Is it a known & common risk for cleaning & pressing to desaturate colors significantly? 1 1

[chdorr]

Heyo. First post here...be gentle.

I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of my first books sent off to CGC for pressing/cleaning & grading. I got the shipping confirmation and grader notes and images are available, so I dove in. I'm hopeful that the lighting in the pics and the plastic had a lot to do with what I saw, but I would be surprised if so. I sent in a couple vintage books, Sub-Mariner #1 and Incredible Hulk #141. My concerns isn't about the resulting grades really, it's more about the richness of colors. One of the things I loved about the Sub-Mariner was that the colors were so rich and deep on the cover. Really gorgeous. There was foxing and tanning too but overall the colors just looked luscious. What I saw in the CGC images was a bit shocking as the colors were seriously washed out and substantially desaturated. Again, haven't got the actual slabs back so I will wait and see what the reality is.

The attached pic is a side by side of the pic I took just before boxing up the submission, and on the right is the crop from the CGC image. I'm not intending to whip up any drama or get all ranty, I'm really trying to make sure I have a better set of expectations from cleaning/pressing. I signed the disclaimer and understand that things can happen in the process, etc. Totally willing to take that risk. If the pics are indeed accurate though I will be really bummed as I honestly did not expect the colors to be thinned out so significantly. The red in the title and the blue in the corner box in the original state were like a nice rich, thick stew and post cleaning images have them looking like a thin broth of color...if that analogy makes any sense!

I'm hopeful mods will allow this as I'd really like to know if this is a reasonable result to expect from the process. So if this does get read by any of you, I'd love to hear your experience and if such results are just part of the risk of undergoing the process or if this is a unusual result. Thanks in advance for any feedback.

 

[MattM CS]

@chdorr,

Great question! Yes, this is due to the lighting used in the imaging department. Looks like our settings may have been SLIGHTLY off causing a whited out look. Rest assured these LEDs do not damage or change the colors on the book in person.  Pressing would not cause an issue like this. This can be tested by looking at the spine stress line in the top left corner next to Namor's armpit. As you can see in the original picture the stress line is very evident and distinct but in the cert look-up image, there is a glare that causes this stress line to become almost invisible. 

I am sorry for the confusion this has caused. Thanks for checking!

[chdorr]

Thanks for the reply, much appreciated. They are due tomorrow, very curious to see them in the light of day! I figured if anything it would have been the cleaning and if there had been any whitening process done moreso than pressing.

[chdorr]

Definitely looks much better in person. Thanks again.

Pre-slab, top, slabbed, bottom.

 

 

Edited June 10 by chdorr

[thehumantorch]

On 6/9/2024 at 11:48 PM, chdorr said:

Definitely looks much better in person. Thanks again.

Pre-slab, top, slabbed, bottom.

 

 

Congrats, nice looking book