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How often are books being “disassembled” in our hobby???
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53 posts in this topic

And more importantly are we okay with it?

I honestly had no idea this was even happening, and thought it was frowned upon but in another thread a dealer stated in two separate posts so non-chalantly that he knows the book better than anyone because he saw it disassembled and CGC did not.  Is this an acceptable practice (for restoration removal or pressing) and the times have just passed me by, because it certainly caught me off guard?

Jim

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I guess I’ve never really thought about it before, but I’ve definitely seen restoration accounts on IG with covers themselves draped over what looks to be some sort of drying rack or something.  Now, maybe some of those instances are where the cover is already detached from the book itself, I’m not sure.  
 

Are people opening staples and removing each leaf and doing things to them individually?  I don’t know.  If so, I guess pressing/cleaning and restoration is much, much more involved than I originally thought.

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I would assume that for a book to have tear seals, or pieces added to the spine or for the spine to be rebuilt that it would have to be disassembled.  I remember when I first saw an article on comic book restoration that it showed Susan Cicconi's Restoration Lab featuring various books in various states of disassembly for the purpose of restoration.  I always assumed since then that books that were professionally restored were disassembled. 

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31 minutes ago, Buzzetta said:

I would assume that for a book to have tear seals, or pieces added to the spine or for the spine to be rebuilt that it would have to be disassembled.  I remember when I first saw an article on comic book restoration that it showed Susan Cicconi's Restoration Lab featuring various books in various states of disassembly for the purpose of restoration.  I always assumed since then that books that were professionally restored were disassembled. 

Buzz..nope as alluded to in the “restored books in a character blue label” this is being done in attempts for blue labels.

Again it was the non chalancy of the comments, like this was a okay and a generally accepted practice.

 

Jim

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3 hours ago, Buzzetta said:

Well that is a half hour of my life I will never get back.

Ok... removal of restoration or fiddling with a book to get it into a blue label.  If we are talking about that, then that has been going on for years.  I remember multiple times a certain board member would shake his head at me that I should submit a couple of Golden Age books that had a small amount of color touch to CGC to have the color touch removed.  The process was to quite literally cut or scrape that section of the book off. 

Then there were talks over the years that if you have a trimmed book to take a tweezers and carefully rip little chunks out of the edge to disguise it as substantial Marvel chipping.  There is no doubt in my mind that there are some people out there that are doing these things at home and probably more.   I just accept it as something that exists that I would never be able to prove or catch.   Some people are shady.   I don't know what I consider worse, people passing off undisclosed restoration or someone taking a knife to a book to cut out restoration to put it in a different color label.  

Look at this way... how many basement pressers are there?  I see them in the Facebook groups... they buy a T Shirt press and then next thing you know they are an expert presser cranking out 4.5's into 5.0's (sarcasm intended) and celebrating their achievements on Facebook.   If Matt is offering restoration removal at a fee, then why wouldn't someone try that at home for free? 

 

PS Dylan should have disclosed the restoration. 

Who is the Dylan referencing?

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4 hours ago, PeterPark said:

Who is the Dylan referencing?

EDIT:  And I’m with Buzz here.  The minute these old funny books became worth what they are I always assume someone is doing something you aren’t expecting to squeeze a few more dollars out of them.

Edited by thunsicker
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On 7/27/2020 at 7:42 PM, Tony S said:

CGC addresses their stance on this in the post below about defects caused by improper pressing. First sentence. Disassembly by itself is not considered restoration. 

https://www.cgccomics.com/news/article/3982/pressing-defects-disassembly/

 

Not sure if this stance is still  relevant and being strictly adherred to as it was written up back in 2014 after CCG had acquired Matt's Classics Incorporated back in 2012 and Matt was still working for them in charge of CCS at the time.  :gossip:

Since that time, Matt has transitioned over to the CGC grading side of the buisness as their Primary Grader in 2016 and shall we say, the quality of the jobs apprently being done through CCS is **ahem**, not quite the same as before.  Since it's all one big happy company though where it's good for everybody to get along and to keep the conspriacy theorists happy about potential conflict of interest, apparently books with certain tell tale pressing "defects" were given a free pass when it came to grading with the graders apparently turning a blind eye to them.  Not sure if it's still being done anymore, but many boardies here say it still is.  hm  (shrug)

Although collectors and many of the boards members cried conflict of interest when the buyout was first announced at the time, in the real corporate world that we live in, it's simply called smart strategic business synergies being realized.  :devil:

Edited by lou_fine
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On 7/27/2020 at 9:29 PM, Guardian Comics said:

And more importantly are we okay with it?

I honestly had no idea this was even happening, and thought it was frowned upon but in another thread a dealer stated in two separate posts so non-chalantly that he knows the book better than anyone because he saw it disassembled and CGC did not.  Is this an acceptable practice (for restoration removal or pressing) and the times have just passed me by, because it certainly caught me off guard?

Jim

I disassemble all my books before submission.(shrug)

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On 7/29/2020 at 2:45 PM, lou_fine said:

Not sure if this stance is still  relevant and being strictly adherred to as it was written up back in 2014 after CCG had acquired Matt's Classics Incorporated back in 2012 and Matt was still working for them in charge of CCS at the time.  :gossip:

Since that time, Matt has transitioned over to the CGC grading side of the buisness as their Primary Grader in 2016 and shall we say, the quality of the jobs apprently being done through CCS is **ahem**, not quite the same as before.  Since it's all one big happy company though where it's good for everybody to get along and to keep the conspriacy theorists happy about potential conflict of interest, apparently books with certain tell tale pressing "defects" were given a free pass when it came to grading with the graders apparently turning a blind eye to them.  Not sure if it's still being done anymore, but many boardies here say it still is.  hm  (shrug)

Although collectors and many of the boards members cried conflict of interest when the buyout was first announced at the time, in the real corporate world that we live in, it's simply called smart strategic business synergies being realized.  :devil:

I believe the stance reflected in the article is still relevant. By itself, CGC does not consider taking a book apart and then putting back together again to be restoration. That is to say, removing the staples and putting the same staples back in. Nothing has been added or removed from the book. It is still the exact same paper and staples. 

The problem is what the article says. It is difficult to remove the staples and then put them back in without making the holes a slight bit larger, if done by someone with a lot of practice, it can be pretty much impossible to detect.  If done by a less experienced person, it can impact the grade. 

WHY the staples were temporarily removed and then put back in is the real question. What else was done to the book? 

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The answer is VERY OFTEN. It is actually a standard in the world of golden age books (or at least it was last time I checked) to the point where literally disassembling a book so that you can remove rusty staples and replace them with period staples is not considered restoration. And since rusty staples will be punished in grading there is high incentive to replace those staples. So consider it more a norm than an exception, at least in terms of being an acceptable practice. Also, to answer a question above, even if the staples arent rusted, you may remove them to fix a major spine roll and avoid tearing the centrefold or cover.

We have many threads on the subject over the years if you want to learn more about the legitimacy of disassembling books:

 

 

So, yeah, lots of disassembled books floating around.

Edited by William-James88
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On 7/27/2020 at 9:29 PM, Guardian Comics said:

And more importantly are we okay with it?

I honestly had no idea this was even happening, and thought it was frowned upon but in another thread a dealer stated in two separate posts so non-chalantly that he knows the book better than anyone because he saw it disassembled and CGC did not.  Is this an acceptable practice (for restoration removal or pressing) and the times have just passed me by, because it certainly caught me off guard?

Jim

No. And I've never been ok with it. From when I first heard it as a menu option through a 'conservator' who would guarantee a blue label (which I'm sure he was able to guarantee because he'd been successful doing it), it never sat well with me. When they would later become a part of CGC, it all made sense why a blind eye was being turned away at the practice. 

Nothing I can say will be reassuring either. That thread someone linked above where I had asked about it was just scratching the surface, and the issue as I've always seen it with any disassembly is that you can't draw a hard line on it. Once they rewarded it as one of the many stealth procedures CGC claimed they could not detect "if done right", monetizing it (and conversely, giving the greenlight to those who had successfully gamed grading up until that point) won out over keeping people like me around, and who felt uneasy about the level of monkeying going on with big money books.

CGC won't lose any sleep over this, but this was the last straw for me when I discovered what was going on back then.

Edited by comicwiz
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10 hours ago, William-James88 said:

The answer is VERY OFTEN. It is actually a standard in the world of golden age books (or at least it was last time I checked) to the point where literally disassembling a book so that you can remove rusty staples and replace them with period staples is not considered restoration. And since rusty staples will be punished in grading there is high incentive to replace those staples. So consider it more a norm than an exception, at least in terms of being an acceptable practice.

Yes, although the replacement of staples with period vintage staples might not longer be considered as restoration with CGC's new revised Restoration Grading Scale which they implemented back in June of 2014, it would still be considered as Conservation along with many of the other former restoration activities that transitioned over at the same time:  :gossip:

 

https://www.cgccomics.com/news/article/4083/

Conservation Repairs

  • Tear seals
  • Spine split seals
  • Reinforcement
  • Piece reattachment
  • Some cover or interior cleaning (water or solvent)
  • Staples cleaned or replaced
  • Some leaf casting

 

Materials Used for Conservation Repairs:

  • Rice paper
  • Wheat glue
  • Vintage staples
  • Archival tape
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35 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

Yes, although the replacement of staples with period vintage staples might not longer be considered as restoration with CGC's new revised Restoration Grading Scale which they implemented back in June of 2014, it would still be considered as Conservation along with many of the other former restoration activities that transitioned over at the same time:  :gossip:

 

https://www.cgccomics.com/news/article/4083/

Conservation Repairs

  • Tear seals
  • Spine split seals
  • Reinforcement
  • Piece reattachment
  • Some cover or interior cleaning (water or solvent)
  • Staples cleaned or replaced
  • Some leaf casting

 

Materials Used for Conservation Repairs:

  • Rice paper
  • Wheat glue
  • Vintage staples
  • Archival tape

Thanks man, was not aware of that! Surprised to see tear seals there, I was sure that would still be restoration.

 

Edit: wait, that means that of I have an old blue label (say around 2010) of a GA book witj staples replaced and have it cracked pressed and graded, it would come back in a conservef label?

Edited by William-James88
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5 minutes ago, William-James88 said:

Thanks man, was not aware of that! Surprised to see tear seals there, I was sure that would still be restoration.

No problem and if you are patient enough and CCG is looking for additional revenue streams, there'll probably be nothing left in the Restoration bucket by the time it's all said and done.  :devil:

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Just now, lou_fine said:

No problem and if you are patient enough and CCG is looking for additional revenue streams, there'll probably be nothing left in the Restoration bucket by the time it's all said and done.  :devil:

This whole conserved thing is new to me. Is it a GLOD? And you joke but its true. Glue and slight colour touch already get blue fir GA, no telling how leniant things will get.

Also, I edited my comment above to ask a question, could you answer it for me?

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