Just realized that old guy at the comic shop was right about pressing books

I was at Heroes Con in Charlotte back in June and this older collector saw me flipping through a raw copy of ASM 300 I picked up for $200. He said “son, you need to get that pressed before you even think about grading it.” I laughed it off because I figured pressing was just a gimmick for the super high end stuff. Six months later I finally sent it to a presser and it came back a 9.4 instead of the 8.5 I was expecting. I sold it for $600. That guy must have been looking at things I couldnt even see. Anyone else ever brush off advice from a long time collector only to eat your words later?

2 comments

2 Comments

rivera.henry24d ago

Son you need to get that pressed" is exactly the kind of thing I'd roll my eyes at too. I get it, it sounds like gatekeeping or upselling. But I still think people get way too obsessed with pressing. Yeah it helped you jump from an 8.5 to a 9.4 but that's kind of a best case scenario. Most of the time you're just wasting $30 on a book that was never gonna crack 9.0 anyway. I've had plenty of books I thought were flawless come back with spine ticks I somehow missed. Pressing isn't magic, it just fixes the stuff you already should have caught.

richard_shah24d ago

Man people take this hobby way too seriously sometimes. It's just a comic book with a number on it, not that deep.