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My pressing experiment

Started by jokersrevenge,

145 posts in this topic

jokersrevenge

jokersrevenge

Posted
Posted

Recently, I have been reading a lot of threads about pressing, so I decided to find out for myself what the hubbub was about.

I picked out 20 raw batman silver and bronze comics from my collection and recent purchases. I carefully looked them over and didn't see any creases etc. I then sent the comics to Matt nelson at classicsincorporated.com I had bought a comic from him off feebay under the name of spectre52, and I don't know if it was pressed or not, but that's how I started thinking about doing this.

Anyway, he sent me a breakdown of all 20 comics. One had a small amount of color touch that he identified. His assessment of the grades were also sent to me, and they ranged 8-9.6. He also said that they all needed pressing......

I had him work his pressing magic on ten of the books, at 30 dollars a piece, this was not that cheap. 893scratchchin-thumb.gif After he was finished, he forwarded them on to cgc, and I got the 20% discount from his account. They came back from CGC ( in record time, kudos to cgc for decreasing their TATs).

Here's the breakdown: All were Batman comics:

#141 8.0

#165 9.2

#180 9.4

#188 8.5

#198 9.2 I recently bought this from Ted at superworld graded nm+. I totally agreed with his grading, and I actually thought this book had a shot at 9.8. I will get the grader's notes on this one.

 

#206 9.0 This book came back as a cover trimmed PLOD. I'm suprised that Matt didn't catch it before it was sent to cgc.

 

#210 9.0

#211 9.2

#224 9.2

#267 9.4

Obviously, the grades were not as high as I wanted( like usual), but I was disappointed at the PLOD.

 

Matt's respose from an email was QUOTE: Hey Art, seems like most of the grades landed within the range, or one above or below. Not bad. After I was finished, I thought that #267 might only get a 9.4. As far as the #206...? I know CGC has been trigger happy about trimmed books lately, due to the Ewert scandal. Do you remember who you bought the book from? I buy a lot from shows, and on occasion a book will turn up trimmed or have a dot of color touch that I miss. I assume a previous owner just messed with his book and I got stung.

 

A friend of mine got a trimmed cover back, cracked it out, sent it back through--and it came out universal. It's such a slight bit of work. Unless the thing is whacked (which means I should have caught it), it's possible CGC would not notice anything second go around.

 

Matt

 

RESULTS:

Overall it was an expensive ($577) experiment for ten marginal books.

I have now joined the anti-pressing side.

CGC grading is harsh right now. I will stick to buying slabs off the internet, because I obviously can't grade comics worth squat (Even though I've been collecting now for 15 years).

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OldGuy

OldGuy

Posted
Posted

A friend of mine got a trimmed cover back, cracked it out, sent it back through--and it came out universal. It's such a slight bit of work. Unless the thing is whacked (which means I should have caught it), it's possible CGC would not notice anything second go around.

 

Matt

 

893whatthe.gif893applaud-thumb.gif

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Flaming_Telepath

Flaming_Telepath

Posted
Posted
A friend of mine got a trimmed cover back, cracked it out, sent it back through--and it came out universal. It's such a slight bit of work. Unless the thing is whacked (which means I should have caught it), it's possible CGC would not notice anything second go around.

 

893whatthe.gif

 

Great. Just bloody great.

 

Now we have to watch for any 'Blue Label' books that have come through Matt Nelson or his associates.

 

I think CGC might as well just drop the resto check altogether. Seems an exercise in futility. confused-smiley-013.gif

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THE_BEYONDER

THE_BEYONDER

Posted
Posted
A friend of mine got a trimmed cover back, cracked it out, sent it back through--and it came out universal. It's such a slight bit of work. Unless the thing is whacked (which means I should have caught it), it's possible CGC would not notice anything second go around.

 

893whatthe.gif

 

Great. Just bloody great.

 

Now we have to watch for any 'Blue Label' books that have come through Matt Nelson or his associates.

 

I think CGC might as well just drop the resto check altogether. Seems an exercise in futility. confused-smiley-013.gif

 

I've pretty much abandoned the Blue label slab altogether.

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awe4one

awe4one

Posted
Posted
A friend of mine got a trimmed cover back, cracked it out, sent it back through--and it came out universal. It's such a slight bit of work. Unless the thing is whacked (which means I should have caught it), it's possible CGC would not notice anything second go around.

 

This is the most telling quote of the whole post... 893whatthe.gif

 

So much for the resto check...sheds a light on why the Ewert trims were undetected... 893scratchchin-thumb.gif

 

Jim

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arexcrooke

arexcrooke

Posted
Posted
A friend of mine got a trimmed cover back, cracked it out, sent it back through--and it came out universal. It's such a slight bit of work. Unless the thing is whacked (which means I should have caught it), it's possible CGC would not notice anything second go around.

 

This is the most telling quote of the whole post... 893whatthe.gif

 

So much for the resto check...sheds a light on why the Ewert trims were undetected... 893scratchchin-thumb.gif

 

Jim

notthisagain.jpg This thing will just not go away for CGC will it. Of course, maybe there is a reason for that.
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Flaming_Telepath

Flaming_Telepath

Posted
Posted
A friend of mine got a trimmed cover back, cracked it out, sent it back through--and it came out universal. It's such a slight bit of work. Unless the thing is whacked (which means I should have caught it), it's possible CGC would not notice anything second go around.

 

This is the most telling quote of the whole post... 893whatthe.gif

 

So much for the resto check...sheds a light on why the Ewert trims were undetected... 893scratchchin-thumb.gif

 

Jim

 

Which reminds me...

 

It's gone awfully quiet on the 'Answers From CGC Front'.

 

It seems that their strategy of saying nothing, confirming nothing and doing nothing is finally paying off. Not a Ewert/new label/pressing thread to be seen on the first page and nobody making any fuss at all.

 

They were right all along...we're a bunch of bloody sheep who will obviously keep shelling out on questionable product, making a bit of noise from time to time, but generally being the good little consumers that we're meant to be.

 

Halperin and all those at Heritage are laughing at us right now. You all know that, don't you? 893censored-thumb.gif

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Flaming_Telepath

Flaming_Telepath

Posted
Posted

Arex,

 

You're right...it won't go away because there is something intrinsically rotten at the core of CGC. Steve B is the perfect front man, as he's amienable, pleasant, knows and loves his books...but he's getting people to buy into this scam in their thousands.

 

Somebody made an assumption here yesterday that the fact PCS was registered in 2001 was nothing more than a half-arsed idea that came to nothing at the time, that Friesen's threatened departure and subsequent rehire was all luck and coincidence.

 

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

 

CGC's masters have had this game plan since inception. The attempted move to 'restoration removal' a few years back was where they were going with PCS, but that fell foul of the public outcry. Friesen therefore went 'underground' with his work (and don't anybody start with the 'if this is true' malarky, as it is 100% fact), but now is the time to make the play again. PCS, conservation, new labels...

 

But despite all these grand dreams of changing the face of the hobby and lining the pockets of their chums, they can't even detect restoration! 893whatthe.gif

 

It's bloody seamless, and we've all been had. I hope we're all feeling real pleased with ourselves. confused-smiley-013.gif

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lou_fine

lou_fine

Posted
Posted
A friend of mine got a trimmed cover back, cracked it out, sent it back through--and it came out universal. It's such a slight bit of work. Unless the thing is whacked (which means I should have caught it), it's possible CGC would not notice anything second go around.

 

This is the most telling quote of the whole post... 893whatthe.gif

 

So much for the resto check...sheds a light on why the Ewert trims were undetected... 893scratchchin-thumb.gif

 

Jim

 

Jim;

 

I don't think this should really be much of a surprise to anybody.

 

Based upon all we have read and learn from these threads here, I think it's pretty well a given that both pressing and micro trimming, if done properly, are virtually impossible to detect and is really nothing more than a guessing game without prior scans.

 

The only surprising thing is that CGC continues to handle both differently by giving all pressing a free pass, while trying their best to guess at trimming and flag it as such. Better for CGC to guess at both in order to discourage people from even thinking about monkeying around with their books.

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awe4one

awe4one

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Posted
The only surprising thing is that CGC continues to handle both differently by giving all pressing a free pass, while trying their best to guess at trimming and flag it as such. Better for CGC to guess at both in order to discourage people from even thinking about monkeying around with their books.

 

I could give a "guess" as well. Send me your books and I'll give you a 50% discount over CGC prices...

 

Jim

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johnenock

johnenock

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Posted

Another depressing thread. I don't hate many people, but I'm pretty sure I hate trimmers. I stopped reading the Ewert thing about 20 pages in, so was wondering if all this stuff applies to Golden age books. Though I know undisclosed resto has always been around this age of collecting, are these books getting pressed and trimmed or is it basically just late silver/early bronze stuff?

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Flaming_Telepath

Flaming_Telepath

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Posted
Another depressing thread. I don't hate many people, but I'm pretty sure I hate trimmers. I stopped reading the Ewert thing about 20 pages in, so was wondering if all this stuff applies to Golden age books. Though I know undisclosed resto has always been around this age of collecting, are these books getting pressed and trimmed or is it basically just late silver/early bronze stuff?

 

John,

 

The big money seems to be on the 9.4-9.8 range on Silver and Bronze, so that's where I would guess most of the action is.

 

Yeah, totally depressing, I know. frown.gif

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lou_fine

lou_fine

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Posted
I carefully looked them over and didn't see any creases etc. I then sent the comics to Matt nelson at classicsincorporated.com

 

His assessment of the grades were also sent to me, and they ranged 8-9.6. He also said that they all needed pressing......I had him work his pressing magic on ten of the books, at 30 dollars a piece, this was not that cheap. 893scratchchin-thumb.gif After he was finished, he forwarded them on to cgc, and I got the 20% discount from his account.

 

Obviously, the grades were not as high as I wanted( like usual).

 

Overall it was an expensive ($577) experiment for ten marginal books.

I have now joined the anti-pressing side.

 

JR;

 

Based upon your little experiment here, what is the exact reason for you to join the anti-pressing side now?

 

Anybody surprised here that Matt's assessment was that every single book needed pressing even though JR was unable to detect any creases on any of the books? Based upon this fact, I guess every single book submitted through Matt's account could easily and rightfully have been flagged by CGC as pressed if their restoration check included pressing.

 

What do you think or what was Matt's assessment of the estimated grades prior to the press job? As a result of Matt's pressing, do you feel you got the incremental bump in grade to compensate for the additional $300 pressing fee you had to pay? If not, is this the reason why you are now against pressing?

 

Anyways, thanks for letting us in on the results of your interesting experiment here. thumbsup2.gif

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lou_fine

lou_fine

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Posted
The only surprising thing is that CGC continues to handle both differently by giving all pressing a free pass, while trying their best to guess at trimming and flag it as such. Better for CGC to guess at both in order to discourage people from even thinking about monkeying around with their books.

 

I could give a "guess" as well. Send me your books and I'll give you a 50% discount over CGC prices...

 

Jim

 

Jim;

 

Are you saying that you really truly believe that CGC can detect trimming with even close to 100% accuracy after all of the stuff you have read here. 893whatthe.gif

 

I believe that the detection of most restoration activities is more of an exact science. The detection of micro trimming and pressing, if done properly, however, is less of an exact science and more of a practiced art. Possibly more so in the case of pressing, but both still requires a certain degree of guesswork based upon the quality of the work done.

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awe4one

awe4one

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Posted
The only surprising thing is that CGC continues to handle both differently by giving all pressing a free pass, while trying their best to guess at trimming and flag it as such. Better for CGC to guess at both in order to discourage people from even thinking about monkeying around with their books.

 

I could give a "guess" as well. Send me your books and I'll give you a 50% discount over CGC prices...

 

Jim

 

Jim;

 

Are you saying that you really truly believe that CGC can detect trimming with even close to 100% accuracy after all of the stuff you have read here. 893whatthe.gif

 

I believe that the detection of most restoration activities is more of an exact science. The detection of micro trimming and pressing, if done properly, however, is less of an exact science and more of a practiced art. Possibly more so in the case of pressing, but both still requires a certain degree of guesswork based upon the quality of the work done.

 

What's the degree of guesswork is the problem...from all I've seen of CGC's standards published, my guess is as good as theirs...mine is cheaper...

 

Jim

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Flaming_Telepath

Flaming_Telepath

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Posted
Oh, and thanks for the Showcase. Great looking book...for a lowly 9.0 yay.gif

 

Excellent! Glad you liked!

 

I'm actually with you on what to buy. I'm mainly a Marvel man myself, but 9.0 to 9.4, raw or slabbed, is where I'm at. The 9.4s are the 'special' books...Adams X-Men, a few Avengers...where I'm happy to pay a premium, but the rest...

 

I received seven books in the mail today, four slabbed and three raw. The slabs got quickly checked over for SCS and cracks to the slab, then filed.

 

The raw I'm still looking at, getting quite excited about slipping them into brand new Gerber mylars. They're in the 9.0 to 9.2 range with excellent QP and that's what gets me salivating. 9.6s with white wrap-around showing and staples half way across the cover? Don't tell me for a minute that they look nicer than 9.2s with perfect registration and staples bang-on the spine! thumbsup2.gif

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jokersrevenge

jokersrevenge

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Lou, He gives me Assumed grades based on his ability to press them into that grade. i.e. batman 141 will be a 8.5 after I press it. no mention of grades without pressing. And of course he wants to press every book, that's how he makes his money. I don't think these press jobs added to the cgc grades. Only very specific "bends" (non color break) will benefit from pressing. A book that is already flat, doesn't benefit much to be pressed...IMHO.

I was leaning toward non-pressing before. Now after I have thought about it, it takes my enthusiasm/happiness away, when I look for the very best comics, and someone else "cheats " to get to the same level. Also, books can never be "unpressed" once it's done.

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