Turnaround Time, Results, and Takeaways

As mentioned in previous posts, I’ve collected comics since I was a child in the mid-1970’s. I’m currently in the process of consolidating my collection, and adding some key issues to it. As part of that process, I have begun submitting some issues to be graded and slabbed by CGC. While I own several CGC graded comics obtained from other sources, I recently received back the first bunch that I submitted directly.

In this post, I’ll present the timeline for this submission, the results, and some takeaways.

Issue Selection– Joining CGC as a Premium Member, I sought to maximize the $150 credit with this first submission. Therefore, I chose to submit a group of Modern Era books, with publication years ranging from 1975 to 1990, which I thought might grade out with good results. All of these issues came from my personal collection, including some bought when I was 7 years old, and were sent “as is” – without the benefit of cleaning or pressing.

I considered getting some of CGC’s custom Marvel labels on certain books, but when I realized that would result in separate invoices and separate shipping costs, I chose to go with the standard labels. I used US Postal shipping each way, and did not fast track anything via CGC.

Timeline – The following table shows the turnaround time that I experienced with this submission.

Step Date Shipped to CGC via USPS Priority Flat Rate 5/14/19 USPS Delivered to CGC 5/16/19 Marked as received by CGC 5/22/19 Scheduled for Grading 5/22/19 Billed 5/23/19 Grading/Quality Control 6/11/19 Finalized/Imaged/Shipped 6/13/19 Received 6/17/19





The Results– Following, find a pic of each of the issues graded and slabbed through this invoice.

Takeaways – My first lesson learned from this batch is that going forward, every submission will be pressed before grading, either through CCS or an independent provider of such service.

While the grades are generally OK, I’m certain that a few would have graded out higher with the benefit of pressing. Since I’ve owned some of these books since I was in elementary school, I wasn’t expecting perfect scores, but hoped that a couple purchased when college aged would have scored 9.8.

I’m likely to resubmit a few at some point – – with a pressing first. In fact, the first to be cracked open would have been Avengers 196 in order to get George Perez’ signature at Terrificon. However, that plan changed with the announcement that he would not be appearing at that show (Best wishes in your retirement Mr. Perez – thanks for everything!!!). A few others might be candidates for Signature Series consideration given the right circumstances. Otherwise, I’ll likely sit on these for a bit, while I use these lessons learned in submitting some other stuff from my collection.

Check back again for reports on subsequent CGC submissions, as well as any updates on the issues which were included in this post,