Diamond Comic Distributors tweeted out the news. I'm quite impressed they got that to work. "We are currently experiencing systems issues which may affect order processing and communications. We appreciate your patience." That means Diamond Pullbox, Previewsworld, the retailer site, Diamond UK, Alliance Games, Hake's Americana & Collectibles, Geppi Family Enterprises, and more of their websites are all down.

 They followed up to say "Due to a hardware issue, Diamond offices will be closed today while repairs are made. Information on FOC will be shared when available.""

Pressing was around before CGC came into existence... and the restoration industry was alive and well in other artistic and cultural areas both to preserve and to restore art. Both have been co-opted to an extent in the pursuit of money. Does this detract from the purpose of comic books or the art itself? Not really. You can still enjoy the content... just not the collectability.

The fact that it may have been planned does not mean that they can detect it or prove it when someone else does it. They can only give their considered expert opinion and that may not be secure enough in the case of pressing. (They clearly aren't willing to verify unwitnessed signatures officially although I realize there have been irregularities in the SS system where people try to game the system.)

I think it was considered restoration until CGC was established as a grading company and realized they could not reliably detect it... That essentially it would be impossible to prove. A company has to stake its claim on things it can do, not what it can't.

This is getting kind of into the weeds...

So if you find an Action Comics #1 in a chest in an attic and it is COVERED WITH DUST and lint and whatever from being there close to 83 years, you cannot blow it off without it being restoration? You basically cannot alter its condition or restore anything that could detract from the grade it would be given in its current state?

(Just a theoretical...)

Yes. WHERE you live also contributes to how well preserved your comics are naturally. If you live in an arid climate, the humidity level in your area is different than say Florida. (We know humidity is used in the pressing process.) Living in areas with harsh winters or areas prone to flooding probably also introduce a lot of water into the air naturally. Extreme temperature changes to paper also may not be what you would consider  “natural” or beneficial.

Comics from a home of people who smoke also may have smoke residue or whatever other residue is in there.

Pressing has been around for over 40 years... according to CGC's website. That's four decades. It should be easy to detect degradation if it is happening shouldn't it?    There are many laboratories who can do the required analyses. (Instead of all this speculation.)

CCS Pressing | CGC (cgccomics.com)

Many years ago, I actually had some boardies over and they helped me pre-screen hundreds of books ( dozens of Secret Wars 8, ASM 361-363, MCP 72s, etc.) and we kept track of their successful percentage of 9.8 strikes vs failures. It was a pretty interesting experiment and most were VERY close to 100%. If you want a 100% strike rate, you have to discard the maybes... which may mean leaving money on the table if 9.6s are still worth something. I had the multiples so we could leave the 9.6 and maybes for another day.

Recently, I did some 10/10 9.8 submissions with no pre-screen but I had over 30 copies to pick through to get that 10. Sometimes, you don't have that luxury.

(These are all un-pressed books.)

Some dealers are also professional pressers... So if you know this, and you see them set up an Conventions, you have to realize their entire inventory may be pressed and include RAW books. The game is lost already.

It's just a theoretical... You probably shouldn't buy any raw books either probably because they could be pressed but be rejected by a pre-screen. 

The chain of custody is hard to prove.

That's an age-old issue as well. You buy a 9.0 raw...It's got some NCB creases... maybe a little waviness. You take it home, bag it and double board it in a mylites2 inside a mylar with an ultra-smooth acid-free backing board (instead of a backing board with texture). Then you put it into an absolutely solid block of comics for 15 years in a dark closet. Rock solid. Even the box is a solid box with no give. 

15 years later, that book comes out looking better than it did when it went in. It's flat. Did you just restore that book? Because you just pressed it in a rudimentary fashion didn't you? Or does pressing always include heat?

On 11/3/2021 at 8:55 PM, FrankTheTank92 said:

Really disappointed with how CGC handled my book, excessive in my opinion. It obviously happened while it was being put in the slab. Should I reach out to customer service or will they not care?

I'm sorry about your comic book. This is an interesting case though in that it's possible that CGC in the past would not have encapsulated this book at all. This example actually has an overhang that is similar to yours. Yours actually has more egregious chipping/tearing damage halfway down the cover which may make it dangerous to encapsulate as well.

(It's possible that technology has increased to the point where encapsulation is possible for more types of comic book defects.)

My consignments seem to be received in around the same time as yours and are also being processed. 

I pre-screen to the GPA level where I don't think it's worth slabbing. That level changes for everyone obviously and by the comic... so that's how I group the moderns. If the entire cost includes pressing, shipping, grading, etc., you would have a fixed cost in mind and a value that would make it not worth it. That's how I personally approach it. (Unless it was for my personal collection in which case, none of this matters and I just want it slabbed for sentimental reasons.)

"Rarity" in the census is also a factor. Not true rarity, but if it will be the only one in the census, that's always worth something in my book. 

Even then, getting more than 25% back from the pre-screen seems excessive if you've really checked them over (which isn't the case many times).

I'm in the process of submitting thousands of more books, so it's been a learning experience.

They are back open on November 8th. (They are also out of the 700FB Full-Backs.)

Blast from the past...

I can't speak for their rarity, but these were the last 14 comics sought after by Ian Levine to complete his collection:

If you mouse over it, the post count is still there. It's just cleaner... so I assume they are cleaning up the interface. Was the Kudos link always there as well?

If you mouse over the name/avatar, the join date is in the profile... So maybe that's an interface decision to equalize the members based on the other discussion threads going on.

No worries. Many comic books have variations in color when printed, and many have manufacturing errors. X-Factor #1 has both a red and an orange cover, for example. (I have many showing both.) Many books with blue and purple predominantly in the cover will switch hues due to where they are in the print run on the machines. 

Silver Surfer 50 officially has known foil manufacturing errors. So does Deathmate Prologue.

I tend to pick up this book whenever I come across it…so I have a bunch of copies of it. Childhood book. 

It also scared me as a kid…especially since I didn’t actually think Cap was going to make it… 

It's an estimate.. but you have to consider that people are CONSTANTLY "cutting" ahead of you in line by paying for the higher tiers. The more people that do this, the longer you will wait. So TATs are essentially meaningless and just meant to inform you at the beginning whether you want to enter this ride or not. (Using the Disney analogy.)

I'm sure they move people in the slow lanes along to make sure they're not waiting indefinitely though.

Man-Thing was written like a horror story.

Obligatory Giant-Size references to follow…

I think he is talking about the Australian Price Variant...

Everyone's "golden" age is different. I was chatting with someone who grew up in the 90's and their Golden Age was the period with Dark Hawk and Spawn and the 90's X-Men (and cartoons). Now, 30 years later... Those are the comics coming into vogue and being slabbed in quantity. 

I personally disliked most of that time period and find them unreadable... and I note the bad artwork that resulted as the talent pool got diluted from all the extra publishers/comic books being rushed out for print. 

I actually buy cases like this for tech equipment... They have foam with small removable cubes so you can customize the cutout shapes. For a basically rectangular box-like cutout, that would be relatively simple actually. This one with wheels is only $260. 33" x 22" x 17"

(They probably have custom extruded foam inserts. These you have to excavate the foam yourself.)