AS far as paper and the use of water goes.
I believe both groups are partly correct.
One of the things that makes paper work, especially in wood pulp based paper is that the original maceration to produce the fibers also dissolves or partly dissolves the lignin that holds the cellulose fibers together.
During drying, that lignin solidifies.
This is the same as the process for steaming and bending wood.
It's more complicated than that, since there's some bonding between sugars that are part of the cellulose, and other things besides just lignin.
So soaking to remove a crease as this guy does is basically re dissolving the lignins and probably breaking the sugar bonds between the fibers. The fiber length which affects the density and strength of the paper was probably changed within the crease.
That softening allows what is essentially remaking the paper in the crease.
The chemistry - that there is cellulose fibers bonding and lignin as a sort of "glue" as well, does not change.
The fibers in the repaired area do get rearranged.
Enough soaking might change how much lignin is present. Less will tend to make the paper weaker.
In modern papers, there may be additives or a higher cotton fiber content to slow the Lignin degrading which helps form acid that will eventually ruin the paper. Soaking something like and 86 fleer basketball card might remove some of these additives.
The chemistry in most cases probably doesn't change enough to make a difference, but since some lignin or other binders will always be lost it does change.
I don't disagree with a light surface cleaning with water, a few decades of gunk accumulated from just ordinary air exposure is probably best removed.*
Trying to flatten a dinged corner so it doesn't get worse? Yeah, we've probably all done that. Using water and tools so that dinged corner gets overlooked by graders? Probably not as many.
*I've done this to a couple cards, less than 5 and I'm entirely open about which ones. One literally had soot deposits that were into the cracks in the surface coating. another had soot on the reverse. Neither cleaned up all that well.One was fine, the other ended up with back damage. Another soaked card was used to show how water and pressure can't cause an offset transfer, wood grain from the pressing got pressed into the card, and last I checked was still present. (Relax, it's a T206 common in F-G condition. It's not much worse than before.)
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