Spring cleaning comes early to the Plank household...

[botn]

The auction only states the card was cleaned. John states in his initial post that it was chemically cleaned. While Barry is certain chemicals were used, none of us knows for sure unless we were the one to do it. Also the T206 Davis which Probstein123 sold on 10/6/10 had a different cert run than the Plank. Cert of Probstein123's Davis is 17297913.

The card was obviously cleaned but I think it is a bit impulsive and therefore irresponsible to conclude it was with chemicals. Either way, the fact the submitter placed a 30K card with other cards which are worth less than $500 does seem very suspicious. This is not the first time that submitters have gotten things past PSA and exposed this vulnerability. It is an old trick that I would have thought PSA would have done something to prevent. This submission was probably done for $10 a card, or less, and not seen by the most experienced graders. If this is the case PSA should do something at the receiving stage to prevent this or at least make it less likely to happen. How complicated would the software need to be to prevent a 30k card being submitted on a submission designed to grade cards worth less than $500? As long as you place the value low enough on the submission form seems you can get anything through. If the receivers do not catch it and the graders do not catch it then you have to rely on software or this kind of thing will continue to occur.

[FrankWakefield]

Impulsivity and irresponsibility aside, that card doesn't change like that from a mere soaking. The old back has that nice, familiar creamy tone to it, the new back is white. If you don't believe that, soak some T206s and see how there's no change, but for some dirt, dust, tobacco bits, scrapbook remnants, and paste separating from the card.

Good job, John, for catching this.

Originally Posted by botn

The card was obviously cleaned but I think it is a bit impulsive and therefore irresponsible to conclude it was with chemicals.

Am I the only person to see Planks Face is 2 shades lighter also?? Water wont do that. Just wanted to point that out since I had not seen it mentioned yet. It deserves an "A" but do we really need to be surprised that PSA will slab just about anything yet somehow command better prices due to over grading and an older registry. JMO FWIW

[Rob D.]

This was no water soaking.

[barrysloate]

Greg- of course I don't know for sure chemicals were used, but on many occasions I've sent paper ephemera to my conservator to clean, and to remove a stain of that nature, he's always had to use a chemical of some kind. I just don't know how you would remove the stains on that Plank without some form of solution. That is not easy to get out.

[Anthony S.]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

Greg- of course I don't know for sure chemicals were used, but on many occasions I've sent paper ephemera to my conservator to clean, and to remove a stain of that nature, he's always had to use a chemical of some kind. I just don't know how you would remove the stains on that Plank without some form of solution. That is not easy to get out.

.

[tedzan]

This Plank was "WATER card-BOARDED" till it came clean


John Wonka

Please email me......

tedzan11@comcast.net

Thanks,

TED Z

[alanu]

Imho, it's a little naive for anyone with a sizeable collection to think they don't have cards that have been altered in some way, even the graded one's and imho especially the higher graded one's.

In many cases it's probably almost impossible for the grading companies to catch the alterations without having access to how the card looked before the alterations.

In the case of a high profile card like this Plank, I do think the grading companies have some responsibility to check past sales of the card to see if it's a previously sold card that has been altered.


-Alan

[wonkaticket]

Please ignore this post all members I made a mistake and see nothing wrong with the above at all.

On a completely unrelated topic please also get your bids in early from my upcoming sale of one card in my collection...Leon will you hook me up with a low sellers VIG with B&L?

Ted, email me your number I'll call you I hate typing..as you can see from my posts I'm not very good at it.

Cheers,

John

[botn]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

Greg- of course I don't know for sure chemicals were used, but on many occasions I've sent paper ephemera to my conservator to clean, and to remove a stain of that nature, he's always had to use a chemical of some kind. I just don't know how you would remove the stains on that Plank without some form of solution. That is not easy to get out.

Barry,

You could be right. I do not know what type of stain was present on the card based on the scan. So not sure how looking at a scan makes one able to determine what would be required to remove it.

To those who think the card appears lighter or brighter it may also be due to two different scanners being used to create the images. The color saturation on each of the images looks different.

Chemicals or not, it is not a card I would want to own and one that PSA probably should not have graded. Nice that the auction house identified the cleaning but it would be even nicer if PSA would have had things in place to have caught it.

[barrysloate]

Scott- a good paper conservator can be called upon to clean, deacidify, and restore some very important documents. I can only hope that he is using chemicals that will help preserve them for the long term. I guess knowing what to use is part of his training.

Greg- best as I can tell, that's a fairly serious stain along the left edge of the Plank. I think one would have to use some mild bleaching agent to get it out. It's not going to come out by applying a damp rag. That stuff soaks into the paper and really is brutal to remove. If you ever get a beater card with a stain like that, try playing around with it. You won't get it clean without the proper solution.

Scott- to continue my thought, the way a conservator would attack that stain would be to start with a very weak bleaching solution, probably too weak to remove it. Then he would progressively add a little bleach, making it as strong as he can without doing damage to the card. If he senses it may be too strong, he will then add water to weaken it. It's a trial and error process.

[Doug]

The last time I saw T206s that white was when I soaked a few beaters in warm water mixed with a small scoop of Oxi Clean just to see if it would work. They came out with borders and backs that were snow white with no chemical smell at all. I sold them with the disclosure that they had been cleaned and they later popped up on eBay in slabs.