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E, DanielDJ, your post is simply meanspirited and unintelligent, so no need to go into any lengths to describe my collecting history. Sort of like who's got the bigger d@#*........., and somehow you don't sound all that endowed - with knowledge.
Frank, I would just say that in comparison to your scathing comments and T-Rex's alongside, so numerous and incredibly overbearing on previous threads, my comment that it made me feel unwell inside to imagine the practice of soaking repeated thousands and thousands of times was incredibly benign.
Please tell me where I have judged anyone who participates.
I was willing, however, to judge the practice itself.
It was, just ONE opinion, and was hardly screamed across multiple threads with the intensity of your and other voices across those posts regarding Auction House doctoring. And yes, I flat out judge it to be doctoring.
If you wanted to just ask how I came to my opinion on soaking you could simply have asked.
I will share it regardless.
Once you have made a decision to clean up a card, there can be absolutely no way of setting limits that will be adhered to by all. It's like being a little bit pregnant.
There will be some who clean with distilled/tap water to remove debris - others who will soak and then press...just to see if it really is possible to 'grow' the size of a card and make a slight trim here or there possible, others who use erasers to clean pencil marks - and many more who will make attempts at stain or dirt they can gently rub away at, those who simply lay down a corner - and those who lay it down with a little adhesive and pressure to hide any original lift, those who when removing a card from a scrapbook and in the process create back damage - and others who after viewing the damage will say "this card was never meant to exist thus", and skin the back, find a clean back off another example with front damage, and marry the two in wedded 'corrected to original' bliss, and the list goes on, and on, and on.
The reason for setting a nil policy on doing anything to cards is that it makes the process simple. I buy cards, I enjoy them, and then they pass in whatever way to the next person. It's not that some will do this, and others will do that, and 'whatever' because its just all too much to worry about.
What I hear from those voices who feel the practice is ok is a couple of things.
What has happened in the past is unknowable, so any efforts to create a higher standard now is somehow stupid. To that, I would just say: the women's vote. Sure, they as a sex were treated badly and unequally by various societies for countless eons, but that hardly sets a precedent for not righting a wrong, and setting standards as of today that make it hard in the workplace and in society in general for them to be descriminated against. Will some go ahead anyway because of their own version of what is ok? Sure. But we still have the law to protect our daughters and wives and make sure there is recourse and penalty for wrongdoing.
I have not set the law that soaking is wrong, and would take the overwhelming popular sentiment of the day in this less than life altering hobby to make such judgement. That doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to have a go at voicing what I think makes the practice wrong, and either creating new thought amongst those who hadn't set their minds in stone on the issue, or at least opened avenues to have my own mind changed by the better argument. This first one regarding whats been done in the past I don't feel to be a terrific argument.
And the second one most widely penned is that it is simply an attempt to return a card to a version expected by the original manufacturer. I actually judge this to be an even lesser argument as I think on it (not lesser people who say it, JUST the argument). Firstly, had these pieces of advertising been judged of such import to arrive in pristine condition they would have been packaged and available to the public differently. Most likely a give away on the top of the general store counter. If one also looks at the wide variety in printing quality re registration and oddities, un-like many who have been amazed that such pieces survived and that they must have been spirited away in the night by a daring printer's apprentice...I think it much more likely that such non-uniform examples would have been hugely plentiful amongst the tobacco packs and their relative scarcity is more due to people not saving an unaesthetic piece, rather than tobacco chiefs or printing CO's having great heartbreak over non-perfect product.
And so, a card that was meant to be handled and have its corners worn, or stuck in a book and have glue and paper damage from removal, or color outline around a players head from a son/daughters playing like - well, kids, and tobacco stains and caramel stains and boogers and whatever else...Well, it's ALL supposed to be there. That is the STORY of the card and its survival.
So the fact you in your own home can now pretty up a card, does not automatically make it right. Or wrong. It just FEELS wrong to me.
And finally, the analogy to other vintage collectables is interesting. I believe the greatest change in antiques in the last 15 years is the understanding that you don't screw with ORIGINAL condition. You don't wipe the patina off a deco lamp base, you don't refinish your revivalist furniture, you just leave it like it is. Where paintings come in, I believe is unique. Because they are exactly that - Unique. If there was only one of every sportscard made, then doing absolutely whatever you can to preserve it in good condition makes sense because there are no other exemplars for others to view or own. It's a very, very different fish.
Anyway, again, I have not singled anyone out as being less knowledgable for their opinion otherwise, I have not questioned their collecting reasoning, or been otherwise personally vindictive. It would be nice if others could handle their business in the same way.
Sincerely
Daniel Enright
edited to remove the word sanctimonious, and replace it with overbearing. I really wish not to be as mean mouthed as others have chosen to be.