Problems with CGC grading a CLEANED and pressed book with a purple label. My thoughts. 7 7

[lostboys]

[agamoto]

On 4/27/2023 at 9:29 AM, theCapraAegagrus said:

"gaseous/liquid chemical compound" Sorry for failing to punctuate better. To be clear, I'm talking about using water, either as a liquid or a gas, to get water into a book. 

On 4/27/2023 at 9:33 AM, joeypost said:

I don’t use gaseous liquids. I don’t steam my books. I don’t spray them with water. I don’t use peroxide, alcohol or any other solvents unless I am trying to remove glue or a sticker/label. Even then it is sparingly applied only on the affected area. I don’t rub big metal balls all over my books. I don’t bath them in UV/Blue light. 
 

I do use dry erasers only. I hydrate the books properly. I press one book at a time and give it the time it needs in the press. 

I'll assume you're hydrating properly via a humidity chamber. If so, you are indeed using steam since it is nothing more than water in its gaseous form. Steam is invisible, evaporated water. Its temperature doesn't really matter. What folks see billowing out of their little hand-held devices is some steam, to be sure, but also a hell of a lot of aerosolized liquid water.  Also, if you can see the book, you're definitely bathing it in blue light, along with the rest of the other colors of the spectrum. If you're looking at your book in the sunshine, or under certain light sources, you're even going to be hitting it with UV and IR light. That all said, I do understand what you're trying to communicate. The preceding was mainly for the benefit of Mr. theCapraAgeagrus the punctuation pedant who thinks I like crack.

[joeypost]

On 4/27/2023 at 12:34 PM, agamoto said:

"gaseous/liquid chemical compound" Sorry for failing to punctuate better. To be clear, I'm talking about using water, either as a liquid or a gas, to get water into a book. 

I'll assume you're hydrating properly via a humidity chamber. If so, you are indeed using steam since it is nothing more than water in its gaseous form. Steam is invisible, evaporated water. Its temperature doesn't really matter. What folks see billowing out of their little hand-held devices is some steam, to be sure, but also a hell of a lot of aerosolized liquid water.  Also, if you can see the book, you're definitely bathing it in blue light, along with the rest of the other colors of the spectrum. If you're looking at your book in the sunshine, or under certain light sources, you're even going to be hitting it with UV and IR light. That all said, I do understand what you're trying to communicate. The preceding was mainly for the benefit of Mr. theCapraAgeagrus the punctuation pedant who thinks I like crack.

I live in Florida. The whole state is a humidity chamber. 
 

To answer your question seriously I do use humidity, not steam as there is a big difference between the hand held steamers these guys bath the book with and allowing the book to gently absorb the proper humidity level to get the job done. 

Edited April 27, 2023 by joeypost

[Randall Dowling]

On 4/27/2023 at 2:58 PM, joeypost said:

... I do use humidity, not steam as there is a big difference between the hand held steamers these guys bath the book with and allowing the book to gently absorb the proper humidity level to get the job done. 

100% correct.  Anyone that says humidity is steam will have the same trouble with animals and mammals. 

For those unfamiliar, unless the ambient temperature is below freezing, there is humidity in the air.  The higher the ambient temperature, the more water the air can hold as a vapor (relative humidity).  By contrast, steam is the product of heating liquid water to the boiling point (approx. 212 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on atmospheric pressure) when it changes states from a liquid to a gas. 

Steam is bad for comics, it's just thermodynamics.

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

On 4/27/2023 at 12:10 PM, buttock said:

What kind of balls do you rub on your books? 

That would just be on Greggy's books. 

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

On 4/27/2023 at 4:26 PM, Randall Dowling said:

100% correct.  Anyone that says humidity is steam will have the same trouble with animals and mammals. 

And Cigars. 

[Sauce Dog]

On 4/27/2023 at 5:26 PM, Randall Dowling said:

100% correct.  Anyone that says humidity is steam will have the same trouble with animals and mammals. 

For those unfamiliar, unless the ambient temperature is below freezing, there is humidity in the air.  The higher the ambient temperature, the more water the air can hold as a vapor (relative humidity).  By contrast, steam is the product of heating liquid water to the boiling point (approx. 212 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on atmospheric pressure) when it changes states from a liquid to a gas. 

Steam is bad for comics, it's just thermodynamics.

Comic pros lecturing the amateurs in this thread:

[namisgr]

Hydrogen peroxide.  It's just water with an extra oxygen atom.  

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

PSA When using all these chemicals, don't forget to wash your hands. 

[Topnotchman]

Professionals can properly humidify paper as a prep for pressing vs. using a hot clothing steamer for aqua injection into paper.  One can observe the side effects of steam as rippling and warping.  

[justafan]

This is in reply to a question brought up earlier in this thread. "What does CGC consider cover cleaned with respect to restoration"?  

According to the "Official CGC Guide to Grading Comics" by Matt Nelson 1st Edition, Section 5 Index of Defects and Enhancements, p250 Cleaning, 1st paragraph:

"Cleaning is the first step in restoration,". (But it isn't saying that ALL cleaning is considered restoration according to CGC, just that it is the 1st step in their restoration process.)   It goes on to state (and I'm paraphrasing and summarizing) that it involves removing all foreign substance and aging from the cover, pages, staples to include things such as tape, soiling, writing, stains, tanning, foxing, rust and any amateur repairs. It states the next step as being structural (leaf casting, tear seals, reinforcements, etc) and aesthetic repairs (color touch). It then states, "Certain books only receive the first two steps to achieve a conserved grade" (Again, by CGC's definition of Conservation in their process).

The 2nd paragraph clarifies further stating: "The first step involves three types of cleaning; dry cleaning, solvent cleaning, and water cleaning. Dry cleaning removes soiling and writing, is not considered restoration, and is often performed in conjunection with pressing." (yes, "conjunction" is misspelled in this 1st Edition, Note to Matt for the next Ed.)

This statement separates dry cleaning from the other 2 forms of cleaning for the categorization of restoration. 

It goes on to define:

Solvent cleaning as removing "tape, rust, and yellowing on Silver Age comics, often leaving no trace of its use.

Water cleaning as "the most aggressive form of cleaning, removes tanning, staining and foxing by submersing the cover and pages into a water bath, often involving chemicals that aid in the process."

We can also infer and draw the conclusion that dry cleaning does not involve any chemicals or liquids.  Absorbene could lie in a grey area where it applies as dry cleaning only if it is undetected.

And here's the clincher in the 3rd paragraph.

"When cleaning is identified by CGC as one of the enhancement processes, it usually refers to a chemically treated water bath."  

The key word being identified.  Just as proper pressing is virtually impossible to identify so is proper professional dry cleaning which is where CGC draws the line.  If they can't detect it, it isn't restoration.  However, water cleaning and improper or amateur solvent cleaning is often identifiable (not just by the presence of residue), and they go on to show and detail examples of such.  It is very likely that if those books were cleaned with peroxide, immacuclean, or blue or UV light were not thorough in their cleaning and detailing of the book that it became evident to the graders that a cleaning enhancement was done.  

The big question for this thread has been from the very beginning: Did CGC detect cover cleaned based on dry cleaning or the use of solvents/chemicals and/or water baths?

If CGC graders are trained to follow the guidelines outlined in Matt Nelson's book, they should only have given those books a PLOD grade due to having detected solvents or water bath cleaning.  If we take the OP's word for it and only dry cleaning was done, then there are 3 likely possibilities:

• the dry cleaning was mistaken for solvent/chemical/water bath cleaning based on a narrow or erroneous interpretation of the detected enhancement.
• they were able to detect a bad/flawed attempt at dry cleaning that left the book damaged/weakened (forcing them to forego a conserved designation but should have been a down graded Blue or even Green label)
• CGC has recently changed their stance that any cleaning detected will be considered restoration and receive a PLOD. (And Matt will be updating this in a revised edition)

I'm going with the more likely scenarios that those books were cleaned with more than just dry cleaning methods and are now being detected by better trained personnel OR at worst the dry cleaning result was mistaken for solvent/chemical/water cleaning and given the PLOD.  If the OP feels this is in error, they can send them off to any other established restoration detection professional for a second opinion and resub them.  If he did use solvents/water bath, he can probably just crack them out and do a more thorough job on them to hope they beat the resto check next time around.

I am so glad pressing won out over trimming in the acceptable hard to detect restoration techniques.  While I love sharp edges, I love a full sized book more.

 

Edited April 28, 2023 by justafan
grammar

[agamoto]

 

On 4/27/2023 at 12:58 PM, joeypost said:

I live in Florida. The whole state is a humidity chamber. 
 

To answer your question seriously I do use humidity, not steam as there is a big difference between the hand held steamers these guys bath the book with and allowing the book to gently absorb the proper humidity level to get the job done. 

Totally on board with that thinking, but once again, technically speaking, you're still introducing water to the environment to bring a book up to an unnaturally high humidity level in order to assist with the correction of flaws using a combination of heat, pressure, and humidity.

If that's acceptable, then shouldn't it also be acceptable to place a book under a bright light, even the sun itself, using a means to block all wavelengths hitting the book except for a sliver of the visible blue spectrum between 440 and 460 nanometers? If artificially altering the humidity of a book is ok, why can't it also be alright to use another natural process that can correct yellowing of chromophores in a book's lignan? 

Also, you do not have to add peroxide to a book to see results, it just takes longer. You could say using peroxide to accelerate photo-bleaching is analogous to using a hand-held steamer to humidify a book. However, the exposure time required to achieve good results can damage some red/yellow inks. There are ways around that however if one has a way to create physical masks in photoshop to protect those pigments. You could also use a nebulizer with a low concentrate 1.5% - 3% peroxide/distilled water solution and get accelerated results under blue light w/o brushing/spraying/blotting H2O2 directly onto a book.

When you're using a tack iron to remove spine ticks, and you've got a stubborn one, do you apply water to the book in that area, or does the whole book have to go back into a humidifier until you're back up to whatever target humidity for the overall book is reached?

[Prince Namor]

https://gwconsortium.org/public-education/what-are-the-three-forms-of-water/

Pure water is tasteless, odorless and colorless. Water can occur in three states: solid (ice), liquid or gas (vapor).

Solid water – ice is frozen water. When water freezes, its molecules move farther apart, making ice less dense than water. This means that ice will be lighter than the same volume of water and so ice will float in water. Water freezes at 0° Celsius, 32° Fahrenheit.

Liquid water is wet and fluid. This is the form of water with which we are most familiar. We use liquid water in many ways, including washing and drinking.

Water as a gas – vapor is always present in the air around us. You cannot see it. When you boil water, the water changes from a liquid to a gas or water vapor. As some of the water vapor cools, we see it as a small cloud called steam. This cloud of steam is a mini version of the clouds we see in the sky. At sea level, steam is formed at 100° Celsius, 212° Fahrenheit.

The water vapor attaches to small bits of dust in the air. It forms raindrops in warm temperatures. In cold temperatures, it freezes and forms snow or hail.

[theCapraAegagrus]

Well, we know the goal when one uses pedantry to defend fraud.

[comicginger1789]

On 4/16/2023 at 12:09 PM, arDeaton said:

 

Generally, this guy puts out very good content. I do think he should have considered the fact the books were cleaned before hand. He does not really divulge what his tactics to clean were so if wet materials or chemicals of some sort or other products were used, we don't know. I also noted that, if they were just dry cleaned by him, then perhaps it was the previous owner who chemically cleaned them. I think finding out where he got the books would help determine that. If they were all purchased from the same seller, I think it stands to reason that person cleaned them in some way CGC could detect. If they were bought from multiple sellers, the chances that he grabbed several books that were chemically cleaned seems low. This means it has something to do with his method.

Finally, it is possible that an amateur grader thought they detected something or were surprised by the quality of the dry clean job and decided "hey this looks too sharp, must be chemically done so I will give it the purple label". That should NOT happen but it is a possible outcome in this specific scenario.

[joeypost]

On 4/28/2023 at 12:45 AM, agamoto said:

 

Totally on board with that thinking, but once again, technically speaking, you're still introducing water to the environment to bring a book up to an unnaturally high humidity level in order to assist with the correction of flaws using a combination of heat, pressure, and humidity.

If that's acceptable, then shouldn't it also be acceptable to place a book under a bright light, even the sun itself, using a means to block all wavelengths hitting the book except for a sliver of the visible blue spectrum between 440 and 460 nanometers? If artificially altering the humidity of a book is ok, why can't it also be alright to use another natural process that can correct yellowing of chromophores in a book's lignan? 

Also, you do not have to add peroxide to a book to see results, it just takes longer. You could say using peroxide to accelerate photo-bleaching is analogous to using a hand-held steamer to humidify a book. However, the exposure time required to achieve good results can damage some red/yellow inks. There are ways around that however if one has a way to create physical masks in photoshop to protect those pigments. You could also use a nebulizer with a low concentrate 1.5% - 3% peroxide/distilled water solution and get accelerated results under blue light w/o brushing/spraying/blotting H2O2 directly onto a book.

When you're using a tack iron to remove spine ticks, and you've got a stubborn one, do you apply water to the book in that area, or does the whole book have to go back into a humidifier until you're back up to whatever target humidity for the overall book is reached?

If a book is hydrated properly the first time there is no need to add any additional water onto a book to remove any stubborn bends, creases or spine ticks. You can argue semantics about water vapor, steam and humidity. I will say it again, there is a huge difference between allowing a book to hydrate properly compared to dousing it with water or blasting it with steam. 
 

I will post my results as I experiment with  this new cutting edge technology. In the past, when we wanted to ruin a comic we read it and then rolled it up and put it in our back pocket. 

[comicginger1789]

My wife had the steamer out last night and it is sitting on our dining room table.....methinks I shall dig out some of my junkers and play around. I will share results because I am willing to bet that doing this as opposed to the "low and slow" method, causes some noticeable changes to the book that can be detected. Emphasis on "can be"...maybe CGC does not catch them all so those who do use this method HAVE gotten it past CGC and thus maybe assumed all was well with their method.

[justafan]

On 4/28/2023 at 9:44 AM, comicginger1789 said:

Finally, it is possible that an amateur grader thought they detected something or were surprised by the quality of the dry clean job and decided "hey this looks too sharp, must be chemically done so I will give it the purple label". That should NOT happen but it is a possible outcome in this specific scenario.

This is actually one of the signs Matt describes as indicating a cleaning with solvents or water bath was done.  If a silver age book with a white cover has an unusually (too bright) white cover but the rest of the books pages shows the gradual slight tanning/yellowing that is typical with the aging process of even a well preserved book, they'll know something other than dry cleaning was done because dry cleaning doesn't make whites that much brighter.  

[justafan]

On 4/28/2023 at 10:41 AM, joeypost said:

If a book is hydrated properly the first time there is no need to add any additional water onto a book to remove any stubborn bends, creases or spine ticks. You can argue semantics about water vapor, steam and humidity. I will say it again, there is a huge difference between allowing a book to hydrate properly compared to dousing it with water or blasting it with steam. 
 

I will post my results as I experiment with  this new cutting edge technology. In the past, when we wanted to ruin a comic we read it and then rolled it up and put it in our back pocket. 

I think it is important that different techniques and practices (regardless of merit) proliferating among the masses are peer reviewed by experts to validate their effectiveness or expose the inherent issues and risks.  While tried and true methods that the professionals use and have painstakingly refined over the years should be the standard, it is equally beneficial to all to vet and identify new safe and effective methods as well as those completely detrimental to comic books.