Because I was asked to follow up on my journal of 1/18...

OK - so I wrote a long dissertation on this subject earlier; and then I bumped the back button on my mouse and lost it all, so I guess I'll be brief.

Comics stacked one on top of another and left to be stored for years or even months undisturbed left us with some really nice comics preserved from the 40s, 50s, and 60s - beautiful, flat copies with great color gloss and flat spines. Even non-pedigree collections staored this way probably provided us with a great number of the 7s & 8s in our collections.

Unfortunately, stacks of comics also provided us with dust/light/and oxidation shadows. When a book is only partially covered by the book above it and there is an exposed strip - that strip can form a shadow - a dust shadow, which is a stain on the book, is caused by exposure to dust, and typically found on books stored in attics. Sun shadows, which are a damage to the inks used to print the cover due to a limited lightfastness in the ink, are caused by partial exposure to sunight or other strong light and are common in books stored on windowsills and other very bright locations. Oxidation shadows, (as I understand them - I've never seen one) are caused simply by exposure to air, are a degradation of the paper caused by the increase in deterioration caused by oxygen.

It is dust shadows that haunt me the most, and I suspect are most common in higher graded books because the other conditions would be excellent for the mid to long term storage of high grade books: a cool, dry, dark place (you know - where you get dust). My issue is that they are a stain - just the same as if you dripped your Capt. Crunch on the book while reading it, but CGC doesn't grade it as a stain (OSPG says visible staining on books graded 6.0 or lower, unless I am misremembering). Certainly a cover stain shouldn't be evident in a book graded above 7.0 or so. Now, I'm not railing against CGC; I respect what they have done for the hobby. And as long as they are consistent: i.e. they always ignore dust shadows in books graded 9.4 and below, or whatever their criteria is, then that is fine with me.

But on books where the dust shadow isn't evident from a scan of the front of the book (how most are sold on auction sites), then I think the label deserves a note. Truthfully, I would like to see the same notation on books that have date stamps on the back cover - or frankly anywhere on the book. If there is room to note: '66' written in pen on cover, on my label - then there is room for: 4" x 1/4" dust shadow on reverse, or: date stamp on reverse.

Well - enough for today.

Happy hunting

and congrats to pgbeckstrom on his first submission back from CGC

Lee

Oh - here's my notation - on the old label.

Lee