If I soaked a bunch of T206s off of a scrapbook page, sent them to be graded, and they came back 7's, then I'd have no qualms about it. I don't doubt that the other 7's that had been graded were from scrapbooks; at least most of them were.
Soaking doesn't alter the card. The card remains the same. The dirt, paste, scrapbook paper, tobacco bits, they aren't altered either, they're merely safely disengaged from the card.
When I buy or trade for a T206 I don't ask if it had been soaked. Once I get the card if it looks like it needs soaking then eventually I get around to doing that, most of the time. If I were to ask it would only be to see if the seller/trader had already tried soaking so I could avoid wasting time doing it. Ideally, I'd be happy if they'd already soaked off the dirt and all. Now I'm not advocating bleaching, spooning, stretching nor trimming. This entire matter (ie collectors thinking soaking a T206 is wrong) remains unbelievable to me... collectors who were collecting in the 50s and 60s and 70s soaked old tobacco cards without batting an eye. But of course there weren't slabs back then, a fellow could hold his card, could touch it, and see and feel what he had.
|