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

[Dpeck100]

Originally Posted by steve B

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.

What I find so odd about this entire discussion is this guy just puts it right out in the open.

https://www.gonewiththestain.com/samples-of-work.html

My good friend Rob who actually had one of the outed Moser cards from the Parkhurst wrestling set knows a dealer on EBAY who routinely sends cards to this guy to have improved. And as advertised it works.

This is the first time I have visited this guys site and there you have before and after photos of cards inside third party grader slabs that clearly have had work done to them. They showcase a SGC 6 Mantle that was removed from a scrapbook. When you navigate to the testimonial section you will find real life customers elated with the work. It seems there is no shortage of collectors and dealers willing to send their cards to this company to have them improved.

The Mantle story is particularly interesting because it sites they had articles in the SCD and that an auctioneer contacted them to try and rescue the cards. I was under the impression that SCD was a very serious publication geared towards top level hobby enthusiasts.

What am I missing here if it has been known for this long that guys like this have come up with ways to restore a cards condition and don't feel like they are doing anything wrong? I have yet to ever read an auction write up that says this card was restored and now resides in this higher graded slab thanks to Dick Towle.