Those look fantastic. Were either in rough shape before being restored?
In terms of longevity, is the gel backing process supposed to be durable and long lasting in comparison to paperbacking? Is it affected any less or more by heat, moisture, etc. than traditional methods? Is it correct that they can be stored rolled without any problems of it being difficult to flatten back out?
Sorry if I'm asking too much, just hungry for knowledge.
Thanks, R and AS.
They weren't really rough pre-restoration, but they had issues.
The Hustler was severely crinkled, and flattened out perfectly, almost like new. It also had a lot of foxing, which was not bleached out, as that would have washed out all the colors. The after look is just a uniform, dark tint of the white areas, and the rest has the original colors, and all. There was some writing over the text on the side, and the original text was restored almost perfectly.
Scarface had several stains and pinholes. The post-mounting results are: it's not quite flat as The Hustler (and there are some waves in a few places), the texture of the back side is fairly rough (they sanded the back after removing it from the mount, a stark contrast to the back of the 30x40 done by PM that has almost the same texture post-resto.), the pinholes were filled in, but there was no attempt to recreate the letters and numbers that were damaged by the pinholes. It also took about 3 months, vs. about 2 weeks at PM.
So yeah, different folks, different work.
Regarding the other questions: paper and gel backing are good methods for longevity. They can be rolled after being gel-mounted. I'm sure that an expert like John or Mario would be glad to chat with you about any questions you have. In this article, there is a lot of good info.
http://www.postermountain.com/conservation.html