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Pro or Anti Slabbing? Your thoughts on Certified Guaranty Company (CGC)
bralinator
Posts: 5,967
Interesting article below which got me thinking. Are CGS geeks for or against slabbing comics?
I suppose your response depends on whether comic collecting is a hobby, a passion, or a career to you. Frankly, I think comics were meant to be read. Adding a $20+ fee to a book just for the process and then ensuring it will never be read is a bit distasteful to me.
Derf launches ‘one-man crusade’ against CGC grading, slabbing
Derf, who has been reading comics since the mid-1970s, covers the growth of the secondhand comics market and the rise of collectability through the Overstreet Price Guide and now through CGC. Because of this severe leaning toward collectability limiting the readability of comics, the cartoonist has started what he calls a “one-man crusade against slabbing” by buying CGC books and “then free[ing] them from their plastic coffins.”
I suppose your response depends on whether comic collecting is a hobby, a passion, or a career to you. Frankly, I think comics were meant to be read. Adding a $20+ fee to a book just for the process and then ensuring it will never be read is a bit distasteful to me.
Derf launches ‘one-man crusade’ against CGC grading, slabbing
Derf, who has been reading comics since the mid-1970s, covers the growth of the secondhand comics market and the rise of collectability through the Overstreet Price Guide and now through CGC. Because of this severe leaning toward collectability limiting the readability of comics, the cartoonist has started what he calls a “one-man crusade against slabbing” by buying CGC books and “then free[ing] them from their plastic coffins.”
Comments
It's like putting it in a time capsule.
A time capsule wrapped in bearer's bonds.
Although I would probably scan every page into the computer first so I can even see the advertisements and letters pages if I were ever curious...
I still believe that comics should be bought and sold. If a book is rare or in high demand, it should list at a higher market value. But Slabbing takes the love out of the industry and turns it into a purely financial transaction. You might as well trade stocks.
Books can be unslabbed.
Like I said above, it's a time capsule.
Comics can be all of those things to the same person. I will buy tattered reader copies of FF issues so I can read them to my kids, but if you give me a FF #1 in superior condition I'll slab it in a minute.
Slabbing feels like a Gollum move to me. "Mine"!
If there were a comic slabbed away that was somehow not available to be read another way, the it would be different. But likely every comic that gets slabbed is still very available.
Personally, I will never slab a comic. (I don't even bag my comics unless they're Silver Age or earlier. Though for a while I was bagging a complete story arc in one bag to make it easier for me to reread them—I use the Silver Age or Golden Age bags for that.) And I will never buy a comic that has been slabbed unless I'm getting an extraordinary deal on it.
I talked about this on another thread a few months back. It's not that hard to learn how to grade a comic. Anyone who buys back issues on a regular basis (unless they're only buying from the dollar boxes) owes it to themselves to at least learn the basics. I realize that only really helps you when you’re buying at a shop or a convention. If you're buying online, you’re trusting the judgement of the seller. But if you're careful of who you buy from, you'll rarely run into problems.
As for the time capsule aspect, if you're displaying it on a shelf, yeah, slabbing might be a good option. Not the way I'd go, but it might work for others. But the comic is still going to age. It's still going to discolor over time. Slabbing isn't going to stop that.
But it all boils down to this: a comic is only worth what someone—anyone—will pay for it. And just because you pay $50 for a slabbed comic, it doesn’t mean the next guy will. Buy what you like; buy things you can enjoy. If you get pleasure out of a stack of slabbed comics, who am I to say you’re an idiot.
But then I see CGC'd copies of random Big Two comics from the last 5-10 years and I think "Who the heck could possibly care about that? It's a copy of some nondescript issue or a common Marvel series, which doesn't even sell for cover price as a back issue. And yet here's a 9.7 slabbed copy that someone's trying to sell for $40."
I've thought about slabbing some of my more valuable comics (I don't have anything in the $1000+ range, but I have over a dozen $100+ comics), but then I started looking into what it takes to get something CGC'd . . . and for me, right now, it isn't worth it.
If I had VF+ copies of Silver Age keys, or F+ copies of Golden Age comics, I might slab them and keep them on hand. But as it is, I don't really think that going through the process, spending the money and waiting, is really worth it. I feel like it'd only be worth it if I wanted to sell the comics and was sure that slabbing them would add enough to the price to make the CGC transaction worth it. As of right now, I'm nowhere near that head-space. Maybe if/when the Sandman movie comes out, I could POSSIBLY see myself getting my Sandman #1 slabbed so I could sell it on the peak of a speculator bubble. But as it is, I'd rather just have my good ol' sentimental copy of Sandman #1 bagged and boarded.
And as far as BUYING CGC comics would go, I'm just not interested in it at all. It's rare enough for me to go out of my way to spend $10 or more on a back issue. No way would I want to buy anything with the added CGC prices.
Me? If I had a comic worth more than $100, I'd slab it in a heartbeat, simply because if it is worth that much it's a collectable and not for "reading".
Also... don't get me wrong, if I stumbled across some juicy vintage books worth fat cash, I would probably look into getting them slabbed. But I don't collect for the "Big Money", so I have a hard time looking at the hobby from that point of view. I don't begrudge someone who is into that type of collecting, but I wish the practice had never originated in the first place.
I KEED, I KEED!
I see a slabbed comic as similar to a Babe Ruth-autographed baseball that is encased in glass. You do want to preserve history as much as possible.
Slabs aren't made of transparent adamantium.
I'm not saying Slabs "can't" be opened... just that most "won't".
But if someone wants what's inside, it's still there. And WILL still be there until it's wanted.
I think its crazy that we judge others for how they enjoy comics as a hobby. For me it's soley about content. Reprint, original, it doesn't matter. But if someone wanted to slab OMAC #1 from the New 52 launch, and doing so brings them some kind of enjoyment, let them. Plus if you are a collector with an interest in future value it doesn't hurt to have an appraisal.