T206 Cleaning & Submitting
 

I'm a long-time collector that has not been active in many years. Started 65 years ago buying nickel packs, stopped about age 15, started up again in the 80s, now trying to catch up and inventory and (reluctantly) submit some of my collection for grading.

Many years ago I accumulated about 250 T206 cards...when they were relatively cheap. They grade anywhere from Poor to Excellent. As of yet I have not done anything with them other than put them into Card Savers.

I posted what I thought was a pretty innocent question on another site and the moderator took it down, saying the content might disqualify for purposes of PSA submissions. In fact, my intention is to submit about half of them to SGC.

Some of the cards are quite dirty, both stained and what I would call just an accumulation of dirt. A few have writing, both pencil and ink. Several have stamps on the back. A couple have tape stains.

I have never cleaned a card, but am considering taking one of more of the following actions with respect to a small portion of the cards, depending upon the condition and what I can learn about the process:

1. Simply lightly wiping down with a microfiber cloth.
2. Lightly wiping down with a damp microfiber cloth.
3. Selectively wiping spots with a Q-Tip.
4. (Maybe?) lightly wiping down with a water/alcohol microfiber cloth.
5. (Maybe?) soaking the worst ones in distilled water.
6. (Maybe?) soaking the worst ones in a mixture of alcohol/distilled water.

I have read a couple of other threads on here about the soaking process. If any of the above are no-nos, please advise. Any thoughts, comments or suggestions welcomed.

Ted

Soaking
 

Soaking in distilled water is fine. I would not soak in alcohol, unless someone with more knowledge than me wants to overrule.

I would agree with Cory. I've soaked cards in distilled water and very gently wiped crud off them with a q-tip. Even those steps, some folks treat as "altering." I kinda shrug at that purist attitude, because I like my 115-year-old cards to look their age.

Anything that uses chemicals may show up as part of the grading process and result in either an "Authentic" grade or the card being punted as altered.

Writing won't usually come off well, and it's worth noting that there is a community of collectors (like me) who actively pursue t206 cards with period stamps on them, so anything that might remove one of those would remove some collectibility.

Thanks for that. I wondered about the effect of the stamps but I didn't plan to try to remove them.

Are pencil marks removable? Also, I understood that period ink might be removable by soaking, but I would like to avoid doing something that will cause an authentic grade or other problems.

I had a card with an MK qualifier and couldn't find a mark so I emailed about it. They said it was there but it was removed. I still never found it.

Right on PSA's website it says

"Any and all cards with writing, ink marks, pencil marks, etc. or evidence of the impression left from the act of writing will be designated "MK." "