THIS MONDAY RESTORATION EXPERT SUSAN CICCONI ON THE COMIC ZONE!

[Forbush-Man]

Explain this one then and tell me how this is right. Would you like to be the purchaser of the 7.0 (see attachment)?

 

AF #15 2002 5.5

 

How did the grade change so much? As a dealer you want me to let you hide behind this? Get real Darth...I don't want CGC not noting pressing that they are 100% sure of.

 

If anybody can host the full size scan of the 7.0 I will email it to you.

 

What's the full story on this book?

[Darthdiesel]

Full story - it APPEARS to have been pressed properly and Mushroom is upset that CGC does not remark Pressing (properly done) on the label that he CLAIMS they are 100% sure of (even though there are tons of this book floating around); so the book goes from 5.5 to a 7.0. CGC did not regrade that as a 7.0 with the CGC 5.5 Heritage scan handy? Should it be just resubs of former Heritage sales that get this "outted as pressed" treatment? Shouldn't this outting policy apply universally? Until CGC can guarantee this treatment on all books sold, I wouldn't want them starting with books sold by one particular company - Heritage - just because they happen to provide an indirect archive of (highly manipulated, btw ) scans. Doing so is totally against their mandate of impartiality?

 

 

 

 

Not that I even have the slightest inkling in owning this book for my personal collection, Mushroom, but if I bought the AF 15 book as a 7.0, as long as it is in 7.0 condition when I get it and I paid a reasonable price for it, then all is well and I can live with it. The whole reverting back to its pre-pressed grade is just comic urban legend. You'll have testimonials to support an agenda pop up now and then to scare comic collectors, but until someone I trust and know shows me otherwise or I experience it for myself, then I hold off on any judgement.

 

My question is can YOU be sure that it was professionally pressed? Or did someone slap this book or it's pages between flat boards and then stack longboxes or encyclopedias on it? Or was it just left under a heavy stack of comics for the past few months before resubbed as a 7.0? You also seem to place a lot of faith on Ciccone's statements that even proper pressing can be detected; whereas I just see it as clever self-promotion. Wouldn't it be nice if we had a "grade-off" where the foremeost experts in comic book resto and CGC all look over the same sample of pressed and unpressed books and see how many they get right? That may help bring you closer to see how good some of these people are in claiming they can spot pressing or restoration.

 

Mushroom, I have no personal stake in this book nor this practice of pressing. I just don't agree with your expectations of CGC to be responsible for "outting" pressed books which they can not come to the definite verdict of pressed based on what they have in front of them at the time of grading (ie, no monitor with Heritage's larger than life manipulated scans )

[burntboy]

 

Not that I even have the slightest inkling in owning this book for my personal collection, Mushroom, but if I bought the AF 15 book as a 7.0, as long as it is in 7.0 condition when I get it and I paid a reasonable price for it, then all is well and I can live with it. The whole reverting back to its pre-pressed grade is just comic urban legend. You'll have testimonials to support an agenda pop up now and then to scare comic collectors, but until someone I trust and know shows me otherwise or I experience it for myself, then I hold off on any judgement.

 

Mushroom, I have no personal stake in this book nor this practice of pressing. I just don't agree with your expectations of CGC to be responsible for "outting" pressed books which they can not come to the definite verdict of pressed based on what they have in front of them at the time of grading (ie, no monitor with Heritage's larger than life manipulated scans )

 

first; did anyone ever host the 7.0 copy for mushroom so we could see it blown up?? without that scan, i don't see how anyone can claim that this book was pressed and/or cleaned into a higher grade (although i understand the rationale for such thoughts).

 

second; i wholeheartedly support darth's statement in the 1st paragraph above. i would be quite happy to buy any book in an improved CGC grade that was properly pressed, as long as paid a reasonable price (and i don't mean reduced due to pressing). nothing was added and nothing was taken away (except some unwanted and unsightly wrinkles), so i personally wouldn't mind. i also agree that the chance of the book reverting to it's prior state of defect is not likely.

 

thirdly; to compare pressing with trimming is, in my humble opinion, ludicrous...

[garthgantu]

My question is can YOU be sure that it was professionally pressed? Or was it just left under a heavy stack of comics for the past few months before resubbed as a 7.0?

 

Yeah, that's it - "hey, where's my mid-grade AF 15?" "Oh, I stuck it under a stack of books in the closet somewhere...check pile # 4"

[garthgantu]

I have a big problem with the idea that gets tossed out here that somehow CGC should search their records, ebay scans, Heritage scans, website dealer scans, etc.,. and perform some kind of magical "scan matching" query against the library of scans for a particular book to try and identify a re-sub. That goes against the entire concept of an impartial, 3rd-party approach to grading books as it would bias the way the graders look at the book.

 

You make restoration detection sound like an aesthetic art, but it isn't. Either the book was worked on, or it wasn't. Why would looking back at the history of a book "bias" a restoration detector? They're a lot like crime scene investigators, and more information is always better in forensic evaluation than less information. If restoration detection is a separate step in the process from grading--and by my understanding of CGC's process, it is--then there should be no bias in having the detector digging into a book's history if the graders aren't privvy to that information.

 

As you pointed out, the only problem I have with the "CGC should search their records" idea is that there isn't sufficiently developed technology to support it. Until it becomes available, doing a history search isn't economically viable. People think to themselves "but the FBI can automatically search fingerprints!" However, when you consider the reality of the software which went into the development of that very specific process applied to a very specific area of information, plus the annual cost of supporting it, I can't imagine that it doesn't total up to hundreds of millions of dollars. It's probably more like billions of dollars.

 

1) To be clear, your comments were directed at Banner, not me.

but

2) I would respectfully disagree re: your estimate of the costs associated with doing something like this. There's off-the-shelf OCR software that would get you 80% of the way to a solution...I'd guess the cost to be closer to $50k than $1 billion.

I assume it's okay for me to guess, since you're doing the same..? Normally any guessing on your watch gets the back of your mental hand...

[garthgantu]

second; i wholeheartedly support darth's statement in the 1st paragraph above. i would be quite happy to buy any book in an improved CGC grade that was properly pressed, as long as paid a reasonable price (and i don't mean reduced due to pressing).

 

Well, that opens up another interesting can of worms.

If you knew that the AF 15 you just bought in 7.0 could have been purchased in 5.5 for 1/2 the price, and pressed up to a 7.0 for less than $100, wouldn't you prefer to do the pressing yourself? Why pay hundreds or thousands more for the pressing?

[Mr. Zipper]

Well, that opens up another interesting can of worms.

If you knew that the AF 15 you just bought in 7.0 could have been purchased in 5.5 for 1/2 the price, and pressed up to a 7.0 for less than $100, wouldn't you prefer to do the pressing yourself? Why pay hundreds or thousands more for the pressing?

 

I'm sure it's happening. There's probably not a whole lot of amateur jobs being done on AF 15 and the like, but you know cheeseballs ARE out there putting common books in a vice on the garage workbench just to squeeze out an extra $25 bucks where they can.

 

As long as the price divide between .5 grades continues to widen, and more multiples are to be made based on these increments, the practice will continue and increase.

 

Once the first label was slapped on a slab -- and comic condition could be objectively quantified... status, ego and greed were not far behind, and it started a chain reaction of unintended consequences. It was the beginning of the end.

[fantastic_four]

There's off-the-shelf OCR software that would get you 80% of the way to a solution...I'd guess the cost to be closer to $50k than $1 billion.

I assume it's okay for me to guess, since you're doing the same..? Normally any guessing on your watch gets the back of your mental hand...

 

I'm guessing about image comparison software...that stuff is all highly custom on a per-application basis. I've been customizing off-the-shelf OCR software for over a year at my current job to scan numbers and barcodes, but I don't even get why you bring it up...Banner was talking about scan matching software, and you're bringing up optical character recognition software for a reason I'm unable to guess. What is OCR going to do to help CGC find pressing?

[Ze-man]

Forget the OCR stuff..

In my perfect scenario...

I would like to see CGC have a scan database that CGC could use to just compare their own Scans, from all previous submissions, on a nice 27 inch Monitor.

 

I know it would indeed take time, but I would think it should not be THAT hard for CGC to go through the scans of a specific comic title, and issue #, that it has on file from previous submissions... at lets say.. 9.0 and above.. , and the new submission fall in lets say a 9.2 grade, , then compare it on a 6 point "quick check" system.. all 4 corners, front/back cover, to see if the book was indeed previously submitted to CGC in the past.

 

If it was.. then I still cannot say for sure what they should do. that is for another post.

but perhaps CGC could send the submitter a , and tell them it has shown up as a previous submission, and will have a "pressed " notation on the label.

 

But of all the HG copies that are in the census, there are not that many, and after awhile, the person in charge of doing the check, could probably pull up a scan from sheer attrition, and good memory.

It would not be that hard to cross check their own data base to see if a book was indeed recently submitted, and slabbed by them, then cracked, and resubbed...

 

I know this is pipedream talk, but does this make any sense?

 

just another idea, thrown out to be shot full of holes....

 

Fire away.

 

Ze-

[Darthdiesel]

Z - the whole archive idea takes away from the "grading in a vacuum" process CGC has set up. Now they grade separately and then finalize a grade. The intro of an archive check give CGC a starting point on what to numberically grade the book. Their grading process is no longer independent of any outside influence, even if it is their own prioir judgement on a book, in the case of an archive. No one else but me see anything fundamentally wrong in that or is it this obssession to out all pressing regardless of definite proof overriding all common sense?

 

As for garth's scenario, maybe for you it would make sense to buy the 5.5 and press it yourself and save time and money. I don't have access to a press or know these resto experts enough to trust them with my books. Basically it is a hassle. If I'm looking for a 7.0, I plop down the money for a 7.0 extant. I don't go around looking for undergraded 4.0s and 5.5s that I can successfully press up after investing more money and time into it. Personally, I don't buy books with the intent of pressing up. It is not me, I have no clue about it, I have no vested financial interest in pressing books. So no your scenario would not apply to me.

[Ze-man]

Z - the whole archive idea takes away from the "grading in a vacuum" process CGC has set up. Now they grade separately and then finalize a grade. The intro of an archive check give CGC a starting point on what to numberically grade the book.

 

 

I hear ya, but in my scenario, I want CGC to grade each book, sight unseen, and go in fresh.

No checks beforehand whatso ever.

But if the book does grade out at lets say, a 9.4, or 9.6.

Then it is flagged as a candidate to be checked against their data base, to see if it was indeed graded by them previously.

I did not mean for all incoming submittals to be checked, but only those that recieve a true uber HG.

 

To me this is just a check and balance system for CGC to make sure they are not being taken advantage of by those of lesser virtue..

 

But CGC would have to first think pressing is a bad thing, to warrant all of this sleuthing.

 

Ze-

[Darthdiesel]

so all modern 9.8s - 10.0s would be checked under your system? Time consuming and nonproductive comes to mind to describe this such an undertaking. Should we start looking at CGc 10.0s as possible pressing resubs from CGC 9.8s? if not, why not? We're doing it with the other ages?

[Ze-man]

Sigh... Darth, while I did not say it.

I meant GA, SA.. and even BA..

But pressing a modern, is that even necessary?

So it was not even in my thought process.

 

And as I said before.. was just an idea, so keep shooting..

And I will keep trying to plug the holes.

 

Ze-

 

 

 

 

I might add, after re reading your last post, your right... even though I do not collect Moderns, so I did not think of them as pressing candiates., who is to say someone would not want to press out a 9.8 to make it a possible 10.0

 

So I am at a loss as to what parameters to set my idea at....

[Darthdiesel]

good thoughts z- but what's good for one should be good for all when concerned adding new methods... so if we are going to implement it for one genre/age then keep in mind that we'll have to make it universal to show impartiality, regardless of practicality. IMO pressing a modern is ridiculous, but if that's what it took to get a CGC 10.0 then I guarantee someone with the means ti do it will.

 

but i'm just playing devil's advocate here...back to the virtual bartender thread..

[drbanner]

The intro of an archive check give CGC a starting point on what to numberically grade the book. Their grading process is no longer independent of any outside influence, even if it is their own prioir judgement on a book, in the case of an archive. No one else but me see anything fundamentally wrong in that or is it this obssession to out all pressing regardless of definite proof overriding all common sense?

 

I see a big problem with it as it breaks the whole premise of "impartial", so I'm with you and Z on that.

 

And like you said, if you're going to do it on Spidey 1, you need to do it on Spidey 401, and Ultimate Spidey 1, and every book in the "truckloads" and "unopened cases" Steve says CGC gets in on moderns. And of course that would have to include all of Colossus Comics' pre-screen rejects, since those are the most likely candidates to get pressed and re-subbed, aren't they?

[fantastic_four]

So I am at a loss as to what parameters to set my idea at....

 

You're heading down the road of economic inviability to propose a manual checking process.

 

If you do it only at the uber-grades, then you're making a mistake. There are hundreds or thousands of dollars to be made pressing Golden Age and key Silver low-grade books into mid-grade books, and if you don't do it for all ages and all grades, your customers are going to cry foul for your selective evaluations. And even if you do look at only the uber-grades, you're going to look through the HUNDREDS of Hulk #181s or Giant-Size X-Men #1s every time somebody submits a new copy in the 8.0 to 9.4 range? That's a LOT of work, particularly when you note that 5% to 20% are going to look almost exactly the same, with the exact same wrap and extremely similar physical defects, forcing you to take a longer amount of time to weed out the similar-looking dopplegangers.

 

Keep thinking it over...there might be a manual solution that works...but I highly, highly doubt it. The only viable solution I've ever heard is the one someone had about 6-12 months ago of placing the bar code number somewhere in the book's interior as an invisible mark. But that'd never fly because us anal-retentive types would go nuts over CGC "defacing" pristine comics in this way.

[Forbush-Man]

Can someone provide a scan of the AF # 15 CGC 7.0? Where did the 7.0 come from, Heritage?

[Ze-man]

Can someone provide a scan of the AF # 15 CGC 7.0? Where did the 7.0 come from, Heritage?

 

I sent Mushroom a PM about hosting his scan, did not hear back from him.

 

 

And F.F. I hear ya, it is an old thread, idea, done to death..

 

Why cant Steve not just hire interns, pay them with a free Happy Meal & a Red Bull?

And have THEM do all the cross-checking?

 

 

Ze-

[Aman619]

I looked at the AF15 that Mushroom posted, before and after scans. Wow. Thi sis obviously the same book due to the unique date stamp. But CGC could not pick that fact out since they grade so many books. Someone here suggested CGC scan and refer to their scan archive to check books against to discover restored resubs. I think this is a great idea.

 

But - -obviously - - doing this for 100,000s of books a year is impractical. So why scan EVERY book? Why not just do this for the keys. Create a list of 100, or 200, of the most valuable books to start. thats maybe 10K scans... maybe far less since so many copies have already been slabbed, leaving fewer out there raw.

 

Bottom line, for a limited investment of time and mbs of hard disk space, CGCs restoration checking would be enhanced....

 

just a suggestion.

[Darthdiesel]

'So why scan EVERY book? Why not just do this for the keys."

 

Because that's what a thorough, truly impartial grading company would do if they implement a policy. you can't pick and choose "keys", high dollar books and wear that unbiased mantle.

 

as someone focused on Moderns, if they do this for AF15s and keys I'd be ticked that they don't do it for me. My money is just the same as the guy who submitted the AF15. I'd argue that I gave more business on my modern submission than this one guy submitting his AF15, but yet he gets this extra service of crossreferencing against an archive?

 

Let's say your system is implemented, the "baddies" would just start pressing the books that are not on the "key list" and get around it. Maybe they'll just press moderns into 10.0s instead since that is easier money and doesn't seem to be disputed as much as 9.0 - 9.6 Silver and Bronze keys

 

CGC does this and it is no longer a level playing field with certain books scrutinized more than others....period.