Experience: My First CGC Submission

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10th of September, 2023: My First Submission

So I did it! I signed up picking the "Associate Tier" for my first CGC membership (costs: $25.00). 

overview of available tiers (10th of September, 2023)

After that I picked eleven comics, which I always wanted to get graded. All of the comics I selected were Modern comics (which means released after 1975), but for four of them I decided to also add the Pressing service. These decision are important and affect the final pricing.

services provided around grading by the CGC

So all together you can determine the (max.) pricing to grade a comic (if you don't have the Elite tier) from the following list (prices as of 10th of September, 2023):

  • $25 (after 1975, up to $400)
  • $37 (before 1975, up to $400)
  • $85 (high value up to $1,000)
  • 4% Fair Market Value (FMV), minimum $150 (any value)
or with pressing:
  • $40 (after 1975, up to $400)
  • $67 (before 1975, up to $400)
  • $155 (high value up to $1,000)
  • 8% FMV, minimum $300 (any value)

I did not try any other combined services (i.e., Restoration or Restoration Removal), but the prices increase and are only available for the lower three price-groups. In addition to these primary services, CGC offers Add-Ons, from which - in my opinion - only one is useful: Grade PreScreening. 

additional "add-ons" offered by the CGC

The Grade PreScreening can safe you costs (as far as I understood it), i.e., if the comic would not receive a minimum grade, you would like it to achieve, it would not get slabbed and you would "only" pay $9 instead of the $25 (or whatever group the comic would be in). The High-Res Imaging makes only sense if you really need such an image (I picked it for my first submissions, because I'm an idiot), since CGC shows the image of a slabbed comic on their certification check website (at least for certifications done after mid/end 2022).

In the last step of the submission form, you have to enter the comics you would like to submit. In my case I had to create two submissions, one with seven comics (without pressing, each comic $25) and four with additional pressing (so each comic $35). 

Last but not least, you pay for each submission a $5 Handling fee, some return Shipping fee (depending on the amount of comics) and your shipping label (to send to CGC) which costs me $15.

So summarized, you can calculate for a modern comic to pay (whereby $xx are the shipping costs):

$25 + ($15 for pressing) + (($xx + $5) / #ComicsInSubmission) + ($15 / #TotalComics)

It makes sense to combine as many services in one submission as you can afford, since any additional submission adds the costs for handling and shipping again. It should also be mentioned that you cannot mix different types of services in one submission (ex. one without pressing, and another one with). So all together I payed:

  • 7 x $25 + $5 + $25 (seven comics apparently cost $25 shipping)
  • 4 x $40 + $5 + $20 (four comics apparently cost $20 shipping)
  • + $15 (for my shipping label to CGC)

14th of October, 2023: Status Update

One month after my submission, several things happened, and I received several "updates" from the CGC. But step by step, the first thing I received was the notification on the 11th that the package was picked up and on the 18th I received the update that it arrived in Florida at the CGC center. The CGC confirmed the receiving of the submissions on the 25th of September and shortly after I received the first credit card charge confirmation for the pressing of the four comics (coming from CCS over $60). On October 5th, I received another confirmation that the submission with the four (pressed) comics was received by the CGC. I assume that means the pressing is done and the four comics are moved on to the grading process. The other seven comics (not pressed) received an update on the 13th of October, again via a credit card charge over $90 (this time from CGC). Like with any credit charge from the CGC, you do not get any detailed explanation what it is for, so I have to wait and see.

21st of October, 2023: First Package Arrived back Home

One month and eleven days later, one of my submissions (the one that was not pressed and included seven comics) arrived back home. I payed $90 for this submission and it included one of the seven comics with a 9.8 grade. The other six didn't make it (and looking at these afterwards, I feel like that is correct). So $90 for a 9.8 CGC graded comic and a lot of learning - is not to bad. So the $90 seem to be broken down as $25 (graded & slabbed) + $5 (high-res image, not needed!) + $54 (six comics checked, but not slabbed) + $6 shipping. I'm still not convinced that this really makes sense (since the $6 are weird), but maybe there will be more coming.

my 9.8 graded Avengers Forever #12

In addition, the CGC charged my credit card with $128 on the 16th; this time as CERTIFIED COLLECTIBLES, before it was CERTIFIED GUARANTEE CORP. These must be the 4 x $25 + shipping for the other four comics I'm still waiting to receive back. 

30th of October, 2023: I got them all

So finally I received all my comics back. It didn't took to long (just one and a half months). The last charge was the $128, which was apparently for the final four gradings. So it may be that the offers during October somewhat influenced the pricing, but all together I payed $6 and $8 for the two shipments back (which adds up to $14). The four comics came back as 9.2, 9.2, 9.4, & 9.6. Which I would say is decent.

the four graded comics of the second batch

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