Alterations

[Archive]

Posted By: David Hornish

I had posted this intoher thread that was discussing glue removal and thought it was getting lost...so I re-post here:

This is a general question and not specific to any single post or person.

In my short time here I have noticed a bright line drawn between soaking/wetting a card to remove glue residue from the back and almost all other forms of alteration. I'm curious what you all think of this. Personally, it doesn't seem any better or worse to wet a card than to iron out a small wrinkle. I have not performed either of these operations and frankly, my collection needs a whole lot more help condition-wise than some ironing or back de-glazing but I have removed wax residue from newer card fronts using a paper towel and I think that fits in the same category as well. Taking a curl out of a card might also fit in here.

So I guess the question is, if you are not bleaching, trimming, or erasing a pen mark, building up a bad corner or filling in some missing color, is it really an alteration? To me the wetting, minor ironing (i.e. without removing and building up a large crease)or wax removal all seem to be merely enhancing the aesthetics of a card as opposed to changing it artificially. It's almost like taking a card to the cleaners, like you would a dirty shirt.

It's an interesting topic and one I've noticed while working my way back through the archived forum posts.

[Archive]

Posted By: barrysloate

David- this is one of those topics that we can never agree on. I think it is okay to remove a pencil mark or even glue from the back of a card, but others are strongly against it. I'm not sure we will ever have a consensus.