When will the other shoe drop with CGC and the 'crack, press, and resub' game? 3 3

[comicwiz]

7 minutes ago, James J Johnson said:

I'd have to see that edge of the card in person to be 100% sure, but this looks to me like shrinkage, from the drying process following the bath.

Centering is at the top of the food chain as far as financially rewarding characteristics of sportscard grading. An off-center 9 is on keel value-wise with a lower grade (sometimes as low as a 7) that is perfectly centered. Shrinkage wouldn't be something you could control so well to realign a card that's off-centered in this manner.

Edited July 22, 2019 by comicwiz

[James J Johnson]

7 minutes ago, comicwiz said:

Centering is at the top of the food chain as far as financially rewarding characteristics of sportscard grading. An off-center 9 is on keel value-wise with a lower grade (sometimes as low as a 7) that is perfectly centered. Shrinkage wouldn't be something you could control so well to realign a card that's off-centered in this manner.

Shrinkage occurs uniformly across the entire card. Centering can only be improved by reducing the edge/edges, as is obvious on the hockey card.

[lou_fine]

17 hours ago, GreatCaesarsGhost said:

18 hours ago, lou_fine said:

Some conspiracy theorists here have even gone so far as to say that CGC was aware of this problem and as a result, had discounted the resulting damage to some extent and given it a bit of a pass when it came to grading since they knew by the tell tale damage that the work had been done by the boys down the hall. 

I don’t even wanna think about that

 

17 hours ago, GreatCaesarsGhost said:

That will be judged by the market, eventually. A 6.5 is a 6.5 in one sense.

You are most definitely correct in stating that a CGC 6.5 is a CGC 6.5.  

Definitely also nothing to sniff at when it comes to a Cap 3.  I also believe that this hoopla about the one additional detached center wrap might have actually been an opportunity that you was fortunate enough to have lucked into as it allowed you to purchase the book at a price point that was almost $30K below the last time it had sold for.  

Like I have already stated, it presents very nicely relative to its assigned grade and I am fully confident you will do much more than fine when it comes time for you to sell it.  Definitely a win win scenario here since you also have the added bonus of getting to own and enjoy the book in the interim.   

Edited July 22, 2019 by lou_fine

[THE_BEYONDER]

3 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Restoration and all that that entails is an important discussion that ought to be had in the comic collecting industry. That conversation cannot be had and will not be had if people don't think they can talk about it without being disparaged.

The victim card?  Really?

You continue to post walls of text  that contain lame ducks like the Church analogy; putting comics in bags and boards; tight long boxes; and reference conservation in an attempt to distort the overall picture.  It’s not clever, it’s nonsense.

[LordRahl]

On 7/19/2019 at 1:51 PM, comicwiz said:

"If you have something that's 100 years old, and it looks like it's 100 years old, that's one thing. But if it looks like it's brand new, that's something else," said Anthony Nex, a vintage collector in Southern California. "That's impressive. When you alter a card, you're deceiving someone to make it look like it was cared for better than it was. The rabid memorabilia market created a strong incentive for card doctors, who could see large profit margins by illicitly altering a card to boost its grade then reselling it."

Read more: Baseball card collectors suspect rampant fraud in their hobby

https://www.oregonlive.com/business/2019/07/baseball-card-collectors-suspected-rampant-fraud-in-their-hobby.html?fbclid=IwAR3R488NNulZW1t6fs9jiRpo1jB8fbdwKaOrf3bOeRp1xpUCwsFLdRAXwH0

I'm curious. Did you post this over at the CBCS forums? The exact same thing applies to them as CGC. But for some strange reason that I can't seem to figure out, you want to single out CGC. I wonder why

[lou_fine]

RMA;

Appreciate your long and obviously well though out views on this whole iss.ue here, even though I may not always agree with all of it.  Then again, that's exactly what these boards are here for as collectors shared their various viewpoints.  

The part that I found rather confusing was your first line here right at the top:

5 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

The issue isn't that work is being done to books, as the title of this thread wants people to think. The issue is, as it has always been, disclosure. When you see 3-4-5 different retailers advertising their pressing services on convention floors all over North America, it's clear that disclosure is not an issue,

You seem to say that the work itself is not the issue as the real issue is and has always been about disclosure or shall we say the lack of disclosure.  

Yet, right in the next sentence you seem to contradict your own point by saying that disclosure is clearly not an issue since restorers are advertising their services.  Just wondering if you can explain this apparent contradiction here, especially in light of the fact that restorers have been advertising their services for as long as I have known it.  Even as far back as the days of Bill Sarill and all of the Restoration Lab ads that I used to see all those many long decades ago.  Maybe this is also why some dealers did not deemed it necessary to disclose the work they had done on their books back in the so-called days of the Wild Wild West.  

I am just hoping that you are not implying that the mere presence of industry ads for restoration services in general is adequate to constitute sufficient disclosure of restoration for all books sold in the marketplace.  If so, I would have to definitely disagree with your specific point of view here as this is quite a bit of a stretch to say that advertising in general is the same as disclosure for a specific book.  

Edited July 22, 2019 by lou_fine

[RockMyAmadeus]

6 minutes ago, THE_BEYONDER said:

The victim card?  Really?

You continue to post walls of text  that contain lame ducks like the Church analogy; putting comics in bags and boards; tight long boxes; and reference conservation in an attempt to distort the overall picture.  It’s not clever, it’s nonsense.

There is no attempt to "distort the overall picture." Pressure is pressure. The only difference is degree. You're free to disagree if you'd like. I am free to share my perspective. I feel no obligation to "justify" something I don't think is a "dirty, questionable" activity. I think it's amazing and positive and necessary, and have explained why. 

Disparaging people, impugning their motives, will ensure that those conversations continue not to happen.

[namisgr]

1 hour ago, James J Johnson said:

A narrow 2 or 3 year band of one type of book is a fairly small representation of the whole. Considering that most hobbyists are not aware of the tells of expert pressing, and only a small percentage are, I stand by my belief that a very small percentage of the hobby's buying public can tell the difference, without before and after images, and in many cases, a guide to point out those differences as they are not all stark differences. . 

As for a book housed in a CGC slab? If done effectively, a small percentage of the already small percentage above can tell the difference.

It's more like five years of Silver Age Marvels, covering among the most widely collected time periods and titles in the hobby.  And no matter what percentage of the buying public can tell the difference, there are distinct stigmata that make it a lot easier to identify pressed examples than many seem to think, particularly those who repeatedly state that when done 'properly' pressing is undetectable.

[VintageComics]

10 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Disparaging people, impugning their motives, will ensure that those conversations continue not to happen.

The same topic was started in the Watercooler and I was personally attacked by several people even though I thought I stated my points pretty clearly and fairly.

I may have a lot of posts but I have spent a lot of time and effort trying to make many of those posts as informative as possible. Personal attacks by angry people who are unable to differentiate between the message and the messenger are the main reason I don't post much on certain topics anymore.

[lou_fine]

16 minutes ago, namisgr said:

 And no matter what percentage of the buying public can tell the difference, there are distinct stigmata that make it a lot easier to identify pressed examples than many seem to think, particularly those who repeatedly state that when done 'properly' pressing is undetectable.

I believe we all know the reason why this statement is being made all the time.  

It is clearly to CCG's overall business model to have CGC spew out this line in the hopes of encouraging this practice so that that everybody along the entire food chain can make much more money in the end.  

And yet, they would then spew out the line and have us believe that even when done properly, micro-trimming (as opposed to trimming which is a completely different animal) is always detectable.  

Edited July 22, 2019 by lou_fine

[RockMyAmadeus]

4 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

You seem to say that the work itself is not the issue as the real issue is and has always been about disclosure or shall we say the lack of disclosure.  

Yet, right in the next sentence you seem to contradict your own point by saying that disclosure is clearly not an issue since restorers are advertising their services.  Just wondering if you can explain this apparent contradiction here, especially in light of the fact that restorers have been advertising their services for as long as I have known it.

Sure...perhaps I have worded it inelegantly. What I'm saying is this: the hubbub going on in the card industry, with the Blowout forum exposure, is because that work was not disclosed AND it would (probably) have affected the price people were willing to pay if they had known. That's not the case in comics, and hasn't been for....maybe a decade?

Disclosure IS the issue, and that's been (mostly) accomplished by the fact that it's no longer something that is done "in secret." The comics market...in general, obviously not in every instance...has accepted the reality of pressing and cleaning as something that is ok with them. It doesn't affect the prices paid, and the market as a whole assumes the book in front of them has been pressed, to the point that "unpressed!" has become a selling point.

12 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

I am just hoping that you are not implying that the mere presence of industry ads for restoration services in general is adequate to constitute sufficient disclosure of restoration for all books sold in the marketplace.  If so, I would have to definitely disagree with your specific point of view here as this is quite a bit of a stretch to say that advertising in general is the same as disclosure for a specific book.  

No. Not at all. What I'm saying was that there was a shift...maybe when CCS became part of the Certified Collectibles Group, maybe a little earlier...in the market where awareness that books were more likely to be pressed than not, where the market said "ok. This is the way things are. We accept that, and will assume pressing unless otherwise stated." I'm making a very broad generalization, but I think that tipping point was passed several years ago.

Borock, for example, when he was selling books...if I remember correctly...would say "assume all books have been pressed and cleaned unless otherwise stated." That was a decade and more ago. And I think that's how the market  It's "common knowledge", in other words, and especially since CCS joined CGC, 

Now....I could be wrong, and have incorrectly read the market. And if someone asks me about any book, I have no problem telling them, because I recognize that there are buyers who don't want pressed books. But no one has asked in years. And I think the time is coming, if we're not already there, that all books on the market will have been pressed at one point or another...and the market, as a whole, is 1. aware of that, and 2. accepts it as part of the industry.

In other words...in essence, it's so ubiquitous, the market just assumes it has been done, rather than not. I'm not saying that displaces individual disclosure...I'm saying that pressing/cleaning is now just expected.

I don't deal in high end books. I deal in Silver and younger, and mostly high grade Bronze and Copper. My niche of the market, I think it's safe to say, has virtually no problem with pressing/cleaning, and expects it as a matter of course. I just don't have a lot of experience with the Golden Age market, so perhaps the "holdouts", as it were, are more to be found there, who require specific disclosure on specific books...and I sympathize with them. But even that, I imagine, will come to an end at some point. 

I think these conversations...what this does, what that does, how it affects books, how it might affect them...are important ones to have, so that the market can find a "happy place" that most folks are comfortable with. 

[James J Johnson]

21 minutes ago, namisgr said:

It's more like five years of Silver Age Marvels, covering among the most widely collected time periods and titles in the hobby.  And no matter what percentage of the buying public can tell the difference, there are distinct stigmata that make it a lot easier to identify pressed examples than many seem to think, particularly those who repeatedly state that when done 'properly' pressing is undetectable.

We should have a "pressed or not pressed" contest, using clear, large, high res images of CGC graded books, front and back, if that's possible. Not just Silver age. Across the entire spectrum, Golden age to 2019 issues. Be interesting to see how much better than a coin flip the winner is able to score.

[LordRahl]

34 minutes ago, namisgr said:

It's more like five years of Silver Age Marvels, covering among the most widely collected time periods and titles in the hobby.  And no matter what percentage of the buying public can tell the difference, there are distinct stigmata that make it a lot easier to identify pressed examples than many seem to think, particularly those who repeatedly state that when done 'properly' pressing is undetectable.

I am willing to bet that if you and I were to sit down with 50 high grade copper books, 25 of which were pressed by Joey and 25 of which are virgin, we would not be able to accurately identify the majority of pressed ones. By majority let's say 20 of 25. At least I know I can't ID high grade copper books that have been pressed and I've seen my fair share. This doesn't hold true of Silver and to some extent Bronze but for Copper and Modern, it's just not possible (the majority of pressing is being done with Copper and Modern as those are obviously much more ubiquitous). Unless there is something you know that you can educate me on as far as reliably telling a pressed high grade Copper/Modern. Now, if you can't tell a pressed Copper/Modern but you can Silver, should CGC have different criteria for different ages? Meaning that they should disclose pressed Silver books but not Copper/Modern because they can tell the one but not the other?

[LordRahl]

12 minutes ago, James J Johnson said:

We should have a "pressed or not pressed" contest, using clear, large, high res images of CGC graded books, front and back, if that's possible. Not just Silver age. Across the entire spectrum, Golden age to 2019 issues. Be interesting to see how much better than a coin flip the winner is able to score.

For Silver it's likely to be a pretty good percentage. For Copper/Modern... forget it, it'll be all over the place. Not sure about GA, haven't seen many as I don't buy much GA.

[RockMyAmadeus]

3 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

17 minutes ago, namisgr said:

particularly those who repeatedly state that when done 'properly' pressing is undetectable.

I believe we all know the reason why this statement is being made all the time.  

That's because it's true...mostly. Yes, there is a TON BUNCH of bad/incomplete pressing out there...yes, even some books *I* have pressed...that "look pressed." But that's why it's important to say "properly." If you do it properly...the book looks unpressed, which is the goal. I've pressed a lot of books that others have pressed that had the "squished" look...and that CAN be repaired. And I do my very best to make sure that what I'm doing looks clean and original, not squashed and smashed and ugly. 

7 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

It is clearly to CCG's overall business model to have CGC spew out this line in the hopes of encouraging this practice so that that everybody along the entire food chain can make much more money in the end.  

I'm not saying this because I'm spewing the company line. I'm saying it because I have pressed thousands of books and have put a great deal of time, effort, and energy into making sure it's true for the work that I put out...and I haven't always succeeded...and I'm constantly looking to see how others are doing it, to find methods that might be better than what I'm doing, because I DO look at it as a part of conservation. 

Let me say it this way: if I have the choice to buy a book that, as it stands, is an 8.5...with some scattered surface bends and other NCB wear...and I couldn't press it myself...or that same book that HAS been pressed, and now is a lot cleaner and prettier, and is now a 9.4...I want the 9.4, and will pay the 9.4 price for it. And I'm not alone. I totally respect the idea of something surviving 50-60-70-80 years in perfect condition...but it's the "perfect condition" that matters to me, so if I can make a book look prettier without adding or taking away anything...I'm on board. And I've always been like that. I was putting books under encyclopedias in the 90s, a decade or more before I'd ever heard of something called pressing.

We restore art, we restore cars, we restore houses, we restore coins...and so long as I'm not adding to or taking away from the book in my hands...I prefer it. I like fixing things and making things look pretty.

[THE_BEYONDER]

57 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

There is no attempt to "distort the overall picture." Pressure is pressure. The only difference is degree. You're free to disagree if you'd like. I am free to share my perspective. I feel no obligation to "justify" something I don't think is a "dirty, questionable" activity. I think it's amazing and positive and necessary, and have explained why. 

Disparaging people, impugning their motives, will ensure that those conversations continue not to happen.

“Dirty, questionable”

 

Who are you quoting?

[kav]

5 hours ago, comicwiz said:

This is also a dangerous generalization, and it either needs to have contextual examples or not be used. I have long taken a stance in other hobbies to ask the same. When you take naphtha, goo gone or take a blow dryer blowing out very hot air to peel an undesired sticker or remove a mark/stain off a collectible, you need to carefully consider the referring and adverse side effects these will have on the other components or paper itself. There is nothing additive about curing leaching of PVC plasticizer in vintage toys, and when it shows up as white speckles (aka frosting) which is often confused as "mold", you hear a wide range of curing techniques, which include sticking it out in direct sunlight.  In these cases, people throw up their arms and say "nothing is being added" but it has less to do with additive, and more to do with the side effects of these things having no reason to come into contact with paper, and worse, when it's done by people without tactic, strategy or regard for the damage they are doing - and for what - the sake of making a quick buck?

 

This is contextually inaccurate and lazy to state it in such a way. There is no way anything as aggressive as pressing/cleaning can be done in fine art without it needing to be disclosed. I work with a fine art restorer in more complex appraisal assignments and always have his assessment as a back-up to my own. In ephemera of any sort, you simply cannot disturb the originality of the piece, and the same applies to antiques, particularly furniture. Automobiles still have some checks and balances like number matching, and it would be wrong to confuse tolerance for certain deviations from originality as acceptance. And it doesn't matter how those finer details are parsed, it's reflected in the values of an all original survivor that's been untouched, vs something that has been restored. In fact it's a terrible comparison because inflating a grade by altering the comic is done because of the monetary reward for it - something you would never see in any of the above comparisons when the reconditioning/alteration is performed. Coin dips do nothing additive, nor do the wide range of "doctoring" agents intended to artificially produce toning or other surface appearances lauded by coin collectors, and yet it's a constant cat and mouse game for graders to keep up with the frauds. As an active metal detectorist, I see a number of restorative techniques popping-up almost daily on Facebook groups  - many of them are walking a very thin line of trying to improve the appearance and condition of old items to appear as if they were never recovered from the ground or water, and to mask the environmental damage which they should show. Everything from "cleaning pencils" right through to ultrasonic/electrolysis boxes that look like they were made MacGyver.

If you think there is no hostility in any of these other collecting categories from being duped for undisclosed tampering, alterations or disturbing original patination, you need to do a lot more research before using these comparisons to justify the tampering that's happening with comics.

A much needed breath of fresh air logic!  Thx

[BlowUpTheMoon]

30 minutes ago, James J Johnson said:

We should have a "pressed or not pressed" contest, using clear, large, high res images of CGC graded books, front and back, if that's possible.

Go for it!  

[THE_BEYONDER]

46 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Sure...perhaps I have worded it inelegantly. What I'm saying is this: the hubbub going on in the card industry, with the Blowout forum exposure, is because that work was not disclosed AND it would (probably) have affected the price people were willing to pay if they had known. That's not the case in comics, and hasn't been for....maybe a decade?

Disclosure IS the issue, and that's been (mostly) accomplished by the fact that it's no longer something that is done "in secret." The comics market...in general, obviously not in every instance...has accepted the reality of pressing and cleaning as something that is ok with them. It doesn't affect the prices paid, and the market as a whole assumes the book in front of them has been pressed, to the point that "unpressed!" has become a selling point.

No. Not at all. What I'm saying was that there was a shift...maybe when CCS became part of the Certified Collectibles Group, maybe a little earlier...in the market where awareness that books were more likely to be pressed than not, where the market said "ok. This is the way things are. We accept that, and will assume pressing unless otherwise stated." I'm making a very broad generalization, but I think that tipping point was passed several years ago.

Borock, for example, when he was selling books...if I remember correctly...would say "assume all books have been pressed and cleaned unless otherwise stated." That was a decade and more ago. And I think that's how the market  It's "common knowledge", in other words, and especially since CCS joined CGC, 

Now....I could be wrong, and have incorrectly read the market. And if someone asks me about any book, I have no problem telling them, because I recognize that there are buyers who don't want pressed books. But no one has asked in years. And I think the time is coming, if we're not already there, that all books on the market will have been pressed at one point or another...and the market, as a whole, is 1. aware of that, and 2. accepts it as part of the industry.

In other words...in essence, it's so ubiquitous, the market just assumes it has been done, rather than not. I'm not saying that displaces individual disclosure...I'm saying that pressing/cleaning is now just expected.

I don't deal in high end books. I deal in Silver and younger, and mostly high grade Bronze and Copper. My niche of the market, I think it's safe to say, has virtually no problem with pressing/cleaning, and expects it as a matter of course. I just don't have a lot of experience with the Golden Age market, so perhaps the "holdouts", as it were, are more to be found there, who require specific disclosure on specific books...and I sympathize with them. But even that, I imagine, will come to an end at some point. 

I think these conversations...what this does, what that does, how it affects books, how it might affect them...are important ones to have, so that the market can find a "happy place" that most folks are comfortable with. 

At no point did Borock include cleaning in his disclaimer....

Edited July 22, 2019 by THE_BEYONDER

[THE_BEYONDER]

35 minutes ago, James J Johnson said:

We should have a "pressed or not pressed" contest, using clear, large, high res images of CGC graded books, front and back, if that's possible. Not just Silver age. Across the entire spectrum, Golden age to 2019 issues. Be interesting to see how much better than a coin flip the winner is able to score.

Might as well hold the same contest and have contestants try to deduce if a page is missing....