2015 Green Eggs Grading Contest- Round 5

[drewincanada]

I have no idea if the fading is due to sunlight exposure to the left half of the cover or if it’s a production error due to low ink on the left half of the page. Either is possible, I suppose.

 

There isn't a clean, sharp line where the colour changes. When you look at the first image below, the transition is a little indistinct. If the book had been partially exposed to sunlight, you might expect that the change from the non-faded portion to the faded portion would be a sharp line - the same as it is when you see a dust shadow or sun shadow. But who knows how the book was stored. Perhaps whatever was sitting in front of this book wasn't in direct contact with it. If there was a gap, then the transition line would be less distinct.

 

But if it WERE from exposure to sunlight, the correct colour is missing. Ultraviolet light affects the colour spectrum differently, and each of the four inks would fade at different rates. Yellow fades the fastest of the four process inks - it’s the least colour fast - followed by magenta, then cyan, and finally black.

 

As for WHICH colour is missing on the left side of the cover, here’s an experiment. It's not exacting, because we are looking at an RGB scan of the CMYK cover, so it's not easy to determine the exact CMYK makeup of the inks. However you can make a good guess just by looking at a closeup of the dot patterns.

 

Here's a closeup of one of the areas where you can see the transition from the left side to the right side.

 

 

You can see the general makeup of the ink. On the right side you can see that the yellow ink covers the entire area. It’s solid. The cyan ink is in a dot pattern and only covers part of the page.

 

There is no magenta visible in this section of the cover.

 

The yellow ink is solid on both sides (it's not in a dot pattern), but it has simply faded on the left side. The cyan ink, on the other hand, is relatively equal in density on both sides. I'm not referring to the size of the dots, which wouldn't change when either exposed to sunlight or if ink levels were low on the printing press, but the density/intensity of the ink within those dot patterns - which WOULD change.

 

(As an aside, you can see that the size of the cyan dots actually increases as you move towards the top left of this detail image. There was always more cyan on the far left than on the right... which you'll see in the samples below.)

 

Here's a small section of the right side, and I've blurred it to get a reasonable approximation of the ink makeup:

 

 

The ink makeup here is approximately 30% cyan, 0% magenta, 100% yellow, 0% black.

 

And here is a section of the left side:

 

 

The ink here is approximately 45% cyan, 0% magenta, 70% yellow, 0% black.

 

As I mentioned, there was always more cyan on the left than the right. You can see that in the dot pattern.

 

But the yellow has faded from 100% on the right to 70% on the left.

 

Also, just for the record, here's a sample of what 100% cyan and 100% yellow - with no magenta - looks like. It's a primary green:

 

 

If you want more of a LIME green, reduce the amount of cyan in the mix. If you want a TEAL green, reduce the yellow.

[Mio]

Ops. I did not even notice it was faded. The shame.

[joe_collector]

Magic sun rays that totally faded some colors into almost obliteration and completely did not fade-at all-other colors.

 

 

let it go already

no-this book needs to be re graded

The difference in value between a 6.5 and a 9.6 on this book is extreme

CGC missed it

 

NO. No they didn't. Go look at some other faded books and you will see very similar "some colors faded and others didn't" phenomena.

Nope.

This book is faded uniformly

http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=4373751#Post4373751

 

Yes but that book is a special case that is not just faded, and several theories came out explaining the low color, such as this:

 

From a restoration point of view I can see an organic solvent cleaning being the culprit of fading reds and perhaps CGC just couldn't detect that particular solvent used.

[01TheDude]

sometimes the simplest explanation is the right one. I saw it immediately as a clear example of a sun shadow-- a very dramatic one at that. All this talk of the possible printing error involving the inks etc seems a bit overboard to me, It is interesting and we are learning more about colors and all that-- but in the end, what seems to have happened is this book was partially left exposed to sunlight.

 

The craziest part about it is how well the cover is split with damage-- almost like it was intentional-- perhaps a Green Lantern fan wanted to just display the one character and left that display like that for quite some time. Someone never having seen this cover could have thought the artwork was intentional-- although close examination of the DC seal shows that could not be the case considering how faded that area got (and was not a greenish section). At first glance, I thought it was a dust shadow until I saw that upper left corner.

 

Kudos to the competition committee for picking out such an interesting example yet again.

 

 

[sckao]

 

The Competition Committee: ThirdGreenHam... A FORCE OF ONE!

 

[drewincanada]

sometimes the simplest explanation is the right one. I saw it immediately as a clear example of a sun shadow-- a very dramatic one at that. All this talk of the possible printing error involving the inks etc seems a bit overboard to me, It is interesting and we are learning more about colors and all that-- but in the end, what seems to have happened is this book was partially left exposed to sunlight.

 

The craziest part about it is how well the cover is split with damage-- almost like it was intentional-- perhaps a Green Lantern fan wanted to just display the one character and left that display like that for quite some time. Someone never having seen this cover could have thought the artwork was intentional-- although close examination of the DC seal shows that could not be the case considering how faded that area got (and was not a greenish section). At first glance, I thought it was a dust shadow until I saw that upper left corner.

 

Kudos to the competition committee for picking out such an interesting example yet again.

 

 

Yes, I believe it was caused by the sun, too. Which is why I posted such a detailed explanation of how ultraviolet light works on ink, and exactly which colour had faded on the book... in an attempt to dissuade one forum member of his view that it couldn't have been the sun, and it was magenta that was missing.

 

By the way, the red DC logo type is comprised of 100% magenta and 100% yellow. Since the yellow has faded on the left side of the cover, the logo type now appears to be pale magenta. The magenta has faded somewhat, too.

[kav]

That was a cogent argument I think it must be fading after all

I was wrong

[BlowUpTheMoon]

Anyone enjoying the golf ?

 

Yes.

[BlowUpTheMoon]

That was a cogent argument I think it must be fading after all

 

I dispute the grade on the GL 76. This book is not faded. It is a production defect due to low magenta ink levels. If you look, the left side of the book is 'faded'. But only the colors that use magenta are faded-the darker greens and red. To get the darker green a layer of 87% yellow is covered with 100% cyan then a layer of 17% magenta. Without the magenta we get the lighter blue green seen on this book on the left side.

The cyan on the lantern shards at the bottom left as well as the left side of the 'co-starring' box with light green (no magenta used) and the black inks are unfaded, proving it is not Sun damage. The DC logo is so light if it was actual fading then the black ink would be faded to some degree-it is immaculate. I would resubmit this book and explain to CGC where they went wrong so the book can get the 9.6 it deserves and I can get my 5 points.

 

Do you ever get tired of being wrong? It must be exhausting.

[thunsicker]

I have three kids. So I'm definitely tired of being wrong. It's incredible how wrong I am. Except on Father's Day. I'm totally right today!

[kav]

That was a cogent argument I think it must be fading after all

 

I dispute the grade on the GL 76. This book is not faded. It is a production defect due to low magenta ink levels. If you look, the left side of the book is 'faded'. But only the colors that use magenta are faded-the darker greens and red. To get the darker green a layer of 87% yellow is covered with 100% cyan then a layer of 17% magenta. Without the magenta we get the lighter blue green seen on this book on the left side.

The cyan on the lantern shards at the bottom left as well as the left side of the 'co-starring' box with light green (no magenta used) and the black inks are unfaded, proving it is not Sun damage. The DC logo is so light if it was actual fading then the black ink would be faded to some degree-it is immaculate. I would resubmit this book and explain to CGC where they went wrong so the book can get the 9.6 it deserves and I can get my 5 points.

 

Do you ever get tired of being wrong? It must be exhausting.

When I'm wrong, I admit it. You've never done that, so I know it's a bit disturbing to you.

A lot of good information came from my theory that it was a defect.

What would be the point of a discussion forum where everyone was always right? There would be nothing to discuss.

Congrats on first nasty comment of the contest so far.