[the 'stache]

I was looking at one of the ungraded T206 cards I got recently, a beautiful Sam Crawford throwing. And I mean really beautiful. But it had just a little bit of what looked like a fine pencil line, a very small one, to the left of the subject. I took one of my erasers, a Pentel clic eraser, which, for those of you unfamiliar with them, is a non-abrasive polymer eraser made to remove pencil lead marks. It looked light, not at all like it would leave a physical mark on the surface. I very lightly ran it over the surface, and it seemed to remove a little. I tried my other eraser, a Staedtler Mars plastic eraser, and it did a better job. There' still a small trace of the line, but it looks better. However, it looks like it did ever so slightly lighten part of the background, and I'm wondering if I just goofed up any grading I could have done on the card.

I'll give you guys a few pictures to look at, before and after.





I could remove the remainder of that little trace line using just the edge of the Mars eraser, but that would lighten the area further. It's not really noticeable unless you're looking for it purposely, but that little bit of line that remains could guide a grader's eyes there. It was more like graphite dirt, and not any writing that I was trying to clean up.

I would appreciate everybody's input. Thank you!