igb-migration

So basically they took a moderate restored 27 with color touch around all edges, cut away the color touch and all underlying original paper, leaf cast out those areas and recolored them and trimmed them to simulate a basic size parameter. If that is correct the the 9.6 extensive, while certainly very visually appealing, is significantly less original than the 6.5 moderate. If one applies water to the 9.6 the leaf-cast area should fall away leaving a mangled edged book similar to the attachment. It should be worth significantly less. Thank you kindly for your comment Mr. Bedrock. Just to clarify, the 27 prior to our resto was a CGC 6.5 B-5. This means it was previously Extensive (and more/less Amateur). 5 is the maximum CGC designation for degree of resto. Previous resto had a form of irreversible mending around 75% of the book's interior cover perimeters. Irreversible meaning permanent, meaning not removable in water, meaning it had to be chiseled/scraped off. This mending caused decent warping in the book. In order to grade high, the book cannot cockle or warp and must be seamless. It was necessary to extract and re-cast using a slurry containing proper amounts of conservation grade additives to prevent shrinkage over time. Nobody likes shrinkage. Best, Matt

Hello all, Matt & Emily here. We restored the 27 and want to clear up confusion. We appreciate all concern and assure you that we have the hobby's best interest in mind with everything we do. . There is concern we trimmed the bottom & right side of the cover. It may (or may not!) surprise you to know that we actually trimmed all 4 edges of both the front and back cover. We don't like giving out our methods but this is an important book. Our standard re-restoration process includes removing all previous restoration from a book before we begin our restoration (unless it has been done perfectly). After which we wash covers and press them flat to remove additional warping. We cast (sometimes full) perimeters of the covers for sharpness and strength. Excess is trimmed off to the best of our ability with references to unrestored books. This technique is common among extensively restored books. Per Kenny's explanation of his FC3 trimming in question, it's ok to trim leafcasting up to the original art: http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=8637318&fpart=1 We understand the issue here is that the 27 appears short on the bottom & right edge. Initially this book was a CGC 6.5 B-5, though when we cracked it, wraps 3-5 were swapped with wraps 13-15 - which made the pages fit together poorly. Btw we were freaking out thinking that we had purchased a copy missing wraps! How do you resolve that one?! So the book was wider at the bottom and previous 6.5 resto made the spine larger to compensate. More importantly, the front cover inside lower right edges had warping, mismatched color, thick non-archival mends - see attached. We could not aqueously remove them so they had to be physically extracted. We can't put good work on top of bad work. We create jags when extracting for smoother, stronger joins. Ultimately a few millimeters of art was lost to remove non-archival mending. Much of the area of Bob Kane was piece addition from previous resto, signature was retouched by their hand and slightly smaller when compared to the HA copies - possibly in attempt to make more fit on the page. For this 27 in particular we used the HA 8.0 & 6.5 copies as our guide. In the end, the book is the exact size it should be. Even the cover is the proper GA DC thickness of ~0.17mm - attached. The utmost care was taken to make this special book look and feel perfect. We understand such an important piece of history will be under heavy scrutiny. We certainly appreciate everyone's feedback and use it to be better with each project. We aren't on the forum often so my direct email is matthewmeyers1@gmail.com. Please feel free to contact us with any questions, we promise transparency and a quick response. For anyone who is interested, we will be at Chicago Con with the 27 and other raw restored GA books. We welcome anyone who would like to inspect and feel our work. All our best, Matt & Emily