PGX on notating pressing on the label.....

[Red Hook]

I think the best solution all around is for Borock to partner up with Daniel at PGX. In one fell swoop, PGX gets a new clean experienced reputation, a better slab, a huge leg up toward a mano-a-mano competitioin with CGC, and Borock gets showered with gooodwill for starting over...PLUS - - would go from employee to co-owner of PGX (after tense negotiations in which Daniel trades 100% ownership of a tiny company with scant prospects into a player overnight thanx to Borocks grading cachet.

 

Somebody call Steve!! and Daniel...

 

Aman;

 

Looks like both of us was thinking of the same thing here.

 

Yeah, PGX should call up BOTH Steve B. and Chris F. immediately and offer them full patnerships in the new and improved PGX instead of being mere employees within the CCG hierarchy.

 

Finally, some outside-the-box ruminating! Don't know if it would ever work, but interesting proposals.

 

 

Has anyone mentioned this scenario?

 

• PGX gets a rep for denoting pressing on it's labels.

• Because of cheaper prices and faster turnaround time, you decide to submit a dozen books to PGX. (Not saying I would do that, just part of my scenario.)

• 10 come back with non-pressed on label. 2 come back with "pressed" notations.

• So what do you do? You take the two "pressed" notation books out of the PGX slabs, and resub to CGC. You treat PGX as your personal per-screener for pressing.

 

This scenario is not getting into how good (or poor) PGX is at restoration detection, or what percentage of pressed books they'll actually be able to detect. But this is how dealers & sellers could use this to their advantage.

 

In the end, if PGX does get known for at least providing an initial sweep of the books for pressing, then those non-pressed-label books may end up selling at a small premium. And you can let CGC label the other two. This system would work because you haven't invested a ton of money in grading fees or time.

 

Of course, if you end up with 10 out of 12 books back from PGX getting "pressed" notations on the labels, you're going to chill pretty fast on doing it this way.

[drbanner]

A few pertinent notes from Chris Friesen's 3 posts on this board when considering PGX's new position on pressing detection and labeling, and pressing reversion - link here.

 

Hi everyone. For quite a few months now there have been many threads on these boards about pressing and I’m sure at conventions, comic stores, and anywhere else comic collectors gather to talk about this great hobby.

 

I’m not here to tell you that you should press books or buy pressed books because as free thinking individuals it is your right to make that decision yourself.

 

For months I have seen half truths and conspiracy theories run through these boards. Some people with true and honest opinions on pressing and others with their own personal agenda.

 

I have had many discussions about pressing with my co-workers, customers, collectors and dealers, but what has led me to writing this post is a piece of information that most of the people I have talked to believe is very important to the pressing issue. That is the burden of proof that CGC needs to decide if a comic receives a blue or purple label.

 

Checking for restoration is quite different than grading. When grading a comic you are looking at something that at one point was mint(ish) and are now evaluating it based on its state of deterioration and visible flaws to determine its grade. When checking for restoration you are looking for something that was not meant to be seen. Even for experts, though sometimes easy, most of the time it is very difficult.

 

And this leads me to my most important point. Unlike grading, restoration detection is not subjective. Restoration must be supported by proof and not a gut feeling. Like in a jury trial a comic is innocent until proven guilty. When I evaluate a comic for restoration and I find something that could be color touch I don’t stop there and assume it is, give the book a purple restoration label and move on. I stop, look closer and ask myself, “What is it? Is this color touch? What is its purpose? Is it there to cover an under lying flaw? Is it something other than color touch?” and so on, and so forth. Using my art background, almost two decades as a professional in this hobby consisting of, five years as a restorer with Renaissance Restoration Lab, almost five years with CGC, and over one million comics evaluated in my career, I make a decision based on evidence. Then I move on to the next odd looking spot on the comic, so on, and so forth. I do not do restoration checks based on my gut feeling but instead on evidence that the book provides. I know for a fact that Borock, Haspel, and Litch do restoration checks the same way.

 

On to pressing and expanding on my points above. If a suspected pressed comic was in a jury trial it would likely end in a hung jury. Based on the criteria above I would ask myself “Is this comic pressed?.....possibly, “Is this comic not pressed?”…..possibly. “This book has a lot of creases, does it make it not pressed”…..no, it still could be. “This book has no creases or bends, it must be pressed”…..no, it could simply be a high grade book. So on, and so forth.

 

I could start doing restoration checks by relying on my gut feeling. If a book rubs me the wrong way I could guess what was done. Flip a coin, roll the dice, pull out the ouija board, toss the chicken bones, or rely on my spidey senses. How many people will be disappointed when they get their books back from CGC in a purple or blue label that reads “Pressed” when they know it’s not possible? How many phone calls a day will I receive with people asking me “how do you know my book has been pressed?”, should I reply “Well..I thought it could be…possible”. Or possibly CGC should start using a new term on the label “Maybe Pressed”.

 

If CGC changes its stance on pressing will people stop pressing books? Of course not. If CGC changes its stance on pressing will it cast doubt on all books considering the new subjective restoration check policy. Maybe.

 

On a final note, do I consider pressing restoration? No. But that is just my opinion, not the reason I have written this. The point of this post was not to illustrate my opinion but to place the opinions of others into the context of CGC, its stance on restoration checks, and the comic book industry as a whole.

 

Chris Friesen

Restoration Detection Expert

Comic Guaranty, LLC

 

The quick answer to pressed books reverting back to their original state is no, they do not. But a lot of the misconceptions about pressing come from vague answers to specific questions. The problem is, very simple questions often don’t have simple answers.

 

Reversion can only happen if someone pressed a comic with pressure only. Reversion could happen because no attempt was made to relax the paper fiber. Trying to beat the book into submission will yield limited results. For those worried about books being pressed this way, graded, then revert in the holder, it can’t happen. The reason for this is as soon as the weight is lifted of the book it will instantly start to spring back to its prior shape. I cannot say the exact speed of the reversion but definitely the majority would happen within minutes. For a spine roll to be permanently removed the paper needs to be relaxed and eased into its new shape, not hammered into shape. I hope this helps.

 

As you stated in your post CGC does not consider pressing to be restoration. But as you said hypothetically if we did, could we detect the pressing with a level of certainty high enough to meet our standard for declaring a book "restored"? I’ll give that question a shot.

 

Detect pressing with a high level of certainty? I don’t think so. The two main reasons are these; One, there is no single effect or look with a pressed book that is unique to pressed books. What I mean by that is when you see something on a book that you could point to and say “that could only happen when a book is pressed”. Second, and this is more important than my first point, you need to think of this as a two sided coin. Could CGC tell if a book is not pressed with a high level of certainty? Still the answer would be, I don’t think so. If CGC turned pressing detection into a calculated guess, high grade books would be the biggest losers. Being high grade and possibly devoid of creases or bends would into itself raise doubt. I would imagine that there could be more wrong evaluations than correct ones.

 

Let me also point out that pressing doesn’t have to be the removal of creases or bends in the book. A professional, upon a customer’s request could press a spine roll out without removing creases or bends.

[Red Hook]

Good stuff. Thanks for gathering that material in one place.

 

It should be noted, that at the time he wrote these posts, there is at least the possibility that Chris was doing some pressing of his own. How would he feel about noting it on a book he knew for 100% sure had been pressed? ie. Himself.

 

Pressing is a treatement the book has undergone. It's not passive observance of the book for grading purposes. It's an intervention into the book's look. It is changing the book's condition. And possibly the book's ultimate grade, too. It's restoring it to what the book presumably looked like in it's early incarnation. It's certainly not being done to conserve.

 

Maybe Chris and PCS need to come up with a new term: Conserestorvation!

 

Again, to play devil's advocate,....for those that like pressed books.....wouldn't it add a premium to the book if you knew that the book had been pressed by someone like Chris, and not somebody like Jason on a home press?

 

Are we to assume that PCS will document the work done on a book, everything, except any pressing it does? That seems skewed to me.

 

Red

[Red Hook]

The quick answer to pressed books reverting back to their original state is no, they do not. But a lot of the misconceptions about pressing come from vague answers to specific questions. The problem is, very simple questions often don’t have simple answers.

 

We could also have a debate about what really defines the term original state. I would pose the position that a books original state can't be absolutely determined. I believe the only thing you can be certain of, is the books current state. And any work done on the book, whether you define it as restoration or conservation, should be documented.....especially if a firm like PCS is doing the work.

 

 

Finally (I promise)... if CGC/PCS do not consider pressing restoration.....then what do they consider it? Conservation? Nothing? It doesn't exist?

 

Red

[drbanner]

Personally, I believe CGC should document whatever work PCS does on the label, and if they know a book is pressed b/c they did it themselves, it makes the "detectability" angle moot. Who needs to guess if you did it yourself?

 

The real point of including that information in this thread is to shed a little light on PGX's proposed move, which brings us back to the question of whether or not a book can be determined, without doubt, to have been pressed without a priori knowledge. Doesn't look like it can, and I believe Susan Cicconi has opined that she agrees so it's not just Chris's 20+ years and 10^6 book experience that holds that view...

[joe_collector]

It only highlights the fact that you don't know what the hell you're talking about and muddies the discussion by giving other people the idea that a pressed book has been crushed, when it hasn't.

 

Oooooohh, Kinko's.

 

I was actually looking around and pricing high-end book/paper presses and there are several professional models that can provide PSI at over a thousand. Are you saying that people interested in pressing cannot buy these or will never have access to them???

 

And why should I care what your local band of Kinko's have? Is Kinko's going into the comic book pressing business?

[Red Hook]

I'm meeting with Susan this week, so I'll ask her if she cares to expand on that question directly.

 

Red

[drbanner]

I'm meeting with Susan this week, so I'll ask her if she cares to expand on that question directly.

 

Red

 

Great, here's what she has to say about spine roll removal (which can only be done via pressing) in the Original Grading guide:

 

"When correctly done it is impossible to detect."

 

I believe there are other quotes from her around the boards on this issue.

[Red Hook]

Don't worry, I've read it all. Should be an interesting visit. If she will allow me, I'll take some pix of her work area.

 

Red

[drbanner]

I'm meeting with Susan this week, so I'll ask her if she cares to expand on that question directly.

 

Red

 

Great, here's what she has to say about spine roll removal (which can only be done via pressing) in the Original Grading guide:

 

"When correctly done it is impossible to detect."

 

I believe there are other quotes from her around the boards on this issue.

 

That wasn't too hard to find!

 

On the question of detection, Susan told me that one may not be able to tell that the book had been pressed if it had only been dry-pressed. She would maintain that if she were to "get back" some of the books that she previously just pressed, it would be very hard to detect that service, so skilled is her work.

[esquirecomics]

Was we not all upset that CGC would not label pressed books as pressed when detected? So why is it a problem if PGX does it? This is what we have wanted from CGC all this time! You just can't satisfy some people. I think it is a good thing. As far as their grading and page quality, CGC was not that good at it either to begin with, I remember Harley Yee having a HOM 1 CGC 8.0 off white, and the tan and sun shadows on this book were a joke! So CGC page quality grading has not always been as good as you would like to think! There are also a lot more CGC books that need to be re graded for different reasons including, over grading, pressing, trimming, bsd special grades, page quality! At least PGX as stepped forward to say they will say it is pressed if they spot it unlike CGC! Is this not what we want?????? To know full disclosure.

 

Exactly what we wanted of CGC. Too bad CGC doesn't see the light.

[esquirecomics]

You bring up the point "one would think by announcing such a policy those who press books will not submit them for grading." You're absolutely right, and this idea supports my opinion. PGX will also lose the business of anyone who presses books.

 

Exactly the point. And this is why CGC has never been willing to make the move. Not because it necessarily doesn't view pressing as restoration, which it might not, but b/c then it couldn't partner up with PCS. Why is it so bad for PGX to make such a bold business move and push away pressing but ok for CGC/PCS to do the opposite?

 

Finally, you say "that by saying they have to be 100% positive the book has been pressed there will be few, if any, errors." I would respond that by saying they have to be 100% positive the book has been pressed, they will actually designate very few books as pressed. They will rarely be 100% sure. This causes a problem in that they have announced themselves as the company that notes pressing, and some collectors will have the mistaken impression that PGX books without a pressed notation are virgin, untouched books, when actually PGX may have been 70, 80, even 90% sure the book was pressed, but didn't give it the notation.

 

Like some collectors have a mistaken impression that CGC actually guarantees anything?

[nearmint]

As a collector who would generally not be interested in pressed books, I would probably start leaning towards PGX books as opposed to CGC books. Especially considering that anybody pressing books and selling them non-disclosed would rationally be using CGC. In addition, PGX's reputation for tigher grading on the high-end along with CGC's continually changing and loosening grading standards would also encourage me as a collector to start leaning more towards PGX books when it comes to purchasing.

 

If collectors end up preferring PGX books over CGC books, then prices would follow accordingly. This in turn, could end up with even more honest dealers switching over to PGX since they would have nothing to lose and only end up with higher resale prices realized. As a result, as time goes on, the proportion of non-disclosed pressed books from CGC would only increase since these would be the only submittors with anything to gain from a CGC submission.

 

Lou, if PGX could detect pressing 100% of the time, I would agree with everything you say here. But since they'll only label a book as pressed when they're 100% positive, I think they'll be labeling very few books as pressed. As a result, I believe the % of pressed books in PGX holders that are not labeled as pressed won't be that far off, if different at all, from the % of pressed books in CGC holders.

 

If, as you say, collectors end up preferring PGX books over CGC books, it will be based on the false assumption that PGX is catching pressed books, when actually they're probably not labeling a high % of them, because they weren't 100% sure.

[nearmint]

• PGX gets a rep for denoting pressing on it's labels.

• Because of cheaper prices and faster turnaround time, you decide to submit a dozen books to PGX. (Not saying I would do that, just part of my scenario.)

• 10 come back with non-pressed on label. 2 come back with "pressed" notations.

• So what do you do? You take the two "pressed" notation books out of the PGX slabs, and resub to CGC. You treat PGX as your personal per-screener for pressing.

 

Red, why would anyone do this? If one is willing to crack their PGX pressed books and send them to CGC, why wouldn't they send the whole dozen to CGC in the first place?

 

If I sent a dozen books to PGX and two came back as pressed, I'd still be highly suspicious of the other 10. For all I know, PGX was 90% sure they were pressed, but not 100%.

[nearmint]

You bring up the point "one would think by announcing such a policy those who press books will not submit them for grading." You're absolutely right, and this idea supports my opinion. PGX will also lose the business of anyone who presses books.

 

Exactly the point. And this is why CGC has never been willing to make the move. Not because it necessarily doesn't view pressing as restoration, which it might not, but b/c then it couldn't partner up with PCS. Why is it so bad for PGX to make such a bold business move and push away pressing but ok for CGC/PCS to do the opposite?

 

Mark,

Again, I'm not saying it's "bad". I'm saying it's not good for their business. They're alienating anyone who presses books, as well as anyone who suspects they may have pressed books in their collection. And that covers just about everybody.

Anyone who switches to PGX because they think that books that come back as unpressed are in the free and clear are in for a big surprise. It only means PGX wasn't 100% sure. Lots of pressed books are going to slip through. In my opinion, a much higher % will slip through than will get caught.

[Red Hook]

Well, this is all a "suppose".....

 

I'll would take the 90% chance over the 0% chance that CGC would tell me if they considered a book professionally pressed, or if PCS had pressed it.

 

Not trying to be a wiseguy. At least not today.

 

As far as casual observance goes....I am seeing more and more PGX books out there....and some of them are approaching CGC prices.

 

Would the market put a small premium on PGX books that denoted no pressing? I have no way to predict that. Again, the market would ultimately tell us. It would probably raise some eyebrows.....just to see auctions with the notation on the label. Like the guys who pm'd me on ebay when I mentioned that a book had no trace of SCS. They had no idea what SCS meant and I had to explain it to them. Probably first time they ever came across the concept.

 

Red

[skybolt]

I applaud PGX's stand on pressing, but I do see Nearmint's point.

 

I think that purchasing newly slabbed PGX books without the pressed designation would be a huge plus, but submitting them personally may be a problem, unless dealers accept returns. If I purchase a raw book from a dealer, and ask whether they'll accept a return on a pressed book, what will their response be? There are a lot of major dealers out there that don't view PGX as a serious grading company, and would not accept returns on pressed books based on their designation. Their comeback may be, "listen, I know I never pressed that book, and I have absolutely no confidence that PGX can detect it either". Now I'm stuck with a pressed book that may value at 80% of what it would have in a CGC label.

 

This being said, I'm still glad PGX made this decision and if they can hire a restoration detection specialist (as FFB and others have alluded to), then perhaps dealer return guarantees would be forthcoming.

[nearmint]

I'll would take the 90% chance over the 0% chance that CGC would tell me if they considered a book professionally pressed, or if PCS had pressed it.

 

Red, I would never assume that PGX is going to catch 90% of press jobs, and be 100% sure of it. I think it's more likely going to be as low as 10%, and maybe lower.

[Aman619]

On a final note, do I consider pressing restoration? No. But that is just my opinion,

 

that is from Friesens well thought out explanation of CGCs and his stance of pressing. Im reading along, and agreeing with him. And it all sounds good and believablke and correct. But, when I get to this part near the end, I just have to wonder, If CGCs retso expert happened to be one of the many who DO consider pressing as restoration, would we and CGC be in a different place right now? Sort of an Earth 2 world where the "old rules' still applied across the board?

 

Was it just our 'bad luck' that CGC hired a pro-pressing resto expert who could not and would not fight against CGCs PCS move from his heart and experience? Or, perhaps, was it by design? (sorry, had to throw that last bit in... somebody would have brought it up anyway.)

[herc2000]

But at least as a company, the pressed books they do catch, they will be happy to let us know that they are pressed, unlike CGC, which would rather just keep it hush hush!