[poorlydrawncat]

I think there’s a really interesting angle to this that no one has really mentioned yet.

Sure, right now there might not be a reliable method of detecting the use of these chemical solvents (including water). But the fact of the matter is that by using chemicals on the card you are unquestionably changing the card and its chemical composition. Now that change may not be detectable through smell or blacklight or other existing means, but someday there will likely be invented a method that CAN detect the exposure to chemicals.

And at that time, assuming baseball cards are still a thing and the grading card companies are still around, you could imagine a world in which they might start labeling these cards as “chemically altered”. In such a circumstance, I could see there being far more demand for cards that had not been exposed to chemicals (and still retained caramel stains) rather than those that have evidence of them being removed. Much in the way unmolested classic cars are often worth more than their shiny, restored counterparts. But again, I only see this happening once methods are developed to detect the chemical exposure.

And all that being said, I just want to add that I think people would probably be more lenient to water exposure because (a.) people are used to water being in everything already and aren’t bothered by it and (b) water exposure could theoretically be due to humidity or natural causes and would be hard to directly attribute to soaking (potentially). That being said I'm sure for some it would be a deal-breaker too.

TL;DR: If you're okay with exposing your cards to chemicals that can't be detected now, would you regret exposing them if the technology becomes available to detect the difference? Because at that point there's no going back.