UKGraders Questions.

Hi all, I know some of you know me as Steve from UKGraders I want to know your thoughts on UKG I might be putting me head on the chopping board but hey I am old enough to take it, and all I want to do is improve the whole aspect of UKG.
We all know there was originally some key issues with the cases not being completely tamper proof which we resolved long ago.
Also some of you may remember a certain squid head which we took out of circulation.
We know other mistakes have been made but hopefully lessons have been learned from these mistakes.
We are here for you guys at the end of the day I am much like most of you a massive fan and always have been this is why UKG started in the first place.
We have been going now for 3 yrs and I want to improve everything here.
So please fire away good or bad I want to know what we can do to help.

From little experience I've had with these things I would say that your grading is less accurate than AFA and the design's of the grading stickers could be cleaner and nicer looking for display purpose, but like I said I'm not greatly experienced in this field

Hi yeah with the grading labels we always go with the average grade of an item.
We consider our 95 grades the same pretty much as a 90 AFA we try to keep things fair for collectors.
As for the labels would you mean glossy shiny labels?.

Ok fair enough but no I meant clearer as in you have very dark labels (colours) to compare to AFA's which are bright and clear. usually even if a pics small you can near enough see the detail of text in the label but in UKG's they are hard to read. I think gloss would make it even harder. Black text on white BG works better than white text on dark BG (in my opinion) :wink:

Hey UKG, How you doing.
First off, i have seen more AFA mistakes than i can count so don't beat yourself up over the odd one.
Can you give me a link so i can have a look at what you do and maybe i can give you some thoughts.
Personally i think AFA charge way too much (for doing... not sure really) and take way to long to grade your item and get it back to you. Beat those two problems and you beat AFA and more people will use UKG. Just my opinion tho.

Cheers
Pete.

I'm not sure on how much UKG charge compared to AFA (thought they were reaosnable apart from the fact you have to pay for international shipping charges) so can't comment on that but agree with you Pete on when you say about taking a long time to get them graded from AFA. Mine's been about coming up to 3 months :roll: so unless you pay a large membership fee thats what ya gotta do... wait!! So Yeh that would def be a big bonus if you can 'majorly' improve on the waiting time :wink:

Ok so lets look at labels then and changing some aspects to them.
Hi also Pete good to hear from you, Yeah I do agree we dont give different tiers due to the complication of orders and the prices can be crazy if you want a really quick turn around, dont get me wrong we havent been the fastest and the main problem we had with that is we have a supplier who makes the cases for us so when items get sent in and we dont have cases in stock for them we have to wait for the cases to come in, that alone can be a nightmare waiting for the plastic company to deliver within a scheduled time.
Although I might add we are at a point now were our final machine will be installed at the end of this month and we can custom build all our cases and there will be a less waiting time.

Look forward to seeing them. I think as a newcomer my problem is that it's been 'said' that AFA are more established and I dont want to put you guys down at all as I am new but just going by what I've heard around. Maybe it's just a matter of time as I would prefer to use home country companies :wink:

Yeah we are trying 3 years of hard works so far and we havent give up thats got to say something hopefully.
I would have liked to seen more on ebay prices do seem to fluctuate and then sometimes items fetch decent prices for instance an 80 grade Yak face has just fetched £77 http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250656389400&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT
I dont think thats a bad price for an 80 hehe.

I would guess most of near on 2000 star wars items graded are in private collections possibly?????

I agree also with the labels, the round UKG label needs to be a light/reflective sticker similar to AFA, holographic for example.

Turn around is important like you said, otherwise people wont mind sending their figures to the US

That UKG graded Yak actually went for more than an *% NM AFA graded on lol

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Vintage-Starwars-last-17-Yak-face-afa-85-NM-1p-start-/130402994304?cmd=ViewItem&pt=UK_ToysGames_ActionFigures_ActionFigures_JN&hash=item1e5c9fc880

:wink:

Hi thats a bonus then :0)
Yeah the labels are light reflective ones we have Hologram ones and Shiny silver reflective mirror stickers :0).

Hey Steve,

Fair play to you for asking for opinions and feedback. It is the best way to improve service, but sometimes it's not what you expect or want to hear.

Personally, I haven't used your service but from what I've heard some people find your rarity rating a bit gimmicky and think (and I'd have to agree with them) that it probably subtracts from the over all level/appeal rather than adding to it. I appreciate this was an attempt to try and differentiate your graded items from AFA's, to an, extent but I just don't think it's worked.

I have also heard complaints about your cases not being tamper proof, you say you've fixed this now, as I said I've never used your service so I can't comment, just pointing out that collectors were/are aware of the problem. Unfortunately, this may taint people's opinions of your cases as there will always be the nagging doubt "Is this an early UKG case that has had the '80' MOC/figure swapped out for a 75 etc"

On the plus side I have heard several people comment on how helpful you (UKG) are when they contact you and I know a lot of people are keen to see you guys do well, it's just AFA is very well established so you do have some stiff competition.

No doubt the others will chip in with comments. You never know, one or two of them might even be remotely useful!
Possibly!

Hi yeah the rarity scale looks like it might be getting ditched as the majority of collectors seem to prefere not to have one.
The cases are solid now I can assure you all it would take a hammer a dremmel or some tool to get in and and then it would only damage the case so you couldnt get away with swapping the figures round ect without breaking or damaging the case in some way.
Thanks for your input all is greatly appreciated.

ukgraders said:

Hi yeah the rarity scale looks like it might be getting ditched as the majority of collectors seem to prefere not to have one.
The cases are solid now I can assure you all it would take a hammer a dremmel or some tool to get in and and then it would only damage the case so you couldnt get away with swapping the figures round ect without breaking or damaging the case in some way.
Thanks for your input all is greatly appreciated.

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Hi Steve

Good to see you posting and looking for feedback Steve and ditching the rarity scale would defo be a plus for many people!

I have to say one of the biggest compliants has to be the sheer number of spelling mistakes made on the stickers buddy this has to be something that must be addressed and action taken to ensure it doesnt happen anymore.

Im not a fan of grading but i like the idea of a UK Grading company so i do wish you guys well although its a bit sad to see you copied AFA's U Grade route

The is a discussion about the AFA V UKG going on at the TIG Forum as well it would be cool if you took a moment to pop in as well as they say all feedback has some value

http://www.imperialgunneryforum.com/vintage-chat-f1/re-uk-graders-or-afa-t1112-30.htm

Cheers Jay

Hi yeah I will drop on and have a look.
Spelling mistakes can be a nightmare for people and a hassle yeah they can send them back and get them re-done if there is an error but we know there shouldnt be one in the first place so extra care is taken now when they are sealed in the case to make sure the labels are correct.
We will faze out the Rarity rating this month and put a note on the website about it.
The U grading was tough we had to provide a service for items that had been removed from the card/box but the problem is how much space you have on labels maybe instead of were the stars once were if it is uncirculated we can just print that on the label.

.

Hi Josh yeah I am good mate.
We recently have just had an issue with a guy sending an item from the U.S and he did not realise about customs charges ect to be fair we should have something on the website explaining about customs from over the pond and that is being addressed.
We have paid for the customs for him though as I would feel like crap knowing his item was sat in some dank warehouse so I paid for it and have sorted the issue out.
I guess I never thought about the whole customs side I just took for granted people were aware that customs do charge some parcels and that is something we dont pay for.
But I have squared it all up now.

ukgraders said:

Hi Josh yeah I am good mate.
We recently have just had an issue with a guy sending an item from the U.S and he did not realise about customs charges ect to be fair we should have something on the website explaining about customs from over the pond and that is being addressed.
We have paid for the customs for him though as I would feel like crap knowing his item was sat in some dank warehouse so I paid for it and have sorted the issue out.
I guess I never thought about the whole customs side I just took for granted people were aware that customs do charge some parcels and that is something we dont pay for.
But I have squared it all up now.

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I'm sure there shouldn't be customs for items that are sent here for grading, and will be returned. Or is it only import duty that doesn't apply in that situation?