Outed cards, now including a 130K gain on an Aaron rookie

[steve B]

Originally Posted by swarmee

Soaking of any post-war card is probably against the general consensus, because the composition of the cardboard differs. Soaking a pre-war card in distilled water does not damage the card, done properly. Soaking a post-war card probably does, especially with chemical solvents. And yes, this card appears to have the toning removed (a la the WWG DiMaggio).

Dpeck, just because some random guys on a message board say that "soaking is okay" doesn't make all soaking okay. Especially when PSA has N-7 and SGC has Cleaned as reasons they don't give number grades to cards that have been soaked with bleach.

I have some mixed feelings about soaking/cleaning.

To me the answer is "it depends" soaking to remove stuff from scrapbook pages seems to be generally accepted, and in many cases, it should be. Lots of scrapbook pages are very acidic and will eventually color or damage the card.

I'm not 100% certain about using water to clean if it's by soaking. Most papers are slightly different, for example, the stuff used for T206s is largely rag, meaning it hasn't got much if any wood fiber in it. It's probably mostly cotton, and flax, maybe with a bit of wool. It also has a coating on the front that is probably some sort of clay. And some sizing, which helps the surface and physical properties of the paper, but can sometimes be washed off by soaking.

Without knowing what sizing they have and what water will do to it, soaking may not be ok, and may in fact be detectable. I'm fairly sure the sizing is visible under a microscope at not all that much magnification.
If I ever find the Clarke card from the water causing an offset experiment, I can actually check for differences.

Soaking in chemicals is almost certainly not ok. The exception I'd make would be deacidification fluid on some sets like most strip cards that are on really bad cardboard that is usually already decaying. And that should really be disclosed. Not only is it a bit involved, but it's not cheap and may be a positive thing.

I've cleaned 1 1/2 cards, one a T206 I've shown that was pretty grimy with soot on the front, which would have done some real damage after a while. (The remaining soot in the microcracks of the glazed surface will too, but cleaning them is going too far. ) The other a T206 with a lot of soot on the back. I stopped that one when the soot was too ingrained and the card surface started fraying.
Both were just with a water dampened q-tip. (A good medical non-linting one)

One thing that's certain, a casual glance at a card for centering and wear won't detect most of that, or most chemical soaks. That's on the grading companies.