There’s some new competition in the professional comic book grading services industry brought to us by none other than Steve Borock. The new company is Comic Book Certification Service or CBCS and expects to go live in July. You can visit the CBCS website here, although at the current time it is just a placeholder with a FAQ. Some of the more common questions are answered below. I look forward to this new service and I’ll send some books in for review once it’s available. Stay tuned…

Q&A from Steve Borock:

Turn Around Times
“We will have Guaranteed times on getting books to you. If we fail to deliver on that, you get money back. I have told all the employees that if, in a rare case, something happens to a book, they must tell me right away or they will be fired. Mistakes happen, but if we do make a mistake, we would let you know and compensate you. More details will follow once we are up and running,” Borock said.

Grade Screening
“We will be offering a service called ‘Grade Screening,’ where you pick a minimum grade on every book in your submission. If we determine that the comic to be at least your minimum grade specified, the book will be certified and placed into a CBCS holder. If it does not meet the minimum grade you picked, we will not grade it or put it into our holder. We will send your un-graded book back to you with the rest of your submission, and you will just be charged a very minimal rejection fee,” he said.

“There is no minimum number of comics to be eligible for this service and you can select a different grade for every book in the submission. There will be no impact on the turn around times and ‘Grade Screening’ is covered under the CBCS Turn Around Guarantee,” he said. This will allow you to certify those borderline books you’ve been holding on to without taking the risk of parting with money you would not have previously spent.”

Pricing
Modern tier: 1978 to present $15 per book.
15 business days. Valued up to $250

2-Day Modern tier: 1978 to present $35 per book.
Valued up to value $2000

Expanded Modern tier: 1969-1977 $20 per book.
20 business days. Valued up to $250

Expanded consumer tier: Pre-1969$22 per book.
30 business days. Valued up to $250

Consumer tier: Any Year $29 per book.
30 business days. Valued up to $400

Quickstream tier: Any Year $49 per book.
10 business days. Valued up to $1150

Rapid tier: Any Year $75 per book.
4 business days. Valued up to $4000

1-Day tier: 2.5% of Market Value.
Same Day service. Minimum charge $110, maximum charge $1975 per book. No value limit.

CBCS Re-holder: $9.50 per book.
6 business days. No Value limit.

Signature add-on is $5 per book
(not per signature)

Image add-on is $4 per book
(Free Image for 1-day tier)

Video add-on is $30 per book.

Authorized Dealers get a 10% discount on all tiers, but not on the add-ons.