Quote:
Originally Posted by smokelessjoe
John,
I do not like nor do I buy into the "oh water.... its so gentle... I think i'll just toss a couple of cards in a bowl... because, well just because". If you think people remove or restore or clean-up cards to the point that one barely can tell the difference before & after the water soak your just fooling yourself. We have seen examples here on the board where people made huge differences in the before & after with just water. And of course money is never the motivator when water is used right?
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Shawn, it's not "just because" - it's to remove stuff as unobtrusively as possible. And in general, water does not usually have a huge effect on 'before and after', unless the card had a lot of water-soluble glued on paper on the back. People who have soaked with water understand this and have explained it.
The only reason you and others don't seem to understand it, is possibly because you've never done it. Fair enough, but I can promise you - I'm not lying when I tell you what soaking can or cannot do, based on my own personal experience.
I cannot tell you about chemicals, and because of this, I think their use should be disclosed, especially for examples like the Plank - if for no other reason, than because when the buyer of the cleaned card attempts to trade or re-sell, he's likely to have to answer questions if he encounters someone with 'before' pics, and he was unaware that a cleaning had taken place. The impact on value could be very substantial.