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Detective Comics #35 (Larson Pedigree) no longer PLOD
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167 posts in this topic

On 10/17/2017 at 2:00 PM, Mmehdy said:

sounds like some big upswing if you can purchase the books from purple and turn them into "gold"...opps I mean blue....

From reading thread, sounds more probable that price discount for Conserved grade will move into closer alignment with that of Restored.

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10 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

 

And that's my point: people want an "easy" way to identify a book, and so an "easy" way of dismissing restored books is what happened. I'm not suggesting everyone is doing it...but, clearly, the majority are, as the color of the label is what everyone keeps coming back to. 

How many people...if they're being honest...see "purple" and have an immediate negative visceral reaction? 

I do. I've watched others do the exact same thing. In fact, because of the stigma of a COLOR...there are people who would rather crack the book out of the slab, and sell it as a raw restored book....fully and completely disclosing its status...rather than have people react negatively because of the color of the label.

The acceptable solution was to not have different color labels. Since that didn't happen, the acceptable solution is education. 

A book with a slight dot of color touch is dismissed...even by people who know better...the same as a book with extensive repair, because they reside in the same COLOR label.

Good for the people who don't mind a tiny bit of restoration; bad for the market as a whole.

 

My visceral reaction on seeing a purple label is a positive one - ooo, can I get this cheaper? Then I check out what was done to see if it was something I can easily live with.

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16 hours ago, Electron said:

If my memory serves me, I think the cover was cleaned on the Tec 35 before CGC was even started. Conservation and restoration were viewed differently pre CGC.

I don't know what this book looked like before it was cleaned, but the foxing on some Larsons is pretty fugly, so removing it may have seemed like a good idea before we entered the CGC world and resto on a book hammered its market price.

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On 10/18/2017 at 11:47 AM, RockMyAmadeus said:

This is a good part of the reason why different colored labels were a problem from the get-go. People react viscerally to colors, and assign a form of emotional reaction to them that tends to overrule logic and reason when considering just what has been done, to what extent.

+1

This is why I have said all along that CGC should have gone with the uni-color label right from the get go, in combination with both a 10-point condition grading system along with a 10-point restoration rating system.  This way, potential purchasers would have had all of the required information to make a fully informed purchasing decision.  And at the same time, all of the books (both restored and unrestored) would have been on a level playing field without any stigmatization being affixed to a particular grouping of books.  (thumbsu

Although I am sure that the colored labels were implemented with all good intentions, it unfortunately resulted in significant unintended negative consequences on the restored books.  Even though Borock attempted to correct this mistake when he started up the other grading company through his use of uni-color labels, it was too late as the concept of multi-colored labels were already too entrenched into the grading mind frame by that point in time.  :frown:

 

Edited by lou_fine
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23 hours ago, VintageComics said:
On 10/18/2017 at 12:41 PM, RockMyAmadeus said:

And that's my point: people want an "easy" way to identify a book, and so an "easy" way of dismissing restored books is what happened.

Taking the 'easy path' is why people never really educated themselves on restoration.

Those that did educate themselves on restoration started to realize that even within Purple Restored labels there were huge valuation swings.

The move to the conserved label IMO forces people to better understand techniques and gives them more choices on what they want to purchased / collect.

+1

And that's also my other point: "Forced education" is sometimes a good thing.  (thumbsu

My bet is that if CGC had implemented an uni-color label system with both a 10-point condition grading and 10-point restoration rating system, collectors would have educated themselves on all of the nuances of restoration, similar to how they "seemingly" know all the nitty gritty nuances of grading a book.  

On the other hand, any bets that if CGC had introduced an even greater breakdown of their multi-colored label system for universal unrestored books such that Black labels would have been assigned as follows:  say for any MA book grading less than 9.8; for any CA book grading less than 9.6; say for any BA book grading less than 9.4; say for any SA book grading less than 9.0; and say for any GA book grading less than 8.0; the valuation of universal unrestored books would be completely different from what it is in today's marketplace. 

It's clear that it was not necessary for CGC to tell us what is good for universal unrestored books through the use of a more detailed breakdown such as a Black label for books below a certain so-called third party "accepted" grade level, since the assigned grade was already good enough to allow the potential purchaser to make a fully informed purchasing decision on their own in terms of grading.  Similarly, a formal 10-point restoration rating system would have been ideal for allowing potential purchasers to make a fully informed purchasing decision in terms of a restored book on their own, without the need for the easy, but stigmatizing multi-color label system from a third party which they ended up with.  hm

 

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On 10/17/2017 at 4:49 AM, oakman29 said:

You and I see things differently.  I see cleaning a book to be restoration. 

Funny how pressing opened the door to other manipulation that seems to just be "okay" now.

Pressing gets a Universal label. Cleaning with solvents gets a conserved label. Clearly the two are not the same. And the case for one leading to another seems weak. 

Right now it appears to me the conserved label is viewed - by the market - as largely the same as restored.  That may change in a decade or two. But conserved is never going to be worth the same $$ as universal. 

IMHO, the comic hobby would be well served to be more accepting of conservation and even restoration.  For instance consider that vintage comic books are printed on inherently unstable, acidic newsprint.  CGC makes a "deal" of using Micro chamber paper to help mitigate the natural decay and out-gassing of newsprint. But in the library science field, MCP is only used to eliminate odors, not help paper survive longer. 

The Gold Standard in library science for deacidification  and lengthening the lifespan of paper is immersion of the paper in a neutralizing, buffered bath of chemicals. Or using a liquid spray.  That would earn a conserved label from CGC. Undesirable.  But without such treatments vintage (newsprint)  comics stored in even near ideal conditions are going to become brittle - crumble to dust - in a few hundred years. Give or take a few decades. 

Pressing - done correctly - isn't a problem. It doesn't damage a comic nor accelerate it's aging. The Conserved label - for treatments to a book that help it maintain it's structural integrity and longevity - isn't a problem. The problem is how some in the hobby view such.  The hobby is basically sticking it's head in the sand about these issues. Kicking the can down the road, allowing future generations to deal with it. 

IMHO...

Edited by Tony S
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1 hour ago, Tony S said:

Pressing gets a Universal label. Cleaning with solvents gets a conserved label. Clearly the two are not the same. And the case for one leading to another seems weak. 

Right now it appears to me the conserved label is viewed - by the market - as largely the same as restored.  That may change in a decade or two. But conserved is never going to be worth the same $$ as universal. 

IMHO, the comic hobby would be well served to be more accepting of conservation and even restoration.  For instance consider that vintage comic books are printed on inherently unstable, acidic newsprint.  CGC makes a "deal" of using Micro chamber paper to help mitigate the natural decay and out-gassing of newsprint. But in the library science field, MCP is only used to eliminate odors, not help paper survive longer. 

The Gold Standard in library science for deacidification  and lengthening the lifespan of paper is immersion of the paper in a neutralizing, buffered bath of chemicals. Or using a liquid spray.  That would earn a conserved label from CGC. Undesirable.  But without such treatments vintage (newsprint)  comics stored in even near ideal conditions are going to become brittle - crumble to dust - in a few hundred years. Give or take a few decades. 

Pressing - done correctly - isn't a problem. It doesn't damage a comic nor accelerate it's aging. The Conserved label - for treatments to a book that help it maintain it's structural integrity and longevity - isn't a problem. The problem is how some in the hobby view such.  The hobby is basically sticking it's head in the sand about these issues. Kicking the can down the road, allowing future generations to deal with it. 

IMHO...

The comics market should have had a place for restored and conserved books all along.  I actually believe there was/is a legit need and place for it in the market. Without it the market will miss out of some books that time will claim prematurely. I bemoan the fact there was a time where we were headed in that direction too. At one time there were some very good restorers like Susan Cicconi in the marketplace.

I might be wrong but what I saw that hurt the attitude towards restoring was people started getting burnt to many times by it regularly being done to trick buyers into buying something it wasn’t. Restored and conserved books should be sold as such. Period. Dealers saw restoring simply as a tricky way to increase their sales dollars. How many people here have either bought or had someone try to sell them a book with undisclosed work? How does that make you feel even when you catch the seller trying to put one over on you? 

When I was a dealer in the late 80’s until the early 2000’s I saw a big change in thinking restored books were a good thing. It should have been acceptable but the greed of misusing it left a very bitter taste in many collectors mouths. 

The stigma for me when looking at restored books today is how many of them have professional work done by people who cared on books that deserved it vs books that may or may not have needed work but had it done to pad someone’s pocket?

I don’t think the things like the super HG “Frankenstein”books we saw at auction with their hype is helping acceptance of restored books back into the market either.

I was actually hopeful that CGC’s conserved books with “lesser work”done might actually find a better home in the market place.

So you can argue the purple colour on the holder made it a holder of death and I won’t disagree with some of that but seriously restored books came into the CGC market carrying a ton of baggage and as I said earlier it’s at least part of the reasons for CGC acceptance at the time. A type of guarantee that attempted to cut the shadiness of undisclosed work be it from Daniel Dupcak or a Denist.

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5 hours ago, Tony S said:

Right now it appears to me the conserved label is viewed - by the market - as largely the same as restored.  That may change in a decade or two. But conserved is never going to be worth the same $$ as universal. 

I strongly doubt that any collector in their right mind would ever think that a Conserved book would be worth the same as an Universal unrestored copy of the same book in the same equivalent grade.  But I certainly believe that a Conserved book would sell for more than a Restored copy in the same equivalent condition grade.

What is your thinking on the fact that many of the Conserved books and even some of the Restored books were able to sell for well over guide or even at multiples to guide in the recent Jon Berk auction?  Do you believe this is just an one-off due to the rarity for some of the books being offered or is this signalling a turning point in the slow acceptance for Conserved and Restored books, or a bit of a combination of both of these factors?  hm

Edited by lou_fine
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5 hours ago, lou_fine said:

I strongly doubt that any collector in their right mind would ever think that a Conserved book would be worth the same as an Universal unrestored copy of the same book in the same equivalent grade.  But I certainly believe that a Conserved book would sell for more than a Restored copy in the same equivalent condition grade.

What is your thinking on the fact that many of the Conserved books and even some of the Restored books were able to sell for well over guide or even at multiples to guide in the recent Jon Berk auction?  Do you believe this is just an one-off due to the rarity for some of the books being offered or is this signalling a turning point in the slow acceptance for Conserved and Restored books, or a bit of a combination of both of these factors?  hm

I can't speak for others but I picked up the Green Giant 1 which was restored (although only slight) and light tan pages (pet peeve I have always avoided in the past). Why did I buy it? May be my only chance to own a copy. Did I pay over guide?  You know I am not sure. My driving principle in the auction was to win it so I never even looked at the guide. 

Do I regret buying it? Heck no!

would I do the same again in another auction? Definitely. There are several books I am watching now that are restored that I would pay over guide (but below what a blue label would sell for). 

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16 hours ago, lou_fine said:

I strongly doubt that any collector in their right mind would ever think that a Conserved book would be worth the same as an Universal unrestored copy of the same book in the same equivalent grade.  But I certainly believe that a Conserved book would sell for more than a Restored copy in the same equivalent condition grade.

What is your thinking on the fact that many of the Conserved books and even some of the Restored books were able to sell for well over guide or even at multiples to guide in the recent Jon Berk auction?  Do you believe this is just an one-off due to the rarity for some of the books being offered or is this signalling a turning point in the slow acceptance for Conserved and Restored books, or a bit of a combination of both of these factors?  hm

My thinking is these books would have sold for far, far more if they were universal, unrestored blue label.

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Yeah I think this is the same thought that others brought up about buying books with Brittle pages. When your choices are few you take home the girl you might not be caught dead with under normal circumstances. We all know some books can take years to find due to scarcity in the market. Some get tired of waiting. We all do it regularly with normal books anyway with our undercopies until we can upgrade.

I think this has little or nothing to do with acceptance of restored or Brittle paged books. I think the pedigree also helped the prices tremendously. Berk is a well respected collector in the hobby for his goods.

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On 10/16/2017 at 2:22 PM, N e r V said:

The problem with pressing is even if you wanted to I don’t believe any grader is so good as to spot all or even most good pressing. Also long before it existed as a business many old time collectors would use very crude methods of pressing including the old stack heavy books on top to press them flat. lol 

Trimming on the other hand I don’t believe should even be considered as restoration. It’s done to deceive someone of the actual condition by removing part of the book. It should just be a defect like a massive tear would be and it should be hammered on hard in grading. My opinion.

The only problem with this is that micro trimming, similar to pressing, if done properly is virtually impossible to detect on a consistent basis.

Of course we are talking about micro trimming or shaving as done by trimming masters like Ewert before they were outed here on the boards, as opposed to the crude macro hack jobs that used to be done by Dupchak way back in the old days.  How ironic that it was Danny Boy himself along with a few of the other boardies here like Red Hook, Masterchief, etc. who managed to snagged some before and after scans of these books and blew them up to the nth degree to confirm that these uber HG books had indeed been micro trimmed.  hm

Edited by lou_fine
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Most trimming can be detected though. I don’t see it as being in the realm of restored or conserved but rather a defect. How much trimming done should drop the grade accordingly. The trimming type you describe however can be detected with more effort applied in many cases. It’s not a new trick. 

We don’t live in a perfect world where all work is able to be 100% detected all the time either. There are some “married” copies out there still undetected too.

 

I’d probably allow some very, very minor trimming done by professionals in restored books because I understand the concept it could improve the appearance if done ever so slightly which is the goal of a restored book. But not to the point where a lot of trimming ends up by chopping sides changing the covers size and how it wraps around the book correctly. I would like to see them limit trimming in restored books to super slight and drop the rest as a defect much like if you chopped a corner off willingly and drop the grade accordingly. That’s my opinion only though and not what we currently see.

 

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1 hour ago, lou_fine said:

Red Hook

That is a name from the past.  If I remember correctly, did he not also perform very poor presses - the comics looked like they had been presses in a "waffle iron."

And he was banned from here too, correct or self-imposed not to post here again?  

If mistaken, apologies.

Edited by telerites
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