Great points raised by some folks here. But they are not the point of this thread.
CGC has notified the community that they suspect someone who submitted books to them did so after trimming the books. They've acknowledged that some of the books trimmed and submitted received blue labels.
The point of this thread was to point out in the insufficiency and of CGC's response so far. Questions remain as to: 1) Why does CGC refuse to release a list of books that it believes are suspect (by virtue of being submitted by this person)? 2) Why does CGC not "proactively" contact registry set owners of the suspected books? 3) Why did CGC limits its offer of reviewing books to the time period noted? 4) Do they have any reason to believe that this person did not a) submit books through other people or b) that books sold by this person are not also suspect of having been trimmed?
This is not a thread to discuss whether CGC can detect all resto work or whether there is a better alternative or whether more education is needed for collectors. Discussing it here is OT and contributes to the idea that CGC can just ignore the reasonable questions posed to them.
My point is that CGC have never said that any book is unrestored. Only "Universal".
This means they haven't detected any restoration that is not on the label. Not that there isn't any restoration. Even PLODs say "Restoration includes" i..e. this is not an exhaustive and definitive list of all restoration..
Even reviewing the suspect books and putting them back in a Univesal labelled case only means that they haven't detected any trimming.
So it would be interesting to see their answers to points 1-3 that you have raised above.
I have the feeling that releasing the list and contacting registry owners (ie points 1 and 2) would indicate a liability that they have tried to avoid having when setting up the company. i.e. that a buyer suffers a loss because a book with a Universal grade is not unrestored and damage collecctor confidence in part of CGC's product (restoration detection rather than grading - which we often debate and accept as being subjective) .
On point 4 I think it is impossible to determine (anyone could be submitting books that Ewert or anyone else has trimmed). As such any book could be trimmed.
CGC should look at all books in the same manner - ie test the book for trimming in the same way as they test all books for color touch.
Currently I have less confidence in their capabilities to detect trimming than color touch as there has been no public release of info that shows that this capability has been enhanced.
If they can't detect it you have to assume that there is a risk that the book you purchase has been trimmed and the value can fall if trimming becomes detectable at a later date.
_________________________ "Get over it, " --Dale Roberts
