Zanarkand

There are piles are garbage books for sale on Ebay all the time. All types, all ages. Good practice books are SA cartoon comics, BA Marvel reprints, and GA westerns. Very plentiful in low grades.

Reassembling the book is now the trick. I don't think there's a good way to do this. There aren't even really any proper tools or techniques to use. It just takes a steady hand and patience. There are two ways I've experimented with doing this: One is disassembly in reverse - put the cover and pages over the staples one page at a time. The other way is to sort of mimic the way the comic was bound in the first place - line up all the pages and the cover and put the staple back in its original holes all in one go. I can't say which way works best, it depends on the book. Sometimes when paper is stapled, the tines punch a hole in the paper. So when you take the staple out, you literally have a hole there, i.e. paper loss. Sometimes the staple tines just push the paper out of the way. When you remove the staple in this case, the hole can fill in because the paper is still there. Not all staple holes will be the same way on every comic. Not all staple holes may be the same way on the same comic. More often than not, I go one page at a time for the first staple, then insert the other staple all in one go. I find that with one staple in, the other staple holes are easier to line up. Doesn't matter where you start. Stack up all you pages first and just eyeball it. Which staple looks harder to get in all in one go? Look at the quality of the holes. Which seem like you'd better be careful getting the staple through them? Once the staples are in, what you'll have is a bunch of loose fitting pages. You'll need to tighten them up before you can bend the tines back in place. Using a piece of release paper and your spatula, press gently on the area between the upright staple tines. Make sure those pages are stacked tight, push out the air between them. If you did a good job pressing the pages, this will be pretty easy. Now bend the staple tines back in place. Slowly and carefully, just like you pried them up. You can tap them down, push with you thumb, or whatever works. Remember to hold the other tine still with your tweezers so the staple doesn't rotate. You won't always have to worry about lining them up with the original indentations, because if you pressed the pages right there won't be any. Check your work, just like you're grading the comic. Centerfold tight? Cover secure? Staples tight, with no wiggle room? Good. If this was a press job, the final step is usually to fold the book and give it a final press to ensure that the spine is defined.

Having offered probably ill-advised disassembly advice, which will probably inspire many a well-meaning collector to shred their books and earn me the ire of dedicated conservationists, let me add the caveat that a comic should never be disassembled for any reason unless as part of a process that can significantly add to the life of the book. If you're looking to press a 9.2 into a 9.6, like some dealers are rumored to do regularly, you can do that without disassembling the book. If you're looking to wash out a persistent stain, you can do that without disassembly too, depending on the location of the stain. I disassemble only for a) practice, and b) to remove a spine roll significant enough that the book won't fit in a bag or mylar right.

People are loathe to give disassembly advice. It's extemely easy to cause damage, right there at the critical structural points of the comic. On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being 'an amateur could probably pull it off' and a 10 being 'it's far easier to screw it up than to do it right', disassembly/reassembly is about an 8. Plus, people don't want a bunch of amateurs cleaning and pressing their own stuff. There are several keys to the process: 1) Use the right tools. A micro-spatula, available at most craft stores in the art/scrapbooking section, is best. This is a little stainless steel spade-shaped thingy with smooth edges that you'll use to pry up the staple tines. I do not recommend just any old object that looks about the right size to jam under the tines. Also get a pair of plastic tweezers, or metal tweezers with plastic tips. 2) Avoid contact with the actual comic. Even the slightest scratch or scuff on the paper will be extremely obvious and will look like hell. Get some release paper, since you'll need it to press the book anyway. Keep a piece of release paper under the staple tines so your spatula never touches comic paper. 3) Don't bother with low paper quality. It'll crack and split at the staple area no matter what you do. Just don't bother. Also forget rusty staples unless you plan to replace them. You'll break them. 4) Don't bend the staples any more than you have to. Metal doesn't like to be flexed, and you're just going to have to bend the damn things back anyway. Bend the outer staple tines (nearest the top/bottom edges) about 45 degrees, and the inner ones nearly straight. Remember that the staple can rotate as you're working the tine, so use your tweezers to hold it still. I recommended plastic because metal can scratch the staple. Curl the page off the outer tines and lift off the inner ones. One staple at a time, and don't let the staple tines scratch the other side of the page after you've freed it. Put some release paper under it after you've freed a side. 5) PATIENCE. It takes awhile. You can't use a lot of pressure or go very fast because it is ridiculously easy to damage your comic or break a staple. If you can completely disassemble a comic in under about 15 minutes you're a speed demon.

I lost a Visions #5 awhile ago on Ebay because I set my snipe stupidly low. No reason at all except I figured it wouldn't go for much anyway. Haven't seen once since, anywhere.

Shock, Fear, Horror... Impact?

Isn't The Funnies Annual #1 (1959) supposed to be a Gerber 8? I've seen three just in the last couple of months, all for right around guide.

Same situation here. I love the book, and buy it ever month, but haven't red it in awhile. Very intricately written, hard to keep track of everything unless you sit down and read a bunch in a row. I read and re-read the series in TPB form, and buy the issues because I'm a collector and I can't help it.

I think this is the whole point of the pressing argument. If collectors pressed the [!@#%^&^] out of their books purely for their own amusement, who would care? Nobody. People only get bent out of shape (haha) when someone presses a book then tries to sell it to them. This argument, as do ALL grading/resto arguments, boils down to money. This is the saga of the pressed book. The seller says "Look how nice and flat this book is! Pay me x for it!", and the buyer says "Yeah, but you pressed it. It's wasn't really that flat yesterday, and yesterday I could've bought it for .8x. Therefore I should only have to pay .8x for it today as well." Who here actually cares about the implications of not calling pressing restoration? Raise your hand. Not so fast - let me rephrase that: Who here actually cares about the implications of CGC not calling pressing restoration? No wait, let me try again: Who here actually cares about the implications of CGC not calling pressing restoration, resulting in the book that you want selling for more than you want to pay? That's the real issue,

Well, there's damage, and then there's printing errors. CGC doesn't seem to care much about printing errors, which include miscuts, miswraps, wrinkling, distributor ink splash, maverick pages, missed staples, etc. The collector cares about things like that though. I wouldn't expect a book with printing errors to sell for as much as a book without any, even if CGC grants both the same grade. Damage is a different matter. Tears, bashed corners, surface indentations, etc are all things that can happen just getting the books to your local comic shop. Also, LCS employees might be very careless. I find it relatively unusual for books right off the rack to contain any serious problems. If I consistently found that to be the case, I'd look for another place to shop.

Bet that reminds her of her last boyfriend.

Wow, you've sold me! Past performance obviously equals future growth, which has been proven in all investment markets, right? My example makes no statements regarding performance. Just that the annual guide hike for high end books is 8%. Nothing to do with actual performance, a fact you yourself have decried more than once. Also, I used an annual average inflation rate of 1.6%. My example merely illustrates how he can take his 5x guide book and sell it for 4x guide in the future, all the while crying "This book sells for 5x guide! 4x is a bargain!" The bargain is an illusion created by the difference between the nominal and actual price.

The article sounds entirely self-serving to me. Why would anyone try to justify the price they paid for any particular book? Pay what you want, I don't care. No, he's trying to justify the price for which he plans to sell his books. Anyway, if he's smart his business model is somewhat inflation driven. Say you go ahead and pay 5x guide, $25,000, for a $5,000 book. Assuming an 8% yearly guide increase (common for high end books), after one year the guide price stands at $5,400. With inflation, your $25,000 is now equivalent to $25,400, and that's less than 5x guide now, ain't it. Over time, it just gets better. In 5 years, the guide price for your book will (might) creep up to $6,800, but inflation will only have puffed up your initial $25,000 to around $26,700. You can sell the book for only 4x guide and still clear $500. It's just good sense to pay higher multiples of guide now, if you don't mind the capital expenditure, because you can sell for a lower multiple of guide later and still make money. But don't pretend you're doing us any favors.

Not in the same league as that Mickey Mouse, but I did pick this up recently. Anyone got a Gerber on it, by the way?