Why do Anti-Pressers HATE pressing?

[RockMyAmadeus]

And the incredible shrinking covers on comics that used to be unpressed 9.2s.

 

 

 

 

https://www.cgccomics.com/news/viewarticle.aspx?IDArticle=3595

 

Pressing seems to be one of those sciences that is an art.

 

 

Pressing is not shrinking covers, at least to the degree being claimed.

 

It's just not happening.

 

The staples, which are slightly offset towards the rear, experienced pressure, and the interior pages were pushed away (that is, out) from the cover.

 

It is that and a combination of where the fold sits. On the unpressed example, the fold is more gentle, and the cover sits in a certain way over the interior page, with the cover covering the interior pages completely.

 

On the pressed example, the entire cover has very slightly shifted...following the path of least resistance....to the left just a bit, rolling the cover a teeny bit towards the back...the fold IS a curve, after all. I suspect, if you examined this book out of the slab, you would see a slight gap between the cover and interior pages at the fold, towards the front cover.

 

Notice: you don't see the same sort of "shrinkage" at the top or the bottom. Proponents of the "shrinkage" theory is that the paper fibers run vertically, and not horizontally, and so shrank only on the X axis. But this is wood pulp we're talking about, cheap paper, ground up (pulped), with fibers running in every direction.

 

http://wipapercouncil.org/about-paper/how-paper-is-made/

 

Yes, paper can exhibit a type of "grain", for sure. But the color and depth of inks applied to the cover has a greater impact on how the cover behaves when exposed to moisture, heat, and pressure.

 

Compare the above (yes, I know the pictures are different sizes, but you can still see the slight shift.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Buzzetta]

Would you rather have a 9.6 unpressed or a 9.6 pressed? If you say unpressed-why? If you say well because it hasn't been manipulated then BINGO!

 

No, because I can see if it can press to a 9.8 !

[kav]

[Guardian Comics]

And the incredible shrinking covers on comics that used to be unpressed 9.2s.

 

Which is the nicer comic?

 

 

 

Well the "R" does look a lot nicer on the "pressed" book. More importantly what happened to the white spots on the onlookers head and back?

 

Jim

[namisgr]

They were on my scanner bed.

[RockMyAmadeus]

And the incredible shrinking covers on comics that used to be unpressed 9.2s.

 

Which is the nicer comic?

 

 

 

 

I would take the 9.2 all day every day

 

 

But, you didn't. That's the problem.

 

And I'm not being snide; the reality is, this market pays more for the number. Would you pay the $4300 this exact book sold for in 2014 if that was still the 9.2 that it sold for for $1750 in 2011?

 

The 9.2 may have been more appealing to you....but no one was willing to pay $4300 for it until it was in a case that said 9.6.

 

Same book.

 

And until and unless that changes....and it doesn't seem all that possible, much less likely...then this will continue forever.

 

 

 

[namisgr]

 

But, you didn't. That's the problem.

 

And I'm not being snide; the reality is, this market pays more for the number. Would you pay the $4300 this exact book sold for in 2014 if that was still the 9.2 that it sold for for $1750 in 2011?

 

The 9.2 may have been more appealing to you....but no one was willing to pay $4300 for it until it was in a case that said 9.6.

 

Same book.

 

And until and unless that changes....and it doesn't seem all that possible, much less likely...then this will continue forever.

 

 

 

Your post neglects the point that the pressed and shrunken version of the JIM #93 should never have been graded higher than the unpressed version. The latter is a nicer comic, a point most everyone agreed with in the original thread on the poor pressing of the Cole Schave collection.

 

One of the engines that keeps the pressing train rolling is the grading company ignoring twisted and shrunken covers, arrival dates turned into ink stains, staple impactions made larger, relocated spines, horizontal top and bottom edge creases, vertical creases along over pressurized spines, fuzzy staples from where the cover was pulled away, and the other overt defects introduced all too often by the pressing process. And which are especially common on pressed early SA Marvels.

 

I understand from reading in the thread about the new holders that there may also be a problem with some pressed comics suffering cover damage in the form of long vertical lines of color loss near the right edge, possibly from underlying micro chamber paper. Consistent punishing of these instances of pressing-induced damage with lower grades would go a long way toward forcing pressers to maintain the highest levels of care and expertise, and dis-incentivize the loss of the high grade unpressed early SA Marvel from the comic marketplace. So would an acceptance by the grading company that gentle bending of the cover overhang is a natural phenomenon, and need not be pressed out to look like an over starched shirt at the dry cleaners in order for an early Marvel comic to receive a NM+ or higher grade.

[SquareChaos]

So would an acceptance by the grading company that gentle bending of the cover overhang is a natural phenomenon, and need not be pressed out to look like an over starched shirt at the dry cleaners in order for an early Marvel comic to receive a NM+ or higher grade.

 

Why? :shrug:

 

Every defect a book picks up is a natural phenomenon, if by natural phenomenon you mean some outside force worked on it to add defects.

[jcjames]

 

But, you didn't. That's the problem.

 

And I'm not being snide; the reality is, this market pays more for the number. Would you pay the $4300 this exact book sold for in 2014 if that was still the 9.2 that it sold for for $1750 in 2011?

 

The 9.2 may have been more appealing to you....but no one was willing to pay $4300 for it until it was in a case that said 9.6.

 

Same book.

 

And until and unless that changes....and it doesn't seem all that possible, much less likely...then this will continue forever.

 

 

 

Your post neglects the point that the pressed and shrunken version of the JIM #93 should never have been graded higher than the unpressed version. The latter is a nicer comic, a point most everyone agreed with in the original thread on the poor pressing of the Cole Schave collection.

 

One of the engines that keeps the pressing train rolling is the grading company ignoring twisted and shrunken covers, arrival dates turned into ink stains, staple impactions made larger, relocated spines, horizontal top and bottom edge creases, vertical creases along over pressurized spines, fuzzy staples from where the cover was pulled away, and the other overt defects introduced all too often by the pressing process. And which are especially common on pressed early SA Marvels.

 

I understand from reading in the thread about the new holders that there may also be a problem with some pressed comics suffering cover damage in the form of long vertical lines of color loss near the right edge, possibly from underlying micro chamber paper. Consistent punishing of these instances of pressing-induced damage with lower grades would go a long way toward forcing pressers to maintain the highest levels of care and expertise, and dis-incentivize the loss of the high grade unpressed early SA Marvel from the comic marketplace. So would an acceptance by the grading company that gentle bending of the cover overhang is a natural phenomenon, and need not be pressed out to look like an over starched shirt at the dry cleaners in order for an early Marvel comic to receive a NM+ or higher grade.

This is all true. Grade it as-is. If it's not a common production defect, grade it as-is.

 

 

[jcjames]

It used to be ok to hit a book with a sharpie. Who knows how things will be viewed in the future. The best thing you can do with a book is leave it alone.

How common were cover-sharpie marks before SS came along?

 

Weren't most scribbles made inside the book on the margin of the splash-page, until the books couldn't be opened anymore?

 

 

[VintageComics]

And the incredible shrinking covers on comics that used to be unpressed 9.2s.

 

 

 

 

https://www.cgccomics.com/news/viewarticle.aspx?IDArticle=3595

 

Pressing seems to be one of those sciences that is an art.

 

But, but...... I thought pressing is undetectable?

 

I'm waiting for someone to say "if done right, pressing is undetectable".

 

Pressing is often undetectable. Close enough?

 

Agreed, although less often than many people think.

 

Some people here have seen way more slabs than I have. I don't know. All I know is that anyone can tell if they look like the books that have recently been posted to this thread... in my experience those defects are the minority :shrug:

 

In my limited experience, the only way to tell most of the time is the absence of pressable defects in an older book.... and that's just speculation.

 

There are so many short-sighted, obfuscating comments made in these discussions that it's frustrating to offer a rebuttal for the 10,000th time only to have someone repeat the error again in an effort to make it reality this time.

 

Pressing is highly undetecable when done correctly. Sure, you might be able to pick a few out of a long lineup but you can't pick all of them. Most of them would be guesses, unlike finding color touch.

 

That is why CGC doesn't notate pressing. They can't detect it accurately, and nobody would want CGC take uneducated guesses on their books.

 

When pressing is detected, it's most often because of a bad press job, and for those things CGC notates the defects and downgrades for them based on their own internal grading standards.

 

---------------------------

 

The people who say "I thought pressing was undetectable' when someone posts a shrunken cover example like this are just being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. Everyone who followed the thread on the topic a few years ago knows these books were pressed improperly because we have before and after pictures.

 

But the real reason these books don't get singled out solely as pressed books is because it is not uncommon to find unpressed books with shortened covers, in the wild.

 

To illustrate my point, here is an unpressed, raw book I took a picture of at a show last year.

 

 

 

 

 

Notice how short the cover is? It wasn't trimmed and the book definitely wasn't pressed. There are comics that come from the publisher that way and it has nothing to do with pressing, which is why CGC gives those books a pass in varying grades.

 

 

[VintageComics]

This is all true. Grade it as-is. If it's not a common production defect, grade it as-is.

 

 

The problem is that some defects looks like production defects even if they are not, and nobody can tell the difference. See my previous post right above this one.

[VintageComics]

Your post neglects the point that the pressed and shrunken version of the JIM #93 should never have been graded higher than the unpressed version. The latter is a nicer comic, a point most everyone agreed with in the original thread on the poor pressing of the Cole Schave collection.

 

Nice is relative. We're all subjective people.

 

If nobody had clear before and after pics, everyone would have marveled (pun) at the nice high grade CGC 9.6

 

It wasn't until AFTER before and after pics were shown that anyone (or any sort of majority) really made a point about shorter covers. And why? Because they were in the wild in varying degrees all these years.

 

One of the engines that keeps the pressing train rolling is the grading company ignoring twisted and shrunken covers, arrival dates turned into ink stains, staple impactions made larger, relocated spines, horizontal top and bottom edge creases, vertical creases along over pressurized spines, fuzzy staples from where the cover was pulled away, and the other overt defects introduced all too often by the pressing process. And which are especially common on pressed early SA Marvels.

 

This is not entirely true.

 

CGC does ding grades for books with pressing defects like over pressurized spines, stains, twisted covers (this is a new change after the board Investigators proved it was a man made defect), etc.

 

But your post obfuscates the fact that many of these defects that you say are caused by pressing appear on books that were never pressed.

 

Twisted and shrunken covers? Appear in the wild because comics were not carved sculptures. They were cheap children's mags and publishers attempted to reuse left over parts to minimize costs. This would make them run through covers that were too short, that didn't get stapled the first time, that were off center, etc, and these books would get sold on the newsstand. Dice, who worked at a publisher that published magazines and comics already explained this.

 

arrival dates turned into ink stains - until you had mentioned it, I had never considered this a pressing defect. I'd seen it out at cons and never put the two together. Question, can running inks only happen from pressing? I think we know the answer.

 

staple impactions made larger - larger is relative and only before and after pics can prove 'larger' but I will remind you that some FF's in the mid to late #30's (like #38 I believe) are very prone to impacted staples as I have seen several copies. So if mid 1960's Marvels are prone to impacted staples, how do you know which are from pressing and which aren't?

 

relocated spines - as mentioned above, CGC now looks for this (thanks to board detectives) and penalizes for it.

 

horizontal top and bottom edge creases - not sure what you mean by this. This can happen from storage, possibly from the new holder or from pressing. It's just a product of having a large overhang, which all Marvels from the mid 1960's are prone to. CGC will downgrade for this defect.

 

vertical creases along over pressurized spines - again, not sure what you mean here. This also can happen from storage, etc. CGC will downgrade for creases, even those introduced by pressing.

 

fuzzy staples from where the cover was pulled away - - again, not sure what you mean here. This also can happen from storage, etc. CGC will downgrade for defects introduced by pressing.

[pickycollector]

Pressing is highly undetecable when done correctly. Sure, you might be able to pick a few out of a long lineup but you can't pick all of them. Most of them would be guesses, unlike finding color touch.

I was able to detect pressing on all the raw regular books you sold me. The only two I could not tell were two square bound issues.

[VintageComics]

Pressing is highly undetecable when done correctly. Sure, you might be able to pick a few out of a long lineup but you can't pick all of them. Most of them would be guesses, unlike finding color touch.

I was able to detect pressing on all the raw regular books you sold me. The only two I could not tell were two square bound issues.

 

So what you're saying is that even you can't tell with 100% accuracy.

 

Some books make better candidates than others, but the real point is do you want a grading company giving their opinion on something that they would be guessing half the time?

[pickycollector]

Pressing is highly undetecable when done correctly. Sure, you might be able to pick a few out of a long lineup but you can't pick all of them. Most of them would be guesses, unlike finding color touch.

I was able to detect pressing on all the raw regular books you sold me. The only two I could not tell were two square bound issues.

 

So what you're saying is that even you can't tell with 100% accuracy.

 

Some books make better candidates than others, but the real point is do you want a grading company giving their opinion on something that they would be guessing half the time?

What I said is that I was able to detect pressing on your regular raw books with 100% accuracy

 

Was it because pressing is not highly undetectable or was it because they were not pressed correctly ?

 

Yes, I confess that I cannot detect pressing on square bound issues when pressing is done correctly on those. I cannot explain why though there seems to be a difference of results between regular raw books and square bound issues. Size and thickness of the book? Position of the staples? I don't know.

[namisgr]

Roy, your responses are focused on detecting pressing, but that wasn't an issue raised in the posts you quoted.

 

A defect is a defect wherever it came from, and books should have their grades reflect that, even when the defects are introduced by pressing (and, heaven forbid, in-house pressing). Only then will the onus be placed squarely on those who press to do careful, minimalistic work with the highest level of expertise. And maybe only then will a few high grade early SA Marvels be left unpressed for those collectors who prefer them that way. To me, it's a striking and problematic failure for CGC to so frequently allow all of the pressing-related defects on high grade books without grading them as defects.

 

And as for cover shrinkage? Yes, it can occur in the 'wild' without pressing, but it's a lot less common than you argue and want others to believe (try finding even a single example from the Pacific Coast, Curator, or Massachusetts pedigrees, or from my collection of 3000 bronze comics bought off the rack - or ask Cole Schave). Couple it with the cover twisting, and you've got a book that was almost certainly pressed, and sadly is likely to look worse after the job than before. And however it got there, it's ugly and when severe should be factored harshly into the grade CGC assigns, just like runny arrival dates and the many other defects that pressing sometimes causes, and no matter whether they can also occur on rare occasions even without pressing.

[Sqeggs]

Pressing is highly undetecable when done correctly. Sure, you might be able to pick a few out of a long lineup but you can't pick all of them. Most of them would be guesses, unlike finding color touch.

I was able to detect pressing on all the raw regular books you sold me. The only two I could not tell were two square bound issues.

 

So what you're saying is that even you can't tell with 100% accuracy.

 

Some books make better candidates than others, but the real point is do you want a grading company giving their opinion on something that they would be guessing half the time?

What I said is that I was able to detect pressing on your regular raw books with 100% accuracy

 

Was it because pressing is not highly undetectable or was it because they were not pressed correctly ?

 

Yes, I confess that I cannot detect pressing on square bound issues when pressing is done correctly on those. I cannot explain why though there seems to be a difference of results between regular raw books and square bound issues. Size and thickness of the book? Position of the staples? I don't know.

 

Are you saying that you believe you can always detect pressing except when the book is square bound? Not trying to be argumentative; just trying to understand your point.

[prez]

And the incredible shrinking covers on comics that used to be unpressed 9.2s.

 

 

 

 

https://www.cgccomics.com/news/viewarticle.aspx?IDArticle=3595

 

Pressing seems to be one of those sciences that is an art.

 

But, but...... I thought pressing is undetectable?

 

I'm waiting for someone to say "if done right, pressing is undetectable".

 

Pressing is often undetectable. Close enough?

 

Agreed, although less often than many people think.

 

Some people here have seen way more slabs than I have. I don't know. All I know is that anyone can tell if they look like the books that have recently been posted to this thread... in my experience those defects are the minority :shrug:

 

In my limited experience, the only way to tell most of the time is the absence of pressable defects in an older book.... and that's just speculation.

 

There are so many short-sighted, obfuscating comments made in these discussions that it's frustrating to offer a rebuttal for the 10,000th time only to have someone repeat the error again in an effort to make it reality this time.

 

Pressing is highly undetecable when done correctly. Sure, you might be able to pick a few out of a long lineup but you can't pick all of them. Most of them would be guesses, unlike finding color touch.

 

That is why CGC doesn't notate pressing. They can't detect it accurately, and nobody would want CGC take uneducated guesses on their books.

 

When pressing is detected, it's most often because of a bad press job, and for those things CGC notates the defects and downgrades for them based on their own internal grading standards.

 

---------------------------

 

The people who say "I thought pressing was undetectable' when someone posts a shrunken cover example like this are just being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. Everyone who followed the thread on the topic a few years ago knows these books were pressed improperly because we have before and after pictures.

 

But the real reason these books don't get singled out solely as pressed books is because it is not uncommon to find unpressed books with shortened covers, in the wild.

 

To illustrate my point, here is an unpressed, raw book I took a picture of at a show last year.

 

 

 

 

 

Notice how short the cover is? It wasn't trimmed and the book definitely wasn't pressed. There are comics that come from the publisher that way and it has nothing to do with pressing, which is why CGC gives those books a pass in varying grades.

 

 

The potential of bastardized uber high grade SA books being passed around in the market does not concern you?

[pickycollector]

Pressing is highly undetecable when done correctly. Sure, you might be able to pick a few out of a long lineup but you can't pick all of them. Most of them would be guesses, unlike finding color touch.

I was able to detect pressing on all the raw regular books you sold me. The only two I could not tell were two square bound issues.

 

So what you're saying is that even you can't tell with 100% accuracy.

 

Some books make better candidates than others, but the real point is do you want a grading company giving their opinion on something that they would be guessing half the time?

What I said is that I was able to detect pressing on your regular raw books with 100% accuracy

 

Was it because pressing is not highly undetectable or was it because they were not pressed correctly ?

 

Yes, I confess that I cannot detect pressing on square bound issues when pressing is done correctly on those. I cannot explain why though there seems to be a difference of results between regular raw books and square bound issues. Size and thickness of the book? Position of the staples? I don't know.

 

Are you saying that you believe you can always detect pressing except when the book is square bound? Not trying to be argumentative; just trying to understand your point.

I did not say that I can always detect pressing. My point is that pressing is much easier or at least much less difficult to detect than pressers want us to believe.

 

It is very hard to detect when book stays in a CGC holder except for extreme examples like those having Costanza look, etc. as already discussed in past threads. It is a different story when the book is raw.

 

You don't have to believe me. Just do the test yourself. Send a couple books (regular and square bound) for pressing and ask to have them back raw. Look at them before and look at them after. Then decide by yourself.

 

That being said, I am not saying that pressing is pure evil. Some books really benefit from pressing. Some other books don't though and seem to be "sacrificed" just to get a bigger number on the upper left corner and that JIM 93 is a good example. I am all about disclosure though and the in-house pressing by CGC is bothering me a lot.. to say the least...