grading

Should you press before grading?

If a slab is the goal, pressing first can help — sometimes a lot, sometimes not at all.

1 min read

If you’re planning to send a book to CGC or CBCS, pressing beforehand is worth thinking about. Graders count the small stuff — a bend here, a dent there, a spine that’s rolled — and those are exactly the defects pressing can remove. Clearing them before the book is graded can lift the grade, and on a key issue half a point can be worth real money.

The honest caveat: pressing only helps with the defects it can actually fix. If the grade is being held down by a color-breaking crease, a tear, or foxing that won’t lift, no amount of pressing moves past that ceiling. It’s most worth it on otherwise-clean books held back by pressable flaws, and least worth it on books with structural damage.

One thing to know: PressLab doesn’t grade or submit books for you today. This is here to help you decide what to have done before you send yours off elsewhere.