My Experiment with Pressing

Last year I went to the Baltimore Comic Con. I brought a few comic books with me for Matt Nelson formerly of Classics Incorporated and currently with Classics collectible services (CCS), a subdivision of Certified Guaranty Company (CGC). Was the talks if a transition even in place now. Was this a way for CGC to now add a purple restored label to pressed comic books or a way to start a new color label on this currently considered non-restorative technique.

I met Matt Nelson through Steven Ritter when they were partnered with WorldWide Comics. I have already been asking questions about this technique to improve upon a comic books condition, and yes it is also possible to decrease the condition. After questioning him the one day I decided to put my money where my mouth was. Was pressing the be all improvement on a books visual desirability or is it categorized incorrectly away from dreaded purple label of death.

I brought 14 books for him to look at, fourteen books to see if they could be improved with a pressing before passing them into CGC. As with algebra I needed a given, I needed an X. Out of the fourteen, some were raw, some were graded, others were regarded and dropped, while still others were regarded and stayed stationary. The books will be listed as follows. I will omit page color since it is irrelevant to the ordering procedure.

The first book I'll start with is the Walking Dead Chromium Edition. He told me there was no reason to give him thus book, it was easily a 9.8. This was turned over to Desert Winds at the NYCC For Robert Kirkman's autograph. It was just returned as a SS 9.6. Was Matt's estimation off? Did Desert Winds somehow damage the book? Will I write about this in further detail?

The other books were:

X-Men #42 grade: 7.0 screen :7.5
X-Men #52 grade: 9.0 screen: N/A
X-Men #142 grade: 9.2 screen: N/A

X-Men/Alpha Flight #2
Grade: 9.4 SS screen: 9.8 SS

X-Infernus #3
grade: 9.4 SS screen: N/A

Amazing Spider-Man #129
Grade: 9.4 SS screen: 9.6 SS

New Mutants Annual #4
Grade: 8.5 screen: 9.6

New Mutants Summer Special #1
Grade: 9.0 screen: N/A

New Mutants #58
Grade: 9.6 SS screen: N/A

Daredevil #48
Grade: RAW screen: 8.0

X-Men #132
Grade: RAW screen: 9.4

X-Men #101
Grade: RAW screen: 6.5
And finally

X-Men #99
Grade: RAW screen: 9.0

Right off the bat I want to say I like the honesty that Matt showed. On these particular books above, any books marked under screen as N/A were turned down because he felt a press wouldn't do well, even asking if he was sure, especially on the New Mutants #58, he looked it over again. He told me once again he didn't think a press would work and put them in the do not press pile.

Out of 14 books shown he took only eight. The six he omitted were taken home. My understanding a bit better. Everyone already knows what happened to my Amazing Spider-Man #129 but what about the next seven? Was it wirth it? Was he right? Was he wrong?

Thanks for Reading

Tnerb