From my experience CGC is all over the place and at times random. Very difficult to tell the difference a cgc 9.6 and cgc 9.8 and so many issues with mislabeling and damages due to encapsulation.
While cbcs is incredibly strict with modern books and i have not heard many examples of damaged books by CBCS.
That is an absolutely false statement that I can attest to over and over again as I’ve used both services extensively. CBCs has been consistently very tough on grading.
I believe many avoid them because they want the 9.8s which CGC hands out like candy, plus because CGC was in the market first people tend to blindly trust them and therefore spend more (buying the grade on the slab, not the book). CBCS has also hurt themselves in the market by making many changes which effected turn around times very negatively…but they never sacrifice quality unlike CGC (cough cough Newton rings…cough).
If you want an honest, critical grade, CBCS is the place. I will always buy CBCS over CGC for my personal collection any day.
My last CGC submission was 6 Naomi #1 books…just about all had little binding tears at the corners…maybe a slight spine indentation that may barely break color. All were 9.6s at best if sent into CBCS, and since I wanted maximum dollar I sent to CGC (not pressed
Or grade screened).
At best I expected 3 9.8s and 3 9.6s. They all
Came back 9.8s to my surprise.
And half of the CGC slabs I purchased for my PC that were 9.6/9.8 in the past few years I’ve returned as they were clearly over graded…I’d rather wait out a CBCS in the same grade for less money. Hell, I’ll pay more money in most cases if it’s a rare book in a CBCS case.
I have submitted a little over 100 comics to CGC in the past five months. Most of those were pre screened at 9.8. I was very strict on what I sent in and out of 81 prescreens 79 came back 9.8.
I think I got lucky on one book but everything else seemed on point. Of the non prescreen books all the grades seemed correct as well and were around what I expected.
I have had no damage issues so far.
I did have one book I accidentally submitted as a second print on the submissions form when it was a first print and they did not catch that mistake so they graded it and said it was a second print.
So…you disagree with the grade that was assigned by an independent company. You then return the slabs to the seller who now has to refund you. So they are out money.
You then send in copies of books that you deem 9.6…but hoping to get a 9.8…and then sell those for “maximum” dollars.
I am wondering how you would react if the buyers of those slabs wanted to return them to you because they don’t agree with the 9.8 grade.
I predominantly collect Gold/Silver/Bronze Age, and CGC is stricter and more consistent than CBCS. On the modern front, I send in books without pressing or pre-screens that I think are 9.8 and they come back as such. I prefer buying slabbed GA and SA keys unless I can see them in hand or know it is an OO collection since there are so many people working on their books now.
Not for older books. CBCS is terribly inconsistent and overgrades badly. There are a lot of the CPR crowd whining now that their CBCS graded books are getting hammered by CGC. If you press it flat, CBCS does not care about creases, and they have always been more lenient on stains and dust shadows. There is a reason that GA/SA/BA CBCS graded books sell for a healthy discount.
Back to High Republic 1, looks like the going rate for cover A and B is $15-$17 now on eBay, with Hans C hitting up to $25 now. From what I can gather from store owners, most just ordered like they would for any other new SW book since Disney/Marvel did not promote it heavily before FOC. I am curious to see how many stores do not have any shelf copies on Jan 6th.
The SW book that would likely thit the 2015 #1 numbers of 900,000+ copies will be a Mando series.
Exactly right. There’s a reason the market as a whole pays less for CBCS books.
I thought this thread was about the High Republic, not CBCS. In regards to the print run, the holidays and Covid economic issues as well as the stores being leery about ordering too much of a title, may cause stores to under order the Star Wars title. That is what we may be seeing with some of these ebay prices. People are concerned that their local shops won’t have enough on the shelf.
Discussions evolve, get side tracked a bit… it’s okay… it happens. I mentioned to another user where they claimed Star Wars #1 were selling from $10 to $15 and mentioned my CBCS 9.8 I couldn’t even sell for $39.99 for months… so thus the CBCS vs CGC discussion began, not on purpose… but due to what’s being brought up on sales, comparisons and print runs of books…
My store told me they’re receiving tons of calls, requests for the series, but most specifically the Hans cover (after foc, recently requests). While they did go heavy on the book…they already feel they didn’t go nearly heavy enough.
Yeah, that definitely hurt orders as well. In fairness to Marvel, they needed to focus their higher ratio variants on Eternals 1 since the orders on that were not good from what I am hearing from store owners.
Sorry for taking us down that rabbit hole.
Its a self fulfilling prophecy, now that prices are higher the odds of finding them for $3.99 on the shelf are dwindling.
If you think it’s gonna be bad now, just wait till marvel announces due to printer issues THR will be allocated at 80%. Then the fun begins.
Perhaps, just perhaps, they might start to STOP with 5 million covers. They could produce just as many copies with an actual plan with decent covers, like the ones you find normally on trade variants that are usually stellar. Imagine if Marvel managed to come up with awesome covers with awesome stories inside; they wouldn’t have the time management into gimmicks to have to waste operational dollars on.
Allocation talk is pump and dump language, imo.
That’s an IDW tactic out of their marketing playbook… they were expecting a whole lot more books from Ronin so in order to create more demand… they mentioned “allocation” and the comic nerds had a nerdgasm and just had to own a copy… 
TMNT Last Ronin Cover A 1st print LOW PRINT RUN HTF VERY RARE
Those three terms are very subjective, and relative. What defines ‘low print’ to you? What defines ‘very rare’? And what defines ‘hard to find’?.. because as it stands now, there are aporox 98 active listings for The Last Ronin #1 1st print cover A, on eBay. And there are over 500 completed sales. Neither of those ebay listing numbers would fall under ‘low print’, ‘rare’ or ‘htf’, imo.