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

873 posts in this topic

James J Johnson

James J Johnson

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, THE_BEYONDER said:

Prior to this age of encapsulation, there was much less financial incentive to press books.   It all really began with Chris Friesen and CGC. 2c

"Secrets of Comic Book Restoration" was an ad, page A-166, in the 1985 Overstreet by Restoration Lab, William Sarill and Sue Cicconi.

It starts out, "For nearly 12 years"..… then mentions cleaning dirt, flattening wrinkles, creases, spine roll revision, etc.

That takes professional pressing back to at least 1974, that's 26 years prior to CGC's appearance..

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THE_BEYONDER

THE_BEYONDER

Posted
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3 minutes ago, James J Johnson said:

"Secrets of Comic Book Restoration" was an ad, page A-166, in the 1985 Overstreet by Restoration Lab, William Sarill and Sue Cicconi.

It starts out, "For nearly 12 years"..… then mentions cleaning dirt, flattening wrinkles, creases, spine roll revision, etc.

That takes professional pressing back to at least 1974, that's 26 years prior to CGC's appearance..

I stand corrected :foryou:

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Buzzetta

Buzzetta

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1 hour ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

I was wondering when someone was going to mention this. This is, in my view, a terrible problem. People are taking color touched books and chopping them up...all because of the "stigma" of being a restored book. 

The problem isn't the fact that it's financially rewarding, in many cases, to do this...that's just the end result. The problem is that "already extant" restoration, which cannot be "undone" without doing serious damage, is viewed as such a terrible thing that buyers shun them as "defective", which in turn creates that financial incentive to do it.

It's in stark opposition to proper conservation. I can only hope the market grows up and recognizes that restored books...even books that had amateur color touch 30-40-50 years ago...aren't pieces of poop which have to be "fixed" in order to be desirable.

I mentioned it earlier and an even worse example where people were considering cutting up a book to remove "trimming" and were discussing it in the Please Grade My Threads... 

:sumo:

 

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James J Johnson

James J Johnson

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Posted (edited)
7 minutes ago, THE_BEYONDER said:

I stand corrected :foryou:

Not just them. Lots of others too. Point being that the wholesale pressing didn't begin with CGC or Classics. Mark Wilson pressed a lot of books too. And his brother Matt. As did most restoration people operating before and during CGC's years. Cleaning and pressing was part of the process, a given, regardless of whatever else a book sent to be processed might have needed. I'll wager that a lot of the books sent today to CCS hve already been cleaned and pressed, 20+ years ago, and the owner doesn't even know it!

Edited by James J Johnson
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THE_BEYONDER

THE_BEYONDER

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3 minutes ago, Buzzetta said:

I mentioned it earlier and an even worse example where people were considering cutting up a book to remove "trimming" and were discussing it in the Please Grade My Threads... 

:sumo:

 

The AF 15?

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MatterEaterLad

MatterEaterLad

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1 hour ago, THE_BEYONDER said:

It’s not so much that “people” are chopping them up, it’s that CGC is.

The other ugly side of this is that there was a generation of dealers responsible for a LOT of these color touch ups. Some of you know who I'm talking about. These guys did it to increase the value of books, which now are devalued because of the PLOD. And they've washed their hands clean...

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James J Johnson

James J Johnson

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Posted (edited)
3 minutes ago, THE_BEYONDER said:

Read the opening post (shrug)

This one?: If so, how does Sue pressing or not pressing books relate to this? We were discussing Sue's change of heart re: pressing. The relevance escapes me.

"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

Edited by James J Johnson
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comicwiz

comicwiz

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  • Author
Posted (edited)
54 minutes ago, James J Johnson said:

"Secrets of Comic Book Restoration" was an ad, page A-166, in the 1985 Overstreet by Restoration Lab, William Sarill and Sue Cicconi.

It starts out, "For nearly 12 years"..… then mentions cleaning dirt, flattening wrinkles, creases, spine roll revision, etc.

That takes professional pressing back to at least 1974, that's 26 years prior to CGC's appearance..

If fairness I didn't know a single person who took up these services without rolling in a bunch of work on a single comic, which couldn't possibly be seen as non-restorative after such work was carried out. Gerber himself advertised trimming to give your comics a "freshened-up" look.

In fact, I'm pretty certain everyone back then was perfectly fine with a non-colour breaking crease or two that still looked great in a sleeve or fortress. No one would look for these defects as needing to be "fixed." They looked good from 3 feet away, and there was never a climate of people feeling concerned about leaving money on the table.

Edited by comicwiz
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THE_BEYONDER

THE_BEYONDER

Posted
Posted
18 minutes ago, James J Johnson said:

This one?: If so, how does Sue pressing or not pressing books relate to this? We were discussing Sue's change of heart re: pressing. The relevance escapes me.

"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

The 1st post in the thread I linked.  You asked "since when?".

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James J Johnson

James J Johnson

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Posted (edited)
9 minutes ago, THE_BEYONDER said:

The 1st post in the thread I linked.  You asked "since when?".

I never would have guessed about the connection to Sue. As far as I know, Sue isn't a collectible, she's not 100 years old, and she's probably never been pressed.

Edited by James J Johnson
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