T206 Cleaning & Submitting

[jedinited]

I'm a long-time collector that has not been active in many years. Started 65 years ago buying nickel packs, stopped about age 15, started up again in the 80s, now trying to catch up and inventory and (reluctantly) submit some of my collection for grading.

Many years ago I accumulated about 250 T206 cards...when they were relatively cheap. They grade anywhere from Poor to Excellent. As of yet I have not done anything with them other than put them into Card Savers.

I posted what I thought was a pretty innocent question on another site and the moderator took it down, saying the content might disqualify for purposes of PSA submissions. In fact, my intention is to submit about half of them to SGC.

Some of the cards are quite dirty, both stained and what I would call just an accumulation of dirt. A few have writing, both pencil and ink. Several have stamps on the back. A couple have tape stains.

I have never cleaned a card, but am considering taking one of more of the following actions with respect to a small portion of the cards, depending upon the condition and what I can learn about the process:

1. Simply lightly wiping down with a microfiber cloth.
2. Lightly wiping down with a damp microfiber cloth.
3. Selectively wiping spots with a Q-Tip.
4. (Maybe?) lightly wiping down with a water/alcohol microfiber cloth.
5. (Maybe?) soaking the worst ones in distilled water.
6. (Maybe?) soaking the worst ones in a mixture of alcohol/distilled water.

I have read a couple of other threads on here about the soaking process. If any of the above are no-nos, please advise. Any thoughts, comments or suggestions welcomed.

Ted