Today's Wash. Post has major piece re the BB card fraud

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Kudos Tony for the best explanation I've seen to date of why card conservation/restoration/alteration and art C/R/A are two different things.

[Peter_Spaeth]

There is an even simpler difference. Art is restored/conserved to preserve it for posterity and the work is disclosed. Baseball cards are restored to deceive, in nearly all cases, without disclosure.

[drcy]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

There is an even simpler difference. Art is restored/conserved to preserve it for posterity and the work is disclosed. Baseball cards are restored to deceive, in nearly all cases, without disclosure.

I work in the art and artifacts world, and know people who collect movie posters where restoration/conservation is more accepted.

The constant in all these areas is that any alterations have to be disclosed. In the movie memorabilia and fine art paintings hobbies, lack of disclosure would be considered as unethical as in the baseball card hobby.

Why? Because even in the art and movie memorabilia areas, restoration and conservation affect the financial value. A restored to Near Mint movie poster may be more accepted, normal and collected, but the unrestored Near Mint movie poster is still worth more. So lack of disclosure with a movie poster would just as much be considered fraud as with a baseball card.

Also, while restoration may be more accepted and normal, there are still many art and movie memorabilia collectors who are only interested in, or most interested in, unrestored items. It's certainly not the case that "all art and movie posters collectors" are fine with restoration.

And in some areas, such as ancient American Indian arrowheads and stone knives and axes, the collectors/hobby are even more anti-alteration than in the baseball card hobby.

But the constant in all the areas is the word "disclosure."