[CardPadre]

Originally Posted by Snowman

This is not when people mean when they talk about someone "pressing" a card. There are people here who think that there's an army of card doctors that run around soaking cards and then squishing the hell out of them with a mechanical press in an effort to expand their size so that they can then trim them down.

Personally, I think this is pretty funny. Believe it or not, this is actually a myth. It's not a thing.

Another thing people refer to as pressing is smashing out creases with a spoon. This actually is a thing and it damages cards. This IS an alteration, and it's something I won't do. It is perhaps worth mentioning that this is also something Kurt does not do either. This will get your cards flagged as altered stock by PSA and SGC. Don't do it.

Putting a book on top of a card while it dries to ensure it dries flat is not what is meant by "pressing" a card.

It's the pressing flat of corners or wrinkles that I think most here think of when "pressing" is mentioned. I don't think your definition is the only one. Most don't really consider smashing a card to increase the size and then trim some excess as being any kind of rampant problem...I've never seen anyone here particularly worried about that.

But a soaked card now has bends if you don't intervene and you are pressing those bends out to make it seem "normal" again.

Spoon smashing for a crease/wrinkle probably compresses the card stock and Kurt does not do that, I don't believe. But essentially (and a simplified way of thinking of it) he "soaks" the area that is creased or wrinkled and massages it flat for drying.