Doug Schmell cashing in his vaulted massive collecion. Poll: Is this the top?

[lizards2]

This thread is fascinating. So, if I understand the facts, CGC's position at the beginning was they did not tell anyone that they did not consider pressing restoration because no one asked. They were confronted on the boards with evidence of books getting higher grades presumably after being pressed and then, they came forth and stated that they had never considered pressing to be restoration and it was a free for all after that.

 

My question is, has CGC since disclosed everything they consider restoration? When the pressing thing hit the fan, did people say "Wait, if pressing is not restoration, then what else is not restoration?" Cleaned staples? Washed pages? Shave and haircut?

 

I'm not anti CGC, I like what they do. I think their service is good for the hobby and was critical to the growth over the last 10 years. However for those that were here, I'm curious how CGC survived this with any credibility among the serious collectors. I know old school collectors are a tough bunch to bring on board. Was it the profit motive? Had the genie already escaped the bottle? It seems to me that this could have gone either way and if it had gone bad, it could have devastated the hobby.

 

I am anti-CGC, but I do have to admit that non-disclosure of their business practices, grading standards, etc..., the whole mess is standard operating procedure, and has been from the get go - it is their business.

[Davenport]

This thread is fascinating. So, if I understand the facts, CGC's position at the beginning was they did not tell anyone that they did not consider pressing restoration because no one asked. They were confronted on the boards with evidence of books getting higher grades presumably after being pressed and then, they came forth and stated that they had never considered pressing to be restoration and it was a free for all after that.

 

My question is, has CGC since disclosed everything they consider restoration? When the pressing thing hit the fan, did people say "Wait, if pressing is not restoration, then what else is not restoration?" Cleaned staples? Washed pages? Shave and haircut?

 

I'm not anti CGC, I like what they do. I think their service is good for the hobby and was critical to the growth over the last 10 years. However for those that were here, I'm curious how CGC survived this with any credibility among the serious collectors. I know old school collectors are a tough bunch to bring on board. Was it the profit motive? Had the genie already escaped the bottle? It seems to me that this could have gone either way and if it had gone bad, it could have devastated the hobby.

There was never any danger of 'the genie escaping the bottle'. CGC had established marketing partnerships with a wide range of comic related businesses. No professional "experts" were bringing any of it to the attention of consumers, 100% of it was coming from board posters trying to give fellow collectors a heads-up.

 

Plus, the hobby press wouldn't touch any of it with a ten foot pole.

 

You can read all the "OH, SO? - Speak Your Mind!" responses on the Comics Buyers' Guide site. You might find it interesting, gives a sense of the frustration level as things unfolded: Why Has CBG Not Covered Important Issues In The Hobby?

[VintageComics]

We seem to be going around in circles in this thread. I'm pretty sure this has already been covered so unless someone can prove differently I am quite sure that pressing has been actively used to increase the grades of books before CGC's formation.

 

We already know that many kids pressed their books using encyclopedias, etc. Why did kids press their books with encyclopedias? To make them look worse? Of course not. They did it because they knew the books would look better. It only stands to reason that someone would eventually develop a way to make the practice more effective than just placing a book under a stack of encyclopedias.

Roy, I don't know if you're just being disingenuous or genuinely trying to mislead, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on the basis that the term "pressing" is being used too broadly.

 

Yes, people did press books in the old days, including the standard put them under an encyclopedia for a month trick. However, the vast majority of the time this was done to remove spine roll and flatten warped books. And successful pressing of that sort would indeed increase the grade of a book significantly in the old days and thereby increase the price significantly. So yes, if we use the term "pressing" to encompass that kind of pressing, then all of that happened before CGC.

 

However, I think it's clear that's NOT the kind of pressing we're talking about. We're talking about the type of pressing that has become more and more prevalent in the CGC era, which is being used to remove minor defects, not major spine rolls, warpage and ripples. These kinds of defects cannot be removed by putting a book under an encylopedia for a month, otherwise no one would need Matt and Kenny and others to press their books. These are not ratty old books from 1938 being rescued from 6 decades of improper storage. No, they're perfectly nice SA and BA books that already lie perfectly flat, which are being pressed to remove very minor flaws. This may have been done in the old days too, but definitely in nowhere near the volume that it's done now, for the simple reason that there was no financial incentive to engage in this kind of pressing.

 

THIS is the kind of pressing being advertised as a stand-alone service by numerous practicioners now, whereas it was never advertised as a stand-alone service in the old days. Before anyone points out that Matt and Kenny do press out spine rolls and flatten warped books, yes they do, but my guess is that it is a small minority of the pressing that they do these days.

 

To address your point about CGC not "hammering" books for NCBs, that may very well be true. But they do knock down a book by 0.2 to 0.4 for such defects. Perhaps that's not "hammering" in the general sense of the word, but among the ultra-HG collectors for whom 0.2 and 0.4 are huge increments, it IS hammering. And for those who engage in pressing for financial return, getting that 0.2 to 0.4 uptick in an already HG book to negate CGC's "non-hammering" is the closest thing we have to modern alchemy.

 

+1

 

Tim;

 

I couldn't have have said it better myself as this was exactly what I was thinking when I read Roy's response. (thumbs u

 

The way Roy is spinning his version of history, it sounds as though everybody was pressing their books in the Wild West days prior to CGC, and nothing could be further from the truth. Stand-alone pressing was the rare exception to the rule, whereas Roy's post makes it sound like it was "the thing" in the hobby to do by everybody in the years before CGC opened their doors.

 

As Tim has already stated, there were definitely a lot of ads in those days for restoration with all of the different services being offered. Don't remember any mention of a stand-alone pressing service being offered, unlike the full-page ads we see nowadays offering their services for pressing.

 

Actually, by the time I finished reading his post, Roy almost had me believing that Matt Nelson must have the biggest collection of encyclopedias in the world. He would almost certainly need it in order to have apparently pressed so many books.

 

 

Nobody was implying that pressing was rampant pre CGC or that it was "the thing" that everyone was doing. You are being disingenuous in your reply to the context of what I said, you are putting words into my post that I did not write and you are exaggerating for the sake of emphasis.

 

People have been perpetuating the myth that pressing was something that was "covered up" by CGC and was only prevalent after CGC opened it's doors. I merely showed that stand alone pressing did happen in at least one documented occurence (Marnin) well before CGC opened it's doors and and Bedrock chimed in with another example (Recil Macon books).

 

I made no such implication that it was "the thing to do". How could I with only one example? Please do not put words into my post and paint me as a revisionist what you are not even reading what I wrote. I made no such reference as to "how" prevalent is was, only that it did occur.

 

With both Marnin and Greg Buls (two major dealers) showing that pressing was prevalent before CGC all it does is show us that it was NOT a post CGC phenomenon. It was happening before CGC.

 

And this is directed @ tth2

 

Tim, Whether it was "just a spine roll" or waviness, or bends, regardless of what type of defects were being pressed, books were being stand alone pressed to improve their grade pre CGC. That is all I was trying to say. Anything else you guys are inferring is not something that I wrote or implied.

 

+ another 1

 

Stand alone pressing was extremely rare, pre-CGC and despite what the revisionists might like to have us believe, it was CGC's stance that gave rise to the phenomenon we know today.

 

If stand along pressing was so popular without CGC's convenient take on the subject, why was there utter shock and disbelief on these very boards when it became clear what was happening? Why were pedigree books having the designation deliberately stripped away to hide the fact that they'd been manipulated? Why was it only the late 00s when the professional pressers multiplied ten-fold and started plying their trade openly and brazenly?

 

Again, everyone's original position was that stand alone pressing did not exist before CGC. I simply made the point that it did by offering an example that is well documented. Bedrock offered another. That is at least 2 well documented examples. It stands to reason that there are possibly more.

 

Everyone would have had the same "utter shock and disbelief" if Marnin had told them he pressed his books in 1993 or Greg Buls had told everyone, or if everyone had seen those 2 peds before and after pressing.

 

This thread is now getting personal again with people labelling me a revisionist, even though the facts are out there for anyone to read and people are trying to slant everything I write (my use of the word "intrepid" being scrutinized Come on people, can you say "grasping") that I'm just going to bow out again.

 

It's ridiculous how people can't just stick to the facts and have to personalize a discussion.

 

It's like grade school all over again.

[comicwiz]

This thread is fascinating. So, if I understand the facts, CGC's position at the beginning was they did not tell anyone that they did not consider pressing restoration because no one asked. They were confronted on the boards with evidence of books getting higher grades presumably after being pressed and then, they came forth and stated that they had never considered pressing to be restoration and it was a free for all after that.

 

My question is, has CGC since disclosed everything they consider restoration? When the pressing thing hit the fan, did people say "Wait, if pressing is not restoration, then what else is not restoration?" Cleaned staples? Washed pages? Shave and haircut?

 

I'm not anti CGC, I like what they do. I think their service is good for the hobby and was critical to the growth over the last 10 years. However for those that were here, I'm curious how CGC survived this with any credibility among the serious collectors. I know old school collectors are a tough bunch to bring on board. Was it the profit motive? Had the genie already escaped the bottle? It seems to me that this could have gone either way and if it had gone bad, it could have devastated the hobby.

There was never any danger of 'the genie escaping the bottle'. CGC had established marketing partnerships with a wide range of comic related businesses. No professional "experts" were bringing anything to the attention of consumers, 100% of it was coming from board posters.

 

Plus, the hobby press wouldn't touch any of it with a ten foot pole.

 

You can read all the "OH, SO? - Speak Your Mind!" responses on the Comics Buyers' Guide site. You might find it interesting, gives a sense of the frustration level as things unfolded: Why Has CBG Not Covered Important Issues In The Hobby?

 

Discussion external to the boards happened, but I don't think there was any chicanery behind the fact it didn't spread to the mainstream. It remains an echo and hotly contested debate in many online areas by numerous people who are influential in the hobby, and that's what's essential.

 

Hobby press coverage would lack the teeth, authenticity and relevance anyway.

[VintageComics]

I am anti-CGC, but I do have to admit that non-disclosure of their business practices, grading standards, etc..., the whole mess is standard operating procedure, and has been from the get go - it is their business.

 

Over the years, I've become more guarded about revealing certain "trade" practices, designs, or processes specific to my business because there are numerous people out there ready to capitalize on this information, either in an opportunistic or purely abusive way.

 

Of course. Competitive advantage is the only thing that keeps businesses profitable.

 

This is a story I've repeated a few times on this chat forum.

 

True story:

 

A company needs a special resin for their project to work.

 

They order the resin from a 2nd company who is an international commodities dealer.

 

That 2nd company finds and orders the resin from a 3rd company who happens to be in the same building as the 1st company that initially needed the resin. They are only a few floors apart.

 

The 2nd company buys the resin from the 3rd company and have it shipped to their offices only to ship it off back to the 1st company who placed the initial order and charge them a tidy but fair profit for the resin.

 

Again, true story.

 

Do they have any obligation to disclose to the end consumer that they are buying the product just a few feet away from them in a different office and that this consumer could have just walked down the hall to buy the product themselves? Of course not.

 

It is the company's competitive advantage (secret knowledge) that allows them to make (and continue making) a profit by buying from and selling to people within the same building.

 

The other option is that the end user source out the product themselves by putting in the work and effort of locating the original supplier.

 

Multiply that scenario by an infinite number and you now have capitalism.

 

There is nothing nefarious about it.

[Foolkiller]

Shouldn't you be working the floor at Heroes Roy?

[fantastic_four]

It's ridiculous how people can't just stick to the facts and have to personalize a discussion.

 

It's like grade school all over again.

 

It's bias--you're wasting your breath. Borock didn't put pressing in the back of his mind in 1999 because it was mostly undetectable, because he believed it wasn't restoration in the first place since it's non-additive and overwhelmingly non-destructive (I'm far more concerned about what a CT scan does to my body in the hospital than what a dry-press does to my comic), and because he had dozens of other things to think about while helping to form CGC--he did it for selfish, profit-motivated reasons. I don't know WHY they did it, but I'm willing to take Borock at his word that it was the least of his worries because it does make sense when putting it into the perspective of the hobby's state in 1999. There really isn't anything you can say that will change the minds of people who view pressing as the death of the high-grade segment of the hobby yet still linger around that part of the hobby feeling bitter about it...their fate is sealed, and they'll person_without_enough_empathy about it endlessly, it seems. Grumpy old men, comic book style. The reason it's pointless is that even if Borock and CGC repented and said "OK, our bad, pressing is restoration," nothing would change--the hobby would still be ruined for presser-haters because you still can't detect it. But hey, gotta have SOMEBODY to blame...it gives you a place to direct your indignation.

 

I wish everyone with a nearly religious bias against pressing would take 1/10th of their time and effort complaining about it, buy a boom microscope, press some books themselves, and analyze the book microscopically before and after they pressed--they may find a way to detect it and put a stop to this tiny evil remaining in the post-CGC high-end hobby. Comic book restoration detection methods were ALL borrowed from the art and document archiving world, but the art and document archiving world don't care about pressing for some reason. Somebody in the comic world who really hates it needs to step up to the plate and develop a way to detect it...or just find a way to move on with their lives instead of ignoring what the hobby pioneers they take for granted have done for them and beating up convenient scapegoats in the meanwhile.

[VintageComics]

Shouldn't you be working the floor at Heroes Roy?

 

Yeah, heading over there now. I tried to have an early night after the OKC/Heat game but couldn't sleep. Was tossing and turning so I slept in this morning bit.

 

[october]

Shouldn't you be working the floor at Heroes Roy?

 

If he looked for comics as much as he posts, he would own Metro by now.

[VintageComics]

Shouldn't you be working the floor at Heroes Roy?

 

If he looked for comics as much as he posts, he would own Metro by now.

 

There's really not a whole lot on the floor for what I'm looking for.

 

Storms, Terry, Harley, Jamie have all decided not to set up. Dale and Greg Reece are the only international dealers that are set up there from what I could see.

 

Most people were set up yesterday - I'll be bin diving today.

 

lots of great local dealers - should be fun.

 

 

[october]

lots of great local dealers - should be fun.

 

 

I have the best luck with these guys. Love mid-size regional and local shows.

[Hepcat]

Well right now Lorna the Jungle Girl, Atlas Kid Colt Outlaws, Two Gun Kids and other Atlas western and war comics. Heard of any of those?

 

 

Hepcat, I don't understand. What has you worried about those kinds of books?

 

Hey! I love Hemi GTXs!

 

Nonetheless, in answer to your question, those are all Atlas comics I might very well be interested in buying in the next three years, finances permitting of course. I don't want to be "duped" into paying a very high price for a seemingly pristine copy only to later discover that Doug Schmell had done a lot of massaging to said comic to make it look that pristine.

 

 

[Hepcat]

So in another words, what I get out of your admission, and by stating "we", you conspired with CGC and its parent company CCG to defraud a collectables industry, its dealers and collectors, by intentionally ignoring a recognized form of restoration (pressing), as defined by the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, the industry standard, by falsely and fraudulently certifying comic books as "unrestored" that would have otherwise been deemed restored by the industry public.

 

 

+1

 

If this run on popcorn continues, we here at the concession booth may be forced to raise prices.

 

 

 

[Foolkiller]

Shouldn't you be working the floor at Heroes Roy?

 

Yeah, heading over there now. I tried to have an early night after the OKC/Heat game but couldn't sleep. Was tossing and turning so I slept in this morning bit.

 

You could have skipped watching the blowout. .

 

Enjoy Charlotte.

[MrBedrock]

Greg Buls purchased the Recil Macon collection in 1991. The way those books were stored a huge majority of them had a pronounced wave to them, some extreme. Greg sent these to Susan Ciccone for flattening. Susan Ciccone also later became a member of NOD. Upon the advent of CGC she also took the stance that pressing was bad. Oddly enough I do not think she ever printed up any of her famous resto certificates for the Recil Macon books, though many of them were and are pressed.

 

Richard;

 

I thought the Macon books that had been worked on by Susan had been both cleaned and pressed at the minimum. I also thought these books received the PLOD from CGC upon grading or were they able to pass CGC 's resto check and still made their way into blue slabs?

The Recil Macon books only needed flattening. They were beautiful otherwise, but they were stored for so long in a haphazard and uneven way that they were very wavy. They were simply pressed. And again, I've never seen a restoration certificate from Susan on these books.

 

[MrBedrock]

Stand alone pressing was extremely rare, pre-CGC and despite what the revisionists might like to have us believe, it was CGC's stance that gave rise to the phenomenon we know today.

 

There are already mentions in this thread of two large collections of comics which were pressed pre-CGC. And by folks who later became the poster children for anti-pressing!!!

 

So you guys can call folks revisionist, or chicken little, or whatever else. But it is pretty obvious who has their head firmly buried in their as....the sand.

[AndyBoBo]

Stand alone pressing was extremely rare, pre-CGC and despite what the revisionists might like to have us believe, it was CGC's stance that gave rise to the phenomenon we know today.

 

There are already mentions in this thread of two large collections of comics which were pressed pre-CGC. And by folks who later became the poster children for anti-pressing!!!

 

So you guys can call folks revisionist, or chicken little, or whatever else. But it is pretty obvious who has their head firmly buried in their as....the sand.

 

I learn a lot reading these types of posts/topics. But I have to say after reading this post, I spit up my coffee that I had just sipped. Made my day, now I can get some work done!

[Davenport]

There was never any danger of 'the genie escaping the bottle'. CGC had established marketing partnerships with a wide range of comic related businesses. No professional "experts" were bringing anything to the attention of consumers, 100% of it was coming from board posters.

 

Plus, the hobby press wouldn't touch any of it with a ten foot pole.

 

You can read all the "OH, SO? - Speak Your Mind!" responses on the Comics Buyers' Guide site. You might find it interesting, gives a sense of the frustration level as things unfolded: Why Has CBG Not Covered Important Issues In The Hobby?

 

Discussion external to the boards happened, but I don't think there was any chicanery behind the fact it didn't spread to the mainstream. It remains an echo and hotly contested debate in many online areas by numerous people who are influential in the hobby, and that's what's essential.

 

Hobby press coverage would lack the teeth, authenticity and relevance anyway.

You don't find it the least bit odd that CGB would exhibit amazing effort to report on one eBay comic seller ( Dupak )

"...a year-long investigation involving public records databases, conversations with past customers and federal and local law enforcement officials, tracking of online auction activity, and research into its own archives..."

 

But pure silence on another prominent eBay comic seller (Ewert)?

 

[fantastic_four]

You don't find it the least bit odd that CGB would exhibit amazing effort to report on one eBay comic seller ( Dupak )

"...a year-long investigation involving public records databases, conversations with past customers and federal and local law enforcement officials, tracking of online auction activity, and research into its own archives..."

 

But pure silence on another prominent eBay comic seller (Ewert)?

 

Why would it be odd? The Dupcak article wasn't conceived by CBG, it was pitched to them. I offered to write it myself, but they declined, although I ended up starting a series of pedigree articles that I abandoned after Matt Nelson started working on his pedigrees book. Apparently nobody pitched the Ewert article to them, and it's entirely possible they were unaware of the incident, they may not read these boards and I'm not sure how much awareness of Ewert there is outside of the boards.

 

This hobby is small. If someone's not doing something, do it yourself--that's a more positive approach than person_without_enough_empathying or starting conspiracy theories about why people aren't doing something that needs doing.

[MrBedrock]

This hobby is small. If someone's not doing something, do it yourself--that's a more positive approach than person_without_enough_empathying or starting conspiracy theories about why people aren't doing something that needs doing.

(thumbs u (thumbs u (thumbs u