Hero Restoration

On 7/2/2022 at 2:10 PM, OtherMan said:

Oh no, you misunderstand, I am definitely a shill. I just don't give a . Never have

 

LoL! Okay, so now it's so bad you can link your self, and no one the make the observation? It is a different time indeed!

On 7/2/2022 at 1:50 PM, OtherMan said:

I just had my 20th anniversary here on the Board 

Uh, WTF? Two different accounts, but not shill? Man, I guess I haven't been on the boards enough. LoL 

On 7/2/2022 at 1:42 PM, OtherMan said:

That's not quite how it happened. CGC always wanted to create their own unresto/pressing company as another revenue stream from Day One. Borock never considered pressing restoration, and the only time you'll see it on the label is on the 1st Gen labels where it's both "cleaned and pressed". This is why CGC secretly created PCS in 2005 and had selected participants sign an NDA. CGC used shady tactics to force the Hobby to accept pressing I'm sure it will surprise no one that Borock's good buddy Matt Nelson was in on pressing behind the scenes from Day One

 

I find what you are saying fascinating, but......Someone with this knowledge is not a new arrival to the boards, so...........You should send me a PM.

On 7/1/2022 at 6:43 PM, joeypost said:

Lots of factors are in play here.

1. Book could have been graded during a "loose grading" period.

2. With Matt the current President he is looking at books through the eye of a "presser". I would think everyone is being trained the same way. Which is not how they were looked at when CGC started. You will notice this when you crack out old slabs and notice 9.8 books that would come back 9.6/9.4 today. 

3. New hires. This is only my opinion, but I cannot see how anyone is "up to speed" in a few months. Experts are called experts because they have thousands of hours invested into their hobby/profession. If these new graders did not start out as comic people, the ramp up time would be considerably longer. 

4. Grading is tighter now, which is not always a bad thing. Only problem with changing standards on the fly, is you dilute the value of your older products. How many early books are sitting in 9.8 holders that would never grade 9.8 by today's standards? 

Because you remove some sin from a book, doesn't always guarantee it will get an upgrade. 

I think they could tell a bad press job from the beginning. They use to call it restoration, remember? Then they realized they could only detect bad pressing, and abandoned the notion it was restoration in 2004, to avoid "missed pressing".

Nowadays, I don't  think it's the same. Yes, I am sure they hammer bad pressing, but I also think todays graders are numb to the wonders pressing has done for books technical grade. For example, a wrinkled book could jump 5 grades within months of grading back in the day, now nearly no bump at all? Really?  Loose, yes, tight, yes. This is the tightest ever by the most ever, and I agree it will dilute all grades from 2006-2020.

If I was buying, I would say forget any older labels. Buy fresh, that is where the new value will be. Members can see when a book was graded, and that will be factored in buying price more than ever. You could say it's unprecedented, (yes, I know that is so 2020 late) LoL

Remember the saying, buy the book, not the grade? Now it's buy the newest graded, or lose money. And while it doesn't bother me a bit, it is the end of the "sure thing bump"................

I think they could tell a bad press job from the beginning. They use to call it restoration, remember? Then they realized they could only detect bad pressing, and abandoned the notion it was restoration in 2004, to avoid "missed pressing".

Nowadays, I don't  think it's the same. Yes, I am sure they hammer bad pressing, but I also think todays graders are numb to the wonders pressing has done for books technical grade. For example, a wrinkled book could jump 5 grades back in the day, now nearly no bump at all? Really?  Loose, yes, tight, yes. This is the tightest ever by the most ever, and I agree it will dilute all grades from 2006-2020.

If I was buying, I would say forget any older labels. Buy fresh, that is where the new value will be. Members can see when a book was graded, and that will be factored in buying price more than ever. You could say it's unprecedented, (yes, I know that is so 2020 late) LoL

Remember the saying, buy the book, not the grade? Now it's buy the newest graded, or lose money. And while it doesn't bother me a bit, it is the end of the "sure thing bump"................

Been very suspicious of too tight of grading the last 18 months or so. This book was an experiment to see how grading has changed. I didn't expect a big bump, the book has some issues, but I thought it should have went up, not stay the same.

You be the judge, maybe the improvements were moot, either way, no more cracking for me.

Grade Date

03/21/2019

Grader Notes

light creasing to cover
light spine stress lines to cover
moderate bends to cover
moderate foxing to cover

Grade Date

06/17/2022

Grader Notes

foxing interior
foxing to cover
light creasing to cover
medium crease left bottom of front cover breaks color
spine stress lines to cover

My main problem is I can't see them online once the are there longer than 8 months. It's disorienting, and zapping our customer service team's time. Calling would be to massive for us, it would be almost every day. Hoping programmers will soon extend how long submissions stay in dealer database, since there's no hope for TaT's anytime soon..

On 4/19/2022 at 5:19 PM, menard10 said:

How difficult is it to recreate a missing logo/title stat? Apart from the actual artwork/word balloon size and artwork, what is the type of stock that would be approximate a newspaper or comic book stat?

PhantomRestoration on Instagram creates clear overlay of stats, looks nice, but doesn't alter original art.

On 2/24/2022 at 5:55 AM, joeypost said:

People send me books. Over the last 16 years the number is over 300,000. 

If I do the math,  that's an average of 1500 books a month plus cons. I know how many people and presses that would take and..............

On 2/10/2022 at 2:42 PM, Topnotchman said:

Pressing books is like combinations to a padlock.  You have to spin your options to get that lock to open.  Once you've put the time in to cycle through the options, pressing books at room temperature which is cold pressing and temps in an excess of 200 at times can all equal high quality results.   If you don't understand what type of padlock your working with, or you don't understand the options, you will have a difficult time getting that lock to open.    

Results at the expense of the paper isn't right. If your pressing at excess of 200, you are not cracking the combination code, your breaking into the safe with brut force. No book needs that temperature to get results, unless you don't know what you are doing. 

Nuff said

On 2/9/2022 at 7:32 AM, Stronguy said:

Try that with a modern (which is the vast majority of what new pressers work on) and you're in trouble.  You likely know that, I know that, Joe knows that... and everyone else who has made a placemat knows that.  The difference is, we know from experience, and we know why it happens.  99% of the folks who start out with, "Tell me what kind of press to use.  Tell me what temperature to use.  Tell me how long to... ", will likely never know how to roll with the punches when something doesn't go right.  They have approached it from the perspective of being handed a formula to mimic rather than from learning and understanding.

I agree. If someone wants to press, then there isn't just one answer to how, and how much of this or that. Also, todays expectations isn't making the book better, it's perfect results or bust. You don't get to perfect until you have put in the time. It is not as easy as it seems, I have trained several people to work for HRC, and not all make the cut. Give them too much data and they get overwhelmed.

As far as getting some shoving around, that's part of the initiation. These days the boards are very tame, back in 09 I took a genuine beating on all fronts, most collectors poo poo on pressing and restoration. If you have the passion, endure it, if you don't, then maybe it's not going to be your thing.

I am not much for sharing how too, but I will try to provide the "DO NOTS" for the sake of the books. Do not press with a press that can't go down as low as 130, and never, never, never press a book at 200. While 165 might be almost the mean over many presses, it doesn't imply your going to get the desired reaction using that temp on every book.

One more do not and then I have to get back to pressing. It's tempting to press key book while your learning, DO NOT! Some mistakes cannot be undone, most paper doesn't like it when you use an excessive amount of any of the factors involved in pressing. Less is more.....

Oh, and my 2 cents is to have an experienced presser press your books, your not saving money if the results aren't as thorough as a pro presses. 

On 9/20/2021 at 10:42 AM, Figment said:

Done in 1997 before there was a distinction, I asked Susan Cicconi to help this book survive the continuing passage of time.  The intent was conservation, not restoration, but I don''t know enough about today's standards to know which color label it would receive?  Thoughts?  I've obscured the title so as not to obscure or influence any judgements.  Thanks!

This book could qualify for conservation, but CGC's Discretions makes it's outcome open for interpretation.. 

We're on time!

So I forgot to write on box WK & Ex x2 and it’s been 30+ days with no update. Very unfair to pay over $150 a book for 6 week turnaround, receiving is a joke there! Must be nice to have pallets of orders to put on ignore.

😭

On 5/31/2021 at 10:23 PM, Tony S said:

No. CGC determined the book was solvent cleaned.  

Late to the party, so who sees this I don't know. LoL You are correct Tony, but to be more precise, it almost always indicates inorganic solvents (water, peroxide, hypochlorite). Organic solvents won't get a purple/conserved label unless done wrong. My hypothesis is that is because while organic solvents can make a cover brighter, it doesn't seem to help the grade any. I mainly know this from tape removal (And a few solo solvent cleans on both sides of isle), as it requires organic cleaning follow up, or it's messy. Tape removal isn't considered restoration, and follow up it the right way to perform the removal. 

I would suggest that if you do, don't staple the cover, its a 1.0 anyways, and then you get other notations, like staples added, or 2 sets of staple holes. Unlikely the staple holes will align, I think your more likely to be struck by lightning. Hehe

Posting a scan would be helpful. With Silver Age books, staple alignment was a big issue, so if you have a tanned cover, and the staples are on the front of the cover, instead on the side of the spine, then you risk detachment just from the restoration check alone. I have seen books get re-subbed without any work and get damage because it is the nature of comics, and handling for encapsulation is unavoidable. The more it is handled, the more defects the book gets.

22 hours ago, 427Impaler said:

The gloss and kaolin definitely took a hit in de acidification (post lignin removal).  An aqueous method (double bath) was used to add buffers and to re-fix.  The post lignin product retains gloss and kaolin (some Pics in my other related post). After Process the paper improves stability (interior pages generally move from brittle to cream or slightly brittle, and is noticeable) this impromptu experiment was to see if there was actually some more room to improve.  Zero attention was given to cosmetics, but I think the results warrant more tests and techniques. Later that evening we did a full 6 fold full paper test:

Indeed, when it comes to brittle paper, washing helps, and, if the cover is getting restored, washing is a must. I went a step further in my fold test with pages, it included water, but then another test with an oxidizer, and observed a substantial improvement. Pre-wash fold test was one fold. After water it was six. Then after bleaching the paper it reached over 20 folds. Now, I haven't had an opportunity to apply the scientific method, but all the pages that get this treatment seam to be less brittle afterword's. Not like new again, but pieces are not falling off anymore. LoL

Looks like gloss loss and Kaolin Clay loss, revealing the the unbleached inner core. It is easy for this to happen on silver age type paper, the binders used in combination with very thin layer of clay. Also, the problem is more prevalent in relation to condition, the lower the grade, the more likely there will be unwanted loss. I would be very interested in the before and after of the outside.

I see what happens to poorly context Topics! (-:

So yes, I am referring to receiving for submissions at Hero Restoration, I have seen it all just about, but the media mail thing is just a PITA for us, and usually means the client is cheap, oh boy. hehe

Please and Thank you, receiving end has to pay.

5 hours ago, Jaywalker0 said:

I was surprised by this too. Granted, Holidays and probably half the staff rotating some extra days off. But I had 3 books in for the mega signing event 2nd week of Nov (Peter David) and they've been SFG since. Usually my books been cleared w/in one week of previous event. 

I noticed this too. Right now super bummed, I got 6 books in walkthrough, going on 3 days now. FMV isn't cheap, the "no guaranties" shouldn't apply to their most premium tier.

3 hours ago, joeypost said:

I have been recommending that customers wait on CPR's...unless I feel it is a slam dunk. 

I have a slam dunk sitting right in front of me but...... Why settle for a 2 grade bump on a SS #4 7.5, when you know it should be more, seems like a waste of sub fees, unless you need to sell ASAP.

4 hours ago, Lamborghinikid said:

I had a 8.0 white page book that I truly felt should have got an 8.5. I sent it back in over a year ago and it came back again as 8.0 white pages. I sent it back in a few months ago to try again and it came back 7.0 with off white to white pages. 

Pictures would be great!