movieguru

If you are wanting to save on shipping all the books have to be shipped back to you at the same time. If some are pressed and some are not or if you are using different tiers of grading, they may break the shipping into multiple packages. If I recall pressing was around $15 per book for most books that aren't extremely expensive like Amazing Fantasy #15 or Hulk #181. Shipping just 2 books would likely be over $30 if shipped seperately, so you may as well press those too so they could be shipped together at the same time. There is a chart somewhere on the CGC website that has a chart for the shipping options. They ship everything certified and registered which makes it cost more. The higher value you claim the books are worth, the more expensive the shipping is because they'll insure it for the value you claim. Judging from what they charge, they are marking up the shipping costs by maybe 30-50% and are making a profit from that as well.

movieguru

I think they also have a prescreening option for pressing for maybe about $5 where they'll decide if pressing will be worthwhile or not. If they decide it's worthwhile they will apply the cost of the prescreening fee toward the cost of the pressing.

Bronkster

I did, but only the one book. I was going to have another slabbed only, but couldn't figure out how to submit one with pressing and one without without doubling the return shipping. I found CGC's submission forms to be non-user friendly for stuff like that.

Movieguru - my one pressing cost $60! I don't know if the rates went up, or if it was based on my estimated value. But for that price, I don't plan on having anything else pressed.

TimeandTide

A 9.8 Spider-Man #300? Nice!

And thank you for the education on pressing. I did note that $5 pre-screening charge. Will look into that too as I'm not entirely sure a handful of them would. even benefit.

That's great advice about shipping in bulk. I only have about a dozen or so total that I'm considering getting graded, so may as well send the entire batch.

TimeandTide

Agreed that's it's not user friendly. Going to spend some time this weekend navigating the cite and deciding which books to send for pressing and/or grading.

$60? Wow. What is the value of the book, according to CGC?

Bronkster

I sent it in with an estimate value of $750.

TimeandTide

Just realized we're practically neighbors. I'm in Irvine.

movieguru

I had a New Mutants #98 that I sold about 5 years ago for $500. When I listed it, I said it should grade a 9.6 with the potential for a 9.8. I considered having it graded myself, but I didn't have the time and I needed the money for a Stan Lee signing. I figured I was taking a gamble that it would not grade a 9.8 and I would get more a little more for it than a 9.6 should get. The buyer was gambling that it would grade a 9.8 and he would get the book for less than it was worth The guy that bought it from me said he was going to have it graded. I asked him to let me know what it ended up being graded at. He emailed me a month later and it graded a 9.8. A lot of the time it's really a crapshoot within a 0.2 of what you are going to get and if CGC graded the exact same book over and over again without knowing it, you would not get the same grade every time.

TimeandTide

You have/had some fantastic books in your collection.

Been enjoying the CGC forums these past few days so between the comments here, and there, I'm extra-enthused about sending a 5-10 batch of books out to get pressed and/or graded. I'm also getting back into collecting -- starting with completing my run of G.I. Joes, my run of Paul Smith X-Men, and -- my ultimate goal -- a complete run of Daredevil from #1 through the Frank Miller/Klaus Jansen books. Haven't been this excited about comics in about 25 years. Thanks, guys!

PhantomStranger

This thread has even me contemplating sending key issues to CGC for grading. I've never had one comic in my collection graded but own almost all of the major issues from the 80s and 90s that go for serious money in flawless condition.

I do expect the value of key issues to outpace inflation over the next decade. Superhero movies being incredibly popular has now run over a decade with no signs of slowing down, driving significant issues like the first appearance of Deadpool. They've already lasted longer than the Western's great run in the 1950s.

TimeandTide

I you haven't yet, check out the CGC forums. The TMNT #1 thread is especially fascinating because it tracks lifetime sales of graded editions of TMNT, revealing that there will always be demand for certain key issues. Between that board and this one, I'm as into comics as I've ever been.

Red Hood

Yeah. Those issues are the ones I call historical ones. For example, Incredible Hulk 181, Amazing Spider-Man 300, New Mutants 98, Action Comics 1, Detective Comics 27, Amazing Fantasy 15, Fantastic Four 48, TMNT 1, Walking Dead 1, Marvel Spotlight 5, to say a few, are issues that have transcended from being a temporary hot ticket item to becoming historical issue. By this I mean that these issues have several factors going for them:

- First appearance of a popular character
- Scarcity
- Popular character is known mainstream
- Value of the book has increased steadily in the past 20 years
- Character will most likely have several generations of followers (baby boomers, gen x, milennials)
- Classic cover
- Done by iconic artist and/or writer

The book doesn't need to have all the above qualities but at least 5 out of 7. For example, Amazing Spider-Man 300, Hulk 181 and New Mutants 98 have high print runs but have all the other characteristics I mentioned. There are books that have fleeting popularity like the first appearance of Cable in New Mutants 87, the first appearance of Gambit in Uncanny X-Men 266, the first appearance of Doomsday in Superman: Man of Steel 18 as they are modern books, characters have a cult following but not a mainstream one and they are highly printed.

Trevor

I’ll burn a book before I put it in a slab. Any book in better than VG is a crime against nature.

Bronkster

You are a sick, sick man.

PhantomStranger

I practically get ill reading a less than mint comic book. Even as a child, I had to always get books off the rack in absolute mint condition or I would pass.

Josh-da-man

movieguru

I'm not quite sure The Walking Dead #1 is past the hot ticket phase yet. I think that one is too soon to tell. It depends on how sucessful AMC is with their ability to expand and keep the franchise going.. If the shows die out in the next few years, the price will drop.

TimeandTide

Kicking myself for unloading Iron Fist #14 for about $20 25 or so years ago. I had bought it for a quarter from a long box about a decade prior and was feeling really good about myself for the $20 sale And for some reason I bought, and held onto all these years, ASM #298, 299, and #301-305, but never picked up #300.

Curious as to how much the next wave of MCU movies will affect the value of "new" properties like X-Men, FF, Shang-Chi, and The Eternals. There's been an uptick in Captain Marvel prices, so wondering if it's time to gobble up issues of Master of Kung Fu.

Red Hood

Walking Dead #1 is similar to TMNT #1 in that the first printing has less than 5000 copies worldwide. That's insanely low. I put only that issue from that run on the historical side due to the fact of it's rarity and the cultural and historical impact that this issue had in growing the zombie craze of the past decade. That single issue started a billion dollar franchise. Other issues from that run will fall under the hot ticket as they are key issues for having first appearances of important characters of the series, but once the show dies, those issues will drop in price.

You are late to the game with those properties. X-Men and FF have been valuable for a while, but when the merger process began, the price of key issues skyrocketed to insane points. The one that has skyrocketed the most has been FF 48. VG copies are going for almost $1000. As for Shang-Chi and Eternals, those books have been going in price for a while. The first appearance of Shang-Chi in Special Marvel Edition #15 already commands over $500 and the Eternals, which were $1 books at most, are now selling for more, especially the variant version of issue #1, which has a $0.30 price instead of $0.25. I bought a 30 cent graded 9.6 copy like 7 years ago for $10 including shipping and that book is now fetching over $250. Still, I place Eternals on the hot ticket item, not historical yet.

whotony

Has anyone looked at cgc recently?
Went over there the other day to look into sending a stack of books in and I’m seeing that turn around for pressing and grading is running at more then 12 months.

Grading alone is hitting 7+ months for anyone who doesn’t fast track and FT is only a couple of months quicker.

There are dozens and dozens of threads on their board complaining about the long turn around times.

Even CFP the place that only presses and is highly thought of just started working on books received in June of 2021.

Hvent checked in on CBCS yet but I imagine they aren’t much better.

I haven’t necessarily slabbed some of my books for value but more for protection.

Really can’t see how anyone wants to wait over a year to get a book pressed and sealed.

whotony

Well here are the TaTs for cbcs wow.

PhantomStranger

I wonder if they are purposely limiting the turnaround on books. The only reason people are getting their books slabbed are for investment purposes, hopefully turning a $100 book into a $1000 book or whatever. Fewer circulating CGC books, the higher the demand for existing CGC books. CGC does not want to flood the market with thousands of graded copies, it would devalue their service in the long run.

whotony

Both cgi and cbcs have recently raised prices.
Looks to me like these places are pricing out the regular or the little guy.
The only way to get a book back in a reasonable time frame is to do a walkthrough or express at cgc.

I dont know how this continues without books piling up even more then they are.
Dealers and rich people are paying for express and WT while the regulars are sitting in there for 12+ months.

It’s not feasible.
I only do it to protect the books but after I clear out my current credit I thinks this is it for me.

I’ll have less then 40 books slabbed.

Trevor

I’m trying to completely organize and catalog my collection, but at the rate I’m going it’s a years long process.

For now, I think I’m just going to put my most valuable books in top loaders and wait out this surge.

I have always been morally opposed to slabbing, but as I age and realize that statistically my wife will have 16 years without me, I’m thinking I should slab all the books likely to fetch $200+ or so.

Red Hood

CGC not only raised the price for customers, but they also did it for dealers and now there's a new kicker: for the first time ever, dealers have to pay an annual membership with CGC. The membership was free up until December as long as CGC qualified you as a dealer (showing proof of business, state certificates, tax ID, among other things). The reason for the free membership was because of the large volume of books we brought to CGC. Now, they are charging $199 yearly to dealers for the same benefits we had for free. Blackstone is going to drive CGC to the ground, because not only are they pissing everyone with their new charges, but their timeframe for return has been ridiculously slow.

I have over 40K books in my collection, including over 2K slabs and the reason for this is insurance. With a graded book, not only you get an specific CGC/CBCS number that you can add to your insurance, but also the specific grade gives you a more accurate value for the book in case of fire, theft, accident, natural disaster, etc. I have books that are worth between 5 and 6 digits, so it's extremely important that I have those in CGC/CBCS slabs. If I die, my wife can go ahead and get an accurate value for my collection. If something happens to my collection, I can get an accurate price for insurance purposes. Any book in my collection worth over $100 is going to get graded. I'm participating in CGC signature events and other things to get these books at their most valuable.

And yes, I read my books, I'm not a speculator, but to me, my collection is an investment in time and money and I now because of the books I have, it's worth pretty good money. There's no reason for me to read my first appearance of Thanos (Iron Man #55) which is in 8.5 CGC, when I can read the same issue on a reprint or trade or digitally. That book fetches over $1K in that condition, so I'll protect it.