How can I find out the restorer12858

Originally Posted by IronMan
Quote:

Originally Posted by MatterEaterLad
Interesting about Investment Grade Books.

I have an FF 1 with extensive resto. It wasn't one of their books because I bought it from someone who'd had it in their collection for 30 years. The books looks amazing. I sent it in and it came back 4.5, which has never made sense to me. The whole, "It's over-restored so therefore we must hammer it" has been my guess. Though I've often wondered if I sent it to Matt and had them tweak it and regrade it if it wouldn't come back higher.

Well, actually you would be sending it to CCS, not Matt. Matt works as a grader now. And the graders don't know any "history" of the books they grade. So they would know it was restored - but would not know it was restored by CCS.

The idea of "over restored" can be a gray area. But the general guiding principles of such are to do no more than needed and to do things that can be reversed without damage. The point being to preserve as much of the original as possible. There are various examples in the art world. The Mona Lisa has never been restored and has had only a bit of cleaning. We know it would look better because one of Leonardo's students did a copy. And it was cleaned and looks much brighter. Also in the art world, when paintings by masters are extensively damaged, it is not unusual for nearly the entire painting to be washed away and then recreated. But such works are always decimated in value to collectors. Who wants to own a Monet when there is less than 20% of Monet's actual work left on the canvas?

The logic applies to restoration of comic books - if one considers comic books to be works of art. I'd rather own a Hulk 1 missing pieces and lots of color breaking creases than own one where an over aggressive restorer decided to copy large sections of the book and recolor/regloss the entire book. Facsimiles can be purchased for almost nothing.

As for your FF 1, you might consider just sending it again and seeing if the grade improves. There have been times in the past when CGC seemed to be more "strict" on grading restored books. I believe that is in the past, as CGC now has a standard to "grade" the restoration (A B C, 1 2 3) as well as the numeric grade of the book.