Last night's "debate" .....some interesting observations.

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Posted By: MW

Interesting article -- http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:Sioj2RFnJB8J:www.baseball-cards.com/news/1223.html+%22Gone+with+the+Stain%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

For those who wish to learn more about card restoration, I encourage them to read this article from Baseball-cards.com (I believe it was also published by Krause but I'm not sure....can someone verify this?)

Article text:

Most similar companies are gone with the wind, but Gone With The Stain is celebrating its five-year anniversary by continuing to remove stains from trading cards. And with the boom in card grading, Dick Towle's Pittsford, N.Y.-based business is heavily involved in pre-grading preparation.

Towle said he has more than 30 dealers who send him cards at least occasionally.

"I was the busiest this spring than ever. It has tailed off to about 50 cards a month, but will pick up once show season begins," Towle said. "I recently (cleaned) a complete 1915 Crackerjack set that was glued into the album. It was sold for $65,000, they graded the cards post-stain and netted more than $108,000 after selling." [My note: the cards were sold in PSA holders by Sportscards Plus]

He is often asked to break cards out of holders, remove stains and return them, and the owner will have them re-submitted.

"I've probably busted out 700-800 cards over the last two years, maybe 1,000 over the past five years," he said [My note: guess which company's holders we're talking about here?]

Towle's formula can remove stains caused by gum, caramel, tobacco and some inks, along with tape and some glues.

"I've had stains of chocolate, coffee, I've had stains that I don't know what they are, but our solvent can tackle these stains," Towle said.

The most controversial service that Towle provides is removal of creases, which many hobbyists believe equates to doctoring.

"I agitate the paper, raising the paper," Towle said. "The paper raises up and sits back down. Those fine little micro-wrinkles shouldn't be there, because they mean there wasn't a complete bonding from the front to the back of a card."

Krause Publications' stance is that Towle's process of removing tape and stains is acceptable, but removing creases is not. "Creases are part of the printing process, or are a sign of wear," said senior price guide analyst Bob Lemke.

Towle's pricing structure starts at $8-$10 for common cards with simple stains, but the most typical rate is $30/card. Water stains are difficult to remove and cost $75.

Towle's point in attempting to publicize his fifth anniversary is that he wants collectors to be aware that dealers are making big bucks by buying stained cards, getting them cleaned and resubmitting them for grading. He's not worried about dealers complaining that he's trying to cut them out of the picture.

"What are they going to do? Not send the cards to me?" he said. "They're not going to cut their own throats."


My comments: And so I ask everyone -- does it seem important for one to be familiar with what certain types of restoration work look like when buying and selling vintage cards....particularly those in PSA holders? I sure think so and I see nothing wrong with submitting cards to a restoration service expressly for this purpose. In fact, I would call it an absolutely NECESSITY in today's hobby climate. Is this an unpopular view? To some who submit altered cards to major grading services such as PSA, absolutely. They certainly don't want the truth to be known. Without question, there are many dealers that are part of PSA's "good ol' boy" network and many PSA collectors who will forever vilify me for posts like this one, but I don't really care. They're complete dumbasses (especially some of the collectors on the CU forum) and they wouldn't know an altered card if their collections were filled with them.