Resto: Proposed Definition

[Bosco685]

What if I told you that I know the person who had this book signed, I know the convention where the signature took place, and I am pretty sure a photograph exists of it getting signed...

...fairly concrete, huh?

 

But I also understand the need for The CGC to tightly control the Signature Series label. And I really have no problem with it. I do think it's a shame that real and fake autographs all get lumped together in the encapsulation process though.

 

Holy!

[seanfingh]

I do think it's a shame that real and fake autographs all get lumped together in the encapsulation process though.

 

When you say this do you mean for Blue label or Green label or both?

[MrBedrock]

I do think it's a shame that real and fake autographs all get lumped together in the encapsulation process though.

 

When you say this do you mean for Blue label or Green label or both?

Both. If "jack kirby" is written on an interior page The CGC will note "jack kirby written on page X" on the label (which will be blue), without making any attempt to authenticate the writing.

[bb8]

YELLOW (gold) LABEL:

 

Signature Series (category opened up to include submissions of collectibles authenticated by handwriting experts to document historic signatures, thus eliminating the self-serving appearance of CGC controlled signings)

 

No, thank you. And it's never going to happen either.

So you wouldn't want a Kirby, Simon, Kane, etc. signature to be able to be authenticated in a CGC case, just hammered as a defect or a GLOD? Never understood this opinion. There are professionals who are supposedly good at this and well-respected in other hobbies. Why not ours?

 

Because the beauty of the SS program is that it's completely black & white - the signature was either witnessed by a CGC employee or CAW (= yellow label) or it was not (= green label).

 

After-the-fact signature verification is spurious at best - with the way the SS system is set up right now, there's zero guesswork or uncertainty when you're buying a yellow label book.

I totally disagree. So professionals who authenticate George Washington's signature are spurious because they weren't there? Or JFK, or Marilyn Monroe, etc. etc.? These people's sigs are worth a heck of a lot more money than dead comics professionals, but there are trusted authentication processes people can go to, and they are generally accepeted. The SS system is a nice monopoly for CGC, but by your logic the most valuable signatures are impossible to authenticate because the signer is dead. Heck, signature authorities are used in court to establish paper trails, but, since the signings weren't witnessed by CGC, I guess they should be treated as dross and tossed aside.

 

[seanfingh]

YELLOW (gold) LABEL:

 

Signature Series (category opened up to include submissions of collectibles authenticated by handwriting experts to document historic signatures, thus eliminating the self-serving appearance of CGC controlled signings)

 

No, thank you. And it's never going to happen either.

So you wouldn't want a Kirby, Simon, Kane, etc. signature to be able to be authenticated in a CGC case, just hammered as a defect or a GLOD? Never understood this opinion. There are professionals who are supposedly good at this and well-respected in other hobbies. Why not ours?

 

Because the beauty of the SS program is that it's completely black & white - the signature was either witnessed by a CGC employee or CAW (= yellow label) or it was not (= green label).

 

After-the-fact signature verification is spurious at best - with the way the SS system is set up right now, there's zero guesswork or uncertainty when you're buying a yellow label book.

I totally disagree. So professionals who authenticate George Washington's signature are spurious because they weren't there? Or JFK, or Marilyn Monroe, etc. etc.? These people's sigs are worth a heck of a lot more money than dead comics professionals, but there are trusted authentication processes people can go to, and they are generally accepeted. The SS system is a nice monopoly for CGC, but by your logic the most valuable signatures are impossible to authenticate because the signer is dead. Heck, signature authorities are used in court to establish paper trails, but, since the signings weren't witnessed by CGC, I guess they should be treated as dross and tossed aside.

 

Here is the thing, if you want after-the-fact authentication, go get it. We get this sort of shoe-banging indignation in the Sig Room all the time. That is not what CGC is providing. They never have, and hopefully they never will.

 

The Yellow label is one thing and one thing only - A CGC authorized witness saw the person sign. No one is saying that marginalizes older signatures, or that they are dross, or that they should be tossed aside. They are simply not eligible for the Yellow label. CGC doesn't want to hire or train authenticators. I would imagine it might be lucrative to be an expert on presidential signatures. Not so much for Bronze comic artists.

 

So go get your certificate of authenticity, no one is stopping you.

[bb8]

YELLOW (gold) LABEL:

 

Signature Series (category opened up to include submissions of collectibles authenticated by handwriting experts to document historic signatures, thus eliminating the self-serving appearance of CGC controlled signings)

 

No, thank you. And it's never going to happen either.

So you wouldn't want a Kirby, Simon, Kane, etc. signature to be able to be authenticated in a CGC case, just hammered as a defect or a GLOD? Never understood this opinion. There are professionals who are supposedly good at this and well-respected in other hobbies. Why not ours?

 

Because the beauty of the SS program is that it's completely black & white - the signature was either witnessed by a CGC employee or CAW (= yellow label) or it was not (= green label).

 

After-the-fact signature verification is spurious at best - with the way the SS system is set up right now, there's zero guesswork or uncertainty when you're buying a yellow label book.

I totally disagree. So professionals who authenticate George Washington's signature are spurious because they weren't there? Or JFK, or Marilyn Monroe, etc. etc.? These people's sigs are worth a heck of a lot more money than dead comics professionals, but there are trusted authentication processes people can go to, and they are generally accepeted. The SS system is a nice monopoly for CGC, but by your logic the most valuable signatures are impossible to authenticate because the signer is dead. Heck, signature authorities are used in court to establish paper trails, but, since the signings weren't witnessed by CGC, I guess they should be treated as dross and tossed aside.

 

Here is the thing, if you want after-the-fact authentication, go get it. We get this sort of shoe-banging indignation in the Sig Room all the time. That is not what CGC is providing. They never have, and hopefully they never will.

 

The Yellow label is one thing and one thing only - A CGC authorized witness saw the person sign. No one is saying that marginalizes older signatures, or that they are dross, or that they should be tossed aside. They are simply not eligible for the Yellow label. CGC doesn't want to hire or train authenticators. I would imagine it might be lucrative to be an expert on presidential signatures. Not so much for Bronze comic artists.

 

So go get your certificate of authenticity, no one is stopping you.

Never said CGC should provide the service. I don't think they should either. They've got enough problems with grading and watching. No 'shoe-banging' here, whatever the hell that is. I guess my question is why is there such a gaping hole in our hobby for this service? Or maybe there isn't and I am just ignorant of its existence? I don't know. It would be cool to get a genuine Kirby sig. That's all I'm sayin'.

[seanfingh]

YELLOW (gold) LABEL:

 

Signature Series (category opened up to include submissions of collectibles authenticated by handwriting experts to document historic signatures, thus eliminating the self-serving appearance of CGC controlled signings)

 

No, thank you. And it's never going to happen either.

So you wouldn't want a Kirby, Simon, Kane, etc. signature to be able to be authenticated in a CGC case, just hammered as a defect or a GLOD? Never understood this opinion. There are professionals who are supposedly good at this and well-respected in other hobbies. Why not ours?

 

Because the beauty of the SS program is that it's completely black & white - the signature was either witnessed by a CGC employee or CAW (= yellow label) or it was not (= green label).

 

After-the-fact signature verification is spurious at best - with the way the SS system is set up right now, there's zero guesswork or uncertainty when you're buying a yellow label book.

I totally disagree. So professionals who authenticate George Washington's signature are spurious because they weren't there? Or JFK, or Marilyn Monroe, etc. etc.? These people's sigs are worth a heck of a lot more money than dead comics professionals, but there are trusted authentication processes people can go to, and they are generally accepeted. The SS system is a nice monopoly for CGC, but by your logic the most valuable signatures are impossible to authenticate because the signer is dead. Heck, signature authorities are used in court to establish paper trails, but, since the signings weren't witnessed by CGC, I guess they should be treated as dross and tossed aside.

 

Here is the thing, if you want after-the-fact authentication, go get it. We get this sort of shoe-banging indignation in the Sig Room all the time. That is not what CGC is providing. They never have, and hopefully they never will.

 

The Yellow label is one thing and one thing only - A CGC authorized witness saw the person sign. No one is saying that marginalizes older signatures, or that they are dross, or that they should be tossed aside. They are simply not eligible for the Yellow label. CGC doesn't want to hire or train authenticators. I would imagine it might be lucrative to be an expert on presidential signatures. Not so much for Bronze comic artists.

 

So go get your certificate of authenticity, no one is stopping you.

Never said CGC should provide the service. I don't think they should either. They've got enough problems with grading and watching. No 'shoe-banging' here, whatever the hell that is. I guess my question is why is there such a gaping hole in our hobby for this service? Or maybe there isn't and I am just ignorant of its existence? I don't know. It would be cool to get a genuine Kirby sig. That's all I'm sayin'.

 

Kirby sigs are all over the place. There are Dynamic Forces books with his sig, and scads of raw books with his sig on the splash from his many convention appearances. I think the issue with authentication is that there is not enough demand (read $$$) for a handwriting analyst to get the expertise necessary to hold him or herself out as an expert on comic creators.

[Bookery]

I totally disagree. So professionals who authenticate George Washington's signature are spurious because they weren't there? Or JFK, or Marilyn Monroe, etc. etc.? These people's sigs are worth a heck of a lot more money than dead comics professionals, but there are trusted authentication processes people can go to, and they are generally accepeted. The SS system is a nice monopoly for CGC, but by your logic the most valuable signatures are impossible to authenticate because the signer is dead. Heck, signature authorities are used in court to establish paper trails, but, since the signings weren't witnessed by CGC, I guess they should be treated as dross and tossed aside.

 

From what I understand, it is extremely difficult for professionals to authenticate just a signature (George Washington's or anybody else) without either further writing (as in a letter) or some sort of provenance. It's a fallacy due to what is presented on TV that experts can, in most cases, declare unequivocably that a single out-of-context signature can be verified. They did it for years with signed baseballs, only to discover that the "experts" missed lots of forgeries (and likely vice-versa).

 

It's easy to learn to copy a single signature... presidential and Hollywood secretaries have done it, often flawlessly, for decades.

 

[mschmidt]

I do think it's a shame that real and fake autographs all get lumped together in the encapsulation process though.

 

When you say this do you mean for Blue label or Green label or both?

Both. If "jack kirby" is written on an interior page The CGC will note "jack kirby written on page X" on the label (which will be blue), without making any attempt to authenticate the writing.

 

It depends - sometimes they'll note "jack kirby written on page X", other times it'll say "name written on page X".

 

As far as I can tell, there's no rhyme nor reason as to which version you'll end up with which I find rather dumb - someone was showing off a freshly-labelled Stan Lee SS book in one of the SS threads where the label read "Signed by Stan Lee on x/x/x ("Jack Kirby" written on cover)" or something similar. All a label like that does is confuse the heck out of someone who isn't up-to-date on the intricacies of the SS program.

[Flaming_Telepath]

A simple notation of 'pressed' would be a good move for disclosure if CGC wouldn't want another label.

 

On all pressed books that CGC can detect, or assume to detect?

 

On pressed books declared by their pressing service. I think trying to detect pressing might open up a gigantic can of worms for them - they should stick to a pressing notation for books that have gone through their own pressing service - because it's verifiable.

Then their pressing service would go out of business. And the guys out there who are good at it will get all that business, and the books wouldn't end up with the 'pressed' notation.

 

Doesn't anybody else think it rather...surreal...that for their business to succeed, CGC have to refuse to let potential buyers know what they know about the product?

[mrmyst]

A simple notation of 'pressed' would be a good move for disclosure if CGC wouldn't want another label.

 

On all pressed books that CGC can detect, or assume to detect?

 

On pressed books declared by their pressing service. I think trying to detect pressing might open up a gigantic can of worms for them - they should stick to a pressing notation for books that have gone through their own pressing service - because it's verifiable.

Then their pressing service would go out of business. And the guys out there who are good at it will get all that business, and the books wouldn't end up with the 'pressed' notation.

 

Doesn't anybody else think it rather...surreal...that for their business to succeed, CGC have to refuse to let potential buyers know what they know about the product?

[Comicopolis]

People need hobbies.

 

Hobbies need people.

[BeachBum]

People need hobbies.

 

Hobbies need people.

 

And people need to stop banging their heads against the wall.

[MrBedrock]

People need hobbies.

 

Hobbies need people.

 

And people need to stop banging their heads against the wall.

And walls need to stop having heads banged against them.

[MrBedrock]

 

Doesn't anybody else think it rather...surreal...that for their business to succeed, CGC have to refuse to let potential buyers know what they know about the product?

Not much different than any bakery or restaurant with a particularly tasty recipe.

Or any newspaper with a particular source for their scoops.

Or any software company...

Or pharmaceutical...

Or ...

 

[mrmyst]

 

Doesn't anybody else think it rather...surreal...that for their business to succeed, CGC have to refuse to let potential buyers know what they know about the product?

Not much different than any bakery or restaurant with a particularly tasty recipe.

Or any newspaper with a particular source for their scoops.

Or any software company...

Or pharmaceutical...

Or ...

Capitalism. Live with it, or move.

[Flaming_Telepath]

 

Doesn't anybody else think it rather...surreal...that for their business to succeed, CGC have to refuse to let potential buyers know what they know about the product?

Not much different than any bakery or restaurant with a particularly tasty recipe.

Or any newspaper with a particular source for their scoops.

Or any software company...

Or pharmaceutical...

Or ...

 

It's actually very different, as the work undertaken isn't undertaken by CGC and it is of use to potential purchasers.

 

But the only way the business succeeds is by keeping the information under wraps?

 

[loadstone]

I want a "VIRGIN" label or its equivalent. Perhaps just blue universal with the word VIRGIN stamped on it. I can't believe pressing is not detectable. Not with your eye or a loop but perhaps at the microscopic or even subatomic level. Not that I expect cgc graders to start using scanning electron microscopes or spectrometers but ok yeah maybe I do. And while they are at it, use a quantifiable algorithm to calculate all the variations on defects and resto-conserv-optimo. mess if we can use a fast Fourier transform to accurately map the icy rocky strata of Jupiter's moon Europa from earth with nothing but a low gain antenna and a satellite probe at 128k bitrate on an anemic NASA budget, surely cgc could hire a math/physics intern for a summer to develop and program a tool to do this using high resolution scanners attached to microscopes.

sigh. For now I am starting to lose faith in the universal label as a means of certifying no tampering.

[Racer-X]

Threads like this are interesting, but anything resembling a consensus is impossible.

 

True. A consensus would require people to change their ideas of what restoration is, and whittling it down to a black and white definition. It's possible to define it, I think - but not possible for people to accept it.

 

A consensus is reached when an authoritative body (in comics, CGC and only CGC) reaches a consensus. CGC already has and like it or not we have to accept it. I'm only suggesting a tweak of the system.

 

I know...never happen...

 

[Racer-X]

I wish THIS were CGC's accepted definition of comic book restoration - whaddaya think?:

 

BLUE LABEL:

Given to any comic that has had no foreign substance added to it, or original material removed from it, ON PURPOSE FOR THE PURPOSE OF IMPROVING IT'S APPEARANCE

-- Stains, al la coffee ring: not added on purpose...gets Blue

-- Tape: added on purpose, gets Purple (see below)

-- Doodles...decreased grade, but Blue (not done to improve appearance)

-- Date stamp...possible decreased grade, but Blue (not added to improve appearance)

-- MVS/coupon missing...Blue, but downgraded & noted on label (not removed to improve appearance)

-- 1/2 page or less missing...Blue but downgraded and noted on label

-- More than 1/2 page missing...Incomplete designation

-- Pressed...Blue (no material added or removed)

 

PURPLE:

Given to any comic that has had a foreign substance added to it or original material removed from it in order to improve it's appearance:

-- Tape...Purple

-- Color touch...Purple

-- Glue...Purple

-- Trim: Material removed in order to improve appearance...Purple

 

QUALIFIED:

Lose this label: downgrade all "qualified" flaws under a Blue/Purple label, and note on label

 

I think CGC can and should note any foreign substance on a book and anything that has been done to it.

 

I don't think label colors help. If anything, they make it worse.

 

Color touch on a corner? The book is "better" if the corner is torn off.

 

Tape on the book. It's "better" if the tape is corrosive.

 

All the stuff you mention can be noted, and should be, except

 

It is not advisable to expect or even want a grading company to be determining what was or wasn't done "...ON PURPOSE..."

 

The phrase conjures images of a schoolyard dispute, and with good reason. That's where we all learned it and that's what discussions devolve to when books' values change (sometimes to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars) based on whether a defect occurred "accidentally" or "on purpose."

 

Disagree. We already make judgements about what is and is not done on purpose. And besides, I think that part of it is easy to tell.

 

Give me an example of what may be difficult to determine if it's accidental or willful...