And people wonder why folks get a little bit peeved...

[DarkKnightReturns]

what a thread

I'm going to take joeyposts advice and ask every seller every time about resto and pressing on every book I have an interest in

[TupennyConan]

For those who approve of pressing - do you think that Book A, which achieved its grade through artificial manipulation (pressing) is every bit the equivalent of Book B, a book that naturally achieved that status?

 

I take the premise here to mean that both A & B have the same CGC grade.

 

I think it is pretty evident that the answer is "no". If you disagree with that, you're flat-out wrong, because Book A has "reached its maximum potential" whereas Book B might yet be able to be "potentialized".

 

Following your conclusive 'because' might it be argued that B (with exactly the same CGC label as A) could be a soi disant non-pressing candidate? That is, pressing B would never increase the grade. Stated in yet one more way, B is not in a 9.6 Green Label with notes that it could be 9.8 if well pressed but rather B is in a 9.6 Blue Label just as A is.

 

Recognizing that pressed and unpressed books of the same grade are not equivalent.

 

Not under the potentiality I describe above.

[TupennyConan]

 

The height of irrationality though has to be this myth that all books can be improved through pressing.

 

My point as attempted above.

 

Good show, Joseph.

[RockMyAmadeus]

OK. I'll make this simple for you.

 

Good luck, Dan. I don't think it can be done. But good luck (thumbs u

 

You have to admire his tenaciousness, he apparently likes this sort of intellectual gang-rape by so many Boardies. Maybe he'll come back for more when he heals up and can walk straight again....

 

 

Tenacity...where have I seen that before......

 

I prefer *my* intellectual gang-rapes a lot more....rough.....

[FlyingDonut]

OK. I'll make this simple for you.

 

Good luck, Dan. I don't think it can be done. But good luck (thumbs u

 

You have to admire his tenaciousness, he apparently likes this sort of intellectual gang-rape by so many Boardies. Maybe he'll come back for more when he heals up and can walk straight again....

 

 

Tenacity...where have I seen that before......

 

I prefer *my* intellectual gang-rapes a lot more....rough.....

 

[JiveTurkeyMoFo]

 

So, completely unproven and unsubstantiated opinions are supposed to be believed, and the LOC is supposed to be disregarded because they did not provide enough footnotes?

 

Really, where did you get that?

 

I for one am not discounting the likelihood that pressing "harms" a book, even in some small way. But since no one has stepped forward and even offered an educated guess as to how much damage a standard pressing may cause, the whole point is moot and rather meaningless.

 

Hence, the whole analogy in regards to double cheeseburgers and cigarettes. If it takes dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of pressings for a book to be visibily and adversely affected, then why get your panties in a twist if a book is professionally and carefully pressed just once?

 

 

[thehumantorch]

But shouldn't a piece of art that is completely untouched and original be worth more than a similar piece (with similar composition and similar content...say two nearly identical dailies from the same artist) that is cleaned and has stats replaced?

 

Remember, if you say yes or no then it blows your whole reason for leaving the slabbed comic market.

 

I don't know if the second statement is a joke or has been mistyped. In any case, it has no bearing whatsoever on anything I said above and is a total non-sequitur. It's quite simple: restoration in comics <> restoration in OA. I don't think there is any need to get further into it because I think it's pretty self-evident to everyone and only distracts from the real issue.

 

I met up with our mutual friend Marc today and he was telling me how he is in the market for a certain high grade Silver Age DC key. But, he told me that he wants to make sure that the copy he buys has not been pressed. He is not a Board member and he is not a rabid anti-presser. But, like most people who are aware of what pressing is and how the "game" is played these days, he recognizes that a comic book that achieved its grade naturally is simply not equivalent to one that achieved its full potential unnaturally (as I'll logically prove below). Even if nothing detectable was "added", it was artificially manipulated.

 

It may not bother some people, given the prevailing standards of the hobby, but it does bother others. And, it's not enough to say "let and let live", because what the pressing camp does affects the anti-pressing camp by (a) turning books they would want to collect into books they would not want to collect and (b) distorting the relative scarcity of books in grade as well as market prices up and down the grading spectrum based on their "potential".

 

For those who approve of pressing - do you think that Book A, which achieved its grade through artificial manipulation (pressing) is every bit the equivalent of Book B, a book that naturally achieved that status? I think it is pretty evident that the answer is "no". If you disagree with that, you're flat-out wrong, because Book A has "reached its maximum potential" whereas Book B might yet be able to be "potentialized". So, even if you don't care about how a book got its looks, Book B still has what financiers would call "option value" while Book A does not. We all know this, this is why people pay more for books that can be potentialized as opposed to those that already have been.

 

Recognizing that pressed and unpressed books of the same grade are not equivalent and that the actions of the pressers negatively affect the enjoyment of the anti-pressers, why is it so hard to understand why pressing, quite justifiably, really, really, really upsets a lot of people?

 

As usual, a well written, logical post. What the ding dong are you doing here?

 

Anyone that knows about pressing will want the non-pressed book. Pressers want non-pressed books because that is where the easy money is in the hobby. Non-pressers are fundamentally opposed to pressing and/or worried about the long term effects of heat and moisture.

[RockMyAmadeus]

Keep in mind encapsulated comics is a very, very tiny niche in overall fandom. There's probably more to enjoy now than ever before. Comics and related stuff are everywhere. (thumbs u

 

Monetarily speaking and as far as the high end is concerned, encapsulated books are very very far from a tiny niche. They are approaching the norm.

 

I would estimate that a LOT LESS than 1% of the total comics published/printed/distributed are encapsulated, and we would be working with complicated math if we accounted for works considered part of the comic book category which cannot be encapsulated.

 

By this definition, we are talking about a tiny speck in the niche universe.

 

Well....

 

If you figure that CGC has slabbed about 1.2 million books, give or take....

 

And Valiant alone published over 80 million copies of their 700+ different comics....

 

And in the early 1950's, Walt Disney's Comics & Stories printed 3-4 million copies a MONTH....one title....

 

I'd say the amount of copies printed since, oh, 1933....is well over 10 billion.

 

In that case, .01%, or 1/100th of a percent have been slabbed.

 

CGC's got some work to do!

[slym2none]

When I go to the car-lot to buy a new car, it better not have even 20, much less 200, miles on it. Someone else put those miles on it, and now it can never be totally mine. Why do I care? I don't know, but I know that I do.

 

When I buy a pizza for take-out, it better not have a slice missing when it's delivered.

 

Don't make me make a condom analogy...

 

 

 

-slym

[RockMyAmadeus]

When I go to the car-lot to buy a new car, it better not have even 20, much less 200, miles on it. Someone else put those miles on it, and now it can never be totally mine. Why do I care? I don't know, but I know that I do.

 

When I buy a pizza for take-out, it better not have a slice missing when it's delivered.

 

Don't make me make a condom analogy...

 

 

 

-slym

 

And...uh....when was the last time you went shopping for a new car....?

 

[delekkerste]

 

The height of irrationality though has to be this myth that all books can be improved through pressing.

 

My point as attempted above.

 

Good show, Joseph.

 

This is not what I've stated. Book B in my example above is known, ex ante, not to have been pressed. Furthermore, Book B may or may not be able to be improved through pressing. That is why I said Book B has "option value" - it may be able to be improved, it may not. What we do know is that Book A has no option value as it has already been potentialized.

 

Also, that is not even the crux of my argument - it is a supplemental, objective economic/financial argument for those who do not accept the compelling, but subjective, argument that a book which has achieved its grade naturally is superior to one that has spent time as a lower grade and was manipulated to a higher grade through artificial means, or the contention that pressing can cause long-term damage to books that may not be immediately apparent.

[mschmidt]

When I go to the car-lot to buy a new car, it better not have even 20, much less 200, miles on it. Someone else put those miles on it, and now it can never be totally mine. Why do I care? I don't know, but I know that I do.

 

When I buy a pizza for take-out, it better not have a slice missing when it's delivered.

 

Don't make me make a condom analogy...

 

 

 

-slym

 

 

If you buy a used car, would you get upset if the dealership washed the car for you?

[slym2none]

And...uh....when was the last time you went shopping for a new car....?

 

 

What does that have to do with it? If I go tomorrow, or not for 10 more years, my points are valid.

 

 

 

 

-slym

[slym2none]

If you buy a used car, would you get upset if the dealership washed the car for you?

 

Last I saw, cars weren't harmed by moisture and a little heat.

 

Paper, however...

 

I would get upset if I bought a new car and they replaced the engine with an older one. I would also get upset if I bought a new car and the insufficiently_thoughtful_persons at the car-lot took it out for a joy-ride before it was delivered to me.

 

 

 

 

-slym

[slym2none]

God-damn, I can't believe id10t is censored... that's retarded.

 

 

 

-slym (making a point with the words he is using that aren't censored)

[seanfingh]

If you buy a used car, would you get upset if the dealership washed the car for you?

 

Last I saw, cars weren't harmed by moisture and a little heat.

 

Paper, however...

 

I would get upset if I bought a new car and they replaced the engine with an older one. I would also get upset if I bought a new car and the insufficiently_thoughtful_persons at the car-lot took it out for a joy-ride before it was delivered to me.

 

 

 

 

-slym

 

Almost no new cars sitting on lots have 0 miles on them. Every manufacturer has its own standards, but they are considered new until they have a certain amount of miles on them, 500 is pretty typical.

[slym2none]

The two new cars I have ever purchased, one had 1.1 miles on it, the other had .2 - maybe I am the exception to the rule?

 

Oh yeah, I'd still be p!ssed if I ordered a car and it was taken for a joy-ride by the dealer first. Now, I know all Porsches and Ferraris are taken out for test-drives, but I'll stick to what most of us can afford.

 

 

 

-slym

[TupennyConan]

 

The height of irrationality though has to be this myth that all books can be improved through pressing.

 

My point as attempted above.

 

Good show, Joseph.

 

This is not what I've stated. Book B in my example above is known, ex ante, not to have been pressed. Furthermore, Book B may or may not be able to be improved through pressing. That is why I said Book B has "option value" - it may be able to be improved, it may not. What we do know is that Book A has no option value as it has already been potentialized.

 

It is also known that a second pressing can improve or correct a first pressing.

 

Also, that is not even the crux of my argument - it is a supplemental, objective (I'm not sure that objective is correct; though I understand why you use it here to bolster your 'flat out wrong' assertion) economic/financial argument for those who do not accept the compelling, but subjective, argument (I accept this as being both subjective & compelling) that a book which has achieved its grade naturally is superior to one that has spent time as a lower grade and was manipulated to a higher grade through artificial means, or the contention (contention mostly unsupported by science but as equally compelling in many ways as argument #2) that pressing can cause long-term damage to books that may not be immediately apparent.

[Sqeggs]

If you buy a used car, would you get upset if the dealership washed the car for you?

 

Last I saw, cars weren't harmed by moisture and a little heat.

 

Paper, however...

 

I would get upset if I bought a new car and they replaced the engine with an older one. I would also get upset if I bought a new car and the insufficiently_thoughtful_persons at the car-lot took it out for a joy-ride before it was delivered to me.

 

 

 

 

-slym

 

Almost no new cars sitting on lots have 0 miles on them. Every manufacturer has its own standards, but they are considered new until they have a certain amount of miles on them, 500 is pretty typical.

 

Let's see if we convert this to a car thread! I've bought maybe 10 new cars and shopped pretty extensively for each of them. I can't recall seeing a new car with more than 200 miles on it. Only one of the cars I've bought had more than 100. I can't imagine you could sell a "new" car with 500 miles on it except at a pretty steep discount unless you were in a hurry to get one with certain equipment and the dealer had it driven in from another dealer hundreds of miles away.

[Sqeggs]

The two new cars I have ever purchased, one had 1.1 miles on it, the other had .2 - maybe I am the exception to the rule?

 

Oh yeah, I'd still be p!ssed if I ordered a car and it was taken for a joy-ride by the dealer first. Now, I know all Porsches and Ferraris are taken out for test-drives, but I'll stick to what most of us can afford.

 

 

 

-slym

 

.2! Didn't you test drive it?