cstojano wrote in Actually... your opinion DOES still matter! Graded RPGs:My 2 cents, am new to this forum. I just received my AFA 85 Against the Giants module back from Action Figure Authority who really made the market for graded toys back in the early 2000s. I went with them because they grade sealed items. In the toy world, sealed is key and the value dropoff is huge. There is little to no discussion of what is going on inside the box, its like grading the item makes the contents invisible to the known universe. There is also MUCh less discussion of sealed items being authentic because they rarely used shrink but instead boxes were taped (itself could be faked I suppose). The module looks great BUT it is quite heavy and also very expensive to get graded.

I guess the question is whether these items are toys or comics? Or, stated differently, how will the graded market develop, along which collectible pedigree? Personally, since grading is a form of neurosis the idea of mixing AFA and CGC/CBCS cases would drive me nuts. Are the comic grading companies considering also grading the expert/basic boxed sets?

My 2 cents on shrink, I would never remove it myself and wouldn't send it in to be removed by a grader. The reason is that I am collecting these old things in "store shelf condition" to sort of relive that time when I was nine and walked into a hobby shop to see the brand new product. Whether staples are rusted in the centerfold isn't relevant to me. Its the outer appearance that matters. Back to the toy analogy, if a toy's sticker sheet was peeling and yellowed/dried inside a sealed box I wouldn't care. I wouldn't know.

Sir Kill Alot wrote in Actually... your opinion DOES still matter! Graded RPGs:The nostalgia of walking into a store and seeing stuff wrapped may be lost for a lot of the kids today in the age of Amazon

Tszii wrote in Actually... your opinion DOES still matter! Graded RPGs:
CGC grades them as magazines, but yea, they are pretty much like comics. Staple rust matters to comic collectors. Its true, if you cant see it, I guess it doesnt matter. But people do want to know. CBCS is grading shrink wrapped items, but like AFA, they are grading the seal, not the item. CBCS is also grading the supplements, so thats cool. I imagine CGC, and CBCS are going to start looking for ways to scale their cases as needed like AFA. CGC is the premier comic grader. CBCS is going to own the supplement grading for now since CGC doesent do them - at least they havent responded to my email or post to their reddit sub etc.

Skullhammer wrote in Actually... your opinion DOES still matter! Graded RPGs:I’m curious about where the oversight will come from to prevent market manipulation (akin to what has happened in video game collecting these past few years).  

As far as I’m concerned, once grading companies swoop into a hobby under the guise of “collector friendly assistance in terms of condition checking”, then best case, that hobby becomes subject to an investor feeding frenzy (which of course creates unsustainable price jumps and will inevitably choke the “regular” collector out), worst case, becomes corrupt when investors begin to manipulate grade scarcity and supply.

cstojano wrote in Actually... your opinion DOES still matter! Graded RPGs:I have a lng time collecting buddy who i am sure has grown tired of me sending random auction links to with a "are people this insane" comment attached to it. I continue to be amazed at what people are paying for graded VHS tapes. I followed loosely the video game grading scandal youtube videos. Perhaps in the beginning there were shenanigans to build hype around a market but its hard to see the mass of graded games now selling for high dollars and think its all built on fraud. Someone is buying into it. Graded RPGs may well fizzle out. Long time collectors will be pleased, no doubt. But from the outside this area was so ripe for this I am shocked it took this long.