Every slabbed card has a story, don't it?

[Snowman]

I recently saw this card posted on social media. It is not my card. But I'm curious which version of the card everyone here would prefer. The one on the left, or the one on the right after it was cleaned?

In my opinion, this card was rescued. In the image on the left, it was clearly altered. On the right, it was restored back to its original state.

...

[Fred]

Originally Posted by Snowman

I recently saw this card posted on social media. It is not my card. But I'm curious which version of the card everyone here would prefer. The one on the left, or the one on the right after it was cleaned?

In my opinion, this card was rescued. In the image on the left, it was clearly altered. On the right, it was restored back to its original state.

...

Since it's not perfectly centered (top to bottom), you probably wouldn't want it Travis. As long as you don't try to bring that top to bottom centering to 50/50, all is good.

Come on, that was somewhat funny, right.

This is an interesting thread regarding opinions/perceptions of "altering" or "enhancements". Shows some real passion on the collectors that are far right and far left. Ok, let's not start trying to figure out which is "far right".

It'd be interesting to run a poll that allowed for more than a single selection. The poll could keep a tally of all participants and a list of items considered "card doctoring". Now, for the soaking part, the poll should include soaking with only water or soaking with more than water. What would those polling items be? Trimming , adding color, adding material for fixing holes/corners, crease removal, what else?

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Snowman

I recently saw this card posted on social media. It is not my card. But I'm curious which version of the card everyone here would prefer. The one on the left, or the one on the right after it was cleaned?

In my opinion, this card was rescued. In the image on the left, it was clearly altered. On the right, it was restored back to its original state.

...

And your position is that if selling it, there would be nothing to disclose?

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

And your position is that if selling it, there would be nothing to disclose?

I'd like to live in a world where anything done to cards would be openly disclosed and discussed. In fact, I'm one of the very few sellers I see on eBay that puts "CREASE" or "WRINKLE" in my listing titles. In my other hobbies, everyone discloses everything because there's no blowback. In the rare casino and poker chip collecting world, everyone cleans their chips openly. There are countless threads in those communities where people discuss cleaning techniques and everyone chimes in. Zero people stand by with pitchforks trying to crucify people.

In this hobby, the interpersonal landscape is extremely unhealthy. It's a whole different ball of wax. Perhaps unironically, I've even had people from this hobby (Blowhard forums) stalk/follow me over to the casino chip hobby and try to "out me" there for cleaning chips and creating YT videos showing people how to do it and how to make custom chips, as if I was some sort of con artist. It was actually quite hilarious. Because in that world, nobody cares. No one. They just laughed at the sports card guy screaming at clouds.

The amount of vitriol spewed by people like G1911 fosters an environment where people simply don't care to have open and honest conversations like these. When stating that I prefer to clean my cards is met with claims like, "You're a fraudster and a con artist!", that door to open and honest conversation gets closed. Unless and until that changes, I don't think people are going to feel comfortable making such disclosures. It's the same reason people don't express their political beliefs anymore on social media. They don't want to deal with the blowback at work or in their personal lives caused by a band of cancel culture psychopaths whose only goal in life is to take down anyone and everyone they disagree with.

So, in short. I'd like to see anything and everything openly disclosed and discussed in this hobby. Is that realistic though? No, of course not. Not as long as there are legitimate psychopaths running around trying to set people on fire for cleaning their baseball cards.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Snowman

I recently saw this card posted on social media. It is not my card. But I'm curious which version of the card everyone here would prefer. The one on the left, or the one on the right after it was cleaned?

In my opinion, this card was rescued. In the image on the left, it was clearly altered. On the right, it was restored back to its original state.

...

Nobody but you, I don't think, would call the card on the left altered. It's incurred some wear/damage, that is not alteration. Altered implies something intentionally being done to it. Again, if you were selling the "restored" version on the right would you disclose the work or not?

[campyfan39]

This is getting silly. What if my 6 year old brat nephew intentionally spilled some soda on it? Now its altered?
Also, G1911 is the most negative poster on this board. Soooo many threads. He has got be pushing 50 posts on this thread alone and they are all combative or snarky. We will get 4 more soon attacking me now.

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Nobody but you, I don't think, would call the card on the left altered. It's incurred some wear/damage, that is not alteration. Altered implies something intentionally being done to it. Again, if you were selling the "restored" version on the right would you disclose the work or not?

[Eric72]

Originally Posted by campyfan39

This is getting silly. What if my 6 year old brat nephew intentionally spilled come soda on it? Now its altered?
Also, G1911 is the most negative poster on this board. Soooo many threads. He has got be pushing 50 posts on this thread alone and they are all combative or snarky. We will get 4 more soon attacking me now.

...

[jayshum]

Originally Posted by Eric72

...

I give up. How do you get that info about a thread?

[Eric72]

Originally Posted by jayshum

I give up. How do you get that info about a thread?

Go to the page where the most recent threads are listed. Click on the number of replies.

[jayshum]

Originally Posted by Eric72

Go to the page where the most recent threads are listed. Click on the number of replies.

Thanks.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Nobody but you, I don't think, would call the card on the left altered. It's incurred some wear/damage, that is not alteration. Altered implies something intentionally being done to it. Again, if you were selling the "restored" version on the right would you disclose the work or not?

Again, I'll restate that words have meaning. If you don't like the definition of a word, then choose a different one. I challenge you to find even one dictionary that mentions anything at all about intent when providing a definition for 'altered'.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Snowman

Again, I'll restate that words have meaning. If you don't like the definition of a word, then choose a different one. I challenge you to find even one dictionary that mentions anything at all about intent when providing a definition for 'altered'.

And I challenge you to answer the question I've now asked twice.

As to what you did say, straw man, it has a different more specific meaning with respect to collectibles and you have been in this hobby long enough to know it. Everyone here understands the concept of altering cards, whether or not we disagree on what is acceptable and what is not.

The Williams on the left is not altered, the one on the right is. Is the alteration acceptable? One could I suppose debate that. But you've jumped the shark if your claim is that the one on the left is altered. Or you're just doing the contrarian thing again.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

As to what you did say, straw man, it has a different more specific meaning with respect to collectibles and you have been in this hobby long enough to know it. Everyone here understands the concept of altering cards, whether or not we disagree on what is acceptable and what is not.

My contention would be that the way the term is often used in this hobby, particularly by PSA, is completely arbitrary. They consider a card that was stored in a screwdown to be "altered" despite that being the hobby standard for protecting cards for decades. Meanwhile, if you stick a thumbtack through a card to hang it on your wall, that's somehow acceptable and not an "alteration"? The list goes on.

At the end of the day though, what is it that people actually care about when it comes to their cards? They want to know if there are any flaws on it and what those flaws are. The whole concept of "Authentic Altered" is an arbitrarily applied construct. Perhaps best exemplified by your statement below where you wrote:

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

The Williams on the left is not altered, the one on the right is. Is the alteration acceptable? One could I suppose debate that. But you've jumped the shark if your claim is that the one on the left is altered. Or you're just doing the contrarian thing again.

I can't wrap my head around your viewpoint here. Honestly, I can't comprehend how anyone could come to the conclusion that the Williams on the left is not altered but the one on the right is. Yet, it's your honest opinion. I see this as a rather arbitrary application of what it means for a card to be altered. Different strokes and all.

[Peter_Spaeth]

[QUOTE



I can't wrap my head around your viewpoint here. Honestly, I can't comprehend how anyone could come to the conclusion that the Williams on the left is not altered but the one on the right is. Yet, it's your honest opinion. I see this as a rather arbitrary application of what it means for a card to be altered. Different strokes and all.[/QUOTE]

Maybe we should do a poll. I would bet a tiny percentage of people would think the Williams with a big stain is "altered."

[Natedog]

Interesting debate. Correct me if I'm wrong on this - perhaps I'm just misremembering: When I first got back into the hobby about 8 or so years ago, whenever a card was in an authentic altered slab or something to that effect, it was looked at as a Scarlett Letter and could have been had for considerably less than a raw unaltered or low grade example. Now I feel as though as long as it has good eye appeal, an altered version of a sought after vintage card is worth considerably more than a lower grade example. Again, I could be way off on this, but I feel like that's the way it's trending.

[campyfan39]

The card on the left has been altered by your own definition. Something was done to it that changed its appearance and value.

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

[QUOTE



I can't wrap my head around your viewpoint here. Honestly, I can't comprehend how anyone could come to the conclusion that the Williams on the left is not altered but the one on the right is. Yet, it's your honest opinion. I see this as a rather arbitrary application of what it means for a card to be altered. Different strokes and all.

Maybe we should do a poll. I would bet a tiny percentage of people would think the Williams with a big stain is "altered."[/QUOTE]