Sports Illustrated Blog #127 on our way to #200 – Amazing What A Little Competition Will Do!
Welcome to my Sports Illustrated/TIME magazine blog – Your collector’s guide to the latest hobby updates and insight into what’s trending now. Recently I returned one of my graded mags to CGC with a broken case. What I received in return made me smile. It’s amazing what a little competition can do. First, the box was a single case box as opposed to a one size fits all (a box that was used to ship 1-8 cases). Then, inside the box was a one-piece bubble wrap designed specifically to house one case. It had an opening that could be used to easily insert or remove one case. This piece could then be inserted back into the box for a perfect fit for reshipment. For as long as we all have been living with inconsistent quality shipping performance from CGC, this new shipping policy is a welcome new feature. Staying with CGC’s new shipping policies, there is a bit of unfavorable news as well. Ever since I have been submitting mags for grading, I have used the returned CGC shipping boxes to inventory my encapsulations. They nicely store about 20 encapsulations and fit uniformly on store bought shelving. Over the years, I had figured out what size box I would receive in return depending on the number of mags sent to CGC for grading. Typically, a submission of 12-20 mags would return a box perfect for storing 20 encapsulations – with all six sides cushioned. CGC has made a change in that process. For a submission of 20 graded mags, they are now using a reinforced bubble wrap configuration which houses 5 mag encapsulations, and packing four of these to a shipping box. The protection along with the new cases is far superior to any shipping practice used previously however, these new boxes are not sized right for re-using to store inventory. Collectors re-using CGC boxes should be aware of this change and plan to use other materials for storing their graded stuff in the future. Hope this info has been helpful. Feel free to send any packaging questions my way. Many thanks for your patronage. Come grow with us. I hope you are enjoying the reads on the history of SI, SPORT, and BASEBALL magazines as well as an insight into relevant magazine collecting. Great collecting to you in our second century of blogs and best fortunes with Sports Illustrated/SPORT/BASEBALL magazines. For a complete review of previous blogs, please visit www.sportsillustrated98.com |