Gone with the stain
Hi everyone. New to the board. Did a little research but couldn't find a thread that's specifically talked about the company gone with the stain. Has anyone ever used them? Any thoughts on their services?
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Using a Google or duckduckgo search should give you everything you're after, however, like this one. https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=273078 |
Lots to say!
I'm sure many around here will have lots to say!
Particularly around the notion that it's appropriate to make changes to cards. Seems like we've had numberless debates over the range of acceptable activities, with a wide range of opinions. Most people seem to be sorta okay with soaking cards or using a nylon to take a gum stain off of a card. Maybe using a spoon to bend back a bent corner. But beyond that, it gets pretty contentious in a hurry. And many commentators also recommend disclosing any of these modifications to a potential buyer. Having said that, from what I can tell, most people around here feel that the services provided by Gone with the Stain aren't appropriate for baseball cards. There have even been some posts casting a pox upon any cards subject to their services, hexing them to crumble into dust. |
Founder passed away
The founder (Dick Towle) passed away a while back. I believe his family has continued the business. It should be easy to find with a Google search.
I have never used their service, so that's about all I have to add. |
Thoughts? Sure. Don't alter cards.
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The business is centered on altering cards for people to then sell as if they weren’t restored. Done with a wink of legitimacy of course, they aren’t doing the fraud part themselves directly, but they know damn well what their service is for.
Many will heavily frown on people altering cards. Gone with the Stain isn’t soaking in water to remove cards from a scrapbook. |
Dont go there
Don’t mess with guys like this. They are basically in the business of altering cards to try and pass off as better for more money. Don’t think that they don’t ruin their fair share of not only cards but others reputations along the way for what they do. Steer clear if you want to keep your good name intact. Clear water soaking out of a scrapbook is not what they are all about.
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Say what you will about guys like Dick Towle, but unless he was just lying - my understanding is that the large majority of cards he worked on did wind up grading fine with PSA and SGC afterwards. If it's really that untraceable, you have to be a purist several degrees further along the spectrum than I am I guess to object...
It would definitely be something under the category of "Don't try this at home, kids..." for me. |
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I don't like cards that are obviously altered, no, but the truth of the matter is that with most cards like those that come out of GWTS, many of us cannot tell the difference. Maybe it isn't that we shouldn't care - it's just that I don't see much room for change. |
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But I don't think that is justification (very different from 'realistic'), and doesn't mean one shouldn't object to it. That the fraud goes undetected does not make it okay. Quote:
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They're card doctors. Their "service" of altering cards is something I would never use. |
Without GWTS there would be WAY WAY WAY less medium and high grade vintage cards. They used to advertise how many 52 Topps Mantle cards they worked on and it was a LOT.
Pretty much if you own very many vintage cards you own card(s) that have been made nicer looking. Nothing like a nice soak and press to improve the looks of a card, maybe a little eraser to remove a mark, or a plethora of other things. |
I'd not use them. I had them try to clean some paper crud off a rare boxing ticket so I could see the front and they not only failed to clean it, the chemicals they use damaged the cardboard. IMO they are not legitimate conservators but hacks.
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Never have I insinuated, obviously, that people have the ability to stop other people from doing bad things. Where there is money there will be fraud. There are many, many far worse things than this in the world that A) I have no meaningful power to stop but B) am cognizant are wrong and am strongly against. One can only recognize a problem if they have the authority to stop it? That would be rather absurd. One can object to a plethora of wrong things while not having the power to stop it. Obviously I cannot snap my fingers and put an end to fraud. That is an absurdist setup. There isn't a crime in the world we could recognize as a crime if this was how it worked. People, of course, could greatly reduce the fraud by declining to be a party to it and continuing to pay card alterers, fraudsters, and paying many multiples of a cards value for a slab form a firm that cannot tell a CJ Mack from a Dover Mack. |
I met Dick and had many back and forths with him here He was very up front about his services, some of which were minor and some of which IMO were more objectionable. The problem was that his customers were in large part using his services to deceive. And he had to know this. I don't know anything about the business after Dick's passing.
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Greg - My point here was more simply to the fact that if you can't tell, you can't tell. And that will continue to be problematic for many of us, no matter the stance of our piety on alteration and doctoring issues. |
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For example: Last weekend at one of my LCS's - I bought an absolutely gorgeous, raw 1968 Topps Steve Carlton. If this card is not technically mint, it's close: Razor corners, clean edges, perfect centering, rich color and gloss, focused sharp image - even the back is perfectly centered and vibrant. Now - say that somewhere on the back there once had been an errant ink stain, or some kid's initials or something. I doubt it given a very close review of this card, but as we know with the best doctors lately unfortunately - it's probably possible. Say that Dick T. had gotten ahold of this card, altered the hell out of it with some type of magic solvent - and now there is no trace whatsoever of something that would have rendered a card otherwise an 8 or a 9 down to a 1 or an A. It's like my mind just cannot get there from here. What can we do when even through modern science - you just can't tell? Undoubtedly - there are countless Ruths and Cobbs and Mantle RC's like this that someone like Dick messed with - residing in numbered and high numbered PSA and other slabs today - and people treasure them. I guess for me it's just more glaring like with the work the BODA has done over on Blowout - where you can see cards that were obviously - if only slightly and very professionally - trimmed. You can point a finger at that and scream. Much like you could the "autographed" Goudey cards of deceased HOF'ers that JSA and SGC signed off on, only to have glaring proof via photographs come out later of the same cards with identifying marks - unsigned long after the players pictured had passed. I see that the argument has to start theoretically - it just bothers me that logically it seems so doomed to fail. |
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Hmmm, sure seems like this was a drive by post just to shake the nest.
Butch Turner |
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Smoking a joint and selling 50 pounds of cocaine are both drug crimes, but they sure ain’t the same thing. Being able to bucket in the same category doesn’t make them “no different”. |
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You can say there are different degrees of altering cards, but they are still all altering cards. It is more like the difference between being a heroin dealer and selling prescription opiates. We can agree that what GWTS is doing is wrong, but that doesn't make other forms of card doctoring ok. GWTS started out as removing wax stains from the back of cards and many accepted it and tried to convince the hobby it was ok too. |
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PWCC's "conservation" arguments are a separate issue; they are trying to make altering okay, that's not an argument that X isn't really altering. Yes, I can say there are different degrees of alteration because that is obviously true. Soaking as alteration is not a consensus opinion. I said I don't really disagree that soaking is an alteration, and said already I am not for it and do not it. When did I argue some forms of altering are okay? Can you point me to this? |
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I guess anything can be used for evil instead of good. Dont hate the conservator hate the game |
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A few years ago I acquired a number of common low number 52 Topps. The original owner had written his name on them in ballpoint. I sent three to GWTS to see what their work was like. I figured I had nothing to lose. The results were mixed and honestly far from impressive. One card was mutilated and the others had loss of gloss and discoloration of the borders. Dick was very friendly and proud of his process. He offered to do some more for me without charge because of the destroyed card. If I recall it was a Luke Easter. I declined. I gave or sold the cards to another board member who wanted examples of GWTS’s work so he could use them to identify cards that had been altered when searching for 52 Topps. I am honestly surprised they get through TPGs. I’m a neophyte when it comes to grading. Nonetheless it was pretty easy to look at the cards I sent them and identify that they were obviously altered.
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837. High Horseshit
Someone who feels his views on any subject falling within the parameters of the card collecting world are the only ‘rightful’ sentiments regarding the matter. Come on now, soaking is fine. It's only water, not a chemical alteration (here's where some know-it-all is probably going to say, "Actually, water is a chemical."). Like other people, I use it to get the occasional schmutz off of a card here and there, and said card is in the same shape as it was before it took a dip. Nothing changed except the grime sitting on top of the gloss has been removed. |
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I brush detritus off a card with my finger, and if the corner is bent over, I bend it back so it fits into a stack of cards better. I will also scratch dirt off with my finger. Am I a card doctor?
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Rubbing wax off the front of a card with a nylon, card doctor too?
Because I am guilty as hell of doing that and I STILL sleep at night. This certainly be taken to an extreme. I just added more. Carry on.. Butch |
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I always found it strange that some damaged antiques/collectibles gain value by being restored but restoring a baseball card is considered fraud.
I wouldn't want a restored card but I can see how others might not care, if the restoration is not detectable. |
Butch— I never brush off wax residue. Not because someone might consider it an alteration but because a wax residue gives a card character. Same with gum stains. :). Wax wrappers and gum. Great combo.
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Edit: I miss the smell of the gum. Call me a card romantic. :shrug: Butch |
In my opinion, a "Doctored" card is one that has been trimmed, had corners repaired, had color added and creases and wrinkles pressed out.
Removing wax with nylons, removing cardboard/paper (due to being stuck in a scrap book) via soaking in water is not. Read a gazillion of these backs and forths over the years and it will never be settled, never have an agreeable set of rules/guidelines. |
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If the listing says "For Sale As Is", is that disclosure ? ;):)
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Just one collector's opinion. |
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Again, the whole thing just smacks so much of moot point to me. Even after a major scandal amongst graders / PWCC in 2020-21, we are back to business as usual. Stuff trumps all for the most part, assuming it's in a nice slab with a number grade. The graders aren't going after card doctors. The auction houses aren't going after card doctors. Those who would mobilize the wherewithal to go after them in the hobby simply don't exist in significant number. And whether or not what these folks are doing extends to "illegal" over and above just "immoral", the FBI and the federal government don't appear to be going after them either.
Seems the most we can do is talk about how bad / frustrating it all is. Repetitively. |
One thing no one seems to be talking about is that within our lifetimes, many of our cards will deteriorate to the point of no return unless they are properly conserved. That means de-acidified, cleaned of foreign materials, and stabilized. Most of our stuff was made using wood-based pulp that is rife with lignin and acids. Many 100-year-old strip cards, postcards and Exhibit cards are already quite brittle, and many prewar newsprint items are falling apart. I have boxing pieces that are nearly 200 years old and are fine because they were made with cotton rag paper, and I have thrown away wood-pulp based items that are falling apart after 100 years.
Is it going to be 'doctoring' if a collector takes steps to address these conditions with proper conservation techniques? Because if the answer is "yes", you better get ready to say goodbye to a lot of W cards, premiums and memorabilia. |
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Curious about what the solution is to preserve these items. I'm certainly not against preservation, especially preservation that is obvious and known to everyone, rather than performed to deceive. But I'm also completely ignorant about what that would entail. How do you properly conserve that card without the cure being worse than the disease? |
Lots to say
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Please explain more
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*grabs popcorn
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Truth, always a fan of your Dad! Hatters gonna hat, and you do you. We have all types of people on this forum, but remember, they will boot you if they want to, or feel you are advertising without paying. |
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I stand by what I said. You cannot possibly not know that most of these cards are being worked on to get past graders and then sold without disclosure of the work done. This is the problem and criticism I am making (well, made, you are rather late). The wink and the nod is that your family doesn't commit the fraud, but provides the enabling the service. I have yet to see people selling cards with open and honest disclosure of your alterations and work, for some mysterious reason the minority popcorn gallery here consistently refuses to address. |
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If you’re looking for adventure, there’s a thread on the main page about how every slabbed card has a story, with a link to some videos showing how various cards have been treated to improve their appearance. I’m sure the group would love to hear your thoughts about the posts in that thread. |
I am very interested in the debate and the opinions and conversations. For clarity, I haven't even removed wax stains with panty hose. Pushing a corner down with my finger is the only thing I have ever personally done with a card.
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