Duplicity on many levels, a lesson to share

[edjs]

So, I recently bought a Carl Lundgren Chicago with paper addition. I decided to buy it and try soaking, and see what I ended up with. I will start with a caveat regarding all this:

1. I have soaked a couple cards in the past with great results
2. I document the process, keeping before and after scans, and store the scans in a file marked "cards I have soaked," so that I always know which cards I have soaked, that way I can always declare the soaking if I ever decide to sell those cards
3. I have never sold a card I soaked yet, and don't intend to, but you never know what may happen in the future
4. I am not naming names, I do not list my full name in my ID here due to the job I do, and do not want someone to Google my name and find it here, so per the rules, I am not making a statement against any individual, I am just sharing my story as a lesson learned

I started soaking the card, by using a wet Q-tip, and slowly removing paper with tweezers. I could soon see that underneath the paper, there was a Piedmont 350 back, and I was stoked! I have been slowly working on the paper removal since the first weekend of this month. Today, I got it out and started working on it again, and much to my dismay, the corner of the card started to come up! I thought, "Huh?" Well, I have realized that this is the deal with this card:

Someone re-backed this card with a Piedmont 350 back. Worse than that, and this is just a guess, is that the person that re-backed it sold it, and someone that bought it realized it was re-backed. Then, instead of just sucking up that they got taken, they glued it to more paper, to disguise the re-backing of the card, and then passed it on as a "paper addition." It was impossible to tell the re-backing, because of the paper addition! So, I am just letting you all know my story, so that you all can be aware of this and watch out before you buy a card that would be a good candidate for soaking. I will just keep the card as a skinned Lundgren, and continue removal of the back carefully until I am down to the original card. I hope I told this story and stayed within the rules of not having to post my name. I have told Leon about myself and why I don't post my name, and I have always tried to keep my posts within those rules. Some of you do know my name, from PMs, e-mails, purchases, and the like, and that is okay, because those are all private, and don't come out on Google. I really do have a good reason to remain private, but I felt you guys really needed to see this so that you would avoid being duped like I was.

[xplainer]

Are you Ron Jeremy?

Thanks for sharing. Lesson to be learned.

Other than for your PC, I really am torn with the soaking of a card. Not sure where I stand.
I've done some Lavenders ( my PC ) and have had good results. Except 1914 Polo Ground - don't do it.

[Luke]

Damn that's a real bummer. Did you talk to the seller? I know who it is (at least I'm 95% sure). I would be surprised/disappointed if he was the one who altered the card. I have bought a couple cards from him that required soaking and they worked just fine, so my guess is he doesn't feel soaking is worth his time or doesn't do it for some other reason.

[glchen]

Does re-backing mean that the original card is skinned? Otherwise, I'd assume that when buying a card glued to a scrapbook or paper, you'd generally assume the most common back when guessing the value.

[edjs]

Jimmy, no, I'm not. LoL

Luke, no, I didn't think it was him, either, and don't figure it is his responsibility to take it back, as I decided to try and take the paper addition off, not him. I will just be the guy that quits passing it along. I really just wanted to bring this out as something to be aware of before buying a card to soak.

glchen, I haven't taken all the re-backing off, but it looks to be partially skinned. Whoever re-backed it did a good job, because the part of the original card lined up perfect with the re-backing. And you are exactly right, I was thinking of the most common back when anticipating value. I was not, however, anticipating a re-back. I'm not really upset that I ended up with this card, I really just want to show you all what can happen.

[Enfuego]

Wow...

[conor912]

Originally Posted by xplainer

Are you Ron Jeremy?

Thanks for sharing. Lesson to be learned.

Other than for your PC, I really am torn with the soaking of a card. Not sure where I stand.
I've done some Lavenders ( my PC ) and have had good results. Except 1914 Polo Ground - don't do it.

I think that having his name come up on net54 on a Google search would be the last of Ron Jeremy's worries 😀

[T206Collector]

"Someone re-backed this card with a Piedmont 350 back. Worse than that, and this is just a guess, is that the person that re-backed it sold it, and someone that bought it realized it was re-backed. Then, instead of just sucking up that they got taken, they glued it to more paper, to disguise the re-backing of the card, and then passed it on as a 'paper addition.'"

I can't imagine that someone would choose to re-paper a card because they were concerned about it being a re-backed card. Just seems silly.

[arc2q]

I know little about the science of soaking, but isn't an alternative explanation possible? Maybe this really was a P350 back. The glue used to adhere it to an album caused the paper to deteriorate to the point that the multiple layers of the card's cardboard separated once soaked. It does not leap off the page to me as an obvious sign of duplicity. Seems like a lot of effort to conceal a re-backed card, which wouldn't really be necessary as most collectors wouldn't even notice.

I don't doubt such chicanery goes on, but there seem to be possible multiple explanations here. Unless you found the original back also underneath the re-back.

[edjs]

Originally Posted by arc2q

I know little about the science of soaking, but isn't an alternative explanation possible? Maybe this really was a P350 back. The glue used to adhere it to an album caused the paper to deteriorate to the point that the multiple layers of the card's cardboard separated once soaked. It does not leap off the page to me as an obvious sign of duplicity. Seems like a lot of effort to conceal a re-backed card, which wouldn't really be necessary as most collectors wouldn't even notice.

I don't doubt such chicanery goes on, but there seem to be possible multiple explanations here. Unless you found the original back also underneath the re-back.

You surely may be right, but I have never read of anyone soaking a T206 and the entire back coming off ( I could be wrong, but I have read most of the threads on here about soaking cards). Here is a new thread where a collector BOILED 600 cards in a pot with no mention of anything like this happening:

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=217206

As far as my hypothesis that someone would re-paper a card that they discovered had been re-backed being silly, people have done much more ridiculous things to sell a card:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1952-Topps-311-Mickey-Mantle-Authenticity-PSA-/161949549689?_trkparms=aid%3D333008%26algo%3DRIC.M BE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20140122152441%26meid%3Decb952 ca98f44fa59a820ca686c39241%26pid%3D100011%26rk%3D4 %26rkt%3D10%26mehot%3Dpp%26sd%3D111856396090&_trksid=p2047675.l2557&nma=true&si=6VR9LUIfW64neSkcf6JudKvixj0%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc

This is a Lundgren Chicago we are talking about here. Right now there is one Piedmont 150 card on e-bay that is under $150, and the only Piedmont 350 is priced at $4500. I know that e-bay prices are high, but this is a pricey card if it is a 350 series, so yeah, I can see why someone would re-back the card in the first place, and why someone would try to recoup some money they lost by hiding a re-backed card. I am just trying to share an experience with you guys. You can believe it or not, but please answer this question:

Why was a re-backed card glued to paper? Do you have a better explanation?