What is pressing?

Dictionary.com has seven definitions and not one of them has anything to do with our hobby. I scanned through the internet with Google and Bing searching for information. The site I like most with any answers is Classics Incorporated. I am only going to touch a little on what they said but recommend if you are interested in the topic to check them out. They mention ?the purpose of pressing is to raise a high grade comic to an even higher grade by removing small defects using non-restorative techniques?

This puzzles me. What is a non-restorative technique? Any book sent in with tape on a cover or inside a book will be graded, encapsulated, and returned graded with a purple tag. Isn?t restoration the process of returning an item to its original pristine condition? Consider this, when this book was published, bought, and read I am pretty sure it did not have tape in it. So how does tape help restore the condition of the book? The answer (in my opinion) it doesn?t.

Take a 1967 Chevy Camaro (I fell in love with this car from Better Off Dead), a car like this with the paint peeling, the seats gutted, dash faded, windows broken, and well you get my point. Degraded it is not worth much but restore it and you can name almost any price. Of course the two are entirely different medians of collecting plus I don?t think tape could put a car back together (I have a 1987 Chevy Nova and trust me I tried.)

However, Pressing is used to remove small defects. Classics Incorporated used an example on their website of the benefits of suing their service. They state ?A copy of Daredevil #3 was originally graded a 9.2 but after close inspection it was revealed that visible defect could be corrected with pressing. After pressing the book was shipped to CGC for grading. It received a 9.4 doubling its value from $750.00 to $1500 for a cost of $75 plus grading fees.? As an investor it is great, a very nice profit, as a collector to press your own book would probably make the owner feel pretty damn good. As a buyer not knowing how would they feel after the fact? Is there a moral ground here?

When I detailed cars, most customers realized their trade in value increased. When this book was sent into CGC (the Daredevil #3), did CGC know this was pressed? If not did CGC detect and disregard that it was pressed and most importantly why isn?t this book mine?

To continue Classics Incorporated mentions ?A solid understanding of CGC?s grading standards is essential to determine how each defect will affect a book?s upgrade potential.? This statement is a bit startling.

To explain I will analogize.

The first analogy is a kid wants a cookie before dinner and knows without a doubt his/her mom will say no, but dad on the other hand is a sucker for cute faces and would say yes. This child knows the dietary standards of his parents and takes advantage of it. So the kid gets the cookie (kind of like sending in a comic that should be a 9.6 and getting a 9.8)

The second analogy I will use is of a large breasted woman wearing a low cut shirt and a mini skirt inching dangerously high. She gets pulled over by a male cop (not being sexist just stereotypical, by the way this happened to someone I know). She giggles, bounces, and says she didn?t see the stop sign and was left off with only a warning. (Did I mention she does this a lot? At the same stop sign? And she did it with different cops.) She knows the standards of the male sex drive; took advantage and got way without a ticket.

I know my journals have been getting longer and I didn?t realize how much on this topic there is. Please any input on this would be appreciated. I believe I even recently read somewhere that CGC no longer considers tape to be a restorative technique due to the person only used it to keep a book they cherished together for readability not to keep it in a pristine condition. Once I find that link again I will write up on that. I will be continuing this in a few days in a follow up to this journal.

Thanks for reading

Tnerb