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Posted By: John

Enough!

People, who trim cards, add color, soak cards, remove creases/wrinkles, build up corners, erase marks etc. Are card doctors period. You can argue semantics all you want; spin it to make it seem ok etc. I don’t care if it’s an art eraser, a glass of water and an ironing board or a razor blade.

Regardless of your intentions innocent or evil, you are changing the characteristics of an item for the better not the worse, thereby you are increasing the items value period! You changed the card from the state in which it was found and more importantly purchased!

Are you going to tell anyone that PSA 5 Cobb was at best a PSA 2, before a night in the lab with that gallon of distilled water and your copy of “War & Peace” when you go to sell?

“I have explained this on a different thread. I do not believe that soaking and pressing is an "alteration" in the sense that you do. I have a problem with high grade PSA 7's because I suspect trimming has taken place. Not soaking and pressing. I feel as strongly about trimming as you do about fat men sitting on wet cards.”

Are you kidding me Paul? So its ok to bump your 2’s and 3’s to 5’s and 5.5’s by using card altering methods, but its not ok to trim a card. The only difference I see here is the guys who a working cards to 7’s and 8’s have a much more lucrative operation than that of you and your glass of water.

The card had a crease, you removed the crease therefore you changed the card!

Now hit me with the…I’m not removing anything or taking away from the card follow up. You know you’re right in fact every freaking card ever issued that we own in some small way was not meant to be that way from the factory. Lets start cleaning all those Polar Bear stains. How about all those candy stained Cracker Jacks? Man and those wax stains on those 52 Bowman’s, wow I’m going to need a lot of water and case of art erasers.

I’m not naïve either I know there are worked cards out there, and they came from people with the same attitude towards working cards as you, the only difference is the methods and intentions.

The point of nice cards is they were FOUND that way…it kind of ruins the point if we all start making them doesn’t it?

Don’t you see the issue with that? If soaking were so ok, then we would have a 5th of August Recently Soaked Thread, and we all would be showing our latest works.

In fact why would any Major Auction house ever sell cards with glue or creases, seems they would have a fulltime operation dedicated to this. Mastro wouldn’t need a Classic Collector auction all those items could be bumped to the main auctions.

I also bet you all would be less inclined to buy or deal with someone who practiced this method with such caviler tone, as to say “hey if you cant tell, it never happened”

The fact of the matter is, it's altering, maybe not as obtrusive as a razor blade and bleach but it is altering. Anytime the end result looks different than the beginning that’s altering in my book.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again; soak em if you got em. But unless you adding back that glue, and you plan on bending that card in half before you sell it you’re no different than the guy with the razor blade, you just have a different toolbox and for sale price.

John