Mike like you too buddy. :)

Last attempt Dick is cleaning cards for folks using chemicals and solvents and if they are passing on those items for significant profit with no disclosure that is not on the up and up to me. Like I said if an auction house got busted doing this, or this was part of their operations I doubt folks would be so easy going.

This is not a farfetched guess that these cleaned cards go out into the world no disclosure. I have yet to see a disclaimer listed on any card for sale saying cleaned by Dick Towle. Or perhaps all of the items Dick cleans never go up for sale. :)

Just because you don’t know it happened, or can’t tell doesn’t make it all good in my book hence my bank analogy.

Cheers,

John

Paintings are one of a kind pieces and any restoration is documented and follows the painting around. Cards are not, for the most part, one of a kind, and restoration is not disclosed. That is the difference. Cards, for the most part, are restored with the intent to deceive future buyers(just my opinion).

I don't have an issue with people using Dick's services, but I do believe full disclosure should be made if and when the cards are ever sold and every time after. That disclosure just doesn't happen and it is problematic for the hobby.

The cards have already been altered when they get to Dick.... The cards have been manipulated by humans... Its not like Dick is the first one to get to the cards and screw around with them... Somebody else has already dumped something, spit on em, left them out in the rain, glued them etc...

Some T206s have been autographed / "altered" and now they bring more money... Is this acceptable?? It has INK written across the front & brings more money?

Side Note:

I should clarify... We have had this debate several times over the years - I've always thought it was intriguing. I like to play the devil on this one because it is just my nature. I try to keep everything in my life in an as found state :) Hell, it even bothers me to clean the dirt off arrowheads when I find them. My reasoning for leaving things alone has nothing to do with anything other than I am weird about it...

I remember some years back Leon had a Horner Composite "cleaned" and everyone whooped and hollered. The cleaning did make it more visible and I liked it, but I have to admit I did cringe a little.

The argument about chemicals on cards drives me nuts though :) There is already a chemical / stain on the card and who is to say what issues will arise from it?

The ethics of this has been covered well by you guys, but Chris' point above really concerns me - if the TPGs either can't detect chemical alteration today, or can only do so if alerted to it beforehand (not sure if this is true), but someday they COULD be able to detect it, then some collectors today could later find themselves screwed, especially if they are purchasing '52 Mantles, T206 Planks, etc., that show no evidence today of Dick's tampering.

The word "screwed" infers that it would lower the value of the card. Nobody knows if it would or not. Did Kendrick's T206 Wagner lose value now that we all know it's trimmed? Who knows?

I believe the technology to detect such chemicals/alterations is readily available at this time...just not cost effective...I mean we're talking baseball cards here!!!!

I agree that someday if this becomes available at low cost...there will be many pissed off collectors/investors!!!

My problem is with the disclosure, pretty rare to see a card advertised and "cleaned".

"Character is built when no one is looking"

Just b/c its undetectable does not make it ethical. When I buy my cards I expect them to be unrestored and unaltered, I believe that 99.9% of my cards follow these rules. It is impossible to know the provenance to all your cards, that still doesn't make it ok for someone to restore it and sell it w/o disclosure. I am very surprised how many are ok with this...

Correction. "I" didn't have my Horner Composite cleaned. It came that way. The guy before me had it done. Had it not then I probably would have sent it in. It was also de-acidified and preserved. It also had a tiny, tiny bit of in-painting done to it. I will disclose all of this when I go to sell it. I feel it enhanced the value because now it is more stable. The one thing I did do to it is I had it archival framed. They did a magnificent job on it. I am still on the fence about Dick's work but I am not on the fence with taking things off that aren't supposed to be there in the first place. Anything more than water and I am not so sure about. But water, I don't care the least bit.

I'm making the assumption that if chemical alteration could be detected, that the TPG's would not slab the card. So in my hypothetical situation, someone buys a chemically-altered PSA-slabbed '52 Mantle today, then it later gets cracked for SGC and turns out to be chemically-altered, and thus does not get a numeric grade. I think we could agree that the card's value would go down.

I'm not giving a raw '52 Mantle example, but that could end up even worse if the original buyer bought it as unaltered and the TPG later detected chemical alteration.

I'm sitting on the fence next to Leon, hoping it doesn't break.

Until
 

Someone can prove to me it does not increase the speed of degradation of the card I can not support the process. I see it akin to repairing or repainting a card as you are adding something. FYI some of the chemicals due leave trace tells according to Kevin Saucier when he and I discussed some of this stuff a few years back.

This is intriguing - would the FBI consider chemical treatment the same as they considered trimming? If neither was disclosed, both cards ended up slabbed, and the 'work' was done to enhance value without disclosure, other than the fact that the 'stuff removed wasn't actually 'card', it sure seems like the same thing.

Sorry about that Leon.. That was some time ago... I thought I remembered you asking about whether you should or shouldn't have it cleaned - but that was probably in regards to having it framed. My apologies.

I actually don't think cleaning a card is such a terrible thing, but I do believe a cleaned card should receive nothing more than an AUTH grade. Problem is, the graders can't detect the cleaning. That's not a good thing.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/351030629038

Nice lot --with pencil markings on back. The Pencil markings altered the cards- cleaning the cards would help restore them closer to the original state which would be more appealing to my eye anyway.
Paul C.

I love the way 1/6th of a set is considered a partial set...better than a near set I suppose!!!! Not likely heavy pencil can be removed and be undetectable!

very true!

If at The National, the SGC booth had a free, private scanner setup where you wave your raw or graded cards under and it would light up green for original, red for altered due to chemical cleaning.

Would you check your cards, would you be Ok if some of your best came back red that you thought were green, and would you then disclose this information when its time to sell?

There could already be something on your card (not visible to the eye) that was put there 100 years ago! No telling what kind of chemicals already exist on our cards without any intent of cleaning etc...

Chris

As the chief said in the Last of the Mohicans:"...what are we to do". You are right. A card changed, altered, whatever, in our possession(but unknown to us when we acquired it), would likely lead to "no way, not this card", or anger, or depressed, etc.

We'll never know what cards we have that have been changed, altered, etc.

If you have a drop dead gorgeous wife who makes you happy, whom you adore looking at, and whom legions of other men desire badly, do you really care or want to know what she may have done one night before she met you? Every woman has a past.

Something
 

Something Spilt on a card or put there intentionally. Some of you honestly don't see a difference? Seriously? Wow.

Just reading through this now....

Like Leon - I am on the fence.... but....

my juvenile-humor mind can't get past the revelation...


Dick Towle doesn't work on balls.

:)

And just because it's detectable doesn't make it unethical. So it seems like a good deal of people are on both sides of the fence...so who actually makes the call on ethics here?

Ok, so some people believe that by cleaning a card, you take it out of it's natural state. How about all of the chemicals that every t-card absorbed when they were around cigarette smoke or maybe inside the package before opened? I mean, which chemicals are we going to allow? I think we have to put the ethics debate on hold until we actually know what we are talking about.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Interesting thought. What would the threshold be to indicate the use of chemicals?

I need to put my cards away next time my cleaning lady shows up. You never know what she is spraying around.

I was hoping Wonka's post would get that question discussed, but it didn't, so I'll discuss it with myself. Unfortunately, it seems to be PSA's call. They said they wouldn't put a number on a trimmed card, so the Gretzky Wagner eventually landed people in prison. If they were to say they wouldn't slab cards treated with chemicals, then something similar could occur. If PSA says they will assign numeric grades to such 'chemical' cards, and won't indicate the chemical component, then deception (and thus, ethics) become a moot point, at least legally.

My read is that the beef is about making money through deception - the final state of the card is irrelevant.

I'm on the fence primarily because I don't collect graded cards, so if I could not tell that the card had been changed, I wouldn't care; however, I also realize that some people do care, and they have every right to want their cards to not be touched by chemicals.

Also, some cards end up in slabs, and I have to be aware of the implications of that for chemicalized cards.

In the US, it probably should be defined by the AIC, they're the standard the LOC teaches. While the practices part isn't entirely practical outside of an archive or museum, it's a good set of guidelines.
http://www.conservation-us.org/about...s#.UzIPbDeYaUk

While I've had a few cards graded, I was against it initially. (Back when it was new)
I don't believe the grade should include things like centering. Every item is made in some way, and a technical grade should indicate the state of preservation only
My other opposition was that keeping something that degrades and releases an acid that hastens the degradation inside an enclosed container can't be good for it in the long term.
Some prewar cards aren't prone to that, and will be fine. Others, and the immediate postwar cards are and may suffer in the long term.

At some point for some objects we as a hobby will have to decide between loss and preservation. Some 20's strip cards have already become brittle enough to be fragile. Even deacidification may not save them at this point. I'd expect to see this happen to late 40's cards in another 20 years. It's already possible to see the beginnings of it on some. Poor storage is the primary problem, but eventually all things printed cardstock with a high wood pulp content will degrade.

I'm occasionally amazed that the same group that sees trimming up the borders of a handcut card to make it look better as ok can be strictly against removing scrapbook residue or dirt.

Alteration purely for profit is wrong, but somewhere along the line preservation and profit take the same path.

Steve Birmingham

For the most part Jay was correct we are not talking about saving for future generations one of a kind historical documents or works of art, that if actions are not taken will be lost to the ages. There are plenty of 1952 Mantles around as well as most other issues Dick is working on.

Lets also be honest if the above is a toll road with innocent preservation/disclosure being the south bound lane and profit/deception being the north bound lane....which do you think has more traffic jams in our hobby?

Cheers,

John

I'd say they had to install an EZ Pass lane headed northbound John.

John, so that was Leon selling cards in the median strip the other day.

i agree with Jay.....this is a very slippery slope......

cards, for the most part, are not unique (i think Jay said that too) and their respective value is based on availability and condition.

i also find it very telling that on Dick's website he has 6 testimonials and nobody gave their last name.

I also agree that this is a very slippery slope.

+1. (It's not just you.). :D

I do not find it " telling " at all that a last name has not been given. There is a lot of information floating on the internet, and I do not want my name out there any more than it needs to be either.

The problem is that the toll booth is in the wrong lane.

Quite literally snorted my beer out onto my iPad.

Well played, Jeff.

For reasons I do not understand card collectors have not accepted preservation like other hobbies. I don't completely understand why, but it is a rule of the hobby and I follow it.

If I were to give
 

a testimonial for someone feel free to use my full name. What are you trying to hide, if your testimonial was true at the time you gave it? Also resteration and preservation are not necessarily the same thing. I am for preservation against most restoration.

This is the exact point I was going to make.

Coins are in the same boat as cards. If it's been determined that a coin has been cleaned, even ever so slightly, it's not eligible for a numeric grade. It gets the equivalent of an AUTH. Certain hobbies simply do not accept cleaning or altering of any kind. And yes, sometimes the coin graders miss it, and sometimes there is a difference of opinion- one grader says cleaned, the other says original.

Not sure that I grasp the relevance here unless you plan on selling her to another man without divulging that past. Nonetheless, I think that the more apt analogy here would be disclosing, or not, if she had had plastic surgery. :)

I don't think Dick Towle does plastic surgery. I equate it more with taking off her blush and mascara, which should have never been on in the first place.

You are allowed to clean dirt & grime off of coins and still have them graded...

Don't you mean the Towle booth, Scott?;)

Dirt and grime yes. But I collect copper coins and they typically tarnish and corrode. If the graders feel the coin was improperly cleaned or recolored, it's dead in the water. It might get a slab but it won't get a grade.

I would not put removing wrinkles in that category.

Dick Towle "Gonewiththestain"
 

Now that the world has replied again and understand, I respect all answers, I would like to say a few things. All I here is the word "cleaning" on this site with the use of chemicals. The solvent I developed are used on three issues.

1. Remove tape and glue and paper on the back of cards.
2. Remove deep wax imbedded on the back or cards.
3. in most cases remove paper and contact cement on the back of cards.


If that is cleaning then yes, for those who don't believe in this then so be it, but I would rather enjoy a card with tape , glue, and contact cement removed. Thank you all again and be well.

Thanks for responding, Dick. Do you have any data on the chemical(s) you use deteriorating the paper over time (if it does)?

I have more of a concern about wrinkles being taken out than dirt/grime/glue taken off. Can you say for sure that those wrinkles won't come back over time? Honestly, I am not in favor of wrinkle removal....

From what i understand, he doesn't remove wrinkles.

1. Remove tape and glue and paper on the back of cards.
2. Remove deep wax imbedded on the back or cards.
3. in most cases remove paper and contact cement on the back of cards.

see post #13

Obviously the northbound lane has been a parking lot for years. Sometimes a breakdown gets towed, making room for a new busload. :(

I usually take a very long view of things. It's very true there are plenty of more modern cards around now. That will probably remain true in my lifetime.(The 52 mantle is a doubleprint after all, plenty to go around)

I do think there's room to consider the very long term results of what we do today. That includes whether any cleaning done now will cause a larger problem later.
Places like the LOC don't just do the preservation work on unique and valuable documents and art. They deacidify in the neighborhood of a million books and documents a year :eek: Obviously not all of it is rare, valuable or even interesting.
http://www.loc.gov/preservation/scie...ss_deacid.html


I'm sure some of my feeling that properly done preservation is ok comes from learning some stuff about non-card items where it's more critical. (more below, under the line if you want to ignore it -Being concise isn't a skill I have.)
The word properly is critical here - Some of what's done may hide problems or create new problems- I'd have to know a lot more about exactly what Mr Towle does to figure out how to categorize it. And unfortunately it's a trade secret.
Removing surface filth is obviously something I agree with, I've done it myself. The trick is in having limits. I probably could have cleaned the card I showed better. But I had problems with going farther. What I did was near the limits of my skill, and near the limits of what I felt was proper.

I think removing tape is good if it can be done in a way that ends up neutrally- All adhesive gone and solvents neutralized.
Water stains usually come with some degree of cardboard damage. removing the stain probably just hides the problem. Fixing the damage would I think be going too far.
Scrapbook residue that can be removed easily should probably be removed.
Some of the glues are acidic, and taking the long view should be removed.

It's hard to know just where to draw the line sometimes.

And I'm sure I might feel differently if my collecting was in a different price bracket. The 59 common I tried to save would go to recycling or my kids these days.
I do think the TPGs need to change things- reverse the time factor, spend more time on detection of problems. If someone is spending more to have an expensive card looked at I think both the hobby and the submitter deserve a bit more time spent rather than simply bumping the 60 second look to the front of the line.

Steve Birmingham

------------------------------------------------
Old newspapers suffer terribly from the nature of the paper they're on, and films can suffer from both the film itself and the sort of emulsion holding the image.
As an example
Technicolor should remain looking good for several more lifetimes. But it stopped production in the US in 1974-5 and in Europe and the UK in 1980 and 78.

But most stuff that was needed inexpensively and quickly was done on Eastmancolor film introduced in 1952, and that stuff loses color easily.

Television was distributed on film in the 60's-70's, so the NFL game of the week was on film, ALL Eastman, all fading to nothing but red.
The world series highlight reels made by Coca-Cola are almost all Eastman color. And all faded. (I own the only Technicolor one I've ever seen, so there are a few out there.)
Poor storage can cause the plastic itself to break down and release acetic acid, which accelerates the breakdown.

Oddly home movie film was more likely to be Kodachrome than a commercial film. And Kodachrome is pretty much as good as Technicolor.

Yup, I see it now.

The last time we discussed this issue, didn't someone talk about how old time collectors of T206 cards used to drop scrapbooks filled with them into a bathtub of water? Frankly, I have always assumed since then that any high-grade T206 card was once glued into a scrapbook and then removed in this process. That's why the corners stayed sharp and the borders stayed white -- they were in scrapbooks.

A lot of collectors got pretty upset learning about that, if I recall. Especially the PSA 8 collectors who thought their cards were pure and divine. To many, soaking a card in water is taboo. But ethics doesn't enter into it when an untold number of T206 cards already have been soaked for decades and decades. Today's collector cannot be held to a stronger standard than yesterday's collector when we're talking about cards that have been exchanging hands for now over 100 years.

Steve in the end I would say most if not all of Dick’s customers are not esteemed institutions such as the LOC. The LOC isn’t flipping items for sale in the near future. If an institution would like to perform preservation work on their collections that’s nothing new.

However I feel making the parallel between something like the Library of Congress and some dude with a wax stained 52 Mantle looking to make a buck is a bit of a stretch IMO.

Cheers,

John

I mentioned that once could be me. Being transparent soaking a card off a page doesn't bother me one bit. I have a few in my collection any graded cards got 2's look because of stains etc. Where I draw the line is using solvents and cleaners to remove stains and brighten up cards.

If the problem can't be solved with a bowl of warm tap water then I'm out, that's just my stance. Also if your stance isn't mine all good.

My major problem here is disclosure. As I said earlier if this was uncovered as something a major auction house was doing by taking nasty cards and using chemicals and solvents to work cards to high dollar status and doing so without disclosure. Well I doubt very much folks would be so quick to tell an REA no biggie that you took me for an extra 50k not being forthcoming after all I couldn’t tell good on you.

Cheers,

John

The examples given here by your customers included stain removal. Stain removal is cleaning, by anyone's definition.

As far as 'chemical' vs 'solvent', a solvent is simply something that something else can dissolve in. For removing water-based glue, that would be water. For anything else, that would generally be something that most people consider to be a 'chemical'.

No tap-dancing, please.

Edited to add: I just got off the fence.

It was beginning to sway anyway with you and Leon on it............

Hey, I'm not sure how to take that...as long as it wasn't a sexual innuendo.

I think we're closer in thought than I figured. Many of the customers probably do step over the line.

Burned by my own long windedness again I guess.

I wasn't making them parallel, just pointing out that preservation is important even for common items. While I can't come close to what a real archive can do, I do what I can within budget.

The rest gets like one of those unanswerable questions. If the right thing is done for the wrong reason is it still wrong?

I think we're also not so far apart here. I can appreciate the act, but not the intent. I also have few illusions about that intent.

I do wish I could express complex things briefly and effectively.

Steve B

My sense is that a lot of the people who dislike the chemical bath also abhor the water bath. But, if you can draw the line between water and undetectable chemicals, then you're a better man than I.

When I was a kid, I learned you could take wax stains out of a 1987 Topps card by pouring lighter fluid on it, and then sitting it on the radiator for a short while. Pretty amazing and no residue or anything was left behind. It was magic. My guess is that Dick uses something like that, maybe something alcohol based, which evaporates a lot faster than water and leaves no trace. Maybe he uses hydrogen peroxide. Then you're talking about the difference of one extra oxygen atom -- H202 vs. H2O. Who knows?! Dammit, Jim! I'm a card collector not a scientist!!

In any event, if the "chemical" leaves the same trace as water (i.e., no trace at all), then I'm still in. No harm comes to the fibers of the card, and the effects are simply not detectable within the lifetime of my immediate heirs. I accept this work has been done on every card I own, and I sleep well at night.

But, if you get a gag reflex from a good warm water bath for your T206 card, then you probably just don't understand how many of these little guys have spent some time in water over the past 103 years.

That's not what the posts in this thread would indicate.

I agree Scott. Big difference to most/many collectors, I would say.

So then this question remains...if the solvents that Dick uses can be proven to cause no permanent changes to the cardboard stock...the colors/images...would people still have a problem with this?

***That's not what the posts in this thread would indicate.***

***I agree Scott. Big difference to most/many collectors, I would say.***

Stated another way, how can you distinguish from water when you have no evidence that what Dick uses has any lasting effect distinguishable from water?

People may say they have no problem with water, but then they do have a problem when a "mysterious chemical solvent" that has the same lasting effect as water (i.e., none at all) is used.

Again, if Dick was using H202 (hydrogen peroxide) instead of H20 (water), then you are arguing over a single oxygen atom. Seriously? Wouldn't you want to know what your chemical is before drawing a line that shows a "big difference" of opinion?

+1 - that's the relevant question, not whether it is water or something else. If you are comfortable with the illicit uses of water on baseball cards for these reasons, then why are you uncomfortable with the illicit uses of CHEMICAL X for the same reasons?

I knew I should have paid more attention in Grade 12 Chemistry class

I have no problem with soaking a card in water. Just commenting on the water being used. Please do not use warm tap water. Most tap water is highly alkaline and has a lot of chemicals in it. Using tap water that has gone through a hot water heater is even worse. Using high end RO(reverse osmosis) water is just as bad. It does not have the chemicals, but is acidic. The best water IMO is warm purified/filtered bottled water. It has about 1/3 the chemicals as tap water and is not acidic like high end RO water. I know a lot of bottled water says it is RO water but it is low end RO water.

I grow hydroponic produce for a living so I have learned a lot about water quality in the last few years. With out getting technical the average gallon of tap water has about 1 teaspoon of chemicals in it. I know that does not sound like much but 1 1/2 teaspoons of fertilizer per gallon of water gives it all the nutrients vegetables need to grow hydroponically.

Question:

Say I spill red Kool aid on one of my wonderful T206s and stain the whole card red - three weeks later I make a new batch of red Kool Aid and discover that by removing the red dye (yet keep all chemical properties the same) and dumping it on the same card that I can remove the red stain... Essentially I have swapped one chemical for another or washed it with the same chemical.

Please note that at this time No One knows what Kool Aid will or will not do to the card as far as preservation or lack there of...

Would this be acceptable?

(I know Kool Aid jokes are coming) :)

Never had a problem with warm H20 granted I have a filter on my tap....

Dick towle
 

Leon, I developed this solvent 19 years, after 2 years of testing on the cards, all is well. These are oil base solvents, with the proper mixture there is never an issue with the cards. I can put these cards in the solvent for a week, take it out , you would never know. Understand the solvent attacks what is on the card, not the paper. The paper will always be fine and is never an issue with anybody.

As a oil base, the solvents sits on top of the card, once exposed to air, it is gone and that allows me to attack the issue. I even was contacted by a restoration house asking how we did this because they had cards sent to them, I ended up receiving the job.

I enjoy helping people, hearing there stories how they got the cards, few people really enjoy there work, our family does. So I thank you again for the input. There are a lot of happy people around with crap removed from front and back of cards. After all, life should be a smile and not a frown, Thank you and God Bless.

So the only difference between water and hydrogen peroxide is "one little oxygen atom"? Yeah, lets see the line of people willing to drink a glass of hydrogen peroxide.:rolleyes:

Yeah, you are right - bring on the hydrogen peroxide.

Haha. Yeah, you and at least one other forum member.

If only baseball cards were made of living cells, this difference might matter.

So, since they aren't, bleaching them with hydrogen peroxide is the same as soaking them in water? :confused:

I'm picturing two T206 collectors crawling through the desert, dying of thirst. They come upon a huge vat of hydrogen peroxide. The one who studied basket-weaving exclaims: "This is more water than we can possibly drink, and with all the extra oxygen, we should be able to jog out of this desert!!!"


To T206collector: This is all harmless fun. Please do not take offense, as I get what you are saying. I just don't think you chose a great example to support your argument.

Paul how do you feel about a trim that can't be detected by a grading company in their normal review process?

I'm imagining 2 T206 collectors at a estate sale and they find an old album with amazing T206 collection of HOF cards glued in the album. One wants to buy it and remove the cards from the album pages- and the other says "you can't do that! It will destroy the hobby! It's evil & illicit to do that and I will never sleep again!!"
Paul C

As opposed to cut from a sheet, trimmed, and put it into a PSA 8 holder...

Too soon?

I appreciate the effort to find a slippery slope in my reasoning, but this isn't one of them.

A normal grading review that misses a trim is not the same thing. In any hypothetical where the fibers of the card are damaged by the treatment, I am on the side of the fence against the treatment. What I don't understand is why people build a fence between water and a chemical with the same properties of water when applied to a T206 card.

Stated another way, I think it is more intellectually honest to be against water and all chemicals, than to segregate water from the list of unmentionables.