The reason for various E issues flaking when soaked has to do with the clay coated paper that was used, the clay coating content varied from the suppliers to the different printers and thus some react differently than others. If you were to lithograph directly on cardboard stock you would have had a severe case of ink bleeding, the clay coated paper accepted the ink and held it quite nicely.
Regardless of whether you approve or dissaprove of this issue, many of the nicer N,T and E cards that exist today were saved in scrapbooks with simple flour paste and hence soaked out. This causes no alteration nor intent to deceive. None of this "stretches" the card, that is an entirely different ploy used by card doctors to soak, press roll and trim a card.(a story for another thread).
The grading companies do not or cannot in many instances detect this simple soaking and do not deduct for it, as they do not deem it an "alteration". It is a simple fact of collecting vintage cards.
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