Posted By:
Gary B.It does become hard to know where to draw the line, but here's my take on it.
I have a card with pencil marks on the back, I have a card that obviously previoulsy had pencil marks that were erased and I have cards with paper loss. I may even have cards with creases pressed out, I wouldn't know. I just know I have never done any of that stuff myself to any cards I own - anything that was done to them was done before I received them (well, there is that card I accidentally got wet, so one could say I warped and water-stained that one myself 
!)
As far as all the scenarios you mentioned, I think as long as the seller of cards gives fair warning that there are pencil marks, erased pencil marks or paper loss, then that's fine - it's at the buyer's discretion as to whether they want to buy it or not. I really don't have experience with creases being pressed out. If that can be done where the card looks better, I might not have anything against that at all if it does no damage to the card and improves it to a more original form - nothing is being added to it.
I think where to draw the line is obvious. Adding paper, bleaching, fixing corners, trimming, adding ink, etc. I guess for me it breaks down to - if you erase a pencil mark that someone added on to the card in stupidity to restore it to and expose what's underneath it, it's not too different than removing backing where it was originally affixed to an album to expose what's underneath it, assuming of course that what was underneath it is still there. That's just removing extraneous things that were added on to the original card, but still that should information should be revealed. It's where you start putting things onto the card that weren't originally part of it is where it starts getting dodgy for me.
If this is done at such a level now where card experts and grading companies unequivocably cannot tell, then that's just a shame. I guess if no one is the wiser, then no one gets hurt, except for the hobby in general, but in an ideal world no cards I owned would have been treated as such. I guess one could say it could hurt the value of legitimate untreated cards. Somoene owns a PSA 7 of a card, the best example of that card known to exist. Five years later, two cards pop up that are graded PSA 8 that were PSA 4 and PSA 5 that have been altered. No one knows they have been restored, but the value of the PSA 7 is now diminished in value and esteem. Is this fair and ethical? We're not talking about a movie being digitally remastered for greater quality sound and picture - I don't think anyone would have a problem with that, but take an old black and white movie and colorize it and some people are really upset by that and would argue that an original piece of art had been altered in a way the creator didn't mean for it to be seen. Depending on how important seeing it in it's original form was, a person could react positively, indifferently or negatively. Altering cards is the same, except now we're dealing with selling something of value and the person selling it needs to let a potential buyer know so they can react positively, indifferently or negatively themselves.
I personally would rather have a card in mediocre condition than one I knew had been added on to, and if I had a card I knew had been added to where it was undetectable and I was selling it for profit without revealing what I knew aobut it, then I'm just ripping someone off. That's just my two cents.