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Posted By: davidcycleback

In restoration there are two areas where altering the item can be considered okay: 1) If the restoration helps the item. For example, some antique prints are removed and rematted as the original acidic matt will damage the print. A fragile and somewhat torn movie poster may be linnen back to prevent further damage. 2) If the material removed is not an original part of the item. For example, a scrap of paper or glue is not an original part of the card. By removing a piece of scrap paper from a 1950 Bowman you are removing something that wasn't a part of the card when it left the factory. Ink and pencil marks fall under this category. The practical problem is that it can be tricky to removed the glue or ink without doing something to the card itself. As already said, if you remove a pencil mark you may leave erasure marks. If bottles of toxic chemicals and heat applications and laser treaments are what it takes to remove an ink stain, some might find it best to leave the ink stain and card as is.

I'm not saying whether I think restoration is good or bad, but I've long found it goofy that people consider a piece of scrapbook paper original to a card. If someone finds a 1975 Topps pasted to the back cover of a dictionary that doesn't mean it came out of the wax pack that way. And if your kid old spills chocolate pudding on your T206 that doesn't can't mean you aren't allowed to whipe off the card. Note that much of the scrapbook paper on cards was the result of kids similar to yours pasting the cards in scrapbooks.