Sports Illustrated Blog # 134 on Our Way to 200 – Another View of the CGC 9.9
| Let’s call this the “New Era at CGC.” With the threat of emerging competition and the irrefutable statistical imbalance between 9.8 grades vs. 9.9 grades, CGC is acting like they’ve seen the light. Two major turnarounds in the past year have literally “bullwhipped” the slogging giant into the new era of graded magazines. What are the changes? Deliveries/Customer Service have improved by epic proportions in the past year and we now have our first CGC 9.9. Customer service has added a bit more respect in their way of handling questions and other customer needs and after 27,000 graded magazines over ten years including 2,000 9.8’s and 3,000 9.6’s, we now have our first 9.9 graded magazine. In fact, we have several. To me, the Mbappe and the Clark are not just very nice, special magazines, they also represent a change in grading philosophy at CGC. I don’t believe it was a coincidence that CGC suddenly found a group of 9.9 mags, I think it was a combination of collector pressure and the threat of what the “new guy” might do. It didn’t make much sense to have 2000 9.8’s and not one of them was good enough to be a 9.9 grade. A first-year stat student could figure that out. That’s not much of a bell curve. Throughout my persistence for the need for 9.9’s, I couldn’t help but wonder how the first 9.9 would be received within the hobby. Would the price be crazy? And how would the price be justified with nothing close in comparison. A 9.9 Mbappe or Caitlyn Clark, for a short moment was one of a kind. But otherwise, they lacked the very essence of what attracts collectors in the first place. The magazines were new or “current” and likely would not be one of a kind for long, discouraging the POP watchers. The cover athletes were not “timeless” -yet- and had much to prove. But……… put a 9.9 Sports Illustrated 1956 Mantle FC out there and see what happens – it would fetch millions proving that the excitement and value is relative to the magazine and athlete. The old collector’s school of thought – vintage, athlete, POP count (and potential), esthetics and none higher, all won out over the new shiny object. Way to go collectors. I don’t believe we will ever see a 9.9 vintage magazine (using current parameters) because pre-2000 mags were not printed with that thought in mind. They all have inherent flaws built into the paper and printing and the grading parameters of today are too stringent for that to happen. But you never know and the “new guy” is the wild card. Thank you for reading and supporting our Graded Sports Illustrated endeavors. 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 |