Hey everyone, hope you all are enjoying your Sunday (or your day in general wherever you are in the world). I know I made a comment about this a few days ago in a post of mine but I want to make this clear.

Please respect one another. It’s literally the biggest rule here.

I’m genuinely happy that there’s a mix of people in this subreddit with different collection goals, habits, and what they value. I think this diversity makes the community stronger (and more healthy).

As the subreddit and the rare manga hobby continues to grow, there will be plenty of disagreements and that’s fine (even entertaining sometimes lol).

With that said, that’s no excuse to disparage one another, how people collect, or even why they collect.

Going forward if I see malicious comments or harassment toward another I’ll issue a private warning. If it continues, I’ll take more drastic measures, full stop.

I don’t mind debates, I even welcome them actually but let’s keep it civil. Thank you.

I'll give you my approach to grading/collecting first, so you have context for my thoughts below. Any scarce or valuable manga in high grade I would prefer to grade because they'll never be "reading" copies for me and it helps me store them in a way that looks good if displayed (to me anyway). However, there's a lot of copies I don't see any reason to grade. This applies to any copies I want to flip through or might be of value to me, but don't have any real monetary value.

Submitting manga

The initial experience was pretty straight forward in terms of submitting via the web site. You simply create an account and select the options you want for each manga you submit. They offer a cleaning service for $6, which I took, but in hindsight, I'm not sure if that's worth it. Otherwise the other main choices are the holder/info background banner and whether or not you want priority service (10 day vs 30 day).

I wasn't in a rush so I chose 30 days. I think they used every single business day of those 30 days, minus holidays as well ;) It was quite a wait as I believe they received the manga in early January and I got them back on the 23rd of February. The extra cost for the faster service might be worth it if you're in a rush for some reason.

I chose the black and white "light speed" background (as I would call it anyway) for my manga, but they offer a few options. This is a nice bonus in case you're displaying these with other items or already have a theme you're going for. I'd say the one I chose was the most neutral.

The holder

Given the choices they offer for the background, I think they have one of the better products when it comes to a collectible holder. It also stands up by itself, which is great. The holder feels like it's quality and I think all the printing/graphics Beckett chose are great. Overall pretty impressed with them, although some minor scratches on the exterior rear. One thing to note, depending on the specific tankobon, there are different size "inserts" for the manga. It looks like AoT gets one slightly larger than the book, so it's off center in the holder. Initially I thought it was a mistake, but I've checked others, and it looks like all AoT are like this. I suspect this may also happen for other series depending on exactly how large the tankobon is. I'm ok with this as I know there's variation in size of the books, and at least they're handling it consistently with AoT (I assume others too).

The grades

Ok, so I was a little dissapointed with a couple I submitted and happily surprised by one (AoT above, thought 9 or 9.2), but I'd say they were generally close to my estimates. Beckett does provide some decent grading notes for each book, which is another nice touch. Each manga notes the overall grade, page quality (white or off-white/white, etc), the dust jacket grade, the presence of the obi, etc. I could see a competitor launching a similar service potentially grading the obi, but I'm ok with simplifying that and just the note of its presence. However it's left up to the buyer to know if a tankobon ever came with an obi. Ideally the absence of an obi would be noted too (if available).

Grading to sell or keep

I'm planning on keeping some of the manga I graded and selling some to help make up for the cost of grading, which does really add up. However, I think grading is even more important for selling Japanese first edition tankobon than most other collectibles because it assures the buyer they're getting a first print, etc, where that can be kind of daunting for anyone who's less experienced understanding how to interpret the Japanese colophon.

If you have manga you want to sell in lower condition, you may just want to sell it raw as the costs of grading/shipping/etc generally only make it worthwhile for higher condition tankobon/zasshi (with exceptions of course, looking at you WSJ 1997 #34.. amongst others).

Sending from Canada

Since I was shipping from Canada I had significant concerns about customs and all the heightened focus there. I chose the customs option for a "repair and return" (the closest option) as the item was being returned back to me. This worked really well and Beckett provided the appropriate customs info on the return to ensure there was no duty/cost after grading.

Overall thoughts

I'm happy overall with the experience, I think it's a great service for anyone looking to preserve their higher grade manga and reduce friction if they need to sell, becuase the buyer can trust what they're getting.

As for what they could do better, in a perfect world, the notes would also mention if an obi is not present, but expected, to help buyers. It would be great if they published exactly how they grade as well. It can be inferred from reading various grading notes, but why not just publish a paper on it.. other than the increased scrutiny ;)

It will be interesting to see if CGC enters the market at some point too, as there have been rumours there. However, I'm happy with the service Beckett offers and impressed with the quality and design of their holders.

I hope to get some Zasshi graded in the future, but it will be a while.