Posted By:
Todd SchultzCount me as one who is against all alterations. IMHO, is soaking tolerable--no. Is pressing tolerable--absolutely not.
I can envision a few alterations that might be tolerated, but they would all involve very low end cards, and any sale would require disclosure, unless the alteration were obvious. I could see applying a good old fashioned eraser to a card with offensive writing, so long as a sign of the erasure remained. I doubt I would ever own such a card, unless it was a filler or extremely scarce, but if so, I would make sure you could see signs of erasure with the naked eye. I also could see filling in a pin hole with the card's surrounding fibers--again, this would be making an already low end card less ugly.
Finally, and I know this is slippery, but if I ding a corner taking a card out of its holder, I have no problem with using my thumb and forefinger to try and "press" it back to the way it was. Some other steps to improve corners are tougher calls for me.
On a somewhat related topic, I do believe that the thinking of this board has changed over time, as has the thinking of some long-time members of this board and its predecessor. I have watched this with interest over the years. Maybe it's evolution, maybe just coming out of the closet, maybe keepin up with the Jones', maybe just my imagination. Still, I swear if one were to take the time to study all the old threads from this and the Full Count Board, one would see how the thinking about alterations (and grading companies, too, for that matter) has changed here.