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JK"were you insinuating that grading companies are OK with people soaking cards? maybe some soaked cards have "slid" by the graders, but i guarentee if the grading companies are asked about "soaking", they would consider that altering a card...guaranteed."
MV - I have to disagree. I have had specific discussions with one particular grading company about this issue and was told they had no problem with soaking in water. Perhaps they were only saying that because they know its undetectable, but I doubt it. The reason I doubt it is because the grading companies continue to grade cards with obvious attempts to erase pencil marks - in other words, they grade cards that you undoubtably would consider altered with knowledge of the alteration - which begs the question: Do they really believe it to be an alteration. Here is a card I used to own - a good example as it had pencil marks on the reverse that someone clearly tried to erase at some point in time, yet there it is, sitting in a slab:
