VintageComics

I edited. But i think my question answers yours.

I know that you have a really big problem with SCS (you even coined the term) but Borock has even come on here (back in the day) and encouraged people to build a better holder and that CGC would buy the idea if it worked. The problem is that for encapsulation to work, you need a holder. And comics being what they are (fragile, 3 dimensional objects) there is only so much you can do to prevent them from getting damaged. As with my law analogy, the holder protects books from most situations but nothing is going to prevent books from being damaged in extreme conditions (and let's face it, shipping books can put them through extreme conditions). Some get damaged but MOST make it safely. The other option is no certification. Which one is better over all?

It's an interesting point of view to me, and I'll tell you why. I took the same position years ago on a completely different topic stating that 'more information was better' even if it wasn't complete. I got lambasted, trash talked, accused of having an agenda - you name it. Even if none of the things people were saying was true, I was vilified because I thought 'more information was better than less information. But collectors are a very emotional bunch. Especially comic book collectors. Tangent: Remember when the boards changed over the 1st time back in the mid 2000's? There was an uproar on here about it. Meanwhile, Architect pointed out that in the coin forums there was nary a blip about it. Why? Because comic book collectors are a highly emotional, vocal bunch. My point? Because we're emotional, we are also selective / subjective about the windmills we tilt at. Look at the outrage in this thread. It's like a thread discussing American politics (I'm Canadian BTW in case anyone doesn't know). There is venom seething from some posters about others. Good people are being painted as the most vile of people over pressed books. You'd think there were actual criminals in this discussion by some of the reactions. And so we are at a point in the hobby where books that are known to be unpressed (like our collection when you auctioned it) fetch a premium because of it. I still think more information is better than less information, but I also understand why it wouldn't work for a business. Yes, unpressed books would be more desirable (for both collectors and upgraders) but a business would never put itself in a position where all of it's products are not on a level playing field. Personally, I'd prefer a perfect world where everyone was 100% honest and disclosure was the norm and pressing wasn't a thing. But stuff like that doesn't happen so I've come to accept pressing as not being an evil thing and unavoidable so it's become a part of the hobby for me.

I never suggested such a thing. It's odd that you would claim I did. Sorry, I may have conflated two different poster's thoughts then. So you're saying you'd be OK with CGC notating which books came from CCS but not looking for pressing on books that didn't come from CCS? Or are you OK with CGC attempting to detect pressing even if they can't do it consistently?

I have 5 4 posts left before I hit 93,000. I just wasted one on you. But yeah. Globalization and the internet opened doors for a lot of business opportunities and if CGC didn't open someone else would have (and many have since).

I missed this post yesterday, an excerpt from it above. I may be able to help you make perfect sense of this. CGC is a business, started by businessmen, very good ones in fact, and very competent comic people to make money (gasp), like any other business. IMO, that was the purpose. I can't speak directly for any of those involved in the creation of CGC, but I'd find it hard to believe that their only reason for being was to thwart any of the comic book mechanics of the day. Sue C. would examine books for resto for a small fee. Grading services had been tried before, in a cut-rate way, failed, and the hobby was long overdue for some type of governing body to instill confidence and legitimacy to the hobby, breathing life into it. And thankfully, they did. Because the landscape of the hobby would resemble 1999 far more than 2019 if they didn't. Much like the law works in society, it's not perfect but it is meant to protect the majority. And so even though CGC has it's problems, it for the most part has benefited the majority of people. There will always be areas to exploit (just as there is in the law) but it makes the playing field level for MOST people and that was the entire goal.

So, what you're saying is that certification works and that all of the books should have been graded.

Brutal. The NOD was an experiment that did not go well. But it was also a microcosm of what would happen if disclosure was forced. And it didn't work, because it got exploited by people who wouldn't disclose. In the end, from what I remember, a lot of people just got mad at each other and it folded. At least that was the impression I got. It was a good idea but it was never going to work from a practical standpoint.

People have had threads like that in the past. Not sure where they are now.

The contradictions in this stance are many. When a book has been pressed by CCS, CGC can know with absolute certainty that the book has been pressed. Denoting it on the label would provide certainty, and not a guess. It's been argued that CCS would be put at a disadvantage if CGC were to denote its business on the label - the implication of this argument is that collectors as a whole would prefer unpressed comics to pressed ones. Yet that's precisely the problem with pressing without disclosure, as the collector is being deluded rather than informed, and forced to guess, which is what you were saying shouldn't happen. It's circular arguing at it's finest. It's odd that you're a scientist but would be OK with CGC guessing on pressed books. Sure, CCS could notate which books came from CCS. But any books that did NOT come from CCS wouldn't be notated and therein lies the rub. Do you remember when CGC removed the 3 grader's opinions from the grader's notes? You used to be able to get the grade opinion of each grader for a given book. So if a NM 9.4 was given 9.4/9.6/9.4 grades it was probably a strong 9.4 If it was a 9.2/9.2/9.4 it wasn't considered a strong 9.4 CGC removed the grader's opinions from the grader's notes. Why? Because when people saw those notes, all 9.4 copies were not considered equal. It's corporate image that they were protecting. Certification's single, lone contribution to the hobby is certainty. So why would they mark books that were pressed by CCS if they can't detect pressing with a high degree of accuracy on the rest of the books and create a market that singles out one set of books but not the other? I understand how you feel as a collector, but as a business person let me ask you this: Would you start a business doing something that you could only do properly, say, 50% of the time? We have another pressing thread. Yay. Nothing has changed in 15 years except that we're a bit older.

The market decides. Depends on who is bidding / buying and who is selling. But generally speaking, 9.4 books that are improvable can sell for premiums to right under what a bidder feels the improveable grade is. I've seen 8.5 books go for 9.2 money and I've seen 9.4 books go for 9.5/9.6 money so it all depends on various factors.

The Clink copy ended at $5725 tonight. I'm going to repost this book for sale at $5000 (shipping included).

I just replied in my post above to this idea.

That's why I stated only books pressed by CCS would be noted. They would know 100% for sure the book went through the process. I was not happy when CGC brought CCS into the fold. Grading books from CCS is basically grading their own work. They state that none of this info is know by the graders but they are so closed lip on certain aspects of the process how can you be sure. If the FBI were to come into our hobby hopefully it would be to split the "pressing" departments on both grading companies into a separate entity. In-house work is a conflict of interest period. Ah, I see. you're talking from a conflict of interest POV. I don't disagree that there is a conflict of interest. Not sure if you're aware, but CGC officially hired Mark Zaid (a prominent East Coast lawyer if you guys don't know who he is - just Google the name -he's in the news all the time) to do an internet audit of CGC and CCS practices to 'prove' that there was no internal conflict of interest. Now I trust Mark to be honest, but you also can't police every single book. Where I think it's unfair is that books being transported from around the country to CGC go through a different handling than books that are walked down the hall in an air conditioned climate. But that's a different discussion. Or would it raise the market value of unpressed books? And let's dig a little deeper (this just hit me). In turn, you would have people PUTTING DENTS INTO BOOKS just enough so that it wouldn't lower the grade but enough to get an unpressed notation and have a broader buying pool - both collectors who want virgin books AND buyers who are looking for upgrades. And it's a lot easier to 'unpress' a book (you know what I mean) than it is to press one. See how that works? You create one solution and you open another can of worms.

That’s not okay. You just dropped points in my book, sir! Hey, does intent matter at all? I didn't do it on purpose!

Let's look at the flip side of the discussion from a practical standpoint. Let's suppose that most people agreed on disclosure and it became 'the norm' and everyone that slabbed a book checked a 'pressed' box on the CGC submission form or put a sticker that said 'pressed' on their raw books that were pressed. But CGC still can't detect it reliably. And Joe Blow can't either. So you still have people who don't disclose it and now you have pressed books slipping into unpressed holders. Is that preferred to just assuming all books are pressed unless someone comes out and states they are actually unpressed? It's a very tough situation to please everyone with.

Unvecessarily sped things up. Hey, we finally agree on something! I stuck tape to a high grade ASM #129 while having a gin and tonic 17 years ago and tore the cover. I dropped an ultra high grade Avengers #4 IN A SCANNER once. It's truly a shame but it happens.

I was apparently 'called out' in the Cole Schave shrunken cover thread because I'm evil so allow me to fill you in. I took an interest in the discussion because I'm a knowledge buff on things that interest me and it turns out that SA Marvel covers DO shrink. They shrink laterally and grow longitudinally - it's why we have overhang on Silver Age Marvels. SA Marvels were folded, stapled and then trimmed so all the covers should be flush with the edges of the interior pages, but they rarely are. Why? Most SA Marvels have shrunken covers. If you find one in the wild that isn't shrunken it CAN be mistaken as trimmed but actually isn't. But most people don't realize that. So from what I understand, the covers did shrink on the CS books MORE than they had shrunken before but the reality is that the covers are in a perpetual stage of shrinking from the day they were printed. The improper pressing techniques CCS used just sped it up .

The problem that exists with CGC notating which books were pressed by CCS and which were not is that it can't be done consistently with books that are not pressed by CCS. And that is also the problem with detecting pressing. Even if you guess correctly on half the books, the other half are a coin toss. CGC is not in the business of selling coin toss opinions. People pay for an educated opinion, not a guess. They won't declare a book as restored, or trimmed (or whatever) unless they are sure it's so. Do you want them guessing on pressing? Nobody does. We're paying big dollars for books because we believe they are NOT guessing. It's probably why the have not considered a properly disassmebled and reassembled book as restored. If done properly, it's undetectable. And before someone screams that CGC is ruining the hobby, everyone should pull out their old Overstreet Price Guides and read the recommended grading standards in detail. Removing and replacing staples was allowed up to certain grades and NOT considered restoration. Context is important when discussing things because nothing happens in a vacuum and this hobby has evolved for 80 years. I don't expect things to be the same today as they were when Pop Hollinger was taping books in the 40's and they will continue to change. Maybe pressing will one day swing in the other direction and be frowned upon 200 years from now the way the opinion of restoration has changed from being 'good' to 'bad' but right now, this is where we are at.

Sorry, my mistake. Yes I KNEW and meant the Mass. Ped. Please don't accuse me of making things up. Why on earth would people like Bedrock have chimed in with the info that Marnin and Greg pressed books in the 90's BEFORE CGC if someone didn't first come up with the post that it was all CGC's fault. You may not believe it was CGC's fault but some people do. The conversation involves a very broad context with lots of people, but all people seem to care about is finding a hole in someone's post and pointing it out and miss the big picture. Pressing has been around in various forms for as long as there have been wrinkles and has increased in incidence as the market has increased but it was never secret or evil until big dollars came to play. As the dollar amounts increased, so did incidence of pressing but so also did it's opposition. I didn't imply it. See my above post. It's more than a cottage industry. It's a REAL industry, full on with no end in sight. But like all things (including collecting) it starts small and grows, and as the money increases, so does the interest. Hobbies change over time. in the 1930's there were readers and people who used books as insulation and firewood. That evolved into collectors. That evolved into a myriad of types of collecting. Too many to label. If you are a collector of virgin books and want unpressed books, they are available. They're usually the ones going for record dollars in grade in auctions because of the potential to upgrade (disclaimer, I hardly ever bid in auctions but i do see them). There's a board member from Montreal who collects unpressed books (as much as he can within reasonable limits). He doesn't like pressing so he reserves his dollars and search time for unpressed books. So it's a different type of research, a different type of collecting but it's still an evolution of collecting. As in anything, you are going to pay a premium for the virgin copy the way in the past someone would step up and pay a premium for a cherry copy of a particular book. So there are options.

Knowledge is an interesting topic. I know someone who made stupid money (like 4-5 figures per product) by buying a product out of a building, shipping it out, repackaging it and then selling it back to someone on the same building. It was a can of resin. I don't remember the exact amount but it was a charge of $1000's for a can of this resin. Should the seller have disclosed to the buyer have disclosed he was buying this can for $100 and selling it for $5000 to someone on another floor? Where do you draw the line? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- We form opinions out of our experiences. I was in the automotive industry for 22 years dealing with exotic cars. I've worked with every major exotic. On a side note, there is a direct parallel to pressing in the automotive industry. I grew up in the car industry and have reiterated this story many times. When a car comes in with a dent, a shop called a paintless dent removal guy to repair the dent. When he was done it was an invisible repair and never declared after the fact. The value of the vehicle increased and the work is mostly undetectable. Just Google paintless dent removal if you've never heard about it (although most probably have by now - this was back in the 90's) Should it be declared? Does that make dent removal guys evil? Where is the line drawn as to what you to have declared? Do I declare when I polish a scratch out? A small dent? A 'big' dent? Obviously, cars that were written off or in structural wrecks need to be declared (at least where I live it is law) which I agree with and is understandable, but that would be akin to a comic being RESTORED to having the restoration declared as opposed to having dents pressed out. So it's not without precedent. Is it the same for collectible cars? I don't know. But I don't think anyone cares as much about a dent being removed as they do with a fender being replaced.

'08 was the first year for the Greektown dinner. The '09 dinner took place a month after Nik passed OK, my memory is not the greatest. That was the one we all took the train from Rosemont for.

Was that just the CGC group or was it the larger dinner, because I remember a HUGE forum dinner somewhere downtown but am not sure if it was the same one that you're talking about? If it was the really big dinner, there must have been 30 people at that dinner. I don't even remember how many. I just remember rows and rows of tables. What I do remember is that Nik and I were the last two to leave the restaurant and we got stiffed with the bill for people who didn't chip in enough. I think we came up with about $500 or $600 between the two of us on like a $1500 bill (or something along those lines).

I was there too and I spilled some water on the table and tripped on the decrepit streets unfortunately missing Roy. Was it 2007 or 2008? Nik was actually the reason I found out about these forums. He invited me over from eBay when a book I was selling was being discussed. I think it was at that WW Chicago show that everyone really met everyone for the first time. It was like a 'coming of age' movie where we weren't just faceless avatars anymore and became real people for the first time. Man, it's been a long time. Nik is missed. And thankfully greggy missed me (athough I would have caught you if I could have, buddy )

Well stated. Particularly the part about how third-party grading was meant to stop the climate of nervousness around buying comics with undisclosed tampering. But the opposite has happened now, and CGC has not only enabled these deceptive practices, but rewarded it, and have monetized it for themselves. I hadn't seen anyone use the comparison to the Church books in this thread, and agree 100% with you. It is without question not only the dumbest analogy I have ever heard, but a very dangerous statement to perpetuate. I had hoped anyone with half a brain would have long ago stopped spewing this nonsense, but if people insist, then be prepared to take the heat for it, because frankly you become the sewage waste in the cesspool this hobby has become by stating such falsehoods. Nobody is saying that the Church books were pressed the way CCS presses books. People who say that are missing the context that the reference is used in. What they are trying to state is that there are varying degrees of pressing (encyclopedias, irons (ie. evil children), storing in stacks, etc) I have recounted this story a few times, but here goes again. I found an original owner collection in Hawaii years ago. It would have even been a slam dunk for a pedigree but much of the collection was destroyed after being stored improperly after the owner passed. The books that did survive in high grade were spectacular. They almost all had white pages and the grade of the mid 60's Marvels averaged 9.4 Do you know how the books were stored? In tall stacks over along period of time in a humid environment. and they all looked 'pressed'. The books were perfectly flat because of it even though there were crumbs of food on them, etc. That is not meant to mean that CCS pressing is equatable to Hawaii-stored-in-stacks pressing. But it's one of the reasons I don't have a problem with pressing. It can and does occur naturally (both humidity and pressure are natural phenomenon), it's non-invasive, it's generally not harmful (unless either done improperly or on in improper candidate and you are always going to have damage on comics no matter how much care one takes - even the Curator collection, which was stored by a museum curator in a museum still had some wear on them) and is generally not detectable (at least not with a great enough degree of accuracy to make detection consistent). So to me it's a non-factor.