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COMIC BOOK COLLECTING, the influence of the CGC and PGX (slabbing) on collecting

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JVJ (RIP):
The theory is, John,
that you can't open the slab without breaking the seal and, if the seal is broken, the CGC grade is no longer guaranteed. As you say, it's primarily to assure a prospective buyer that the comic is in the condition stated - although I've heard lots of stories about how greatly those "objective grades" can vary. Still, they are supposed to represent the disinterested and objective third party in the transaction.

I wouldn't sell a book without getting it slabbed, no matter how much I disagree with the practice and the philosophy. There's simply too much money at stake in big ticket items. By increasing the prices they are willing to pay for slabbed items, it's the BUYERS who are driving this. My reaction is to give the buyers what they want. And, no matter what dealer's say, any big ticket item they move is more likely to be slabbed than not.

The notion of a comic book as cover seems to stem from around the time of the Ernst Gerber Photo Journal Guides, wherein covers from most comic books were reprinted. Couple those with Price Guide cover reproductions, GCD cover scans, and bagged-and-boarded comics on display at conventions and, pretty soon, the cover IS the comic.

Most paper collectors nowadays are very content with that concept. My personal opinion is that they are missing the real fun of comic books and that they suffer from some sort of myopic brain damage, but then I'm a old fart who bought the vast majority of his comics in three foot high stacks, assembled by carefully perusing thousands of unbagged books at early comic stores in the 1960s and early '70s.

You might say I was imprinted on unbagged comics.

I agree wholeheartedly that slabs are NOT the best way to preserve a comic. I believe that they only promise not to do any harm themselves, not that they will protect the comic from deterioration or aging. They are archivally "inert", I seem to recall someone saying.

So, if these high-grade books are going to remain in the condition stated on the slab, they probably should be removed and placed in a more archivally positive environment and then re-slabbed when offered again for sale - or else store the slabs somewhere safer. Since I don't own a single slabbed book, it's very easy for me to say this - though I have sold two books out of my collection that were slabbed by the auction houses before being offered. I happily paid the fee and more than offset that cost with the increase in the selling price that I realized.

And there will always be "horror stories" about any "agent" in a high-cost transaction and some tiny percentage of them will be true. Life is a risk, folks.

Peace, Jim (|:{>

John C:
I mostly agree with you across the board, Jim...and didn't understand the seal aspect, even though I should've guessed it.

I think of CGC as the mechanic you bring a used car to before buying it, except that the customer is demanding that the seller handle the details.  They're not odious, but they're also not useful unless you're planning a sizable transaction at a distance.

And if the grades do vary, I assume they vary no less than they would by going to different comic shops.

They're of no use to me, since I don't own anything worth the energy and time to sell and don't really care about the condition of books I buy when I do buy them, but yeah, for people who do, it should be a reasonable investment.

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