WTF!?!?!?!?!? WIZARD & CGC RUINING THE HOBBY!

[ryostar]

FIRST THING'S FIRST
Introducing the WIZARD FIRST PROGRAM



Big changes are coming to the world of CGC. Wizard Entertainment and CGC have teamed up to start a new program, along with a new grading system, designed to give collectors first crack at obtaining high quality books.

The “Wizard First Program,” kicking off this spring, is going to make high-grade comics much more accessible. Comics will be taken directly from the printer to CGC headquarters. There they will be graded, slapped with a special label and sent to Wizard. They will then be sold exclusively through www.wizarduniverse.com.

The new grading system marks the biggest change. Comics selected will be subject to a half-point grading scale. 9.2, 9.4, 9.6 and 9.8 ratings have been eliminated. The top books will still be 10.0, but the next grade will be 9.5.

“We’re very excited to team up with Wizard on this,” said Steve Borock, Vice President and Primary Grader at CGC. “Getting books straight from the printer reduces the number of hands they have to pass through.”

Currently, the only company on board is Marvel, but you never know who else might get on the bandwagon once things take off.

For more market and pricing information as well as an update on the Wizard First program, check out Wizard 152 - on sale tomorrow!


--RYAN PENAGOS

[x-omatic]

this is old news. Most of us are thinking it is a joke as it was in the April Fools issue. However wizard also posted this on their website.

[greg]

The most important point to remember is...

They are only "Wizard First CGC grading" books being printed TODAY.

Nothing will change for any comic book from 1900 to 2003.

Surely no one on these boards is buying CGC graded books from 2004...
So... it shouldn't be a problem, right?

[comicguy]

This is just plain nuts. Talk about a conflict of interest.

A priceguide selling comics

[COMICKINGS]

yeah,but what about the guy that is trying to pull a high grade comic off of a shelf from this weeks books? Looks like the copies are getting cherry picked before they leave the printers.

[whetteon]

I think its safe to say were heading for another comic slump. CGC has just polluted itself way to much recently and the prices are just down right silly. I speculate that 2004 is the year of the great market crash for comics.

[Vault-Keeper]

It started before 2004. I've seen some CGC's go higher than Overstreet, & others barely more than the cost of grading them. If Overstreet & Wizard don't try to put validity & integrity into their guides, I give it a couple of more years before the hobby is hurt.---Steve G

[DawgPhan]

I am still not sure if the wizard first program is for real or if it was just an april fool's joke...however I couldn't care less about a comic book crash...since I really don't buy new comics and those seem to be the ones that are most likely to be inolved in the "great crash". Who really cares if Ultimate Spider-man #1 is not worth $200 anymore...I do not...I also think that this and any other crash is driven by the greed and trechery that is a common trait comic book collectors...This is a hobby that is built on screwing people...how could anyone to expect that it would last....Not to say that everyone who collects comics is a bad person just that those are characteristics that most collectors have...I think that valiant collectors are slightly different since we collect something that is generally worthless to everyone else...I would bet that if this was a Fantastic Four or Spider-man board that we would not be so friendly...look at the CPG boards or the CGC boards....those boards have a vastly different tone than this board does....JMHO....could be wrong...

[whetteon]

I am still not sure if the wizard first program is for real or if it was just an april fool's joke...however I couldn't care less about a comic book crash...since I really don't buy new comics and those seem to be the ones that are most likely to be inolved in the "great crash". Who really cares if Ultimate Spider-man #1 is not worth $200 anymore...I do not...I also think that this and any other crash is driven by the greed and trechery that is a common trait comic book collectors...This is a hobby that is built on screwing people...how could anyone to expect that it would last....Not to say that everyone who collects comics is a bad person just that those are characteristics that most collectors have...I think that valiant collectors are slightly different since we collect something that is generally worthless to everyone else...I would bet that if this was a Fantastic Four or Spider-man board that we would not be so friendly...look at the CPG boards or the CGC boards....those boards have a vastly different tone than this board does....JMHO....could be wrong...

This is all true. However, no collector cannot deny the fuzzy feeling they get when knowing they could sell their collection for $2,000 on eBay in a tight pinch. Or the frustration it brings when you paid $10 for something that you could of bought for 50 cents the next month.

[ZephyrWasHOT!!]

This is just plain nuts. Talk about a conflict of interest.

A priceguide selling comics

Wizard's been doing it for years. A couple years ago, Wizard 'broke open the vaults (smirk)' and sold a lot of 9.6-9.8 key late 80's books (Wolvie #1, #10, Spidey #298, etc) that they'd had cherry picked and stored since the very early 90's...offered 'em straight the Wizard.

Conflict of interest? You bet. But nothing's going to change until people stop buying Wizard, and is that likely to happen soon....?

Someone give me $500,000 capital, and I WILL, in one year, put out a price guide that rivals the OPG in quality, value, and, most importantly, will soundly BEAT it in terms of fair market value.

Just takes a lot of work.

[tanord]

This is really a concern for the industry. Does any of you think that overstreet might come out one day with their own deal of selling their own brand of graded comics in the near future? I hope not. There was a price guide editor who ventured in these forums not too long ago. I'll bet if he's still around he's probably reading our thoughts of what we feel about this deal. Not that it matters to him though. This is not about putting out a price guide and reporting the market. This is soley about using their own "price guide" to sell their own comics.

[x-omatic]

Looks like it is not a joke.

http://www.wizarduniverse.com/magazines ... -first.cfm

Want to buy the new Daredevil 10.00? $149.95
http://store.yahoo.com/wizarduniverse/w ... h1c10.html

How about in 9.5? $49.95
http://store.yahoo.com/wizarduniverse/w ... h1c95.html

[Valiant21]

The thing I find interesting about this is that Colossus Comics has been selling subscriptions of titles or individual CGC graded books through the Internet for more than a year now. And their books are guaranteed to grade 9.8 and the price is $39.99!! 10 bucks less than Wizard's 9.5! And if you buy a year's worth of a title, it's only $33/book at 9.8. The only difference is they send the books to CGC (under an agreement they have),
CGC grades the books and Colussus sends the customer one that has been graded a 9.8. There is of course a delay in getting your book - Wizards would probably get to you faster since the books go to CGC direct from the printer. but the cost is $10 - 17 more and the book is only a 9.5. I think Wizard saw the business that Colussus was doing and thought, we can give our books a serial number and sell it for more. Whatever - - a 9.8 is still better than a 9.5 whether Wizard is stamped on the front or not. Why would anyone buy a 9.5 book for more money from the same grading company? It's greedy BS. By the way, I think Colussus's comics price includes shipping & insurance!