Grading help please
 

I recently acquired one of the cards that has been on my wait list a very long time. Im relieved to fill that hole after so long, but the card has damage that Ive never really experienced before. The card is on fairly thin paper stock and the upper left portion of the card - angling across the D in Detroit - suffered surface damage from a paper clip. Its not exactly a crease or wrinkle the the traditional sense, but it will certainly impact the grade. Its fairly hard to illustrate the issue with a camera but is easily seen in hand.

How would a card like this be graded? Is it treated like a crease? Worse than a crease? Whats the highest this would grade if everything else was perfect (its not, for the record).

Leon - if Im not in the appropriate forum, please feel free to move and accept my apologies.

http://luckeycards.com/crease.JPG
http://luckeycards.com/crease2.JPG

This is fine for the section as it definitely pertains to our cards. I think those might have been the largest pictures ever posted on this site in 17 yrs. As such I worked with them a little to make them a little easier to see. They were about 3 x the size of my 27" LCD :). I will let others weigh in on the grading.

Yes - Im pretty sure they were. :o

Thanks Leon

I'll throw this out there. Is this card a candidate for soaking? Not to, at some point, screw someone over in a sale by not disclosing it, but to flatten it out a bit, since it isn't a crease? Maybe investigate that avenue, especially if it's a card for your pc.

You may not even need to soak it...stick it in a book with some weights and wait a couple weeks...it may flatten out just from that, plus it's zero risk.

3.5 imho

I was going to guess VG 3, but 3.5 makes sense too.

Always my pleasure to try to help, seriously. It's a good topic as almost every veteran collector has encountered it or something very close to it.

Thanks all. Id be delighted with a 3 or 3.5.

The book idea had briefly crossed my mind though I'll dwell on it for awhile. Its a very grey area for me.