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

[vintagerookies51]

Originally Posted by jayshum

So every card that doesn't look like it did out of the pack is altered?

There are two different definitions of altered here. For TPG, altered means trimming, adding color, rebuilding corners, etc.

Every card that hasn’t had those things done to it is unaltered, so both of the Ted Williams cards above. By the literal definition, the one with the stain is obviously more altered from its original state, and I see zero problem with getting rid of something like that to make it more like its original state.

As a buyer, I could not care less how much something was cleaned as long as it was not altered in the way described initially. Actually that’s not even accurate, since I love buying cards graded Authentic-Altered because they are still original and look nicer than most 4s but can be had for a fraction of the price