Clean and Press Bother Anyone?

[joe_collector]

So you don't think you will start buying less CGC slabbed books and more strictly graded raw ones from dealers you trust?

 

What I personally will be doing, is trying to get dibs on some local "one owner collections" that appear, and then submit them myself. At least them I'll be pretty sure that none of the Usual Suspects have been pressing them into pancakes.

[burntboy]

See what happens when my wife lets me have a couple glasses of pinot grigio at dinner! Damn!

 

hell, this is getting to be VERY interesting. i particularly enjoyed my tour of the various presses as provided by FF. i'm not sure where i fall on this issue. i hate to waffle like this but i've gotten much better in my dotage in sitting back, watching and listening to both sides of a discussion.

 

i've gone on record as not being much bothered by cleaning and pressing, but i never really entertained the idea that the process might get out of hand or that i/we might be exploring these possibilities..............

[joe_collector]

but i never really entertained the idea that the process might get out of hand

 

Do you know what's out of hand?

 

The QP on this beauty! Check it out....

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2229627969

[Mushroom]

I view it two ways.....if the cleaning is performed to preserve a rare golden age book from rust and other forms of deterioration then I am all for it. If it is done purely from an upgrade/greed standpoint then no way.

[blowout]

i've gone on record as not being much bothered by cleaning and pressing, but i never really entertained the idea that the process might get out of hand or that i/we might be exploring these possibilities..............

 

If this procedure carries on unchecked, or worse, and gains acceptance in the hobby, then I wouldn't want to be holding any 'rare' HG CGC books.

[blowout]

Are you prompting forumites to snipe you?

[blowout]

if the cleaning is performed to preserve a rare golden age book from rust and other forms of deterioration then I am all for it.

 

Well thats clearly not what is happening in most casses, just greedy dealers/sellers with $$$ in their eyes.

[joe_collector]

Are you prompting forumites to snipe you?

 

 

http://boards.collectors-society.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=418213&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=31&fpart=1

[fantastic_four]

I guess what I am getting at here, is has your confidence in CGC/CGG and third party grading in general been shaken by recent events?

 

No, I've known you could slip cleaning, pressing, and some types of trimming past CGC since before that Marvel Mystery 33 thread from late 2002, so I've had time to let it sink in. The greed ticks me off sometimes more than others; the Batman 11 perturbed me. The first time I started to suspect that a procedure like trimming was undetectable was when I read Susan Cicconi's description for how to detect it in the 1992 Overstreet Grading Guide:

 

 

Trimming is often suspected if the interior pages are flush on the top and bottom of the margin, unless it is a book of extremely high grade with no other evidence of repair. Interior pages have also been found to be trimmed. Snags in the paper are visible and the trimmed edges are usually slightly lighter in color than the rest of the book.

 

It doesn't take too many weeks of pondering this to realize that if you trim just the cover with an exacto knife pressed up against a straight edge on a white-paged book, none of the above techniques work to detect trimming. Rather ironic, isn't it? The whiter the pages, the better the candidate for trimming. I was slightly bummed when we found the Batman 11 and I realized that someone was trying to artificially darken the edges...and I'm still slightly bummed about the effect this procedure will eventually have on the high grade market, but not collecting comics in general. Unfortunately, just because CGC is detecting this guy's work doesn't mean he isn't onto something. That Batman 11 was TOO dark; I suspect it's possible to control the darkening to achieve a more realistic color blend.

 

I figure that trimming, too, is going to be an inevitable risk, although a much lower one than cleaning/pressing since it's harder to do well. The coinees say that coin "recarving," where people use carving tools to re-craft the features on a coin, is undetectable when done by the best coin restorers. Recarving a coin seems a lot harder to do in an undetectable way than trimming a comic does!

[Red Hook]

And probably takes more talent too.

[comicwiz]

One seller is so blatant as to virtually announce this for everyone to see, and I see this reaching epidemic proportions in no time.

 

Personally, I don't like it one bit.

 

Although, I would champion the notion of conservation methods like cleaning and pressing, if performed for "conservationist" reasons, and by a professional. Unfortunately, the countervailing trend seems to be all about the Benjamins -- maximizing returns on a gradually shrinking CGC profit-pie dictates that more collectors/dealers, driven by the returns garnered in the "before-and-after" pressing examples, and pre vs.post sale profit yields (as illustrated via Heritages permanent auction archives with the help of our own forumites) will rush to press/clean, with as little cost or thought as humanly possible. Rather than focusing on such adjustments with a more "informed" and "permanent" procedure, these calculating grabby types will use whatever methods of pressing/cleaning they find at their disposal, to eke out that .2 or .4 grade, as opposed to sending it out ot a pro. A methodology that is abhorantly indicative of a profiteering racket likely to leave the back-issue market in the same rubble and ruin as the heyday of a frauds pawning restored comics, with no 3rd-party grading authority in sight.

 

Only time will tell, but my guess is that this trend will continue, and likely get WAY out of hand -- perhaps to the point that each one of us will, at one time or another, own a book that will have reverted due to a bad/amateur press job.

 

All its going to take is one harsh experience, where someone plunks down a considerable amount of coin for a slabbed 9.4 or 9.6, only to discover a year down the road that the book reverts back to a 9.2 or lower grade. At which point, panic sets in, and all bets will surely be off.

[Red Hook]

I'm not saying it would revert. But who knows?

 

One seller is so blatant as to virtually announce this for everyone to see, and I see this reaching epidemic proportions in no time.

 

So why can't you tell us who the seller is? I say transparency is one of the best weapons against this kind of thing.

[joe_collector]

So why can't you tell us who the seller is?

 

 

Have anoher drink, and imagine a never-ending copy box.

[Red Hook]

I stopped at two, JC! I've totally sobered up! ....I think.

[Timely]

Here are my thoughts. I bid on a CGC book years ago on ebay and was excited about it. I paid for the book and was waiting for it to come in the mail. As I was waiting I realized that the book had previously been graded several grades lower. I already knew this was going on in the hobby but until that moment it was "not my problem." I was all ready to call up the seller and [!@#%^&^] him out for "ripping" me off. I called my comic friend who also knew about these "upgrades" long before most. After a long discusion (and many more since then) I decided to accept the book from the seller and look at it before I did anything rash.

 

When I got the package I decided to block out the knowledge of knowing it's previous grade and to look at the book for what it was now, in my hands. Am I happy with how the book looks now? Is this book in line with other books of the same grade? Do I like this book? Can I accept it knowing it was pressed?

 

My answer to all 4 questions was "yes."

 

After discussing the moral and ethical scenarios with my friend again we came to several conclusions. We realized that we were jealous that this auction dealer was able to do this on such a grand scale. It was our jealousy that caused us to be upset about this new situation. We were pissed off that we could not duplicate this dealers success. It must be nice to be in a position where you can turn a 2K book into a 5K book, and you only have to spend $300 to do it!

 

Lets face face it guys, odds are if you have a CGC book worth more than $700 you may already be the proud owner of a clean/pressed book and you may not even know it! I deal with mostly GA books, but it is far easier to press a thin SA book than it is a thick GA book. Also dirt tends to "soak" into the covers of GA books whereas SA books have that gloss on their covers that allows the dirt wipe away with ease.

 

Again...buy the book for what it looks like in your hands, not what it used to be or what the label says. After all, we know what all books will become in the distant future, long after we are gone...

 

Timely

[fantastic_four]

I'm not saying it would revert. But who knows?

 

I still don't fully understand pressing techniques, but I strongly, strongly suspect that well-done pressing won't reverse itself. My current hypothesis is that pressing accompanied by high temperature and humidity in a dry-mount press doesn't reverse itself. It's a "hypothesis" only because I *THINK* either PovertyRow or Tracey Heft told me this, but I haven't tried it myself and I can't remember exactly when or where they said it.

[FFB]

I don't think this was much of a revelation to anyone.

 

Because we care about the hobby?

 

Man, you must be more of a straight arrow than me.

[joe_collector]

I don't think this was much of a revelation to anyone.

 

Come on, I may be a lot of things, but dishonest certainly isn't one of them.

[FFB]

I agree with what I think Dr. Banner said earlier. This pressing phenomenon is something that seems to be peculiar to Golden Age books, because those books have a thicker layer of ink that does not allow color breaks as easily. A silver age book that has spine stress almost always has color loss, which cannot be fixed with simple pressing. The same goes for bronze and moderns.

 

To answer your question, no. I don't see pressing as restoration, as far as cleaning goes, I still haven't made up my mind. I do think that the problem may be exaggerated a bit. I really don't think there are that many VF copies out there that can be turned into NM 9.4s by simply pressing and cleaning. Most VF copies have color breaking spine stress, small color breaking corner creases, small chips missing, etc. etc. None of these would be corrected by pressing or cleaning. Take most VF copies of Hulk 181, I doubt that more than a few of them have problems that are correctable by a simple press job.

[Red Hook]

Speak of the Devil, Daredevil that is. I JUST FOUND ANOTHER.

 

It was the only Daredevil #18 in the Green River collection and it has been previously graded at 9.4.

 

Well, it's available to you all right now at Heritage as a spankin' new 9.6!

 

Come and get it boys!

 

I have no desire to buy it at a mega price and then spend a couple weeks talking myself out of my buyers remorse. How 'bout you? I'm gonna' pass.

 

The 9.6 #11 (#0080526003) was graded on 1/15/2004, a verified resubmission.

The 9.6 #18 (#0072796012) was graded on 1/23/2004, another resubmission. Must have been sent out the following week.

 

Let see how long this stays up.