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

[bminor]

Some of us love to read them.
Some of us love to invest in them.
Some want to make big bucks off of them.
Some of us think that "slabbing" has ruined our hobby (read "obsession")!

I have read that their are some controversies concerning the CGC and PGX. In particular concerning books that have been sent in to be graded, when returned to the original owner, are not the same book that has been sent in!!!

Does anyone out their in DCM land have any stories concerning these issues?

I look on my collection as something to read, that (a few books at least) may be worth some money.

Any thoughts?

[Yoc]

I'd never heard about switched books before B.
I have heard about the odd book being Damaged by them though and they offer no insurance against it!

[Geo (RIP)]

I too haven't heard anything about "switching" books.

But I've read lots about 'slabbing' and most has not been positive on the subject. Some dealers don't like them as they think it actually lowers the value of the book in the process by damaging the book. They are 'over valued' has been stated by most dealers. One dealer stated he would not sell a slabbed book and when he got/received one, would actually remove the slabbed book to 'free' it.
I, myself would not buy or have a book slabbed, I agree with you, they are for reading, (touching), not just to look at like a painting, (see but not touch behind a roped or glassed area).

This whole thing seemed to come out of/from the sports card thing of "slabbing" sports cards.
 
Geo

[narfstar]

I have no problem with someone slabbing a f to mint GA book and think it is a good idea. A book in that condition has not been handled in over 60 years so why handle it now. Those books a re meant to be set aside like gold as an investment and collectible. The practice of slabbing lower grade books does not make sense at all. The companies that sell brand new books slabbed deserve to make money, if they are, from people stupid enough to pay for those books. They will never get the cost of the slabbing back.

[John C]

The problem (thanks to Geo's card analogy) is that, unlike a card, a slab can't show you the overwhelming majority of your property.  Unless you really, really love the cover, you basically own a box with a picture of a (presumably) famous comic on it.

Plus...I haven't seen a slab up close, so I'm going out on a limb here, but I'd guess that they're not exactly "archive quality."  For a sixty-year old comic to continue to be in mint condition, you basically need to keep it from oxygen, moisture, anything that might contain any acidic traces, and...oh, a whole bunch of things your local librarian will be happy to lecture you on if you ask sincerely.

They do claim it has been "tested for archival quality," but I don't actually know what that means (the engineer in me points out that testing doesn't suggest success, and a grading company should know enough to tell us who conducted the tests), and doesn't sound like something that costs in the neighborhood of a hundred bucks or weigh three quarters of a pound.  Their FAQ points out that they're easy to open, too, which definitely doesn't suggest much security.

Of course, that's not their business, so I wouldn't expect it.  Their business is in securing transactions:  If you want to buy a book and can't inspect it, you have presumably-impartial third-party eyes on it.  And the slab itself guarantees that it's the same comic that was inspected...well, except that the slabs are easy for greasy fingers to pop open and re-close (again, according to the FAQ), which...I don't know where that puts the value.

If you're not trying to make that kind of sale, though, I don't see the value, and there are far more effective ways of preserving the paper that, again, your local librarian can probably either explain or point you to a professional archivist who can.

[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.