justafan

I dont blame those jawas. I would have too. Those machines last forever and are pricey if buying new. I got lucky finding mine for ehat i paid.

Bit of an update on this but figured I'd share my progress for anyone planning on taking on this endeavor themselves, what to prepare for. I've been practicing pressing moderns 2000-present with both glossy and matte interior pages for the last 2 weeks with some encouraging success. I managed to find a few decent cheap candidates with a good mix of light and shallow to deep and difficult defects. I had to add some of my own to really get some good practice which actually hurt me more than I expected. It felt like I was like committing a crime to add a defect to an otherwise low grade modern. Considering the true crime is what my pressing attempts might have done to the book if things went wrong, I got over it quickly. Major accomplishments: Acquired 2 types of working clamshell presses and 1 HUGE Seal Jumbo press (for those that have hunted for these, this is a major accomplishment) This actually took the longest (3 weeks). Acquired 3 pairs of steel plates this took the 2nd longest trying to locate a place that would cut and sell steel plates at a reasonable price. Acquired all the basic materials needed to begin "properly" (amature) pressing moderns along with a table and space to set up my apparatus. Researched hours of pressing videos and online advice and narrowed my initial approach and test plan. Identified initial test subjects (or possibly victims) and documented the defects for comparison. Wolverine Old Man Logan #66 3 copies Defects include (pressable and non-pressable spine bends, finger(nail) bends with and w/o color break, light shallow edge bends, moderate corner bend, moderate indents and dimples from being stacked,. Extra credit defects (added on): sharp corner bend, grain of sand press dimple, improperly pressed staple indents ) Unity Time is not Absolute #1 1 copy Defects include: large non-color break spine bends (1"+), edge crease with hint of color break, multiple large raised curvy sharp creases that don't break color, edge bends and finger(nail) bends. Extra Credit (added on) grain of sand press dimple, interior page bends) Calibrated the temperature setting on all 3 presses. A meat contact thermometer is probably best since the different presses use different metals for the heat platen giving you wildly different temperatures with an infrared gun. Aluminum has a lower emissivity than steel so you need an infrared thermometer gun that allows you to switch the emissivity settings but even then it can be off by several degrees. However the gun does help you see where colder spots on the platen are and allow you to obtain a better overall average temperature. Every press is different. Even the press temp settings can fluctuate so before you put your books in, do several tests to isolate the setting that best matches your desired temp. Most folks online will suggest starting at 150 degrees. However, I found for my presses the upper limit is 175 degrees F for moderns before the pages start to stick together and potentially damage inks. I then dialed it back to 170 to be on the safe side. Then you also have to take into consideration the room temp. My basement was about 63 degrees when I did this and drops to 60 over night which causes the press to cool quicker so I may have to adjust my temps in the summer when my basement is closer to 73 degrees. I may have to dial it back to 160 degrees. I will have to experiment with different heat times and press durations. Calibrated the pressure settings on all 3. Also a major accomplishment as the clamshell presses can be uneven on one side or the other. The seal uses a different pressure adjustment calibration method than the clamshells. Successfully dry pressed both test subject titles to remove the more shallow and superficial defects. For the deeper defects it eliminated the "feel" tactile sense of the defect but only reduced the visibility of the defect by 30-50%. The deeper defects felt smooth when passing your finger over them but you could still see via glare that the defects were still there. The shallow spine ticks were completely removed. The larger and deeper ones remained visible but appeared smaller and severity was reduced by 50%. The non-color break fingernail bends were 90% pressed out requiring sharp glare to see a hint of their previous presence. All raised bends and light creases were smoothed out and eliminated. The color break defects were completely smoothed out but still leaving behind flat color-break marks such as small curved color breaks from the fingernail bends and some spine ticks. Edge bends and dimples along with very deep sharp creases and corner bends remained having improved them by roughly 30-35%% (based on angle of light until you could detect them again, size comparison from their original visibility, and feel). Successfully calibrated and achieved desired humidity levels/timing for the humidity chamber (very tough to do during a dry winter where indoor RH is near 30%). You must heat up that water to a certain degree (I forgot to record it so I will have to reproduce) and seal that plastic tub tight to trap the humidity (roughly 90%RH at ~70-80 degrees F give or take 5 degrees.) I will have to play with this humidity setting to see if I can shorten the duration of the humidity chamber with higher humidity yields or chamber sizing. Helps to have a temp and humidity gauge to put in the humidity chamber. I'm also going to try using a garment steamer. Successfully pressed 2 humidified moderns eliminating all but the color breaking defects (as expected) and the sand dimple (also as expected as a tacking iron and steel ball will need to be used for that). I was most impressed at how well the the sharp creases, corner bends, and improperly pressed staple dimples were completely eliminated. The large spine bends also vanished. Best of all, no pulled inks, no stuck pages, no fanning or curling of pages. The comics lie flat and are a vast improvement over their initial condition. After a month, I've managed to identify the types of moderns defects that can be pressed out with a dry press and those that will require humidity as well as those stubborn ones that will require manual intervention with a tacking iron and ball. I've learned how to use a clean workspace, position the backerboards, SRP paper and other paper inserts to ensure uniformity and integrity of the comic in the press. I've learned the pros and cons of different presses and how to prep them. I've learned what I need to know about humidity chambers and improving those processes. I am going to continue working on moderns and try and perfect my craft at all moderns for now. That's the era where most of the books I want to press are at anyways. My pressing apparatus will allow me to press 8 books at a time. For dry presses it takes 24 hours (mostly cool down pressing) but I'm going to try and see what the shortest time I can achieve per defect that doesn't revert. For humidity pressing it takes 32 hours but I will experiment with shortening the time in the humidity chamber and the pressing cooldown times. I didn't do any cleaning of the comics before hand other than simply wiping them with a tissue to clear any dust and particles that may contaminate the pressing. I will next work on building my dry cleaning skills which will be necessary for some books prior to pressing them. At this point, I'm getting more comfortable with the process and confident in my abilities. My goal is to press several hundred (~400) comics to get them to submission worthy if CGC TATs improve or sell them raw otherwise or possibly use Voldy's slabbing if they aren't just as backed up. I'll post another update when I've reached more significant milestones. I might add some pictures of the victims before an after if I get time. I am terrible with taking and uploading photos..

Yeah, it's probably a rabbit hole I probably have to go down alone and hope to come out on the other side. It's a path many on here have had to pursue after coming to the same conclusion I just did. They probably wouldn't benefit much from my help or even the offer to non-compete. It seems like there's plenty enough customers to go around anyways. At this point, paying and waiting to press the books I want isn't worth it for them or for me at their price point. I'd have to pay a lot more to guarantee a month turnaround time but then it wouldn't really be worth it for me. And realizing what that would take, the barrier to entry to pressing your own books is no longer cost or time prohibitive @DocHoppus182I've already not pressed these books for over 10 years when they were not worth much so I've already done that but @theCapraAegagrus now many of them have gone up in price enough where there is significant enough value after a press making them worthy. I've actually come to the epiphany that cleaning and pressing is a skill that any serious collector needs to pick up. Just like knowledge of proper comic book storage, grading, and handling, serious long term collectors should pursue and add this knowledge to their utility belts. If we spend all this time and money maintaining our collections meticulously with insurance, storage boxes, mylars, chamber paper, full backs, shelves, online price guide subscriptions, CGC subscriptions, grading fees, comic database subscriptions, and glamorous comic rooms, whats another $1000 in equipment and more countless hours in time and effort. I'm working from home now so I've now got the time and space to dedicate to learning it. Who knows, if I get good enough, this could become my retirement gig later on in life. Guess I'll join a pressing facebook group or something.

TLDR: professional pressing services are taking too damned long and may have quality control issues to where I could probably learn and do it myself in the time it would take for the current TATs. Offered up free labor and legal agreement not to disclose the secret sauce if allowed to use knowledge learned to work on personal collection books only in my home. I'm not even sure this is a business CGC wants to be in as its just insane to have to wait that long or even 2/3 of that time with fast track. CGC is almost begging customers to go elsewhere to have their modern comics pressed. It's not that I don't want to pay the fees or shipping or use an existing service, but to have to wait more than a month for a book to be pressed is not really a turn around time, it's now a free storage company. A collector/dealer with limited storage space could ship their entire backstock of books and schedule them for a pre-screen and press and have the books sit for 6 months to 1 year before any service is performed and then still be able to cancel all orders and have them returned back to them for just the price of shipping. All the really well known pressing pros are backed up. Even such that I feel quality control is beginning to suffer as they balance rushing to meet TATs and providing a good service. I received a book back from CGC post press last year on one of the quicker TATs that still had some easily pressable non-color break bends on the back cover. Honestly I feel like I just need to go apprentice and work for free as a sweat shop laborer at one of the pressing masters for 6 months to learn the trade, buy the gear, and then set up my own personal pressing studio just for my own comics. I'd even be willing to sign a non-compete agreement and NDA just to be able to press my own books. I've been hired for my ability to keep secrets so there's that. Any pressing masters in the DC VA area looking for an extra helper? If I had started doing that last year when I shipped my books to CGC, I'd probably have already learned how to clean and press my books and had them done by now. I know there's a bunch of resources on the web which I may have to resort to making do with. I also can't stand a rushed job. I'm at the point where I've lost faith in the quality of the press that one can expect when a service is not personalized. Some pressers will do due diligence but at the end of the day, they don't always have the time to troubleshoot your press job on a random low value modern comic that you paid the modern tier for when they have thousands of higher value books waiting for a press. I get that there's some defects that revert and paper has memory sometimes with some bends and continuing to work the page may lead to damage but at least I can identify that for myself in a timely fashion and make a decision on whether or not it should be submitted for grading and not have to wait a year to find out. Hence, why I feel we've hit the point where the demand for the typical service has exceeded the cost/value ratio. As such, I feel even if I have to venture these murky and cryptic waters of pressing on my own using the internet and what help I find along the way and reinvent the wheel in terms of technique and art through trial and error, at least I will be further along to getting my books pressed than where my submission is currently. Don't worry, I will still plan on using the pros for the rare, really delicate, and super high dollar books in my collection. It's just the typical $10-$100 modern that could become a 9.8 book if its defects press out are what I'm mainly focusing on. dang, I wrote a wall of text.

Just called in and found out my books that have been sitting at CCS pressing received since 7/16/21 wont likely be done with pressing and grading until that time next year. In otherwords the TAT for those books is a full year at least with an original Usps tracking delivered to cgc date of April 28, 2021. That makes the true TAT for my books at 1 year and 3 months! Anyone else have books stuck in this state with an expected TAT of 1.25 years?

I will mention those to him as a way to affordably collect the stories form volume 1. KS FF#5 makes a pretty good candidate. I'll add it to the list.

I should have known there'd be a lot of tough opinions on the matter but I'll send him all the recommendations thus far and let my friend vote with his wallet which one he feels is best for his son. I happen to dig that cover but it's not for me to decide.

WOW! I had totally forgotten about all the TTA appearances! oh boy.

nice copy. I'll check it out. thx!

I might need to start a poll. too many to choose from but more is better than less.

no doubt but SS and FF is not my wheelhouse so I had little other than keys to go on. My eyes are now being opened to so many cool books and covers.

yeah, when I dove in initially to help him look I had to shock him with the prices. That is an an iconic cover.

Wow, those are all really great options! Man those covers look great. Knew I came to the right place.

I've got a friend who has a teen who has shown an interest in Silver Surfer and asked me for some advice. Wanting to encourage his interest in the hobby as the youth are the future of the hobby, I want to be sure I steer him in the right direction for his son to best enjoy. He's already picked up a marvel masterworks volume for his son to read but he wants to get him an actual comic that's a piece of Silver Surfers history that will fit in as both a collectible to enjoy as a fan. I told him what I know about grades and prices and current market (silver age is probably out of the question in any condition unless you know someone generous) but to help him narrow his search down I realized I also need some advice. Realizing Silver Surfer had 8 different volumes not to mention his multiple FF and Avengers appearances, I'd like to ask the Silver Surfer fans on the board if there was a favorite volume or storyline that you think would check the boxes as something enjoyable as a great read OR is important to the Silver Surfer's history or life, or an epic battle, or shows the essence of who Silver Surfer is, or origin story, etc, and cool as a collectible or with a cool cover but affordable at $50 or less. I would say as a loose guideline minimum condition for anything old like SA/BA would be anything above GD- (1.8), FN or better for CA, and VF or better for anything from the 90's on up. Grades are probably flexible depending on the eye appeal and structural integrity of the book (he wants to be able to hold and read it and not have it fall apart on him). I'm open to any suggestions as well for specific runs even if it doesn't meet the cost requirement. I realize there's a WTB forum but for now I'm just looking for advice on which volume or issues to steer his father towards. Thanks in advance and I look forward to learning and in turn passing on what I learn to my friend's son on the hobby and Silver Surfer.

While Heritage has been shown to use shills in the past via their MP Gresham buyer or rebuys/buys their own books that are at risk of selling for a price below market (which they can do legally and then relist at more favorable times free of fees) an easy to imagine scenario would be if Heritage is obtaining proxy and max bid info from bidders from their auction program and selling that info or using it to shill the bids up to a favorable maximum. For example, if that ASM 21 bid came in earlier via proxy bid and was set to $50k but current bid was only at $15k, they could sit and wait to see if anyone else bids it up and enter it in at $45k at the last minute and collect a nice profit in the buyer's premium and seller's commission (assuming it wasn't already negotiated down with the seller). This can easily be automated. As the buyer, I'd probably want to know who was the underbidder and probably question the bid but if I had that much money, I probably could care less and feel happy I won. Then again, this book being part of the top registry set also brought out a lot of whales that just saw it as "Top Registry" set and translated it into best of the best and must have regardless of how it looked compared to others or what the "market" price was. But another reason for the crazy bids could be that this book is 1 of 7 in 9.8 and white pages with the only other 2 on gpa in OW/W pages and possibly a 3rd one on comiclink also being OW pages. Meaning there may only be 1 in 4 or less in 9.8 that have white pages making this one technically the highest graded including page quality.

Hard not to try to sell if it could fetch that much or more. Only problem is someone willing to let one go. Im sure one will be pulled into the market over the next 6-8 months especially if theres movie hype. One sold earlier this year or last year on clink i think. I wonder if any of the 8 9.9 copies are newsstand editions. Only the 4 I've seen come to market were direct editions. Be patient and start saving up. One will come along and you'll need to be ready to pounce.

The only exceptions might be OO-OS (Original Owner Original Submitter) pre-CCS buyout and before when pressing was not as common/convenient, old labels that havent seen the light of day since they were first submitted. I.e. never been sold/resold. Finding and discerning those will b just as difficult as finding a good CPR candidate now a days.

I have tested this out once 4 years ago where i sent in 3 vf/nm or better books (2-3 non color break spine ticks and one had 1 spine tick with hint of color break) with several small ink rub streaks/spots along the front and back cover spines and had them come back as a cgc 8.0, 8.5 and 9.0. I also had them pressed. The graders notes only stated multiple color rub on them so if the print run isnt known for this as a common printer defect, itll likely get knocked down 1 whole grade point from 9.0 or above. Of course it also depends on the graders. However, i have seen 9.8s and 9.6s with mild ink rub (small spot by staples) on issues not known for that defect so it can vary by degrees and noticeability of the ink rubs especially if on the front cover.

Ah the post auction hangover for both the wallet and the head. I wonder how many are experiencing that from the last Heritage ASM auction.

Just wait until you see "Certified Pre-owned."

Well itll probably b a while. Nothing yet showing up for either nycc or baltimore but theyre doing a show in Massachusetts.

Yep same here except they just went ahead and shipped them directly to me as i missed their calls letting me know they were ready for pickup last week. They probably over estimated their delays. I emailed George, the manager, about this and he said they just dont have the space to store the orders that long (3 days tops) and they cant schedule orders for pickup so even if you wanted to time it with baltimore comicon it would still be a shoot. They did at least refund the in state tax i was charged due to it now being an out of state order. Sucks but if you dont need the extra halfbacks you can either ask them to scale the order back to reduce the shipping cost or just take the order as is and try to recoup some of the cost by reselling at retail prices and profiting on the wholesale cost.

Someone definitely brought their war chest. Im guessing it was mainly 2 or 3 big whales going after most of the key and low census books in 9.6 and 9.8 with a handful of standard HG asm collectors/dealers. I stayed out of their way for most of it but when the dust settled, im not sure you'd want to be a winner of some of those books if your bank account isnt in the 6 figures or their wallets will have a heck of a hangover for the next few months. It was entertaining to hear the auctioneer's quips and banter after each next bid came in to urge another bid in. "$25k now i need 26. Whose got 26, 26 to take it home....ok $26k from the phones, what about $27k, i need $27k...$26k can i get $27?" And then a couple of times the phone bid came in just a second too late after the lot closed but they went ahead and went back and opened it back up for bidding and increases another $15k in counter bids. If i were the original winning bidder on that lot i would have been pissed. Some books i can totally understand the triple or quintuple GPA prices but some were clearly needed to complete a set. Started seeing a pattern of $60k bids for certain issues and then $35k for others. A few went for what i considered reasonable prices, mostly above issue #50.

I have a few. Most did not come back higher. 1. One went up in PQ but the grade stayed the same (cgc 9.6) 2. One went from a cgc 9.4 to 9.2 because of a 1/4 color break bend in the midde of the front cover that wasnt clearly visible through the slab in hand but was when i cracked it out. It looked like a scratch on the slab or inner well but was actually on the book. 3. One went up in grade from a 9.2 to a 9.6 with the same pq after a press. 4. 2 went from a 9.6 to a 9.4 same pq even after a press with no graders notes. No interior damage, no tears or stains, no spine stress, no chipping or bends. My only guess is the corners werent sharp enough??? 5. One went up in grade from a 9.4 to a 9.6 but went from white pages to off-whit to white pages. So no, my luck has not been great with these. I still have several in their old slabs that i know could be upgradable on a good day at cgc but not going to risk it with CGCs current quality control issues.

I am willing to bet those sustained the type of damage that happens when a comic or stack of comics, even in a mylar with a fullback, falls from a 3.5 - 4 foot counter or desk onto a hard floor. Source: experience. The corner bend and blunting is nearly identical to every comic ive ever dropped from that height and lands on a corner either obliquely or directly. Is it possible they had too many comics piled up and not enough space when grading/transferring/storing them? Why they wouldnt simply gather them up, mark them as damaged in house, call the customer and ask if they would approve a free full press, and move on is probably a mix of cost mitigation and employee omission. But if it continues it may begin to impact their submissions which it sounds like wouldnt be the worst thing for them temporarily.