I wouldn't say I'm a fan of trimmed or altered cards. However, I'll buy a trimmed card sometimes if it's advertised/graded as such. If it looks nice and I can get it at a huge discount that's fine with me. All things being equal I'll take the more worn un-tampered with card over the "nicer" trimmed card any day of the week but sometimes you can get some great cards that you may not otherwise be able to reasonably afford.
I always found it weird that alterations and restorations are accepted so widely in the antique and painting markets.... (fixing chips, tears, recoloring, cleaning etc...) and yet we card collectors act like it's the end of the world if a card or piece of memorabilia is touched up at all in any way.
Cards are just that cardboard, thin paper stock. I'd say it stands to reason that over time say in another 100 or more years, it may become that the majority of high end pre-war cards have to go through some type of cleaning or restoration process just to stop from degrading into pieces. Just climate and general aging I would think would cause the fibers and colors to break down over time. Same with signed baseballs. Most balls signed by Babe Ruth or guys from that era or earlier are getting very hard to read, or the signatures have already completely faded away. With baseballs I'd think some steps may have to be taken other than proper storage to keep the signatures visible.
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