It is well known that the condition and grading of a comic book have a lot to do with the monetary value placed on it. With collectors looking to preserve as much as possible such issues for possible future sales or to add value to their collection, interest in officially grading them has been growing in recent years.
This is where the CGC, or the Certified Guaranty Company, comes in. Founded in 2000 and headquartered in Sarasota, Florida, the CGC is an independent member of the Collectibles Group of companies and is the first independent and unbiased third-party grading service for comics.
Currently, and due to its incredible trajectory, the CGC is considered a reference in terms of collectibles grading. So much so that providing them with a comic for their certification and grading increases, sometimes significantly, the value of the comic itself.
However, this is not always the case, often due to errors on the part of the collector. So, without further ado, here are the most common mistakes made by the collector when submitting a comic to the CGC:
Do not consider the pre- and post-certification value with CGC. This is one of the most common mistakes that new, and not-so-new, comic book collectors learn the most from. You might think that sending an issue to CGC will give it an extremely high value, but this is not always the case. For a comic to significantly increase in value with CGC grading, it must be worth something beforehand.
It will be enough to check eBay or other websites related to the price of comics to have an approximate value. In this way it will be possible to know if it will be worth the CGC certification or not, considering also its costs. Now, if you want to grade an issue because it has an emotional value, that is another more personal matter.
Do not inspect the item and give it a personal grading before submitting it. Most of the time, the grading we receive from CGC does not correspond to what we believe the comic has. This is due to the fact that the issues are not checked before sending them for certification. This way, we do not see folds, marks, scratches, and other details that could be fixed before submitting, saving a few points less in the grading. Sometimes a simple pressing before submitting it can significantly raise its value.
Make a submission of several items with various presentations and/or grading formats. Since CGC values not only comics, but also other collectibles, this company has its own grading criteria. And if you send a shipment with several issues, which belong to different grading categories by format, you will most likely pay more, since the costs, due to the different grading processes, are not divided but multiplied.
The signature is not authenticated or recognized. Another classic mistake is to have a comic book autographed, either by the cartoonist, creator of the character, actor portraying the character, etc., and send it to the CGC for certification with the idea of receiving a graded copy that includes the signature as a reference. However, in order for the GCC to recognize the signature, a member of the company must be present at the time of signing, otherwise, the GCC will be obliged not to recognize the signature and not consider it for grading.