can’t have a complete collection of comics, then I may as well have none and try for a complete collection of trades, etc…
The end result I fear is for back issues to gradually end up in larger and larger stores collections that can’t sell them since none of them are complete and ready to read. As the stores get swamped with back stock they can’t move then even hobby level people who want to dump can’t or at least not easily.
I do not participate in entombing comics. Over 200,000 in the building, zero sealed in plastic. I’m sure there’s money that could be made but the path seems a little too straight forward to the cliff to keep adding pressure to the pedal.
I just feel like the quick flip, craze of the COVID time period has ended and things are back to normal. We talk about it routinely, but it is absolute insanity to grade the vast majority of books. Makes no sense.
Write up to come, but I’ve been to a couple of recent, fairly large conventions and I simply did not see graded books sell. Really didn’t matter if they were CGC or CBCS. People are trying to sell these graded books for prices that just don’t really make sense (I’m talking about bronze and up time periods primarily). For older, key, golden age and silver…I really didn’t see those graded books move either but think that is a function of the high price versus folks not wanting them.
I really believe that the selling of graded books will become something that is primarily an online type sales situation.
Another thing, so many folks were/are submitting bronze age and forward books that aren’t going to get the 9.6 or 9.8 grades that people tend to focus on (when spending money on grading books). Again, makes zero sense to even send them in. Those books just sit and a person would be far smarter to just sell them raw, and let the speculators then believe they can press them, work some voodoo magic and send them in for the 9.8. The books I’m seeing selling at cons are that type…fairly desirable key books that are raw, and people think they can make $$ flipping them.
I can’t tell you how many absurd graded books I saw at the last few cons that were just sitting there in boxes taking up space…nobody wants that junk.
Sorry, I’m spit-balling with this post…that’s the other thing. I fully realize some of you are amazingly talented at pressing and cleaning. Having said that…it seems like everybody and their brother has suddenly become an expert at the process. Every show, or sale, heard sales pitch of a raw book seems to include the ole “could use a good clean/press…these are pressable defects…easy fix…a bit of love and you’ll have a 9.8” Give me a break… why aren’t you doing that yourself then? The way people seem to talk these days every single comic book should be able to magically be fixed to a 9.6 or better and sent off to CGC/CBCS…like it was said above, another facet of the ole snake oil program that is going on. That part of it is all on the sellers though.
Snake oil makes for good Newton rings.
I once had an Ebay return from a sale I made because the slab “had oil inside” 
@Devildog has a point about graded books not selling as well. I have seen more people interested in books that are not graded at shows outside of extremely old books that benefit from the preservation aspect. Most people don’t have golden age comics or pre-code horror that need to be slabbed, however. The tide has really turned against bronze and modern age books being slabbed. Maybe not silver?
Per the point about graded books being more of an online selling tool in the future: I think this is a good call. Condition is such a crap shoot online, so if you want a book in a certain grade, it might be worth the premium price when buying online. But, I bet graded books continue to fall a bit more in price.
I had someone return a CGC comic because there was a spec of dust inside the outer well (hard plastic case)…not the inner one that houses the comic. I complained to Ebay and told them the comic is in perfect condition and the dust isn’t touching the comic with no way it could get to it. I told them it was buyers remorse from the buyer. I got the book back, the buyer was refunded by Ebay and they let me keep the money as well. I wasn’t expecting that. A bad day turned good. It was a 9.8 Infinite Crisis #5.
Another day another scandal and of course cgc has removed the post from their forums. You can watch about 20 mins into the video and get the gist of it but if you really want to dive deeper into the underworld of shill bidding and corruption, it’s on reddit and social media. This time it involves Comicconnect/Metropolis, a giant in the world of auction houses. Cgc is doing their best to cover it up.
Cliffys:
Thoro works in law enforcement as a police officer and has uncovered a post by a former employee at Comicconnect that alledges corruption in this auction house. The post has been vouched for by other former workers who has worked there. CGC has shut down the discussion, you won’t see it in their forum.
Good ol’ Zurzolo.
Such a great guy in the industry. A real honest, down to earth guy
I’m glad to see he’s doing well 
Shutting down discussions they don’t like? Who would EVER do such a thing? Surely companies can’t sidestep the 1st amendment… oh… wait.
If a company creates an online forum there is no first amendment there. They created that online space and they make the speech rules. The first amendment is often misunderstood. For example, right here we are limited what we can say because this is a space created by @Anthony and @agentpoyo and so forth. If they don’t like what we say they have every right to shut it down and you have every right to go make your own online forum to say whatever you want. It’s poor behavior on CGC‘s part but well within their right in other words.
Yes, but when a company like CGC keeps screwing up and then removes customers concerns and criticisms all it will do is anger their entire community even more (most likely). CGC needs to take their lumps and instead of silencing even the more vocal critics, grow a pair and start dealing with their issues instead of putting Band-Aids on them. So, yeah, CGC is well within their rights as owners of the company to remove comments they don’t like, but right now it is not helping their image… Of course those who go overboard with threats or childish name calling are a different story. Get rid of those comments and those types but when it is overall frustration that is removed…Bad form. CGC is not making the best choices on handling their problems right now, so much so I didn’t renew my membership with them this year. I may go to the competition if this keeps up even if my return on some comics is a little less. I’m giving them another six months to get their collective act together.
Don’t worry, the new tamper evident cases are coming soon. Real soon. Real real real soon. 