General Questions Regarding Restoration

[chrisco37]

The cover threads in the GA forum have been infecting me with a want for soem cool GA books. The super-hero/war covers are particularly appealing (All-Select, Marvel Mystery, etc..). I'd love to own one (or more) of these awesome books. Problem is the cost of a nice copy (VF and above) is out of the range of what I can afford to spend. I've decided to go the economic route and pick up a low grade copy and have it restored. Before I do this, I'd like to get opinions from you guys on a few questions I have regarding this. All responses are appreciated.

 

1. I assume that some books are better candidates than others for resto. What separates the prime candidates from the other books? Are there certain criteria you have that a book must meet before you would consider having work done to it?

 

2. I've seen some books that had color touch done to them. When I angled the books, the touch jumped off the cover. I could see it instantly. It had the same sheen as flat paint and did not "blend" at all in with the cover. Is this normal on a heavily touched book, or did I just see a bad job?

 

3. Besides trimming, are there any other types of resto you would not have performed? What are they? How damaging is bleaching/whitening the pages?

 

4. What are the current rates for the big pro's? Have you had better success with one restorer than another? Who do you prefer?

 

Thanks again!

[bullseye]

bad job, if you get it done by a high end restorationist, it runs 50 bucks an hour, with nearly every book being done under 10 hours. good restorers use acrylics, archival glue, and very careful hands, it should be undetectable to the untrained eye. only place i can reccomend is Susan Cicconi, i have seen a few of her items, and it is amazing what she can do.

[drbanner]

Sounds like a good plan Chris, just be aware that many Timely's have poor page quality and/or brittle covers ("Timely Tan") and I don't think you'd want to have a book like that restored. I wouldn't preclude picking up a PLOD either, but don't outbid me on 'em!!

[chrisco37]

I wouldn't preclude picking up a PLOD either, but don't outbid me on 'em!!

 

Yeah, a PLOD wouldn't bother me at all. Don't worry about me outbidding you. I'd prefer to make this purchase in person or from a respected dealer site. Not via eBay.

[FFB]

bad job, if you get it done by a high end restorationist, it runs 50 bucks an hour, with nearly every book being done under 10 hours. good restorers use acrylics, archival glue, and very careful hands, it should be undetectable to the untrained eye. only place i can reccomend is Susan Cicconi, i have seen a few of her items, and it is amazing what she can do.

 

Povertyrow said that when he worked with Susan, she used watercolor, not acrylic. Have you seen her use acrylic? I found this hard to believe since I've always read and heard that pros use acrylic and watercolor, but then I checked the essay she wrote (maybe in the grading guide?) about restoration and she mentioned using watercolor, and didn't mention using acrylic.

 

I have had a restored AF#15 that was done in acrylic and while some parts looked good, some other light gray parts looked really bad.

 

I have wondered about whether she uses acrylic since Pov said she didn't. Maybe I should just ask her myself?

[drbanner]

I have had a restored AF#15 that was done in acrylic and while some parts looked good, some other light gray parts looked really bad.

 

Do any of the restorers try to replicate the dot matrix pattern on the grey areas in those early SA Marvels? I've never seen it done that way, so they all look kind of frankish to me.

 

Fortunately, Timely's don't have the dot matrix problem so color/pattern matching is a lot easier. I had a restored, slabbed Human Torch 8 with CT that I looked for but couldn't find and had to call CGC to figure out where it was, so I believe good looking CT jobs are easier on GA books than SA books.

[PovertyRow]

Do any of the restorers try to replicate the dot matrix pattern on the grey areas in those early SA Marvels? I've never seen it done that way, so they all look kind of frankish to me.

 

Don't see why it could not be done. We used to to what was called "stippling" back in my pre-press days. When we would preparfe the yellow, magenta, cyan and black negatives to send to the printer, sometimes dustmarks, etc. were on the negatives. Rather than recombining the negs, which can take some time, we would take a sharp "needle" embedded on a wooden handle and using a magnifying glass on a stand, basically follow the dot pattern of the negative and put our own "dots" on the negative. Then a black grease pencil was smeared across the area and wiped with a cotton wipe. The grease pencil filled in the dot pattern we made and usually the results were ok.

 

However, in 4-color printing, the dot pattern for each color is at a different angle. When these four angles were printed on top of each other they formed what is called a "rosette pattern".

 

Now if you are going to touch an area that only has one color, maybe the dot pattern could be followed. But if there are multiple colors in the area to retouch, then things get a bit hinky, as there are multiple angles to contend with.

[PovertyRow]

To me the ideal restoration candidate is not a HG book something like a tear etc. The ideal restoration candidate is a book that is low grade but possesses good color quality, good page quality but is suffering from multiple creases, writing, maybe small pieces out, poor or missing staples, tears etc. to bring it down to a VG or lower.

 

Such a book has a strong foundation to work with. It would require more structural restoration than trying to repaint half a cover or other purely aesthetic restoration. The processes used would not damage the book but would take a low grade book into a high grade look. And the book would still be almost all original. And have a considerably longer life. (The above kind of encapsulates all I like about and approve of restoration.)

 

As far as processes to avoid? Bleaching does nothing to the improve the page structure and can degrade the paper further. Better to deacidify if necessary but not bleach. Now there may be some bleaching or whitening proceses I am unfamiliar with since my heyday, so if any pro restorers want to address this would welcome it. But to my knowledge no bleaching or whitening process will strengthen the page.

 

Re-glossing the cover I would not recommend. It is placing a layer of foreign material on the entire surface of the covers simply for aesthetics. And it just does not look.or feel right. I would rather a naturally dulled cover over an artificially glossed one. Amateurs used to use clear Krylon spray (that would yellow over time) on covers!

 

I swear there is one more process but danged if I can remember it.

[divad]

Maybe I should just ask her myself?

 

Why not? I think she's hot!

[divad]

Great stuff POV!

[PovertyRow]

Povertyrow said that when he worked with Susan,

 

Hey Scott. Not trying to make a "crazty older brother" thing.

 

But I never "worked" with Susan. Sorry but I am very sensitive about this because I do NOT want even an inkling of an idea that I was associated with Restoration labs or Susan. I am simply not in that league. Susan demonstrated several processes, one at a time. As she did, I applied them to my own books. She taught me several of the basics. But at no time was I ever associated with her or Restoration Labs. I already posted something similar a couple or so weeks ago in the Pressnig thread, as I recall.

 

Not getting on your case. Just do not want to be misrepresented as something I am not! (Or have what you said misinterpreted.)

[FFB]

Povertyrow said that when he worked with Susan,

 

Hey Scott. Not trying to make a "crazty older brother" thing.

 

But I never "worked" with Susan. Sorry but I am very sensitive about this because I do NOT want even an inkling of an idea that I was associated with Restoration labs or Susan. I am simply not in that league. Susan demonstrated several processes, one at a time. As she did, I applied them to my own books. She taught me several of the basics. But at no time was I ever associated with her or Restoration Labs. I already posted something similar a couple or so weeks ago in the Pressnig thread, as I recall.

 

Not getting on your case. Just do not want to be misrepresented as something I am not! (Or have what you said misinterpreted.)

 

Sorry, Mike. I was less specific than I should have been. I remember you saying that you paid her to allow you to go into her studio and learn some stuff. That's all I meant. You are a crazty guy, yotu!

[PovertyRow]

You are a crazty guy, yotu!

 

Suddenly I feel like a pre-hero Marvedl monster! Look OUT! The unstoppable YOTU will destroy us all!!!

 

 

::danged typo edit::

[bullseye]

she mentioned using acrylic on the metropolis radio show thingy, in the interview she did, quite interesting about her saying she condoned pressing etc, and then the other article said she was dead set against it shortly after , but i would definitely love to get the cover reattached on my FF#2, as a present to my father, who wants to read it and keep it in his collection hehe, not sure what something like that would run in # of hours though.

[FFB]

she mentioned using acrylic on the metropolis radio show thingy, in the interview she did, quite interesting about her saying she condoned pressing etc, and then the other article said she was dead set against it shortly after , but i would definitely love to get the cover reattached on my FF#2, as a present to my father, who wants to read it and keep it in his collection hehe, not sure what something like that would run in # of hours though.

 

Just getting the cover reattached wouldn't cost too much unless you need to have the entire spine rebuilt. But if it's just a matter of pulled staples needing new support, that's relatively inexpensive.

 

Tracey Heft has some really good examples on his website of how much specific jobs cost and how long tasks take. Here's a link to his site. Check out the "Project Archive" links. A lot of this stuff isn't as expensive as you might think.

 

Tracey will also talk to you and send you a quote on any book. He's a nice guy and one of the best in the biz.

[bullseye]

sweet i will definitely look into that place, getting a fairly old book with restoration already, anyone know if bleaching happens to hurt the life span of the pages? i mean i book with alot of restoration isn't gonna be detrimented if this helps the feel and appearance of the book.

[PovertyRow]

anyone know if bleaching happens to hurt the life span of the pages

 

See what IO mean? No one reads Pov Posts!

 

Just look a few posts up and you will see that I said " Bleaching does nothing to the improve the page structure and can degrade the paper further. Better to deacidify if necessary but not bleach. Now there may be some bleaching or whitening proceses I am unfamiliar with since my heyday, so if any pro restorers want to address this would welcome it. But to my knowledge no bleaching or whitening process will strengthen the page. "

 

[Aces]

See what IO mean? No one reads Pov Posts!

 

You say something?

 

[PovertyRow]

See what IO mean? No one reads Pov Posts!

 

You say something?

 

 

Dear Aces,

 

I hate you. Come visit.

 

Fatally yours,

 

Pov

[FFB]

anyone know if bleaching happens to hurt the life span of the pages

 

See what IO mean? No one reads Pov Posts!

 

Just look a few posts up and you will see that I said " Bleaching does nothing to the improve the page structure and can degrade the paper further. Better to deacidify if necessary but not bleach. Now there may be some bleaching or whitening proceses I am unfamiliar with since my heyday, so if any pro restorers want to address this would welcome it. But to my knowledge no bleaching or whitening process will strengthen the page. "

 

 

I emailed with Tracey Heft about this a while back. While he generally believes the same as you do about bleaching being purely aesthetic and potentially harmful (based on what I've read in his articles on restoration), he told me about a way in which bleaching pages can add flexibility to extremely brittle paper. So as a general rule, bleaching can be harmful but if done by someone like Tracey, it can be done safely and in some instances even help paper that has degraded so badly that it will flake apart simply by walking a book across the room.