VintageComics

Bait you? I was trying to show that the only argument against pressing is an emotional one and not a reasonable one.

There doesn't need to be a defence for pressing any more than there needs to be a defense for me owning a book. I bought it and I'll do with it a I please. I can wipe my butt with it if a want without having to explain why. Why that is considered a 'sell out' makes no sense except you are looking for some intellectual foothold to continue arguing.

No, it gets personal because people are overly emotional about what other people do and won't just let it go. Stating that people sold out principles for cash is a BS statement unless you catch some being a hypocrite after stating they wouldn't press and it's entirely uncalled for and emotionally immature. Like I said last night, it's no different than a discussion on religion. Hot heads just start butting with no rational though prvailing.

I guess I was arguing the end of the Rollout phase. In my mind a backward view looks like... ...CGC/PCS is a combo deal the moment the doors open. A concept imported over from coins. It's just not revealed. (some insiders are privy and play immediately - Hammer points, rants and is ridiculed) ...A roughly decade-long Rollout follows to remould hearts & minds (or books and paydays, however you want to say it). Drops, not a downpour. ...Rough waters midstream. Ewert, NOD, all that. Advanced-stage rollout, yes, but still in the rollout phase. Overstreet marketing partnership pays off, broader acceptance assured. Not there yet. Then it's just a matter of pinpointing when what was desired Opening Day was fully accomplished. The Rollout phase ending, everything in the open, public invited. 2012. So I guess folks like Matt, Tracy, etc. openly offering pressing service had anything to do with the proliferation of pressing. Nobody said that Matt, Trace offering pressing didn't proliferate pressing back in 2006 (and they were offering pressing well before 2006) but they could only reach people who were aware of them. NOD actively reaching out to the entire hobby through dealers and collectors made more people aware of pressing than Matt and Trace combined, IMO.

Que Judas Priest Electric Eye.

Good point and that's just poor grammar on my part. Discuss them. If someone is stating that CGC is loose then they should post scans showing how and why they are loose, not try to character assissinate someone who disagrees with them. I've posted tons of scans of books that I thought were tight in previous threads. I've also seen some loose books. CGC has been inconsistent of late but as I qualified in a previous post, in the 8.5-9.8 grade range that I submit books they were tighter than they have been. I don't have scans but I had a handful of books in Comicana's most recent submission to CGC for the first time in a few years and some of mine are probably what Nick is referring to. I've only heard three grades back so far but all are higher than I would grade them. A Daredevil # 1 that I had for sale as FN/VF and CGC graded as 7.5 Of course when selling, I'll mention the fact that it has a fairly large name written in pen on the splash page whereas the only way to find that out from CGC would be to pay for graders notes. An ASM # 15 which came out of a 7.5 old label holder and has now ended up in an 8.5 holder. I like old labels so I wouldn't have resubmitted it if not for the cracked holder. I've had it in my collection for a couple of years and it's just going back into my collection. An ASM # 9 which Nick sold to me as a FN+ and I completely agree with him due to the significant colour breaking crease on the front cover so no way should that've ended up in the 8.0 holder that it found itself in. CGC did actually find a small piece of colour touch that had not been known before so it actually ended up with a PLOD. Of course, Nick being the sort of dealer with excellent customer service is refunding me the purchase price and grading fees on it. So there we go, all books that I've heard grades for so far have been slightly to greatly overgraded. We are specifically talking about CGC grading then vs. CGC now. Not Garry vs. CGC or Nick vs. CGC. And in regards to your ASM 7.5 - 8.5 move that echoes what others have said - that they are a little more inconsistent on books in the mid range. That is a grade range I very rarely submit books in. So basically, all you're saying is that you think that their high end grading is consistent and you're not sure about books that aren't high grade? A conversation about CGC grading is never just about one thing. It's multi faceted. Whenever I have discussed CGC consistency I have tried to qualified it based on my experiences. What I am specifically saying is that their high grade seems to be more consistent now, but the idea that CGC was being tighter in the old days isn't entirely true. They have had cyclical consistency over the past 15 years, as proven to me by getting CGC to regrade their own books, and that cyclical consistency is never constant. IMO we just came off a 2 year tight, high grade streak. As tight as any other era I can personally remember.

How do you know where I am and what I'm doing?

Good point and that's just poor grammar on my part. Discuss them. If someone is stating that CGC is loose then they should post scans showing how and why they are loose, not try to character assissinate someone who disagrees with them. I've posted tons of scans of books that I thought were tight in previous threads. I've also seen some loose books. CGC has been inconsistent of late but as I qualified in a previous post, in the 8.5-9.8 grade range that I submit books they were tighter than they have been. I don't have scans but I had a handful of books in Comicana's most recent submission to CGC for the first time in a few years and some of mine are probably what Nick is referring to. I've only heard three grades back so far but all are higher than I would grade them. A Daredevil # 1 that I had for sale as FN/VF and CGC graded as 7.5 Of course when selling, I'll mention the fact that it has a fairly large name written in pen on the splash page whereas the only way to find that out from CGC would be to pay for graders notes. An ASM # 15 which came out of a 7.5 old label holder and has now ended up in an 8.5 holder. I like old labels so I wouldn't have resubmitted it if not for the cracked holder. I've had it in my collection for a couple of years and it's just going back into my collection. An ASM # 9 which Nick sold to me as a FN+ and I completely agree with him due to the significant colour breaking crease on the front cover so no way should that've ended up in the 8.0 holder that it found itself in. CGC did actually find a small piece of colour touch that had not been known before so it actually ended up with a PLOD. Of course, Nick being the sort of dealer with excellent customer service is refunding me the purchase price and grading fees on it. So there we go, all books that I've heard grades for so far have been slightly to greatly overgraded. We are specifically talking about CGC grading then vs. CGC now. Not Garry vs. CGC or Nick vs. CGC. And in regards to your ASM 7.5 - 8.5 move that echoes what others have said - that they are a little more inconsistent on books in the mid range. That is a grade range I very rarely submit books in.

Household word within the context of the hobby. When you're hanging with a board member and they say 'I wanna show you something' and the walk you into a room and show you their new press and then you listen to people at cons talk about it at every level I'd say that's mainstream. 2008.

Mainstream to me is when you have a picture of a Spidey mask in public areas, when Wolverine is recognized outside of comics and when everyone is talking about it. Pressing became mainstream when it became common knowledge and in my experience, the cottage pressing industry, convention talk and pressing in general became a commonplace word after the 2006-2008 period. I'd peg it at 2008 if I had to as my memory serves me. You say 2012 because of CCS. Fair enough. I think it was already a household word by 2008.

I almost exclusively submit books in higher grades and don't remember the last time I saw a "loose" 9.4 in my submissions. That's why I asked to see his. Arguing "CGC was tighter back in the day" to me is no different than when board members go into the "Please Grade My" section and all throw tight grades out at the OP's books. Everyone is always the tighest grader, but that's not what is important here. This whole CGC is tight / loose discussion is ridiculous. They've been loose / tight since 1999 in reoccurring cycles. I know because I resubmit books from various time periods. Sometimes they go up in grade, sometimes they go down and sometimes they stay the same.

I realize that he is not selling his personal books but the point is that he is in the business of selling CGC graded books. So he has skin in the game. And I shouldn't have said everyone. I should have said "we both have skin in the game". Obviously not everyone does - possibly yourself and Mother Theresa included (I'm not sure if either of you collect CGC graded books).

Good point and that's just poor grammar on my part. Discuss them. If someone is stating that CGC is loose then they should post scans showing how and why they are loose, not try to character assissinate someone who disagrees with them. I've posted tons of scans of books that I thought were tight in previous threads. I've also seen some loose books. CGC has been inconsistent of late but as I qualified in a previous post, in the 8.5-9.8 grade range that I submit books they were tighter than they have been.

Anyone who says CGC's grades are looser now obviously has skin in the game. How else would you know they are looser? It's plain from your comments that you have been taking advantage of CGC's services. And if they are giving you looser grades there is obviously some shenanigans going on on your part. What have you done to grease the wheels and get looser grades? (Isn't it amazing how all of that irrelevant wildly_fanciful_statement could be gleaned from one stupid post? ) Here is my counter overblown, hyperbolic, pompous windbag statement - Anyone who thinks that having "skin in the game" negates your comments obviously has either 1) more "skin in the game" than you, or 2) an inability to have a reasonable adult conversation. Yep, I just called the Telepath a bunch of mean names. But I have "skin in the game" so they shouldn't mean anything to him. Just for your information, Richard, I have not personally, or as part of Comicana Direct, submitted a single book. Ever. All submission have been on behalf of customers. Hope that this doesn't spoil your fun. But you do buy, sell and trade CGC graded books. And you don't crack out an AF #15 CGC 6.5 and sell it as a raw 4.5, so you have 'skin in the game'. The real point is that everyone has skin in the game. Argue the facts not the people.

+1, just plan crazy Yeah, "sunlight is the best disinfectant" twisted in to "who dragged it under a grow-light, man!!" Are you people high? Here is what the OP asked: Here is my first answer (in agreement with Transplant). Yup, and I stated the same when the entire NOD thing initially started. As much as their movement was a dislike and anti-pressing, all it did was increase awareness and therefore increase incidence of pressing. Like wildfire. Where in this entire thread did anybody say NOD caused pressing? Why you guys twist words in an effort to straighten out your agendas didn't make sense to me until know but since you guys were likely supporters of NOD it's understandable I guess that you would get defensive. Please understand that I was not taking a swipe at NOD. I was imply relaying the fact that NOD opened the knowledge and idea of pressing to more people in a shorter period of time than any other information stream. I said it was going to happen 8 years ago when NOD was first formed on this very forum. Again, I found out from an anti presser and NOD member first. After that, it was obviously CGC, the grade increments, money and better looking books that caused everyone to choose to press books. But they couldn't choose to press them until they found out about it first. Circa 2006-2008.

She must have been a part of some secret society then because nobody knew about it. Of course many of us did. I ironed my comics when I was 8 or 10 years old too. I just never thought about pressing them the way they are pressed now until a NOD member told me how it was done in 2004.

And let me touch on this. I like you a lot and I think you're a terrific dealer and probably a terrific person and husband but it does take some effort on my part not to take your constant attacks personally. What is happening here is a personality conflict whether you like to agree with me on it or not. I've said this to you before: Like every Ares that I know (and I am surrounded by them 2 kids, one of Lou's kids and an ex) you are black and white and cut and dry about the way you see everything and your world is painted that way permanently so my perspective is anathema to you. I actually know what you're going to say before you say it because I've heard my ex talk to me that way for 13 years. It was crazy. I'd say blue and she'd hear red. We are both on the same side and yet arguing about stupid stuff. So I'm not going to drag this out any longer but I'd appreciate if you kept the personal attacks to yourself like a grown up should.

What did I deflect and defend? You have as much a vested interest in this as me (just as Bedrock stated last week). You are just inflexible and refuse to ever admit when you're wrong. I've already explained that I answered the OP and also explained my answer. If that's a deflection and we're having another pressing thread, I'm out. I've had enough of those to last me a lifetime.

The OP asked when did pressing become a "thing". I answered circa 2006 onward. Then I explained why I thought it became a "thing". By "thing" I assume he meant rampant, as in everybody and their mother doing it. If you want to talk about murder, it became popular once someone realized that it was a short cut to something else. They had to have the realization that it was a short cut before they could do it. When. Why. And it started with Cain in Genesis. The OT version of NOD.

What increased the frequency of pressing exponentially was the perfect storm of pressing-related grade bumps that increased sale prices markedly being made public, coupled with CGCs refusal to downgrade for defects introduced by pressing. That you would relate it instead to discussions within the hobby surrounding sellers disclosing pressing is bizarre. You appear to have spelled 'driven entirely by self-interest' wrong there, Bob? You can be so nasty when you get a burr in your bonnet and a few beers in your gut. The fact that you are making it something personal just shows how badly you are grasping at straws.

In my view, what increased the frequency of pressing exponentially was the perfect storm of pressing-related grade bumps that increased sale prices markedly being made public, coupled with CGCs refusal to downgrade for defects introduced by pressing. That you would relate it instead to the discussions within the hobby that surrounded the disclosure of pressing by sellers is bizarre. How can people increase the incidence of pressing if they don't know about it? That's like asking how people like peanut butter when they don't know it exists. What increased the awareness of pressing - ie. people finding out about it - was NOD and the great anti-pressing movement circa 2006 (I think that is when NOD started). Before that it was known about on the boards loosely, some people were catching on but the entire hobby - meaning worldwide, didn't really get it until about 2006-2007. Once awareness got out then the act of pressing followed. In 2004 nobody really talked about it much at cons. By 2007 I remember people at cons started to ask "hey, didja ever hear about that derned pressing thang". By 2008/2009 those same people were pressing their books. It was 2007-2009 when it busted wide open.

Who said that? Pressing was around before NOD, it was around before Ewert, before CGC and before the 1990's. What increased the knowledge about pressing more than anything else was the anti-pressing movement trying to make people aware of what was going on. NOD was without question the largest catalyst in that regard since they were basically the largest group of anti-pressers on the planet. It was almost like a religion at the time and people were bickering and arguing on here and on their own forum for months on end. It was dark days. For goodness' sake, I found out about pressing from a NOD member and someone against pressing. But of course it seems that you (and Batman_Fan, and namisgr) obviously only see what you want to see.

Bid in the last seconds and usually by phone. Or if they aren't available at the time of bidding, just throw in a number ahead of time.

As a parallel thought, the Silver Surfer is about as iconic a person as you can get without ever becoming a true superstar. I get more compliments on my Silver Surfer #1 cover t-shirt than I do on any other article of clothing I wear, hands down. It's probably because of your huge pectoral muscles No, it's because his feet are cut off ala Liefeld and it looks like I am keeping them warm with my junk.