Spring cleaning comes early to the Plank household...

[DJR]

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[cobblove]

interesting

[botn]

The auction only states the card was cleaned. John states in his initial post that it was chemically cleaned. While Barry is certain chemicals were used, none of us knows for sure unless we were the one to do it. Also the T206 Davis which Probstein123 sold on 10/6/10 had a different cert run than the Plank. Cert of Probstein123's Davis is 17297913.

The card was obviously cleaned but I think it is a bit impulsive and therefore irresponsible to conclude it was with chemicals. Either way, the fact the submitter placed a 30K card with other cards which are worth less than $500 does seem very suspicious. This is not the first time that submitters have gotten things past PSA and exposed this vulnerability. It is an old trick that I would have thought PSA would have done something to prevent. This submission was probably done for $10 a card, or less, and not seen by the most experienced graders. If this is the case PSA should do something at the receiving stage to prevent this or at least make it less likely to happen. How complicated would the software need to be to prevent a 30k card being submitted on a submission designed to grade cards worth less than $500? As long as you place the value low enough on the submission form seems you can get anything through. If the receivers do not catch it and the graders do not catch it then you have to rely on software or this kind of thing will continue to occur.

[FrankWakefield]

Impulsivity and irresponsibility aside, that card doesn't change like that from a mere soaking. The old back has that nice, familiar creamy tone to it, the new back is white. If you don't believe that, soak some T206s and see how there's no change, but for some dirt, dust, tobacco bits, scrapbook remnants, and paste separating from the card.

Good job, John, for catching this.

Originally Posted by botn

The card was obviously cleaned but I think it is a bit impulsive and therefore irresponsible to conclude it was with chemicals.

Am I the only person to see Planks Face is 2 shades lighter also?? Water wont do that. Just wanted to point that out since I had not seen it mentioned yet. It deserves an "A" but do we really need to be surprised that PSA will slab just about anything yet somehow command better prices due to over grading and an older registry. JMO FWIW

[Rob D.]

This was no water soaking.

[barrysloate]

Greg- of course I don't know for sure chemicals were used, but on many occasions I've sent paper ephemera to my conservator to clean, and to remove a stain of that nature, he's always had to use a chemical of some kind. I just don't know how you would remove the stains on that Plank without some form of solution. That is not easy to get out.

[Anthony S.]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

Greg- of course I don't know for sure chemicals were used, but on many occasions I've sent paper ephemera to my conservator to clean, and to remove a stain of that nature, he's always had to use a chemical of some kind. I just don't know how you would remove the stains on that Plank without some form of solution. That is not easy to get out.

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[botn]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

Greg- of course I don't know for sure chemicals were used, but on many occasions I've sent paper ephemera to my conservator to clean, and to remove a stain of that nature, he's always had to use a chemical of some kind. I just don't know how you would remove the stains on that Plank without some form of solution. That is not easy to get out.

Barry,

You could be right. I do not know what type of stain was present on the card based on the scan. So not sure how looking at a scan makes one able to determine what would be required to remove it.

To those who think the card appears lighter or brighter it may also be due to two different scanners being used to create the images. The color saturation on each of the images looks different.

Chemicals or not, it is not a card I would want to own and one that PSA probably should not have graded. Nice that the auction house identified the cleaning but it would be even nicer if PSA would have had things in place to have caught it.