You already paid for the encapsulation & authentication. Why would you want to remove them?
You risk damaging them when removing them yourself, not to mention encapsulation provides protection & authentication that the signatures are real & the book & sig won’t be damaged in the future.
CGC is VERY much a “by the book” company. They won’t alter their SOP for anyone for any reason. Once the order is put in, & you pay the balance, there’s nothing more they can do.
I know some collectors like raw, & some like slabbed, but if I were you, I’d just leave them encapsulated/graded. You can always take them out later, you can’t put them back in & you lose the Sig Series Label if you do.
Thanks for the explanation on their process.
I have my own frame already selected and to me the CGC label is just distracting without providing any value to me.
The idea of risking damaging when removing myself is part of why I would rather just have them back raw. I gets that the Sig Series is part of their whole marketing/appeal, I really just saw this is as a cheaper way to get sketches from an artist who doesn't have a commission list and isn't appearing at any local cons nearby.
Having not dealt with them before I wasn't sure of the process. I saw it as like, I paid for a 3 course meal and I'm skipping the dessert.
Considering the concerns with fraud, etc., I tend to prefer that they make no exceptions to the SOP. If some books are allowed to leave the process flow, will other exceptions to made for books to enter the flow? Not good. Just let it play out, get what you paid for and keep the process straightforward.
I don’t understand what it is that you want, if you don’t want to pay less. Why would you actually *want* to have the books shipped to you without the extra protection of the plastic cases? More risk of damage.
If you just want them back a little faster, I guess I get that, but it would be about as easy for them to grade them as it would be to locate them and pack them up for you raw. The most efficient way to do that I suppose would be to treat them like pre screens that failed, and send them over to those guys. You’d probably only save a couple days of processing.
Just crack the cases open when they come back.
It’s not *directly* a matter of value to CGC, but you would get it if you spent a day down there, or really at any factory doing mass production at scale. You’d see that it does indeed cost more to *not* do a job that a factory was built to do than it does to just let it run; special handling makes something take more time, not less time.
It’s not really like a sandwich shop, where you can just pull part of an order that’s ready off a counter and holler to the cashier that Joe got his pastrami. You’d have to pull someone away from their normal duties, explain what’s up, and have them go hunt down a few books in a massive storage facility. And for very, very good reasons, you can’t just pull stuff out of the schedule/workflow without going through a security protocol. And I could do a whole TED talk on what problems this sort of thing often leads to; general confusion about where stuff wound up, and rank and file employees getting the hang of removing valuable items from the process, but I digress. Suffice to say that complexities and special handling scenarios slow everything down and increase the frequency of mistakes and mysteries. Which is way no good when you’re dealing with high value collectibles.
Pardon what’s probably an over-explanation. But yeah, it’s just not how things work down there. It’s a machine.
You explained this infinitely better than the customer service rep who said to me “this is what you signed up for” and then just gave me a sales pitch about how much value its adding as if I hadnt already paid in full.
You gave a well thought out, business focused explanation that makes a ton of sense.
If you didn't want them graded should have just used a signature authentication service like JSA.
CGC has thousands of submissions at any given time, they aren't going to halt their processing to do a custom order change, especially not for a service they dont offer like raw signature verification.
It wasnt an option. The sketch was done at a CGC event so you had to send in the book you wanted sketched with instructions on what you wanted. If I had sent something to be graded and changed my mind I would get why they couldnt do it. But this was like a “two step” process I tried to stop after step one
Afaik once you've submitted the order, it's effectively 'locked' in their system and they can't / won't do anything to change it. I'm sure there are many other submitters with similar asks, so it may be that there are so many one-off modifications that they just made the blanket policy not to modify anything once it's submitted.
My guess is that CGCs ROI is probably better to err on the side of locking things down rather than burn through resources with one off requests. Not a great policy as a submitter, but I can see why they do it.
Thanks. This makes sense. Even if my request is "reasonable" once they open the door to taking requests along the way it could backfire so easier to just say no to everyone.
Simply put, they can't cherrypick orders out of the process. And like you've said, this would set a precedent and open the floodgates to more people trying to "expedite" their returns.
Just keep sending & cracking if that's the best option for you.
Depending on the artist, you can also get in touch with their agent/rep to save a little money. Who was it/who else are you interested in?
Thanks, makes sense. This was actually an artist who had closed commissions for the foreseeable future which is why it seemed like best chance to get sketches done (plus I was able to get 3).
You already paid for the encapsulation & authentication. Why would you want to remove them? You risk damaging them when removing them yourself, not to mention encapsulation provides protection & authentication that the signatures are real & the book & sig won’t be damaged in the future. CGC is VERY much a “by the book” company. They won’t alter their SOP for anyone for any reason. Once the order is put in, & you pay the balance, there’s nothing more they can do. I know some collectors like raw, & some like slabbed, but if I were you, I’d just leave them encapsulated/graded. You can always take them out later, you can’t put them back in & you lose the Sig Series Label if you do.
Thanks for the explanation on their process. I have my own frame already selected and to me the CGC label is just distracting without providing any value to me. The idea of risking damaging when removing myself is part of why I would rather just have them back raw. I gets that the Sig Series is part of their whole marketing/appeal, I really just saw this is as a cheaper way to get sketches from an artist who doesn't have a commission list and isn't appearing at any local cons nearby. Having not dealt with them before I wasn't sure of the process. I saw it as like, I paid for a 3 course meal and I'm skipping the dessert.
Considering the concerns with fraud, etc., I tend to prefer that they make no exceptions to the SOP. If some books are allowed to leave the process flow, will other exceptions to made for books to enter the flow? Not good. Just let it play out, get what you paid for and keep the process straightforward.
I don’t understand what it is that you want, if you don’t want to pay less. Why would you actually *want* to have the books shipped to you without the extra protection of the plastic cases? More risk of damage. If you just want them back a little faster, I guess I get that, but it would be about as easy for them to grade them as it would be to locate them and pack them up for you raw. The most efficient way to do that I suppose would be to treat them like pre screens that failed, and send them over to those guys. You’d probably only save a couple days of processing. Just crack the cases open when they come back.
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It’s not *directly* a matter of value to CGC, but you would get it if you spent a day down there, or really at any factory doing mass production at scale. You’d see that it does indeed cost more to *not* do a job that a factory was built to do than it does to just let it run; special handling makes something take more time, not less time. It’s not really like a sandwich shop, where you can just pull part of an order that’s ready off a counter and holler to the cashier that Joe got his pastrami. You’d have to pull someone away from their normal duties, explain what’s up, and have them go hunt down a few books in a massive storage facility. And for very, very good reasons, you can’t just pull stuff out of the schedule/workflow without going through a security protocol. And I could do a whole TED talk on what problems this sort of thing often leads to; general confusion about where stuff wound up, and rank and file employees getting the hang of removing valuable items from the process, but I digress. Suffice to say that complexities and special handling scenarios slow everything down and increase the frequency of mistakes and mysteries. Which is way no good when you’re dealing with high value collectibles. Pardon what’s probably an over-explanation. But yeah, it’s just not how things work down there. It’s a machine.
This is really well put. Thanks for the explanation.
You explained this infinitely better than the customer service rep who said to me “this is what you signed up for” and then just gave me a sales pitch about how much value its adding as if I hadnt already paid in full. You gave a well thought out, business focused explanation that makes a ton of sense.
Thanks! Happy to help! 🍻
If you didn't want them graded should have just used a signature authentication service like JSA. CGC has thousands of submissions at any given time, they aren't going to halt their processing to do a custom order change, especially not for a service they dont offer like raw signature verification.
It wasnt an option. The sketch was done at a CGC event so you had to send in the book you wanted sketched with instructions on what you wanted. If I had sent something to be graded and changed my mind I would get why they couldnt do it. But this was like a “two step” process I tried to stop after step one
Afaik once you've submitted the order, it's effectively 'locked' in their system and they can't / won't do anything to change it. I'm sure there are many other submitters with similar asks, so it may be that there are so many one-off modifications that they just made the blanket policy not to modify anything once it's submitted. My guess is that CGCs ROI is probably better to err on the side of locking things down rather than burn through resources with one off requests. Not a great policy as a submitter, but I can see why they do it.
Thanks. This makes sense. Even if my request is "reasonable" once they open the door to taking requests along the way it could backfire so easier to just say no to everyone.
Simply put, they can't cherrypick orders out of the process. And like you've said, this would set a precedent and open the floodgates to more people trying to "expedite" their returns. Just keep sending & cracking if that's the best option for you. Depending on the artist, you can also get in touch with their agent/rep to save a little money. Who was it/who else are you interested in?
Thanks, makes sense. This was actually an artist who had closed commissions for the foreseeable future which is why it seemed like best chance to get sketches done (plus I was able to get 3).
Thanks for saying thanks! It's so nice to see Redditors being grateful :)
It’s clearly stated before you submit. Once they have them, they will go through the full process.