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Printer crease
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20 posts in this topic

Hello, I just got this book and I need some help in confirming a crease on the FC right side, above the circle caption - is this a printers crease or something else?  You can definitely feel it on the FC and the inside FC as well.  How can you tell if its a printers crease and how do they affect the overall grade?  Do they usually occur in this area or can they occur anywhere?

thanks for your help,

brian

 

Spiderman 64 FC.jpg

Spiderman 64 FC score.jpg

Spiderman 64 open FC.jpg

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3 hours ago, podochigae said:

Hello, I just got this book and I need some help in confirming a crease on the FC right side, above the circle caption - is this a printers crease or something else?  You can definitely feel it on the FC and the inside FC as well.  How can you tell if its a printers crease and how do they affect the overall grade?  Do they usually occur in this area or can they occur anywhere?

Basically, printers creases happen when the paper itself is creased prior to printing. Often, this means that there was an alignment problem somewhere in the web-fed press, but sometimes (especially on older books), the crease occurred during the production of the paper rolls themselves. Cheap paper is cheap, after all. As for telling printers creases apart from the results of mishandling... Most printers creases (especially caused by improper web feeds) will be horizontal, or nearly so (although there are occasional weird examples caused by more serious printer problems or defective paper stock). Regardless, printers creases happen before the ink is applied; the book is printed on top of the paper defect, rather than later damage that folds the already-printed paper. With a little practice, especially with the book in hand, that's usually fairly easy to distinguish, especially for larger creases.

Sometimes it's a little tricky to distinguish between a small printers crease and a small normal crease from photographs only, especially if mostly un-inked paper is affected. But your images do look pretty archetypal for a printers crease.

As for CGC, well... in principle, these are pre-production or in-production defects, not mishandling or wear, and so do not count against the technical grade at any reasonable point value (books with a printers crease cannot receive a 9.9+, but since books in general don't get those, it's somewhat academic). That said, books with particularly ugly printers creases, or a whole constellation of them, do sometimes get marked down. Based on a cursory glance at the images, this book looks to have a blunted corner at UR, a color-breaking spine tick in at UL (in the yellow box), and stress around the top staple; I wouldn't expect the printers crease to alter the final grade.

Edited by Qalyar
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I didn't even think about having a defect on the paper itself prior to applying the ink - thanks for the info.  I don't see too many printer creases, so I thought I'd ask here.  And on this book, in particular, the crease is easy to miss (for newbies like myself) due to the white color and busy background of the buildings.  You can definitely feel it, though.  

thanks again!

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4 minutes ago, Kevin76 said:

Printer's creases usually happen because of infeed and tension issues.  It's goes Rollstand > Infeed> Ink Units > Heatset Oven > Chills . Ribbon/Silicone Deck, Angle Bar Deck > Folder >  Auxiliary equipment > Stacker > Skid > Out the door

I cant see how anything could go wrong...with so simple a process.

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1 hour ago, Kevin76 said:

Printer's creases usually happen because of infeed and tension issues.  It's goes Rollstand > Infeed> Ink Units > Heatset Oven > Chills . Ribbon/Silicone Deck, Angle Bar Deck > Folder >  Auxiliary equipment > Stacker > Skid > Out the door

Thanks, never really thought about how an individual comic book gets assembled, but it is good to know - especially since there are other types of production defects (bindery, ink) that can occur.  Makes you wonder what type of quality control the publishers used back in the 60's-70's...

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On 10/3/2020 at 6:46 PM, podochigae said:

good to know - is the crease by the sword-wielder's leg?  Or by the tip of the demon's arrow?

Actually, the major crease is through the "DOWS" of the title. 

That area near the sword wielder's leg is not a color breaking crease, but an area in which the ink did not get taken up.  I've seen this on multiple copies.

Finally, on the back, the printer's crease runs from the top left of the book to about 1/2 way just above where Rockwell's head is.

Again, impossible to see in either scan, but when held at the right angle to natural light, you can definitely see they are there. 

 1157253969_TowerofShadows8(CGC9.8)Back.thumb.jpg.41f8949a3723b3c773cb90586a454f1c.jpg

 

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3 hours ago, picon3 said:

Actually, the major crease is through the "DOWS" of the title. 

That area near the sword wielder's leg is not a color breaking crease, but an area in which the ink did not get taken up.  I've seen this on multiple copies.

Finally, on the back, the printer's crease runs from the top left of the book to about 1/2 way just above where Rockwell's head is.

Again, impossible to see in either scan, but when held at the right angle to natural light, you can definitely see they are there. 

 1157253969_TowerofShadows8(CGC9.8)Back.thumb.jpg.41f8949a3723b3c773cb90586a454f1c.jpg

 

Thanks for pointing them out, although I still couldn't see them.  

I guess the moral of the story is that printers creases can be undetectable from their image, but, fortunately, they won't affect the grade at all.

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On 10/3/2020 at 7:30 PM, Kevin76 said:

My arm at work, we had a wrap up in Unit #3, paper all wrapped up in the rollers from a web break. Plenty goes wrong

IMG_20181206_214136872.jpg

Glad it's still attached, at least.

FWIW, both my copies of ASM #64 have "something" in the same area - not quite as pronounced.

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