Cleaning t206??

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Posted By: James Feagin

Hello everyone. I just bought a lot of lower condition t206 from a lady off of Craiglist. She found them while renovating an old home in NW Washington DC. Each card has some dirt on it. Looking for guidance on cleaning it. Additionally, one of the 13 cards was miscut and does not have the players name on it anywhere. Is there a premium for such card?

James

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Posted By: James Feagin

Included in the lot were 3 HOFers, and all have been in a ceiling for some time, some dirt on them. Guidance please...

James

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Posted By: Damian Anderson

If you "clean" them you will ruin their value as the cards will be considered altered. There have been several posts here of collectors soaking T206's in water to remove glue or remove from scrap books. If you were to attempt to soak in water to try to remove dirt I would use distilled water and get the advice from someone here has done this. I think if you used any other method other than just soaking in water the cards will be considered altered.

Damian

Can you post some pictures? Which HOFER's did you get?

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

An old, wise advanced collector told me about how years ago in the 60s, he and a friend would advertise in a newspaper is some decent size town, say Indianapolis, that they'd be at a motel on Sat and Sun buying old sports cards. Some trips were flops, some were bountiful. They'd buy scrapbooks and cigar boxes full of stuff. He told me that they'd run water in the bathtub, and throw in a few scrapbook pages of T206s or Cracker Jacks. The cards would float off, the flour paste would release, a little rinse after the bath, then drying and blotting. The cards were fine. Goudeys DO NOT SOAK, there is a 3 layer sandwich of different papers. T206s soak amazingly well.

Finally, with a battered T206 that had black patches of scrapbook on the back, I cautiously placed him in a glass of water. The results were amazing.

So a gentle bath in water, distilled water if you're paranoid, will work. Don't soak for days, a few hours is ample.