About soaking cards

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Posted By: T206Collector

Daniel,

It's not a slippery slope. If it was slippery, you'd expect to see SGC and PSA grading trimmed or color added cards by now -- but they don't. And they never will.

The only sensible line drawing has to be a standard that can be enforced by the grading companies. That is, universally dedectable alterations are prohibited. You cannot have laws if you cannot discern when they were broken. If you are going to set rules, there must be a means of enforcement.

As I expressed before, if you are upset by the knowledge that someone may have soaked a card off a scrap book page 50 years ago -- or 5 days ago -- then collecting vintage baseball cards is really not for you. Part of understanding the hobby is understanding the standards that have been applied to that hobby since the creation of that hobby.

It may be that you want to change a set of standards -- that is well within your rights. But in order to develop a new set of standards, you need to have a measure of policing and enforcement. PSA and SGC have slabbed how many millions of vintage cards already? The ship has sailed on this issue.

Some at SGC now want to use 'tweener grades to describe cards as 3.5 -- VG to VG-EX. They would be SGC 45's. But they are having trouble rolling out this concept out because they know they will be in for a royal sh*tstorm from all the people with SGC 40's that want to see if they can get a bump in grade. So, it turns out, the fact that they went with a 100 point scale didn't help them at all. They're now stuck because of the standard they used to apply to all of the cards they've already graded.

And it is not the same as women voting. Say tomorrow they set up a technology for detecting whether a PSA 8 was once stuck on a piece of paper and water was used to dissolve the glue. Do you understanding how much money and resources it would cost for everyone that has already had their cards sent in to have to send them back in for a regrade? I'd be first in line to do it, if the standards of the community required it. But it would be very expensive for many.

Change no matter the cost is essential when those changes are required to perfect universal rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness -- be it gender equality or racial equality. But when it comes to collecting little pieces of cardboard, there is no Constitutional or public health justification for doing a massive recall of PSA or SGC cards based on the oft-used and widely accepted practice of using water to remove scrap paper. It just isn't the same thing.

Paul