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

#AsLongAsIt'sSlabbed

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Am I missing something or did he just soak it and rub glue residue off?

I like that!

Honestly, I was good with the cleaning part (just wiping off the card) but then cringed when I saw the soaking, but then I thought about it and nothing was added (for example color) or subtracted (trimmed) from the overall card. It was just cleaned.

If someone wants to see the N54 people grab their pitchforks and meet in the town square, then show a video of some butt head trimming a card and showing it regraded as a 7 or 8.

Just curious, what's the price difference between a PSA2 and SGC4 for that card? I bet it's quite a bit. Crack, clean, submit, and sell for more! What happens is the total population for the graded cards increases unless the PSA2 was de-registered (which it probably wasn't)


#AsLongAsIt'sSlabbed

Not my thing, but I think it's a proprietary solution he's peddling, and not just water that the cards soak in. That said, I bet SGC loves this video getting out there. :rolleyes:

That was my thought, if it's water, no problem. If not, then it could be...

.

It ain't water.
https://www.kurtscardcare.com/

Are glues that were used during that era not water soluble glues, or at least some of them?

Watch the ‘86 Fleer Jordan video…


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definitely a mix of water soluble and not.

Interesting Wording
 

I'm not a graded card guy (I'm too cheap), but I did find this interesting.

Title of video: "Honus Wagner 1911 - Restoration and Re-Grade"

Grading terms and condition on SGC website: "7. Customer agrees not to knowingly submit cards to SGC that bear evidence of trimming, recoloring, restoration or any other form of tampering, or are of questionable authenticity, as determined in the sole judgment of SGC (“Altered Cards”)."

It seems that Kurt is in violation of SGC Terms and Conditions, and actually made it very public :)

I'm not debating what folks do with their cards. I just found the wording interesting.

This is not restoration. It is removal. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with what Kurt did to this card. All he did was effectively wipe off some boogers that the original submitter should have removed prior to sending it to PSA.

You could send this video to SGC and they arent' going to care one bit.

He did just a tad more than wipe off boogers with the ‘86 Fleer Jordan.

https://youtu.be/LWuaizTLJfQ?si=rKY6WLGzavbpIQhy


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It's not surprising to see you write this.

And it's not surprising to see a bunch of boomers in here screaming at clouds again. Like it or not, cleaning a baseball card is not a crime, and it's also allowed by every single TPG. The majority of vintage cards that have any sort of eye appeal at all have been cleaned. If you aren't OK with that, then you should just sell your collection right now, because nobody else cares. In fact most collectors would prefer them cleaned.

Comics are cleaned and pressed all the time..

Yeah, not sure if we’re supposed to be upset about this? As far as I’m concerned, it’s removing stuff that got there after the card was made, making it even closer to its original authentic state. Cool stuff

I'd like to know what is in these allegedly natural proprietary solutions this dude is using and selling. And no, I don't want cards cleaned in them, but realistically it's probably hard to detect unless something like bleach or the equivalent is used to create an artificially bright appearance.

The prevailing ethos may well be moving towards the comics model where a lot of things are acceptable.

The opinion sellers allow anything as long as they get paid.

Once grading got involved in was inevitable.
We will see lots of people able to get out major creases, ink etc. and nobody ever know. I don't necessarily have a problem with it. That's probably because I don't have cards graded.

Kurts has done far more than this. I've seen their crease/dent/corner fixes on the Discords. I get that we want to separate water from chemicals but what, half this board has done basically the same thing that's in this particular video?

Obviously it is not a crime to alter a card and nobody thinks it is - selling it while covering that up and not disclosing the truth can be.

Of course, this problem all goes away if people just stop playing the game. At least half the people on the anti-alteration side seem to collect and pay premiums for PSA, SGC, et al. As long as we have incompetent graders founded on the myth of an altered card, and most people paying far more money for a made up higher number on their slab than a similarly made up lower one, this is the inevitable result. If folks stopped playing this stupid game, there wouldn't be so many stupid prizes. The game will continue as long as the vast majority are playing this game when they vote with their wallets, if not the mouth.

I am more bothered by the grading companies completely lying about the grade to juice a card (see the last BN Ruth, the 9.5 Mantle, that recent T206 Wagner, etc.) or changing grades for certain submitters and former employees than I am that they cannot tell what is altered and don't put much value on improving that situation.

And that's why I have stacks of raw cards with creases and stains and boogers laying around my desk. If someone has removed a crease, they got nothing out of doing it and it doesn't affect me any.

I can understand those on the side of concluding that Kurt is altering cards, but in reality the "spray" (his other product, the polish - is not for vintage cards) is quick evaporating, and doesn't leave anything detectable on the cards. It just doesn't.

I bought some last year just out of morbid curiosity; not because I was interested in starting a card doctoring business. The spray is described as a "lubricant" by Kurt, and he claims it's all natural. Beyond that of course, he won't say what it is. It's not water, but it also doesn't smell overly chemical. I had moderate success with removing wrinkles (on lower grade vintage common cards in my PC), and more with things like making crunched corners sharp again - and in the end decided that while novel and certainly interesting, a future in using Kurt's products - even if only on my own cards - wasn't for me.

Just my two cents - but Kurt's methods are a sideshow right now, and very much a moot point when you have the top grading companies that cannot detect real alteration - trimming and other more heinous type things in many cases on expensive vintage cards. If the Gary Mosers of the world can get much worse stuff by PSA, then going after someone like Kurt - yes even if you consider it alteration - is going to be a huge waste of time. Another of his recommended tricks which involves putting a card in a humidor really does only use water - and under the right conditions - I would imagine a dent or wrinkle could also be removed from a card with humidity by accident in an attic or something. I don't see how anyone could claim that is alteration - although it's yet to be seen on a lot of those I think if the problem would somehow later "come back." But hey, some 1974 Kellogg's cards in PSA 10 slabs get exposed to temperature and humidity and wind up cracking later in the slab. They're still PSA 10's, right? :)

This debate will go on, but I would agree that current sentiment in the hobby may see things like some forms of out-of-the-closet restoration become acceptable. Again, I totally agree with the right of those who think it's wrong to hold their own opinions. As with many other things however, sometimes you can't do anything about it.

Water is a chemical. I don't see how dropping a piece of cardboard in water doesn't alter the chemistry of the card. Looking at the before and after photos of the front of the card, the after photo is less vibrant, higher grade notwithstanding.

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

Yep. They already know about it. I'd be floored if they somehow didn't. Their answer is going to be if there is not evidence of alteration when inspected for grading - then a card is not altered.

As was also pointed out, SGC and others have in the fine print that you can't "knowingly" submit altered cards, but clearly it's never been a policy to police this. How would that remotely be in their interests? On the assumption that many people unknowingly submit altered cards, they have a wide range of services to accommodate that, which includes still getting your card slabbed with a nice explanation of what you didn't know (wink wink) when you subbed it on the flip.

No one is going after the trimmers of the world either. Just buying their cards. Or taking them on consignment. They won. Long live the flip.

I just meant going after them here. I respect the main board opinions, lol.


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You can't look at two pictures of a card taken at different times with different settings on different equipment and determine anything about changes in color.

Kurt's card spray doesn't affect the color of a card at all (it's mostly distilled water). Neither does dihydrogen monoxide.

I have no idea what you mean when you say that soaking a card in water "alters the chemistry of the card", and neither do you.

Soaking a card in water changes the moisture content.

Go look at his videos.
Removing gunk is ok, not sure just what his formula is, but I'd be concerned about how it affects things long term.

But the fixing creases, corner dings edge dents... no, that's not ok.
One pic on his site shows a 74 Topps with at least one entirely rebuilt corner.

To each his own. Personally I don't have a problem with someone removing something that wasn't on a card when it was printed. I do find some of the after grades questionable though.

Does anyone want to take a guess on the before and after grades on this one?

Attachment 605976

Attachment 605977

One question. What was it soaked in? Water or some "miracle" cleanser? I have a feeling your going to tell us it went from a 2 to a 1.5 since it now has paper loss on the back.

Not totally disagreeing with you, but what if that stuff can be made to disappear and there is no chemical residue or detectable signs of alteration on the card?

Rebuilt corner, maybe - but how? Not for profit or anything other than purposes of my own experimentation, but I have gotten a crunched corner back to NM appearing state on a junk era card before using nothing more than his spray and a few minutes time. By “rebuilt corner” I’m thinking many are envisioning razors and glue and donor cardboard. That’s not at all what Kurt does or teaches.


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Do you use his products? Sounds like you have first hand knowledge.

Hey David. I never owned the card so I have no idea what was used on it.

You're correct on the before grade.

How did you go from a corner that appears to be missing paper to the nice complete corner?

I think that's a stain/dirt.

That's why you let it dry lol

Also, so does moving from Vegas to New Orleans.

Soaking paper in water does not damage it in any way. Museums soak documents that are far more precious than any of our beloved sports cards all the time. The US Constitution, Biblical scrolls, Shakespeare's original writings, etc. These are all cleaned and preserved using the same techniques.

Taking a card with a bent up corner and pushing it back down flat is not making a "rebuilt corner". Rebuilding corners is something entirely different that requires making new card stock and adding it to the card. That's alteration and it's detectable. Let's not pretend that pushing down a bent up corner with your finger is the same thing. I'd wager every penny I've ever made that even YOU (and every single person in this entire hobby) has accidentally dinged a corner and tried to bend it back with their finger multiple times over the years.

I use distilled water. It does the same thing though. You don't need some special formula to flatten out a bent corner. Honestly, this stuff isn't rocket science. Go take a card, toss it in a bowl of water, then let it dry between some paper towels and stick a book on top of it. I promise you'll change your mind afterward.

Could be, that's why I asked. It's hard to tell for sure from the picture.

It does alter the card and flushes out the color. Soaked cards are less vibrant.

I think that's the best image I have for the before image but I will check and see if I have or can find a better image.

I'm hoping this is one of those trick questions and we all get an answer that most people would like to see, for example BEFORE: 2.5, AFTER: AUTH

Probably not...

This is nonsense. You don't know what you're talking about.

While it is true that some cards do not soak well, I can assure you that most of the people expressing opinions on this board do not know what they are talking about. Most of the claims I've read on this board about certain cards not soaking well are false. Over 99% of vintage cards prior to ~1970 will soak perfectly fine and will not damage the cards at all. There are only a few sets for which this is not true, and for most of those you could debate if they even count as "baseball cards" to begin with.

From my observations on this board, I would estimate that about 80% of the time I read someone claiming that a certain card won't soak well, they're wrong and are simply repeating something they think they heard from someone else and have no experience actually doing it themselves.

K

This thread is fascinating and I hope it keeps going. I didn't know some of the stuff on his videos was even possible. This guy could literally make a living submitting cards he fixed. He has a surgeon's hand and the patience of Job! No way I have ether of those.

The best post on here IMO is the one I quoted part of. If people stopped participating in the pecker measuring contests (aka the registrys) then there would be no conversations about any of this.

I don't normally jump into these arguments, but I agree with Snowman. The water does not alter the 'chemistry' of the wood fibers that make up the paper. The paper is still paper, whether it is wet or not. It may be easier to say the 'structure' of the molecules that make up the card are not changed. No chemical reaction has occurred which changes the paper into something else. After the card is dried it is still a card made of paper and ink.

I didn't ask about water. I asked about this dude's solutions. If you haven't used them and don't know what they're made of how do you know what they do or that they are the same as water? Your answer is a non sequitur.

+1 G1911

and

+1 Campy

People often fear that which they don't understand or can't explain. They just assume that soaking a card in water will damage it and then attempt to justify their position because it just feels wrong to them. The hobby is like a religion to some with viewpoints that cannot be challenged.

The ironic part to me is that these same people are completely fine with collectors putting their grimy oily fingers with French-fry grease, dirt, snot, and god knows what else all over their cards, as if none of those substances "alter" the card. But the moment you talk about removing any of that or of even just water touching the card, they completely lose their marbles as they chant "ALTERATION!!!" and start calling for heads to roll. I honestly find it hilarious.

If you think this wasn’t going on long.before grading became the norm you are a fool. It existed before PSA was a company by many many years and was a big reason PSA was able to gain some traction. Yes I get the Wagner was trimmed. That card should never have been graded but it was and that was wrong but at the same time from a business perspective it wasn’t and would have been slabbed at that time by any company that existed. Right or wrong. But thinking card doctoring is somehow a product of card grading is truly asinine thinking. As for this card in the og post if it is just water I have no issue with soaking if it’s chemicals it’s wrong but people will do it anyways.

Trying to deflect from the simple and obvious fact that getting cards into higher grade slabs to make $$$ is the primary driver of card alterations is asinine.

Nobody believes 0 cards were altered before PSA. The grading game is quite obviously the driver for the situation being discussed and which presently exists in the hobby.

This idea that water is OK but "chemicals" aren't doesn't much make sense to me. People like to joke that water is a chemical (dihydrogen monoxide), but it's not just a joke or really even semantics. Water is indeed a chemical, so I don't know what you're talking about when you say that chemicals shouldn't be used but water is OK. It seems to me that the more relevant question is whether or not whatever is used on a card causes damage and/or leaves behind some sort of residue on the card. Water does not, so it's OK to use. I don't know what else is in Kurt's Card spray, but whatever it is clearly isn't damaging cards and doesn't leave behind a residue because thousands of cards are being sent to the TPGs every day from submitters who use it (literally thousands) and none of them are being rejected because there's nothing on it to reject. And this isn't just because people are slipping them past some noobie graders and getting lucky. We're talking about the best graders at every TPG grading ultra high-end cards. Guys like Reza and Scott Hileman. These guys know what they're doing. They're the best of the best. The most experienced graders we have. These cards aren't "sneaking by them" because they're incompetent. They're being given numeric grades because the cards have not been altered. They're being graded because they deserve numeric grades. Cleaning a card correctly does not alter it any more than cleaning your car alters it. There's nothing there to detect. Unlike fingerprint oils and decades of grime, which very much do alter the card. It always cracks me up whenever I see a massive red wine or coffee stain on a card with a numeric grade, as if that card stock hasn't been altered. Those cards will degrade much quicker than other cards in the same grade without stains, yet nobody complains about that?

At the end of the day, as long as you're not adding to or taking away from the card itself, then you can't say it was altered. Not the actual card itself. Someone got gunk or grime on the card and someone else safely removed it. The card behind that gunk and grime was left fully intact and undisturbed. This is an absolute nothing burger.

Nobody cares except for some small vocal minority on message boards and a social media. This isn't a battle worth fighting. You can't win it. Just accept it or move on to another hobby (where cleaning of collectibles in that hobby will surely also be widely accepted).

Well stated and reasoned.

Even if making money is the primary motivation for cleaning cards to some people, who cares? (it's certainly not for me, as I even clean $1 commons if it's a card I just want to look nicer for my set - and I promise you, there's no money in that). My motivation for cleaning my cards is the same motivation for me only wanting centered cards: I have OCD.

But even for those who earn money by cleaning cards, who cares? People earn money by cleaning all sorts of things. It's not fraud just because YOU (or whoever) don't like it.

The only reason people are capable of making stupid money by improving a card's condition is because there are idiots out there that will pay stupid money for it. Don't be that stupid buyer if you don't like how the game is played. But this is how it's played whether you like it or not.

My favorite condition for a card is a 4 or a 5. I don't play the stupid prices game. And I can clean my cards myself if I don't like how they look. I'm not paying someone else to turn a 2 into a 4 for me.

You have clearly expressed your opinion on cleaning cards. What about removing dents and creases? In one video on that guy’s channel, he “fixed” a Jordan rookie, and it went from a PSA 4 to a PSA 7.


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Here's a screenshot of the 74 with the rebuilt corner.
No way that's a bit of water and poking with a stick.
https://www.net54baseball.com/pictur...ictureid=37069

And that's all done with materials and processes that are proven to do no long term damage.

Not some mystery stuff hawked by someone who seems to have profit as their primary goal.

Sorry if I struck a nerve. I am neither a "fool" nor an "asinine" thinker. I am also not new to the hobby as I have been going to shows since the mid 80's. I am extremely close with many dealers including hobby legend Uncle Dick DeCourcey who treats me like a nephew. I also interviewed Kit Young and Dr. Beckett and others for the book I wrote about a decade ago.

I realize things went on before grading. It was mainly trimming, pressing corners and adding color. One of Kurt's videos is fascinating as he removed red ink, a true alteration, from a 1953 Mantle (my favorite set). So grading has limited some of those alterations which is the grading companies singular positive contribution to the hobby IMHO. Yet they still grade cards that are trimmed as has been pointed out on this board many times.

I do not believe cleaning cards and soaking was as wide spread as it is now. With social media and videos like Kurt's and forums like this people are learning about it and seeing examples of how it works. I for one have not ever used one of Kurts "products" and I have yet to get up the nerve to soak a single card (though I may try a base card soon for fun).

What I find truly striking about your post is that you recognize the Wagner was trimmed and assert it "should not have been graded but it was and that was wrong." Then you make an incredible statement and say "but at the same time from a business perspective it wasn’t and would have been slabbed at that time by any company that existed. Right or wrong".

So even though a card had been clearly altered and at least one of the graders has admitted (in the book and the 30 for 30) that he knew it, that was ok from a business perspective? So it is horrible to use substances to clean cards or improve creases but its fine to grade a card that should have been labeled "Altered" for business purposes? Yikes! He knew that it would kill PSA if they rejected that card. So for money they essentially lied. Not to mention the hundreds of millions made since for the company and the trimmed card itself.

If you don't think grading and the registry is the main driving force in why this has become so wide spread then I don't know what to say. It is not "asanine thinking" it is instead basic logic and supply and demand.

Hold the phone!!

What about all your talk about paying 5x comps for perfectly centered cards? Doesn’t that count as playing the stupid prices game?

Or are the prices you pay somehow less stupid because 5x comps for a 5 grade is still relatively inexpensive?

Maybe, maybe not. I didn't see what he did on those particular cards, but can tell you his MO is not alteration that involves cutting stuff up, or adding things that are not there.

I did his corner trick using only the spray and a cotton applicator on a 1984 Donruss card, and even with references to the pics you attached - let's just say you would be surprised. I'd be glad to hand you as stack of '84 Donruss cards and invite you to point out the one I worked on. You wouldn't be able to.

People can think that cleaning or "corner improvement" is alteration all they want, but at the end of the day it's all a moot point if no residue or trace is left behind; if nothing is added or removed. A TPG is not going to call a card like that altered, nor should they.

4's and 5's can be perfectly centered. Most are not. I would guess it depends on the card which ones go for "stupid" premiums in midgrade because they are truly perfectly centered.

AS far as paper and the use of water goes.

I believe both groups are partly correct.

One of the things that makes paper work, especially in wood pulp based paper is that the original maceration to produce the fibers also dissolves or partly dissolves the lignin that holds the cellulose fibers together.
During drying, that lignin solidifies.

This is the same as the process for steaming and bending wood.

It's more complicated than that, since there's some bonding between sugars that are part of the cellulose, and other things besides just lignin.


So soaking to remove a crease as this guy does is basically re dissolving the lignins and probably breaking the sugar bonds between the fibers. The fiber length which affects the density and strength of the paper was probably changed within the crease.
That softening allows what is essentially remaking the paper in the crease.

The chemistry - that there is cellulose fibers bonding and lignin as a sort of "glue" as well, does not change.
The fibers in the repaired area do get rearranged.

Enough soaking might change how much lignin is present. Less will tend to make the paper weaker.
In modern papers, there may be additives or a higher cotton fiber content to slow the Lignin degrading which helps form acid that will eventually ruin the paper. Soaking something like and 86 fleer basketball card might remove some of these additives.

The chemistry in most cases probably doesn't change enough to make a difference, but since some lignin or other binders will always be lost it does change.


I don't disagree with a light surface cleaning with water, a few decades of gunk accumulated from just ordinary air exposure is probably best removed.*
Trying to flatten a dinged corner so it doesn't get worse? Yeah, we've probably all done that. Using water and tools so that dinged corner gets overlooked by graders? Probably not as many.


*I've done this to a couple cards, less than 5 and I'm entirely open about which ones. One literally had soot deposits that were into the cracks in the surface coating. another had soot on the reverse. Neither cleaned up all that well.One was fine, the other ended up with back damage. Another soaked card was used to show how water and pressure can't cause an offset transfer, wood grain from the pressing got pressed into the card, and last I checked was still present. (Relax, it's a T206 common in F-G condition. It's not much worse than before.)

The thread isn't about snowman but he has already addressed that. He has OCD.
I also have been diagnosed with OCD and will pay more for a card that is centered because it bothers me so much to see it off-centered.

I'm glad that you noticed it but I find it hard to believe that the grader didn't see it.

Attachment 606106

Did you have this problem the entire time you have been collecting? I ask because centering wasn't the big deal it is now before the huge centering pump and dump from a few years ago. I am amazed at how long the centering craze has lasted this time.

Ben, yes. I have struggled with this along with a few other medical issues most of my life. Even seeing a picture hanging on the wall that is not straight will bug me to the point of getting up and straightening it.
I am not familiar with this "pump and dump" you are referring to but it peaks my interest. Any link or info in a DM would be appreciated

Agreed this is wonky logic. If the "good for the hobby" argument that was used (depending on who you believe) when, wink wink, David Hall and others at PSA in the early 90's gave the Wagner they knew was trimmed an 8 assumes that profiting from such skulduggery is what makes it "good" - then nobody today should have any problem with any type of restoration or alteration so that all vintage cards can then be resubbed and get 8's and higher, and be sold at wildly higher prices.

Clearly this isn't the case.

Ironic to think - professional grading ostensibly came about because of the problems with card doctoring and the "wild west" scene in collecting 30+ years ago. Today however, due to the profit motive and ability to get such cards into high grade slabs anyway - the main driver that keeps alteration prevalent turns out to also be grading.

If as is commonly believed the Wagner was sheet cut and not pack issued, why does it matter if it was then trimmed? It was never anything but an AUTH.

This is a poor analogy. When people clean houses, remove stains from upholstery, or wash your car, they don't do it in secret. The end-user knowingly pays for that cleaning service and, presumably, isn't selling the house, upholstery, or car with the hope that no one discovers they've been cleaned.

In the sports card context, the fraud doesn't suddenly spring into existence when the card is sprayed with Kurt's and manipulated with a tortillon. The fraud comes into play when that card is marketed and sold to an unwitting third-party.

You've made it clear that you don't think any of this is an issue... Caveat emptor, sucker born every minute, etc. etc. But let's at least be honest about the distinction between (1) paying people to clean stuff; and (2) selling an item without disclosing that it's been cleaned, presumably because you're afraid of shrinking the market for it and depressing its value.

There's a reason card doctors don't announce, "Hey, I trimmed this card for you so it's aesthetically pleasing and doesn't trigger your OCD. PSA really shouldn't have given it a numeric grade, but I managed to sneak it through, so win-win!"

Likewise, you won't see too many eBay listings like this:

"This Fleer Jordan used to have a big dent. I sprayed it with Kurt's Card Care, a proprietary product with ingredients that are probably all natural, but I'm not really sure.

Anyway, it worked just like Bondo... as you can see, no more dent! I can't tell you how it works exactly, because I'm not a chemist. But let's just say that the water-like mystery substance probably saturated the cardboard fibers and made them rise like yeast, restoring the surface to its original state. It's safe to assume the dent won't return, because why would it? Also, I don't think Kurt's will affect the color or texture, because we probably would've seen it by now, right?"

You and I both know why they don't say all that. Purists and skeptics spend money too, and they generally want to know what they're buying. The only way to keep them in the market for your goods is to keep them in the dark about what you to do them.

To circle back to your original point about people paying for cleaning, I think a closer analogy would be this:

I've got a lightly-used recliner with a stain on it. I pay someone to remove the stain for me. It looks so good afterward, it could pass for brand-new. A friend comes over to help me set up for a garage sale, and he compliments me on my brand-new recliner. I don't correct him. He slaps a "For Sale: Brand New Recliner" sign on it for me. It sells.

Did I commit fraud? I say yes. But something tells me you'd shrug and say no one cares.

It doesn't. It is AUTH. As a story, it sounds better / juicier because Mastro used either scissors or an office paper cutter or something to get it out of the sheet. It doesn't matter that he didn't "trim" 1/64 or whatever off the edge like we think of in traditional "trimming" to those telling the story of why the card is bad, or why Bill did something wrong.

But yes, to say that David Hall and others in that room didn't know it was at least sheet cut is absurd. That guy once owned the most complete T206 master set in the world? On the 30 for 30 he says "It didn't look trimmed to me." Really? Jeez do better. That's what an 11 year old kid at a card show would say. They were paying PSA, as supposedly the world's foremost experts on that type of cards - and that's the explanation PSA came up with? No wonder there will never be any "grading reports" out of that outfit.

As I understand it, it was already sheet cut when Mastro acquired it. He didn't cut it from the sheet, that was done at an unknown time by an unknown person.

I thought that him and Rob L. saw / bought the original piece when it was a sheet (with other cards) in the early 1980's. I could be wrong on that.

If what you say is right, then maybe Bill's was a more "traditional" trim job, if the card resembled something like the Jumbo Wagner just with oversized borders when they got it.

He admitted to trimming it with a paper cutter to make the borders better and corners sharper. This after denying it multiple times of course.

Yep. Got caught on a wire saying that when the Feds were looking for something else.

In the book "The Card" it says that Bill Mastro gave Rob Lifson (who founded REA) a lesser Wagner (which Lifson sold weeks later for $30K) in exchange for $25K to buy the jumbo Wagner from a guy named Alan Ray who had consigned the card (along with an Eddie Plank and many others) to Bill Sevchuck, who owned a card store in Hicksville, NY.

The Wagner had wavy edges and a red printer's line at the top. Mastro apparently commented about the Wagner, "It's not cut right, but I'll take it off your hands."

After Mastro obtained the jumbo Wagner, he proceeded to trim it so that it had straight edges.

Alan Ray has never definitively said where he got the cards from, but at one point claimed it was a relative.

No, it was a single card when Alan Ray sold it to him. But sheet cut by all accounts. I don't think anyone has traced it back to the owner of the sheet. But if this is correct, all Mastro did was make a nicer looking AUTH. The whole trimmed or not trimmed thing seems a red herring.