4000th post - PQ, an interesting observation

[burntboy]

Comic book paper is high-lignin-content groundwood pulp sized with highly acidic alum rosin sizing ...

 

While Scott is correct about the variances in paper quality, I would tend to look more closely at variances in storage. THAT is where a lot of this will factor, IMO. I have a hard time buying into the variances in paper quality being the main cause.

 

All is not what it seems. To quote

 

"The books were initially stored "naked" in old cardboard boxes, then kept in dresser drawers between 1962 and 1976. ... It wasn't until 1981 that I began using mylites with acid-free backing boards and storing the books in comic boxes boxes (SIC)"

 

Too many variables are here. Even considering the examples were all from the stored in dresser drawers days. (If we include the pre-dresser drawer "naked in cardboard" books then we have a major skew there. So I will just concentrate on the bureau drawers period. My quesitons would be:

 

1) How many dresser drawers?

 

2) More than one dresser? If more than one dresser what locations were they in? All in the same room? In different rooms? (see 3 for more on this.)

 

3) What about heating? Is this is long wide dresser? Was one end closer to a radiator or similar type of home heating, causing warmer conditions there but cooler on the opposite end of the dresser?

 

4) How large were the drawers? How many books on the bottom of the stacks were there? (These would come in direct contact with the wood itself.)

 

5) How deep were the stacks? Middle books could have benefited sufficiently from being in the middle by a shift from OW-W to W, or CR-OW to OW-W.

 

6) Were some books more frequently pulled out to read etc? Or, to put it another way, were some drawers kept closed and rarely opened while other drawers were opened more frequently?

 

POV - good questions.............

 

but here's the kicker, being that these books are all the same title and only sold 7 months apart, they spent their entire lives together. in fact the three successive issues would have been standing (they were always stored standing whether in cardboard, dresser drawers or acid free boxes) next to each other for 40 years. other than the number 29, i suspect that they were read no more than once or twice. by the end of 1964 i was cooling off on comics.

 

when in the dresser drawers (a single deep and wide drawer) they were virtually untouched for all those years. there was no radiator near them. and they were in my bedroom. i actually contacted my ex-wife last year to see if i could get the dresser backso as to situate it here in my office, but she'd given it away to her nephew's family.

 

whatever they have gone through in their lives, they did it together, and that's why the PQ differences are so puzzling to me.......................................Harry.

 

oh and B&B #43 (Beautiful Hawkman cover) was just sold to a board member....

[divad]

Im with FFB on this. Newsprint composition can vary from the outide to the inside of a single roll. Also, I m assuming these JLAs were next to each other in the same drawer, right? so they each were affected simultaneously by the same atmosphere in your drawer.

 

uhhm it wasnt your underwear drawer was it??

 

Micro-micro-environments

[PovertyRow]

when in the dresser drawers (a single deep and wide drawer) they were virtually untouched for all those years. there was no radiator near them. and they were in my bedroom. i actually contacted my ex-wife last year to see if i could get the dresser backso as to situate it here in my office, but she'd given it away to her nephew's family.

 

OK - now that we have the complete picture I would more readily agree with FFB's assessment. But it really is important to look at the storage conditions and ask those kind of questions before making a conclusion.

 

I thank you.

 

::typo edit::

[Ze-man]

First off.. Harry........... 4,000 posts..really?

Woulda guessed much less. You seem to only say something ,when it is worth saying. Not prattle on like a teenager.

 

4,000?...really...Wow

 

Here is to reading 4,000 more.

 

And one insanely picky/stupid question about your books.

Where were they located in the store?...in/near direct sunlight?...were they there for only a day?..or did some sit for weeks before you bought them?Just trying to eliminate as many possible contributing factors in your control group.

 

The reason I ask is I remember talking with you in depth about Sids, but forget if the comic racks location was brought up. But I DO remember that you said you did not even cherry pik the books. being a well mannered young lad you took the book nearest to you...as well as the damaging rays of the sun.

I doubt this played much of a role in your books PQ(if at all), but thought it could be a factor.

I guess I should go re-read your Cert. before asking such things ..perhaps it is already there in black and white.

 

Ze-

[namisgr]

I would think that both variations in paper quality and storage conditions are at work with Harry's books.

 

My own bronze age books were stored in large stacks, first exposed to the elements in cardboard boxes then in groups of ten in plastic bags with the air drawn out. In a given stack, there is variation in page quality that seems to depend on the position of the book in the stack - those in the middle are sometimes of better quality than those near the top or bottom. The group as a whole, however, is remarkably consistent in page quality, as judged both by my eye and from the PQ returns from the CGC-graded subset. Nearly all of my books purchased from '71-'73 have off-white pages, and a couple are worse. Most from '74-'76 are OW/W, while my books dating from '81-'85 are nearly all white paged.

 

Perhaps there was more variance in paper quality during the dawn of the Silver Age. I also suspect that a book's position within a stack is important, too.

[burntboy]

First off.. Harry........... 4,000 posts..really?

Woulda guessed much less. You seem to only say somethying ,when it is worth saying. Not prattle on like a teenager.

 

4,000?...really...Wow

 

Here is to reading 4,000 more.

 

And one insanely picky/stupid question about your books.

Where were they located in the store?...in/near direct sunlight?...were they there for only a day?..or did some sit for weeks before you bought them?Just trying to eliminate as many possible contributing factors in your control group.

 

The reason I ask is I remember talking with you in depth about Sids, but forget if the comic racks location was brought up. But I DO remember that you said you did not even cherry pik the books. being a well mannered young lad you took the book nearest to you...as well as the damaging rays of the sun.

I doubt this played much of a role in your books PQ(if at all), but thought it could be a factor.

I guess I should go re-read your Cert. before asking such things ..perhaps it is already there in black and white.

 

Ze-

 

good question, Kenny and one that i hadn't thought about before.

 

The comics at Sid's were set in an 8foot long rack with 2 sets of 3 wooden shelves arranged horizontally. the upper three shelves were devoted to men's mags, business publications, etc. the comics were in the lower set of three shelves.

 

BUT, this was the second such rack from the front door along a perpendicular wall. the first set of shelves had every other type of mag in print at the time.

so the comics rack was well out of any sunlight.

 

and while i understand Bob's point in general, the 4 books in question were obvoiusly stored right next to one another, and in theory at least, should have had the same PQ.

 

so far, i'm thinking that Scott's theory makes the most sense, as it applies to the books in question. in general, i agree with the positioning in the stack, storage conditions and exposure to sunlight, theories.........................

[jbud73]

and here's what i find amazing; all 4 of these books had the exact same life under the exact same storage conditions for over 40 years. they sat next to each other. none of these books were displayed in any fashion. they were published only 7 months apart.

 

and yet, each of them has a different page quality............

 

Thoughts??

 

Comic book paper is high-lignin-content groundwood pulp sized with highly acidic alum rosin sizing that was not manufactured with rigid tolerances for chemical composition. The batches varied in terms of acidity and also in terms of content, so if one book was printed on paper stock that came from a roll of newsprint that had a relatively higher level of impurities, it would age faster than a book made with a better batch of paper, even if stored under identical conditions.

 

Hey Harry congrats on 4000 -

 

Oh snap! Look at little FFB go all highly technical in that respose. So would I be correct with an analogy that not all the comics came from the same batch of cookie dough.

[tth2]

and while i understand Bob's point in general, the 4 books in question were obvoiusly stored right next to one another, and in theory at least, should have had the same PQ.

I think the biggest factor when storage conditions are more or less identical has to be the quality of the paper itself, and apparently there were wider variations in paper quality in the early SA. For example, the PQ of the Western Penn B&B 34, 35 & 36 is OW, C-OW and W, respectively. Similarly, many of the Western Penn Flashes in the 120s have C-OW pages, but the WP #123 has W pages. Flash 123 apparently was printed on GREAT paper stock because it appears with W pages more than just about any early SA book I can think of). Adam has noted this phenomenon too.

[divad]

First off.. Harry........... 4,000 posts..really?

Woulda guessed much less. You seem to only say somethying ,when it is worth saying. Not prattle on like a teenager.

 

4,000?...really...Wow

 

Here is to reading 4,000 more.

 

And one insanely picky/stupid question about your books.

Where were they located in the store?...in/near direct sunlight?...were they there for only a day?..or did some sit for weeks before you bought them?Just trying to eliminate as many possible contributing factors in your control group.

 

The reason I ask is I remember talking with you in depth about Sids, but forget if the comic racks location was brought up. But I DO remember that you said you did not even cherry pik the books. being a well mannered young lad you took the book nearest to you...as well as the damaging rays of the sun.

I doubt this played much of a role in your books PQ(if at all), but thought it could be a factor.

I guess I should go re-read your Cert. before asking such things ..perhaps it is already there in black and white.

 

Ze-

 

good question, Kenny and one that i hadn't thought about before.

 

The comics at Sid's were set in an 8foot long rack with 2 sets of 3 wooden shelves arranged horizontally. the upper three shelves were devoted to men's mags, business publications, etc. the comics were in the lower set of three shelves.

 

BUT, this was the second such rack from the front door along a perpendicular wall. the first set of shelves had every other type of mag in print at the time.

so the comics rack was well out of any sunlight.

 

and while i understand Bob's point in general, the 4 books in question were obvoiusly stored right next to one another, and in theory at least, should have had the same PQ.

 

so far, i'm thinking that Scott's theory makes the most sense, as it applies to the books in question. in general, i agree with the positioning in the stack, storage conditions and exposure to sunlight, theories.........................

 

The truth is never black and white, but generally encompasses all factors present . . . "more is different"

[namisgr]

I think the biggest factor when storage conditions are more or less identical has to be the quality of the paper itself, and apparently there were wider variations in paper quality in the early SA. For example, the PQ of the Western Penn B&B 34, 35 & 36 is OW, C-OW and W, respectively. Similarly, many of the Western Penn Flashes in the 120s have C-OW pages, but the WP #123 has W pages. Flash 123 apparently was printed on GREAT paper stock because it appears with W pages more than just about any early SA book I can think of). Adam has noted this phenomenon too.

 

There is a Marvel counterpart, Tim. FF 4 is the early Silver Age Marvel that I invariably see with W or OW/W page quality, even in grades below fine. Gotta be variance in the paper quality, since there are a fair number of C/OW copies of FFs 2 and 3 out there.

[adamstrange]

and while i understand Bob's point in general, the 4 books in question were obvoiusly stored right next to one another, and in theory at least, should have had the same PQ.

I think the biggest factor when storage conditions are more or less identical has to be the quality of the paper itself, and apparently there were wider variations in paper quality in the early SA. For example, the PQ of the Western Penn B&B 34, 35 & 36 is OW, C-OW and W, respectively. Similarly, many of the Western Penn Flashes in the 120s have C-OW pages, but the WP #123 has W pages. Flash 123 apparently was printed on GREAT paper stock because it appears with W pages more than just about any early SA book I can think of). Adam has noted this phenomenon too.

 

Yup, I agree on Flash 123 generally having beautiful pages. I wish all of those early DCs were that nice but there are many notorius for being problematic.

[burntboy]

and while i understand Bob's point in general, the 4 books in question were obvoiusly stored right next to one another, and in theory at least, should have had the same PQ.

I think the biggest factor when storage conditions are more or less identical has to be the quality of the paper itself, and apparently there were wider variations in paper quality in the early SA. For example, the PQ of the Western Penn B&B 34, 35 & 36 is OW, C-OW and W, respectively. Similarly, many of the Western Penn Flashes in the 120s have C-OW pages, but the WP #123 has W pages. Flash 123 apparently was printed on GREAT paper stock because it appears with W pages more than just about any early SA book I can think of). Adam has noted this phenomenon too.

 

Yup, I agree on Flash 123 generally having beautiful pages. I wish all of those early DCs were that nice but there are many notorius for being problematic.

 

again - this SEEMS to validate the paper stock theory.................

 

despite the various storage travails of my OO collection, only about 6 books out of 250 submissions came back with less than OW pages.........