Could someone explain the "soaking" process ?
 

Could someone explain the "soaking" process completely? It sounds like you put a card in water, is that true ? I can't believe the card wouldn't soak up the water and be ruined , waterlogged and wrinkled. When is it useful to "soak" ? Thanks for the help.

Yeap, throw a card in water (or your preference). Let it soak, take it out and let it dry or dry it. I have done it in warm water many times. The cards dry.

Wondered about this, and other "cleaning" things I have read on here and had the same concerns as the OP.

How long do you let it soak, is the purpose of soaking just to clean them, does it get wrinkles out? I have no idea why this is done?

It's best to press it between two flat surfaces with something heavy on top while it's drying, which takes several days. Here is a post I wrote last year that details the process I've used for successfully soaking cards over the past 20+ years:

http://www.net54baseball.com/showpos...70&postcount=7

The purpose is usually to get paper and glue off the back of the card, which is common in old cards that were often pasted in albums. Most of the glues used back then were water-soluble, which makes soaking relatively easy, but sometimes you find a glue that's tougher. You never know which is the case until you actually soak it.

Thanks guys, appreciate the info. My 52's are pretty "clean" with no tape or glue marks on the back or fronts so I think I will just bypass this process altogether.

Also, don't know if you can answer, but what exactly is "Shilling" Read that more than once in a few threads/posts so thought I'd ask here while you guys were explaining some things for me.

Thanks......Irv

It sounds counter intuitive but in general it works well. If you have a card with scrapbook residue and has most likely been glued with pre 1940 glue, you completely submerge the card in luke warm water and the glue loosens allowing the scrapbook residue to be removed. Keep in mind that you only leave it in long enough for the paper to be removed and the glue to dissolve. After doing so, pat dry with paper towels and the place in paper towels in a book to keep the card from wrinkling and remove excess water. You should periodically change the towels for a couple of days until the card is dry.

With all this said, not all cards soak well. I soaked a T205 yesterday and it did well but I did find that the ink on the back was more fragile than other cards that I have soaked in my limited experience. So far I have soaked W572 strip cards, 1929 exhibit postcards, and now T205 with great success. Pick and choose your cards and start with a beater if you do it. It is not all that difficult to do and the results can be very rewarding. There was a big thread on soaking in the not too far past.

End result. Card still drying.

Card when dry

Shilling is when a seller at an auction bids on his own item or has someone on his behalf do it to basically create a hidden reserve so they can bid the card up to an amount that if real bidder wants the card that bidder would have to bid over that amount....the fake bidding also creates an impression that there are other bidders out there on the card as underbiddiers creating artificial value..

if you win a card for 1200 and the bid under you was 1120...you believe at least a bit that if you were to sell the card next week you would get close to 1120 at least...but if that 1120 bidder was just the seller of the original card then that creates false value..and maybe the card now sells for 700...unless you shill the card on your own and fake someone else out to pay more...

Great explanation, 1952.

Thanks. :)

Yes many posters will agree I give a lot of useful information here .... :confused:

soak
 

Overall, that Overall worked out good..Overall

Of course not all "soaks" are totally successful. I'll share my most difficult soak ever, as I tried to rescue a 1971 Topps #156 Terry Bradshaw RC a couple years ago. This is the most expensive card in the '71 Topps football set, and "books" for $200 in NM shape.
Here's what I started with:
http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w...e140870000.jpghttp://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w...e140870002.jpg

Terry gets "tossed" in the sink, hot water:

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w...k/IMG_2829.jpg

I had to break out a more "advanced" tool, a safety pin to get things going:

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w...k/IMG_2832.jpg

Post "soak" advanced tool still in use. But the back didn't clean up that well:

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w...k/IMG_2833.jpghttp://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w...k/IMG_2835.jpg

Terry is between the paper towels:

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w...k/IMG_2836.jpg

Terry joins his buddies:

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w...k/IMG_2838.jpg

Larry

Thanks David. I printed out your previous post and believe it will be very helpful.

Sincerely,

Larry

Shilling has probably most often occurred in the past when the auction house "sees" your maximum bid (which was supposed to be known only to you) and "cha-chings" the bidding right up to but not over your max bid, usually in a flurry of bids a short time before the auction closes. I had this happen with my 1923 Lections Ruth (obtained in a Mastro auction--what a surprise, in retrospect!), and several other major auction houses, BUT NEVER, EVER REA (thank goodness that integrity and morals don't always vanish when money is involved!).

Best wishes,

Larry

I have had success soaking old gum/tobacco cards with good success too.

After a few attempts on less valuable cards, I have no worries on trying the better ones. It does work if you know what you are doing.

Here's a recent soaker. Soaked in warm tap water.

To the tune of Ballin' The Jack
 

:D

Is 5hat the latest version of soaker rap Frank

Ken,

Not rap. I now realize that some of the youngsters on the board may not know that Ballin' The Jack was a dance tune introduced in 1913 (prewar indeed). For those of you that would like to sing along with Soakin' Da Card the following should help you with the instrumental accompaniment.

When you play the video and sing along, you will better appreciate my iambic pentameter.:D

https://video.search.yahoo.com/searc...34&action=view

Back in my big band days, my sax solo accompanied the dancers, as seen in the second video. Brenda Lee, what a treat to work with.

https://video.search.yahoo.com/searc...6b&action=view

I'll just bet there were not many prewar players who were not familiar with Ballin' The Jack. I hear it was one of Babe's favorites.;):D

soak
 

...

My second soaked card

Looks like it it lessened the creasing too.

So maybe you can soak cards to lessen creasing too, who knew.

When you soak a card, say you send it in for grading... Can they tell? Does it affect the grade? Or is the soaking process purely for raw cards you never intend to grade, and is strictly for eye appeal?

Yes and no. In my experience it is always a temporary fix. The length of time it last varies quite a bit on how it was soaked and dried. It is the reason you see a graded card and go "how the hell did that get a 8 with those creases". It did not have those creases when it was graded.;)

Does this look like a good candidate for soaking?
http://www.collectorfocus.com/images...ddell-portrait

I had my card in the water for about 5-10 minutes and changed the water about three times because of the amount of paper that was coming off of the card. Then I patted it dry with paper towel then wrapped it in fresh paper towel and put it under a stack of big art books for about a week changing the paper towel out every day. The creases are even more faint in hand than in the scan, but the Piedmont printing on the back is now almost black instead of blue. I am guessing that it was some kind of reaction to the glue that was used on the card.