What Do You Consider Card Doctoring?

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Posted By: davidcycleback

Perhaps just a matter of linguistics, but I consider all the things mentioned to be card doctoring. The question is whether a type of doctoring is acceptable or unacceptable, good or bad.

If you have a nail gun nail in your hand, the nail is a foreign object not supposed to be in your hand, and the doctor is doctoring when he removes it.

As I mentioned before, removing scrap paper from the back or magic marker from the front seems like a reasonable thing to do-- but I would still call it it doctoring.

Disclosure is an additional aspect. Just because the doctoring is "good" doesn't mean you don't have to disclose it. Good doctoring without disclosure can be bad.

And, no, if you brush a piece of lint from your Goudey, I don't believe you have to disclose this at sale.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Jim- there are a lot of stories like that and they are all very unfortunate. Protecting someone from that kind of disaster is arguably the best thing about professional grading.

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Posted By: Cobby33

If you rubbed out a wax or gum stain with whatever lingerie you choose and it gets a higher grade (or no qualifier) than mine (which I did not touch), that's alteration. It's alteration even if it wasn't submitted for grading.

As for unbending a card, I don't know whether that was a facetious statement or not, but using that analogy, I suppose putting a card in a hard sleeve could be considered "alteration," but nobody is talking about that. Apples and oranges.

al·ter·a·tion
–noun 1. the act or process of altering; the state of being altered: Alteration will improve the dress.
2. a change; modification or adjustment

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Posted By: davidcycle

The potential for harm for the seller at least lays in that the practice is against the law in all states, and also illegal Federally if the sales are being done across state lines and through the mail. For the seller, there's always the possibility for legal problems in his future, a possibility I assume he is aware, if dismissive, of. It takes just one wronged, persistent customer to bring a lawsuit or start a police report. Anyone who's been in the baseball card hobby for a while will testify how many collectors are practicing lawyers. There's even a collecting judge who posts regularly on Net54! Perhaps the motto for potential trimmers should be: Proceed at your own risk, as odds are at least one of your future customers will be a lawyer.

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Posted By: Hagar Henderson

There's some interesting points of view on this topic. For the record, I have no skills in card doctoring and I don't sell cards anyway. If I get a card with a bent corner, I flatten out before putting it in a holder or binder but there's still a crease visible so I really didn't change the condition. I would remove wax stains if possible. I'm not brave enough to take a vintage card and soak it in water, LOL. I just can't see giving Lou Gehrig or Ty Cobb a bath!

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Posted By: Dan

If I have a strip card that was not cut very strait, what do you think about cutting them to make them nicer? They were supposed to be cut in the first place, does it matter if they were cut in the 20's or now? Just wondering what the thoughts were on these type cards.

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Posted By: leon

This card had a dime sized, brown, paper remnant on the back of it. It was soaked off with distilled water and rubbed with a cue tip. I would venture to guess that is what kept the grade down (which is correct imo)...I would prefer to read the letters that were being covered as opposed to not reading them ...others will disagree and that's ok too.....for the record when I sell it I will disclose the soaking....though I am not sure it is really necessary...

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Posted By: Rick McQuillan

Dan, that is a good question concerning the strip cards. I have wondered the same thing about the 60's Post Cereal cards. If the card is oversized and can be cut down to the regular size, is that doctoring? Is correcting a sloppy scissors cut from the 20's OK? Can it be detected? If so, will it be graded authentic rather than getting a number grade?

Rick

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Posted By: Brad L.

As far as hand cut cards go, I'm sure you can trim them until there is no border left and still receive a grade. I can't imagine there would be law/rule against when a hand cut card was actually trimmed down. I'f I bought a torn out Post card, I'd like to think that I could trim that sucker so it would present as card and not a torn piece of cardboard.

As far as removing wax from the front of a card. Nobody is going to convince me that it is an illegal/frowned upon alteration when that wax stain was not meant to be on my card in the first place. The dress example in the definition is in no way comparable since the alteration on a dress would not be reversable if you took material away from the dress (i.e. removing sleeves or shortening the dress). Theoretically I could add wax back on my freakin' card, lol. Not to mention, in order to compare the removing of a wax stain on a card, it would be more comparable to removing a stain from a dress, which you can have done at any one-hour martinizing place and is widely accepted I would imagine. Whereas I could not sell a dress that was once a size 5 dress (I have no idea what dress sizes are) as a size 5 dress if I had it altered into a size 4 dress.