Ink drop? 2 2

[JJ Speederman]

Not a comic but a Sports Illustrated issue. There's a white spot on the I in AIR. It's a perfect circle that's slightly raised off the paper. I tried removing it, but stopped because I didn't want to cause any damage. No idea what it is or how it got there. Wondering if it may be a drop of ink that somehow managed to get on there during production. Has anyone else ever seen something like this? Opinions on how CGC would account for this in their grading?

[Lightning55]

Looks to have occurred during production, so will likely be considered a manufacturing defect, no grade hit.

[grendelbo]

On 12/12/2023 at 11:05 PM, Lightning55 said:

Looks to have occurred during production, so will likely be considered a manufacturing defect, no grade hit.

+1

[Dick Pontoon]

There's no such thing as white ink. Four color printing involves cyan, magenta, yellow and black, colors are produced by a mix of those four. Areas of white are areas where no ink was applied, what you see is the white of the paper. The circle doesn't look production related to me. I don't see this spot on other covers I found online, and in the closeup it appears to be raised off the surface, like a spot of a foreign substance that was dropped onto the cover.

Edited December 13, 2023 by Dick Pontoon

[Lightning55]

On 12/13/2023 at 7:04 AM, Pontoon said:

There's no such thing as white ink. Four color printing involves cyan, magenta, yellow and black, colors are produced by a mix of those four. Areas of white are areas where no ink was applied, what you see is the white of the paper. The circle doesn't look production related to me. I don't see this spot on other covers I found online, and in the closeup it appears to be raised off the surface, like a spot of a foreign substance that was dropped onto the cover.

Definitely could be. May also be that something was already on the paper pre-production, that would not let it absorb ink in that spot. CGC will have to make their best determination. 

[Dick Pontoon]

I'd like to hear what @Kevin76 thinks.

[JJ Speederman]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I'm hesitant to get it pressed because I don't want to heat up and potentially melt the mystery substance. I wish there was a way to remove it, but that doesn't seem possible without causing damage.

[CitrusZ28]

Looks like what the printing world calls a "hickey", caused by any number of foreign objects i.e. dust, water small pieces of rubber from rollers, etc....

[joeypost]

Is it raised?

[JJ Speederman]

On 12/18/2023 at 10:32 AM, joeypost said:

Is it raised?

Yes, it is raised.

[The Lions Den]

Whatever it is, it's so tiny it shouldn't make much difference...

[Kevin76]

If it's raised then it's a foreign substance on the book, like DT said, there is no white ink unless you're printing on sheet fed press and using colored paper, SI like 99.9% of mags are printed on 4 color web offset heat presses  

Edited December 21, 2023 by Kevin76

[joeypost]

That’s why I asked if it was raised. Could be a drop of paint. 

Edited December 21, 2023 by joeypost

[JJ Speederman]

It's so frustrating that one single drop of paint(?) managed to land on this beautiful copy.  I know it's tiny but I assume CGC would treat this similar to how they would treat a stain?

Edited December 21, 2023 by JJ Speederman