Is it worth grading? A CGC grading calculator for comic sellers
Grading costs money before the comic sells: CGC's fee, the shipping to CGC and back, and a bigger eBay fee on the bigger sale. Type what the comic sells for raw and what it sells for graded, pick a tier, and the answer is what grading leaves you after all of it.
What is counted
- CGC's fee for the tier, from the table below. Unlimited Value is 4% of fair market value, at least $135; CGC decides that value, and this page works it on the graded value you typed.
- A membership discount if you have one. CGC says Associate and Premium members save 10% on grading and Elite members 20%. This page takes it off the tier fee as worked out above, not off the handling fee.
- CGC's $5 handling fee on an online submission, which is per invoice, so it is split across the books you send together.
- Shipping to CGC and back. The $30 a book the box starts with is our own round allowance, not a quote from CGC or a carrier. Type what you actually pay.
- eBay's fees on both sales: the final value fee in the comic category and the per-order fee, worked out by the same code as the eBay fee calculator.
CGC's comic grading tiers
| CGC tier | Fee a book | Maximum value a book |
|---|---|---|
| Modern (1975 to today) | $30 | $400 |
| Modern Bulk (1975 to today, 25 book minimum) | $27 | $400 |
| Vintage (before 1975) | $45 | $400 |
| Vintage Bulk (before 1975, 25 book minimum) | $42 | $400 |
| High Value | $105 | $1,000 |
| Unlimited Value | 4% of the value, $135 minimum | No maximum |
The two bulk tiers have a 25 book minimum. The maximum value is per book. CGC's declared value policy says to value a raw book from ungraded copies, and that CGC may move a book to a higher tier and charge the difference if it decides the book does not qualify for the one you picked. So a raw value over the tier's maximum is refused here, and a graded value over it gets a warning.
Not counted: Fast Track (+$15 a book on the four Modern and Vintage tiers), imaging, custom labels and the other extras on CGC's page; the higher postage a slab costs to send a buyer (the shipping weight calculator shows a slab's weight and box next to a raw comic's); and the chance that the grade comes back lower than you hoped.
Before you send it
Listing a graded comic on eBay covers what goes where from the label, the certification number, the photographs and the box, and pricing comic back issues covers finding the sold prices to type into the two boxes above.
Point and Sell turns phone photos of a box into an eBay file. For a slab it writes the grader, grade and certification number you type into the file's item specific columns; no slab from it has been through a recorded eBay upload yet. Try it on a box.