If I had to guess, I'm going with restoration removal 4 4

[batman_fan]

On 12/16/2023 at 5:02 PM, GreatCaesarsGhost said:

How heartbreaking. I’m glad the original owner never knew. 
 

but Bedrock are you saying the collectors in this market are gullible to perceive these opened VHS tapes as worthless? 

The real problem with shrink wrap on the VHS tapes is it is easy to re-shrink wrap. I am not sure how a grader can detect it.

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

On 12/16/2023 at 6:14 PM, batman_fan said:

The real problem with shrink wrap on the VHS tapes is it is easy to re-shrink wrap. I am not sure how a grader can detect it.

Really? Engaging in such a hobby sounds like nothing less than perilous.

[MrBedrock]

On 12/16/2023 at 5:42 PM, VintageComics said:

I've argued for over 15 years that the purple label created a distaste for that label, which created a strong public aversion to slabbed Restored books, preventing people from trying to understand restored books better and causing the large price disparity.

That's the main reason they're so affordable and why the price gap is large enough for people to profit in between. 

And I agree. As long as I know what I'm getting, for some pieces I don't mind restored. 

I think the problem was that early on a vast majority of books that were submitted and got noted as having restoration were not thought to be restored when submitted. Folks were finding out they had been duped by unscrupulous sellers. The color of the label didn't create the negativity, the restoration did.

[MrBedrock]

On 12/16/2023 at 6:02 PM, GreatCaesarsGhost said:

How heartbreaking. I’m glad the original owner never knew. 
 

but Bedrock are you saying the collectors in this market are gullible to perceive these opened VHS tapes as worthless? 

I am saying that even the sellers are saying they are worthless.

And the ridiculousness of that market is further compounded by the fact that the only tapes that are desirable are sealed, those tapes are then graded and encapsulated and sell for big money, but unlike comics which can be cracked out and read, tapes if cracked almost certainly cannot be viewed because of tape degradation. Just silly.

Edited December 17, 2023 by MrBedrock

[VintageComics]

On 12/16/2023 at 7:42 PM, MrBedrock said:

On 12/16/2023 at 6:42 PM, VintageComics said:

I've argued for over 15 years that the purple label created a distaste for that label, which created a strong public aversion to slabbed Restored books, preventing people from trying to understand restored books better and causing the large price disparity.

That's the main reason they're so affordable and why the price gap is large enough for people to profit in between. 

And I agree. As long as I know what I'm getting, for some pieces I don't mind restored. 

I think the problem was that early on a vast majority of books that were submitted and got noted as having restoration were not thought to be restored when submitted. Folks were finding out they had been duped by unscrupulous sellers. The color of the label didn't create the negativity, the restoration did.

I agree that the initial surge of restored books coming back from created a large distaste. I'm not arguing that.

I'm saying that the purple label perpetuated that stigma, and suppressed interest in these books and this in turn created a reluctance to understand purple labels better the way people have come to learn about and understand what goes into a blue label because they were so readily accepted.

A parallel today would be when social media creates a distaste for a personality or product and people just begin to avoid it, even though there might be more to the story or even something to be learned from it or good to be gained from it. 

And I also argued, alongside Borock nearly 20 years ago now, that if both restored books were put into blue labels from the outset but with additional notes rather than a different colored label, this too would have forced buyers to better understand restoration because it would have FORCED buyers to think before deciding rather than just unilaterally rejecting restored books. 

I also understand and agree with the concerns people had at the time that if CGC had switched to a blue label across the board after the horse had already left the gates, that it would have been very confusing, but if everything had been blue from the start it would have been a different hobby in terms of acceptance of restored books. 

Not really a big problem in the grand scheme of things, and I don't care either way at this point, but I do believe that this perpetuated distaste for purple labels helped open the gap in prices and create the cottage market that formed between the two labels. 

Anyway, it's water under the bridge now. 

 

[MrBedrock]

On 12/16/2023 at 6:55 PM, VintageComics said:

I agree that the initial surge of restored books coming back from created a large distaste. I'm not arguing that.

I'm saying that the purple label perpetuated that stigma, and suppressed interest in these books and this in turn created a reluctance to understand purple labels better the way people have come to learn about and understand what goes into a blue label because they were so readily accepted.

A parallel today would be when social media creates a distaste for a personality or product and people just begin to avoid it, even though there might be more to the story or even something to be learned from it or good to be gained from it. 

And I also argued, alongside Borock nearly 20 years ago now, that if both restored books were put into blue labels from the outset but with additional notes rather than a different colored label, this too would have forced buyers to better understand restoration because it would have FORCED buyers to think before deciding rather than just unilaterally rejecting restored books. 

I also understand and agree with the concerns people had at the time that if CGC had switched to a blue label across the board after the horse had already left the gates, that it would have been very confusing, but if everything had been blue from the start it would have been a different hobby in terms of acceptance of restored books. 

Not really a big problem in the grand scheme of things, and I don't care either way at this point, but I do believe that this perpetuated distaste for purple labels helped open the gap in prices and create the cottage market that formed between the two labels. 

Anyway, it's water under the bridge now. 

 

Thanks for posting. That's an interesting take that I completely disagree with. 

[Nick Furious]

On 12/16/2023 at 6:42 PM, MrBedrock said:

I think the problem was that early on a vast majority of books that were submitted and got noted as having restoration were not thought to be restored when submitted. Folks were finding out they had been duped by unscrupulous sellers. The color of the label didn't create the negativity, the restoration did.

I completely agree with this and have my own experience as anecdote.  I was just so disappointed with my first restored label submission that I didn't want to keep it and sold it cheap.  

On 12/16/2023 at 6:55 PM, VintageComics said:

And I also argued, alongside Borock nearly 20 years ago now, that if both restored books were put into blue labels from the outset but with additional notes rather than a different colored label, this too would have forced buyers to better understand restoration because it would have FORCED buyers to think before deciding rather than just unilaterally rejecting restored books.

I also agree with this.  I think the different color label and the "PLOD Purple Label OF Death" term that came from it had a long-term impact on market sentiment towards restored books, just as it affected my sentiment initially.  

[VintageComics]

On 12/16/2023 at 8:21 PM, Nick Furious said:

On 12/16/2023 at 7:55 PM, VintageComics said:

And I also argued, alongside Borock nearly 20 years ago now, that if both restored books were put into blue labels from the outset but with additional notes rather than a different colored label, this too would have forced buyers to better understand restoration because it would have FORCED buyers to think before deciding rather than just unilaterally rejecting restored books.

I also agree with this.  I think the different color label and the "PLOD Purple Label OF Death" term that came from it had a long-term impact on market sentiment towards restored books, just as it affected my sentiment initially.  

Thanks.

Just a cursory look at how much effort and how many public discussions we've had discussing what goes into the Blue Label grading system on these boards in the last 20 years shows how much more we understand that system. There must be 100 or even 1000 X the threads on blue label grading compared to purple label grading. 

Everyone pretty much reverse engineered CGC's blue label grading system within a few years of releasing the slabs in the 2000's. By the mid 2000's I was pretty well versed on CGC grading. 

By relative contrast what constitutes how a purple label is designated still a mystery to most. 

Just imagine how many public discussions we'd have had on what constitutes restoration if both restored and unrestored would have been in the same colored labels?

The collective consciousness would have been much more well versed in both, likely even equally. 

If you label something as "bad' out in the real world, it gets shunned pretty quickly and becomes nearly obsolete and people stop discussing it. That's why Borock attempted to backtrack around the mid 2000's. We had public discussions on this very forum about the idea of putting restored books into blue labels, only with clear notations that the books were restored, but as I stated the horse was already out of the gate and many people vehemently opposed that move, which is why CGC stopped the idea.

The discussion got pretty heated at times with people openly accusing me of being greedy and only wanting to profit from the new idea.

Whatever. 

This is also why Voldy went along with it when Borock got involved. He still felt it was better for the hobby in general, and there was a decent contingent of people who agreed. 

Edited December 17, 2023 by VintageComics

[Nick Furious]

On 12/16/2023 at 7:39 PM, VintageComics said:

The collective consciousness would have been much more well versed in both, likely even equally. 

If you label something as "bad' out in the real world, it gets shunned pretty quickly and becomes nearly obsolete and people stop discussing it.

I think you are absolutely correct that it delayed the discussion for years.  I think for a long time a PLOD was a PLOD in the average collectors minds, regardless of the details.  It was that way for me until I saw a discussion where someone mentioned that there is a big difference between a couple spots of ink on a cover and using a reproduction photocopy to replace an unknown quantity of the original cover.  After that I started to look at restoration in more nuanced terms.   

[VintageComics]

On 12/16/2023 at 10:36 PM, Nick Furious said:

I think you are absolutely correct that it delayed the discussion for years.  I think for a long time a PLOD was a PLOD in the average collectors minds, regardless of the details.  It was that way for me until I saw a discussion where someone mentioned that there is a big difference between a couple spots of ink on a cover and using a reproduction photocopy to replace an unknown quantity of the original cover.  After that I started to look at restoration in more nuanced terms.   

You said in one sentence what I took many to say.

The nuance was lost, and as we've seen in the real world on almost every topic, nuance can be the difference between light and darkness. 

[Paul © ® ⚽️💙™]

On 12/17/2023 at 12:55 AM, VintageComics said:

I'm saying that the purple label perpetuated that stigma, and suppressed interest in these books and this in turn created a reluctance to understand purple labels better the way people have come to learn about and understand what goes into a blue label because they were so readily accepted.

 

Not really a big problem in the grand scheme of things, and I don't care either way at this point, but I do believe that this perpetuated distaste for purple labels helped open the gap in prices and create the cottage market that formed between the two labels. 

 

 

 

On 12/17/2023 at 1:21 AM, Nick Furious said:

 

I also agree with this.  I think the different color label and the "PLOD Purple Label OF Death" term that came from it had a long-term impact on market sentiment towards restored books, just as it affected my sentiment initially.  

 

FWIW I completely agree with both of these points.

In this world image appears to be everything, and the Purple label got the bad rap and the bad rep, and as such label chasers assigned their own personal label of snobbery to a restored book.

I also agree that the damage is done now and that trying to incorporate one colour label to all books with notations would cause uproar amongst the hipster flippers.

Personally it would not bother me and I would welcome it.

The whole label game is a bit of a farce anyway when you consider that a book with a smidge of glue might get a purple one day and a blue the next by different graders who may possibly have skipped breakfast that day.

[Nick Furious]

On 12/16/2023 at 9:39 PM, VintageComics said:

The nuance was lost, and as we've seen in the real world on almost every topic, nuance can be the difference between light and darkness.

Coincidentally (or maybe not), most people probably have been conditioned to have a slightly negative reaction to the word "nuance".  

[VintageComics]

On 12/16/2023 at 11:33 PM, Nick Furious said:

Coincidentally (or maybe not), most people probably have been conditioned to have a slightly negative reaction to the word "nuance".  

I think people's aversion to nuance is due at least partially to the fact that there is just an overwhelming amount of info out there these days, and most can't handle it or outright simply don't want to, but the devil is in the details.

I'm actually quite surprised at how many people agree with me on the Purple / Blue label thing now. It was not a very popular side to be on when we had the discussion back then. There was a lot of vehement opposition to it, but the tide seems to have turned and more people see the benefit of it these days. 

[Daveb25]

I’m happy with the stigma for my personal collection. Would much rather have a nicely presenting restored book than a ratty looking blue label and the restored book still goes for far, far less. Even though the restored book started out as a much nicer book to begin with almost all of the time. 

[Badger]

On 12/16/2023 at 5:42 PM, VintageComics said:

I've argued for over 15 years that the purple label created a distaste for that label, which created a strong public aversion to slabbed Restored books, preventing people from trying to understand restored books better and causing the large price disparity.

That's the main reason they're so affordable and why the price gap is large enough for people to profit in between. 

And I agree. As long as I know what I'm getting, for some pieces I don't mind restored. 

There was an insane dislike for restored books among collectors waaayyy before CGC was even a pipe dream. I'm not sure how much the purple label played a factor with collectors who were around before CGC. Still, it is an interesting thought experiment: what if CGC had chosen green as the restored label and purple as the qualified? Would green be hated as much as the real life "purple label of death?" Green certainly does not seem to help the qualified books, currently, so 

[MrBedrock]

On 12/17/2023 at 1:10 PM, VintageComics said:

I'm actually quite surprised at how many people agree with me on the Purple / Blue label thing now. It was not a very popular side to be on when we had the discussion back then. 

I think the same number of folks agree with you now. The folks that disagree with you are just tired on engaging you on the subject any longer because - what's the point?

[MrBedrock]

I'm just hard headed.

[VintageComics]

On 12/17/2023 at 5:11 PM, Badger said:

There was an insane dislike for restored books among collectors waaayyy before CGC was even a pipe dream. I'm not sure how much the purple label played a factor with collectors who were around before CGC. Still, it is an interesting thought experiment: what if CGC had chosen green as the restored label and purple as the qualified? Would green be hated as much as the real life "purple label of death?" Green certainly does not seem to help the qualified books, currently, so 

I personally believe it's not just about whether the color of the labels segregates the books, but it's also about how colored labels are segregated from the Universal label.

It's interesting that you mention the Green label, as I have also long had the opinion that the Green label has done a similar disservice to comic prices for a similar but slightly different reason. I've long had the belief that CGC should always list both the Qualified AND the Universal grade of the book so that buyers can make a more informed decision. 

For example, a chunk out of the cover may give the book a Qualified 9.4 grade but the book may actually grade a 7.0 Universal. Why wouldn't CGC list both grades on the Green label, thereby giving potential buyers a more informed decision?

You can see the parallel...the more a potential buyer knows about the non-Universal book, the better they can value it compared to the Universal market. 

We had a clear example of this many years ago on these very forums. One of our longtime forum members bought a qualified TOS #39 many years ago with one hole punch through the cover. I think the book was graded a Qualified NM range range (may have been a 9.4). They ended up seeing the value in the book that nobody else could and they bought it for a bargain as a qualified 9.4 that ended up resubbing into a blue label 7.0...and being worth much more than they paid for it as a qualified book. 

People who are flipping Restored books by un-restoring them are doing exactly this. By self educating themselves on how to reverse engineer the Restored and Qualified books into what they think the book will grade as a Universal label, they are finding the hidden value that's causing the mini market of un-restoring books that some are talking about.

Imagine if CGC had the unrestored or unqualified grades on their labels?

I believe that using a different label color has caused a hindrance or a roadblock to the average Joe in this education process by causing them to outright shun these books rather than be forced to engage with them and therefore learn about them, and that goes for both Restored and Qualified. 

Edited December 18, 2023 by VintageComics

[Bumble Kitty]

On 12/16/2023 at 1:41 PM, MrBedrock said:

Speaking of condition being a factor - how nutty is this? I had been seeing some of the prices that some auction sites have been getting for VHS. A long time customer recently passed away and his apartment was loaded with vintage VHS, all high grade and all in the original shrink wrap. He had meticulously sliced the bottom of the wrap to access and view the tapes, then replaced them in the box and put them on shelves five or six deep in closets. I had contracted with the executor of the estate to dispose of everything so I contacted one of the auction houses to see if they were interested. After viewing some photos they said sure, and seemed very excited. We boxed everything up, well over 5000 high grade VHS tapes, and dropped them off. I had nothing invested in these so I just asked the auction rep to go through them and work out what they thought would work best for all parties. A week later I got this response - "After reviewing the first half I found only about 10 fully sealed movies out of all of the tapes and nothing of value. The rest were all open on the bottom and of no real value." These were near mint factory boxes with the original tape inside, most from the 80s, and with the original shrink wrap still on. So basically, because the shrink wrap was split at the bottom the tapes were worthless. Now given the fact that most VHS tape has degraded significantly over the last 40 years and is probably unviewable I can certainly understand why sealed is so sought after. I am just amazed that markets like this can be established and folks can be so gullible.

I subscribe to a couple of antique publications and every so often they mention how VHS tapes go for very strong money at auction.

I try never to tell people how to spend their money or what comic age they should collect or what food they should eat or what color they should paint their house.  But when it comes to collecting VHS tapes, I just don't get it. 

[Badger]

On 12/17/2023 at 7:39 PM, VintageComics said:

I personally believe it's not just about whether the color of the labels segregates the books, but it's also about how colored labels are segregated from the Universal label.

It's interesting that you mention the Green label, as I have also long had the opinion that the Green label has done a similar disservice to comic prices for a similar but slightly different reason. I've long had the belief that CGC should always list both the Qualified AND the Universal grade of the book so that buyers can make a more informed decision. 

For example, a chunk out of the cover may give the book a Qualified 9.4 grade but the book may actually grade a 7.0 Universal. Why wouldn't CGC list both grades on the Green label, thereby giving potential buyers a more informed decision?

You can see the parallel...the more a potential buyer knows about the non-Universal book, the better they can value it compared to the Universal market. 

We had a clear example of this many years ago on these very forums. One of our longtime forum members bought a qualified TOS #39 many years ago with one hole punch through the cover. I think the book was graded a Qualified NM range range (may have been a 9.4). They ended up seeing the value in the book that nobody else could and they bought it for a bargain as a qualified 9.4 that ended up resubbing into a blue label 7.0...and being worth much more than they paid for it as a qualified book. 

People who are flipping Restored books by un-restoring them are doing exactly this. By self educating themselves on how to reverse engineer the Restored and Qualified books into what they think the book will grade as a Universal label, they are finding the hidden value that's causing the mini market of un-restoring books that some are talking about.

Imagine if CGC had the unrestored or unqualified grades on their labels?

I believe that using a different label color has caused a hindrance or a roadblock to the average Joe in this education process by causing them to outright shun these books rather than be forced to engage with them and therefore learn about them, and that goes for both Restored and Qualified. 

Totally agree. CGC should state both grades on the green label and an "estimation" of the unrestored grade. That would help pricing restored books tremendously and would hopefully stop some of the wild variations I've seen in pricing.

Edited December 18, 2023 by Badger